Two Kinds of Tongues

When people say that speaking in tongues is only “a gift for some,” they are confusing two different experiences in the Bible: the initial sign that a person has received the Holy Ghost, and the spiritual gift of tongues used in the church. Scripture keeps the two apart, and so should we.

The pattern in Acts

Acts 2:4 · KJV

And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.

All of them. Not a few who happened to have a gift; every believer in the room. That was not a message to a congregation waiting for an interpretation. It was a personal outpouring: the promise of the Father, arriving.

When the Holy Ghost fell on Cornelius’ household, the Jewish believers with Peter were astonished that Gentiles had received the same gift. How did they know? “For they heard them speak with tongues, and magnify God” (Acts 10:44–46). Peter later told the church at Jerusalem that the Spirit fell on them “as on us at the beginning” (Acts 11:15). And when Paul laid his hands on the disciples at Ephesus, “the Holy Ghost came on them; and they spake with tongues, and prophesied” (Acts 19:6).

Now notice the pattern. Every time Luke tells us what people did when the Spirit first came on them, they spoke with tongues. Acts never describes anyone receiving the Holy Ghost in silence. That is not coincidence. That is divine consistency.

A different question in Corinth

When Paul writes about tongues in 1 Corinthians 12–14, he is dealing with something else: a message in tongues given in the assembly, which must be interpreted so the church can be built up. “If any man speak in an unknown tongue, let it be by two, or at the most by three … and let one interpret” (1 Corinthians 14:27). That is order for a meeting, not a description of conversion.

So when Paul asks, “do all speak with tongues?” (1 Corinthians 12:30), he is talking about that gift at work in the body. Read the verses around it: “God hath set some in the church, first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers” (1 Corinthians 12:28). Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Do all interpret? Paul is listing the gifts and ministries of the Spirit in the church, not the evidence that a person has received the Spirit. 1 Corinthians 12:30 does not cancel Acts 2:4. It answers a different question.

So here is the difference:

The initial sign of tongues is what believers experience when the Spirit first fills them. It is the same for everyone (Acts 2:4; 10:46; 19:6).
The gift of tongues is a ministry that operates in the church as the Spirit wills (1 Corinthians 12:11), for the building up of the body, and in the assembly it must be interpreted (1 Corinthians 12:10; 14:27).

Two kinds of tongues

The initial sign

Comes when a person is first filled with the Holy Ghost
In every account where Luke describes the moment, all who were filled spoke
Praise to God as the Spirit gives utterance; no interpreter is called for
The evidence by which the church knew the Spirit had come

The gift of tongues

One of the gifts the Spirit divides to each “as he will”
Not exercised by every believer in the assembly
A message in the church that must be interpreted
Regulated for order: two or three, one at a time

The sign Isaiah foretold

Isaiah 28:11–12 · KJV

¹¹For with stammering lips and another tongue will he speak to this people. ¹²To whom he said, This is the rest wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest; and this is the refreshing: yet they would not hear.

Isaiah wrote this centuries before Pentecost, and Paul quotes it in 1 Corinthians 14:21, applying it directly to speaking in tongues. Then he draws the conclusion: “Wherefore tongues are for a sign, not to them that believe, but to them that believe not” (1 Corinthians 14:22). So tongues serve as a sign in both books: in Acts, the evidence by which the church knew the Spirit had been given (Acts 10:45–46); in Corinth, a sign to unbelievers that God is present and speaking.

Why the tongue?

James 3:8 · KJV

But the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison.

There is divine purpose in God’s choice. James says “the tongue can no man tame.” When God fills a person with His Spirit and speaks through the one member no human being can control, it shows complete surrender. That is why it is the sign for everyone: not based on culture, not based on personality, but based on God.

The strongest objection

The objection, at full strength

The best case against tongues as the initial sign

“Paul’s question in 1 Corinthians 12:30 is not open-ended. In Greek it reads μὴ πάντες γλώσσαις λαλοῦσιν; (mē pantes glōssais lalousin) (mē pantes glōssais lalousin), and μή (mē) (mē) in a question expects the answer no:¹² ‘Not all speak with tongues, do they?’ Paul wrote that to a church whose members had all received the Spirit, for ‘by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body’ (1 Corinthians 12:13). Nor does Acts settle it the other way. Luke says the Samaritans received the Holy Ghost in Acts 8, and that Saul was to be filled with the Holy Ghost in Acts 9, and in neither place does he mention tongues. Three accounts show what often happened. They do not prove what must always happen. Narrative describes; it does not always prescribe.”

That is a serious argument, and part of it is simply right. Paul does expect the answer no. Not every believer exercises the gift of tongues in the church, just as not every believer is an apostle, a prophet or an interpreter. But look at what that concession proves.

In the same passage Paul asks, “are all prophets?” (1 Corinthians 12:29), and expects no; yet two chapters later he says, “ye may all prophesy one by one” (1 Corinthians 14:31). So not all hold a ministry in the assembly, while any believer may still speak by the Spirit. Paul’s questions concern the ministries God “hath set … in the church,” not what happens when a person first receives the Holy Ghost. That is why he can write, “I would that ye all spake with tongues” (1 Corinthians 14:5), can picture a meeting where “all speak with tongues” (1 Corinthians 14:23), and can say, “I thank my God, I speak with tongues more than ye all” (1 Corinthians 14:18).

Acts 8 is silent about tongues, but not about what happened. “When Simon saw that through laying on of the apostles’ hands the Holy Ghost was given, he offered them money” (Acts 8:18). Simon had already watched Philip’s miracles (Acts 8:13); now he saw something new, and wanted it enough to try to buy it. Luke does not name what Simon saw. But the one sign present every time Luke does describe the moment is speaking with tongues, and that reading best fits the rest of the book.

Acts 9 tells us Ananias came so that Saul might “be filled with the Holy Ghost” (Acts 9:17), and Luke does not narrate the moment. But we are not left guessing whether Paul spoke with tongues. He tells us he did, more than all the Corinthians. The silence of Acts 9 is silence about when, not evidence against whether.

Finally, the apostles themselves treated the pattern as evidence. The Jewish believers at Cornelius’ house knew the Gentiles had received the Holy Ghost “for they heard them speak with tongues” (Acts 10:46). Peter reasoned from that sign to a conclusion for the whole church: “God gave them the like gift as he did unto us” (Acts 11:17). When Scripture itself argues from the sign, we are not building doctrine on a bare description. We are following the apostles’ own reasoning.

Every time

So to say “not everyone will speak in tongues” when they receive the Holy Ghost is to ignore the pattern in Acts and confuse it with the gift in Corinth. Every time God poured out His Spirit and Luke told us what followed, tongues followed. The gift of tongues is for ministry in the church, as the Spirit wills. The initial sign is for every believer who truly receives the Holy Ghost, and the promise is still “unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off” (Acts 2:39).