Maybe you stood at the back of a friend's church while the whole room prayed aloud in sounds you could not follow. Maybe you grew up where it is expected, have never done it, and were told, kindly or not, that something was missing. Maybe you did it once and still wonder. Whichever it is, nobody who speaks in tongues and nobody who does not, nobody who believes it is for today and nobody who believes it is not, is a lesser believer. Whether it is God at work, a learned form of prayer, or both has been argued for centuries, and no statement or study settles it for everyone.
A verse for a question you are still carrying
But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach; and it will be given to him.
That is James 1:5 in the World English Bible, from a letter to people facing hard trials. It gives you permission to bring a fair question about something that is not settled in every tradition, without hurry and without being reproached. Read it with the verses around it, and see the page on doubt if your question is bigger than this one. What is the clearest question you can bring to God right now?
If you only have a minute
What it is
Speech that sounds like language, prayed or spoken in worship, described differently by each church.
Where churches differ
Every believer, some believers, or the first Christians only. All ask for order.
A fair next step
Ask someone you trust what they mean by the word.
What the word means, and how common it is
The technical word is glossolalia. Dictionaries describe it as speech that resembles language but that hearers cannot understand. Xenolalia is speech in a language the speaker never learned. Neither word says where the speech comes from.
Church historians point to second-century Montanist prophecy, Charles Parham in Topeka in 1901, and the Azusa Street revival in Los Angeles from 1906. The Catholic Charismatic Renewal began in 1967 after a retreat at Duquesne University.
Pew Research Center reported on October 5, 2006 that at least a quarter of the world's roughly two billion Christians were thought to belong to Pentecostal or related charismatic movements, depending on definitions. In six of ten countries surveyed, about 40 percent of movement members said they never spoke in tongues. So, even where it is most expected, practice is not uniform.
Often the conversation starts in the car afterward.
What the Bible records
In Acts 2 the disciples "were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak with other languages, as the Spirit gave them the ability to speak," and the crowd "were bewildered, because everyone heard them speaking in his own language." Peter explains the day through the prophet Joel.
The English "tongues" is the King James rendering of the Greek glossa, tongue or language; the World English Bible usually says "languages." In Acts 2:6 and 2:8 the crowd hears in its own dialektos, the speech of a people. At Cornelius's house in Acts 10:46 they "heard them speaking in other languages and magnifying God," and in Acts 19:6 the Ephesian disciples "spoke with other languages and prophesied." Acts 8 describes Samaritans receiving the Holy Spirit and does not mention tongues.
Pentecostal readers link Acts 2, 10 and 19 as repeated accounts of the Spirit's coming. Catholic charismatic readers accept tongues as a charism, a gift, under the church's discernment. Readers who believe the gift ended with the first Christians point to the recognizable languages of Acts 2.
Paul and the church in Corinth
Paul writes to a divided congregation. In 1 Corinthians 12 the gifts belong to one body, in chapter 13 love comes before every gift, and in chapter 14 public worship is shaped by what people can understand and what builds the assembly up:
- 12:29-30: "Do all speak with various languages? Do all interpret?"
- 14:19: "in the assembly I would rather speak five words with my understanding, that I might instruct others also, than ten thousand words in another language."
- 14:39: "don't forbid speaking with other languages."
Paul asks the first question himself. Mark 16:17 sits in the longer ending of Mark, which some early manuscripts lack. Romans 8:26 speaks of the Spirit praying "with groanings which can't be uttered," a verse for when words run out; the page on chronic pain uses it that way.
Does the gift continue?
Careful readers disagree. B. B. Warfield's Counterfeit Miracles (1918) is the classic statement that extraordinary signs belonged especially to the apostolic age. John MacArthur's Strange Fire (2013) argues the modern charismatic movement has errors and reads "the perfect" in 1 Corinthians 13:10 as the completion of God's revelation. Other scholars read it as the end of the age, which leaves room for gifts to continue. The question turns on what "the perfect" means, and it stays open among sincere readers.
What churches say, in their own words
The Assemblies of God's Statement of Fundamental Truths says "the baptism of believers in the Holy Ghost is witnessed by the initial physical sign of speaking with other tongues as the Spirit of God gives them utterance." Its FAQ, from 2019, says public tongues are in order "only when followed by an interpretation."
The Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraphs 799 to 801, calls charisms "special graces of the Holy Spirit which directly or indirectly benefit the Church, ordered as they are to her building up, to the good of men, and to the needs of the world," under the church's discernment.
The Southern Baptist International Mission Board's current policy says a missionary who has a private prayer language is not automatically disqualified, and that missionaries "in no way promote speaking in tongues or a private prayer language."
These share order, discernment and the good of the congregation, and none describes a person who has not spoken in tongues as a lesser believer.
What researchers have measured
William Samarin analyzed recordings from meetings in Europe and North America for Tongues of Men and Angels (1972). He described structured human utterance without systematic resemblance to a natural language, and called it learned behavior; he did not claim to say whether a person's experience was divinely caused. A brain-imaging study of five women (2006) recorded changes in blood flow while they sang and while they spoke in tongues; its authors called it preliminary. Believers read such findings as a spiritual experience expressed through a human brain and voice; skeptics read them as learned speech. No diagnosis follows from speaking in tongues, hearing it, doubting it or feeling unsettled by a service.
What a visitor hears
You may hear many people praying aloud at once, one utterance followed by an interpretation, or no tongues at all, depending on the congregation. Pope Francis recalled, in a 2014 address to Catholic charismatic leaders, saying Mass in Buenos Aires with the charismatic renewal "after the consecration and a few moments of adoration in tongues." A guest can simply listen; going to church for the first time covers the rest.
On Reddit's r/churchofchrist, a September 2023 thread titled "Question about Speaking in Tongues" asks where that church stands.
Some readers describe being told they do not have the Spirit, that they are resisting or quenching it, to let go or fake it, or that what they heard was fake or demonic. None of the churches above teaches any of these. Other words are available: "I'm glad it means something to you, and I'd like to understand it." "Thank you for telling me. I'm not at that place, and that's all right." "You don't have to do anything you're not comfortable with, and nobody here is keeping score."
Plenty of these conversations happen at home, days later.
Where to go next
Ask one person you trust, in the tradition you are in or the one you are curious about, what they mean by the word and how their church decides what happens in public worship. If you left a church where it was part of life, church hurt is written for you.
If a service left you distressed or pressured, please reach a person. In the United States, call or text 988 (988 Lifeline). In Canada, call or text 9-8-8 (Talk Suicide Canada). In the UK and Republic of Ireland, Samaritans is 116 123. In Australia, Lifeline is 13 11 14. Elsewhere, use Find A Helpline. The NHS and NIMH offer health information; neither lists speaking in tongues as an illness. For pressure that has become coercion or control, general abuse routes include the National Domestic Violence Hotline (US), ShelterSafe (Canada), Refuge (UK) and 1800RESPECT (Australia).
Bible Nudge gives a person one passage with the story around it, and Find a passage is where to start.
Words that come up here
Tap a term to see what it means.
Glossolalia. The technical word for speaking in tongues.