What is a Speaking Tongues?
Is it necessary to speak in tongues in our times?
Thanks Godswilling for your relevant question. It is relevant because many groups professing Christianity have popularized the idea of speaking in tongues. Unfortunately, what is called speaking in tongues in these groups is not particularly what is meant by scripture in that regard in my opinion. When scripture speaks about tongues in the Bible it has to do with the fact that those who hear the gospel and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ then find themselves with a new spirit and indeed a new outlook if you will. If they once used their normal language (English in my case) to discuss things, they only did so from the perspective which humans, in their fallen condition found to speak. But once they have believed the good news, they speak in their normal language (still English in my case) but they do so from a new spirit, a new perspective. You will hear them say things like: thanks God, or praise God, or God can help you, or should we ask God about that, and so forth. They never used to think or speak like that. So, the Bible calls this speaking with new tongues, because they speak in the tongue they are accustomed to but it comes from the new perspective, the new spirit that God has graciously given them.
Sometimes the Bible calls these new tongues or other tongues. The Bible does so because these tongues are other than what they used to have before being saved. They are other in the sense that they are
different in spirit than previous - previous to being saved. They are not new or other in the sense that they are some made up language or babbling or something that sounds like Kingon or anything weird. If you speak Spanish before you are saved, you will still speak Spanish after you are saved. But you have a new spirit now, with a love for the Lord and for others.
The Bible also talks about people speaking in an unknown tongue. This does not mean that people speak in a supernatural gibberish language that is not common to earth. Rather, it means that a saved person is speaking the good things about God and sharing the gospel, and from the perspective of an unsaved person, this is an unknown. They do not understand the gospel, so to them it is an unknown language.
Paul wants people to understand the gospel and to be saved, so he says to pray that the people listening will understand, that the spirit will interpret the gospel into their hearts, so that they will be saved.
Paul would rather speak a very few words to someone that they understand to convert them to salvation, than to speak a large number of words to someone and they are still unconverted.
So, don't worry, if you are saved, because if you are you already are speaking in new tongues, in other tongues even though it is the same tongue (of English in your case and mine).
Finally, I might note that people love to bring up Pentecost in relation to speaking in tongues. They think that the spirit suddenly gave some people the ability to speak in languages of other countries that they never could speak before. Like if I always speak English but suddenly the spirit gives me the ability to speak Lithuanian. Further, the reason for this would be because there were a bunch of Jewish people from all over the world standing by at least one of which was Lithuanian. And he heard me and marvelled. This is fun-sounding, and it's not that God can't do this, but the thing that is overlooked, in my opinion, is that the Bible is written in parable form (Psalm 78:1-2, Mark 4:34). Jews on the day of Pentecost in the Acts scripture are called Jews because they are a picture of saved persons. When the spirit causes others to be saved by the outpouring of the spirit, they marvel in that others understand about God as they do. It is not about someone speaking a new international language supernaturally. It is rather about those who become saved can share in their normal language with others, particularly those from their own language area, since they too are now saved.
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