Here in a nutshell is the problem with "tongue wars" today. The Southern Baptist Convention (for example) forbids its missionaries to speak in tongues even in private. This policy disregards a command of Scripture: "Do not forbid speaking in tongues" (1 Corinthians 14:39). When Pastor Dwight McKissic criticized Southern Baptist policy, telling students at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in August that he himself prayed privately in tongues, the trustees met on October 17 and voted 36-1 to "prohibit professors or administrators from promoting charismatic practices, such as private prayer languages." (Christianity Today, December 2006, p. 17).
What part of St. Paul's "Do not forbid speaking in tongues" do these 36 trustees not understand?
Scripture teaches that tongues must not be forbidden, but they must be regulated. They are like erotic love: not prohibited (heavens no!), but restricted absolutely to the covenant of marriage. Plain restrictions on the use of tongues in public worship are found in 1 Corinthians 14:27-28: "If anyone speaks in a tongue, two - or at most three - should speak, one at a time, and someone must interpret. If there is no interpreter, the speaker should keep quiet in the church and speak to himself and God."
Walk into just about any Pentecostal or Charismatic church though, and you'll hear unregulated, uninterpreted babbling all around you. It is a mess and a nightmare and an embarrassment to uninitiated visitors. What part of "at most three...one at a time, and someone must interpret" do these Charismatics not understand?
Paul spoke in tongues more than anybody (1 Corinthians 14:18), but it appears he only did it in private. In public he preferred five words of real language to 10,000 "words" of ecstatic babble (1 Corinthians 14:19). Tongues were of limited public use because they only benefited the speaker and God (1 Corinthians 14:2,4,28). That made them appropriate for private prayer but a bad fit for corporate worship where everybody is supposed to participate.
But why bother speaking to God, even privately, in the "nonsense" language of tongues? Well, it is not exactly nonsense. Tongues are vocal but non-verbal expressions of joy, lament, praise, despair, gratitude, or whatever else might be in the worshipper's heart. On occasion they do the job better than words. We're all familiar with the concept when it appears in other forms. Cab Calloway randomized "scat" syllables to express exuberance; Frank Sinatra "do-be-do-be-do-ed" his seduction; my father whistled his contentment, and most of us groan our pain, sigh our pleasure, and "ugh" our disgust. Even at tongue-less Faith Bible Church, we go "la-la-la-la-la" for a while in one of the choruses we sing. In the spirit of 1 Corinthians 14:27, I hereby interpret that tongue to mean that we are happy to praise God.
Speaking in tongues is no big deal - neither angelic nor demonic. Some people have the knack for it, some don't. See 1 Corinthians 12:30: "Do all speak in tongues?" (No. The answer's no.) Those who don't have the knack (or gift) can probably learn it if they want to, and can add tongues to their private worship repertoire if it suits them. I've never bothered with it. Then again, I've never bothered with a lot of things (like "dancing before the Lord" - 2 Samuel 6:14) that are just great for those who can do them right.
To both Southern Baptists, who forbid what God allows, and to Charismatics, who indulge what God restricts, I say, "Oi vay. Ay yiyi. Jiminy Crickets." Which interpreted means, "Speak in tongues privately all you want, but if you're going to do that in church, the rules of 1 Corinthians 14 will be strictly enforced."
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