Spiritual Gifts

As you can read in our article 'What is speaking in tongues?' tongues can either be in a known language (in other words, a language that someone, somewhere on earth would understand) or an unknown language - a heavenly language that no one understands. For anyone who speaks in a tongue does not speak to people but to God. Indeed, no one understands them; they utter mysteries by the Spirit.

The Bible tells us a lot about the gift of tongues. Jesus says that it will be a sign of those who believe in Him, Peter and Paul describe it in the lives of new believers in the early church and Paul gives lots of good instruction in 1 Corinthians. It's even prophesied about in the Old Testament! Jesus Christ tells us what to look out for in those who believe in Him:

When we pray in tongues we don’t always know what we are praying. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 14:14 that, “ if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful.” Although it is our spirit that is uttering in tongues, it is motivated, covered, enabled and directed by the Holy Spirit (see our other article about this). Scripture instructs us to pray in the Spirit:

'Speaking in tongues', or 'speaking in different kinds of languages', is one of the signs that Jesus Christ said (Mark 16:17) would accompany those who believe in Him. The Bible (1 Corinthians 12:8-11) describes speaking in tongues as one of the spiritual gifts that those who follow Jesus and are filled by His Holy Spirit are empowered with (along with a sister gift, 'interpretation of tongues'). Other related terms or concepts are 'praying in the spirit' and 'praying in a heavenly language'.