Why Baptists Don't Speak in Tongues

     Regardless of religion, race, social class, education, etc., everyone has a source of authority on which they base their beliefs. However, despite the vast diversity among people in the world, there are only four possible sources of authority. The first is rationalism (humanism), in which a person reasons from their own experiences taken in through their five senses. The second is the Catholic church. This authority encompasses Scripture, Catholic tradition and present day leadership. The third is Mysticism. There are two types of mystics, those that trust in their own spiritual experiences without any belief in Scripture, and those that believe in Scripture along with their spiritual experiences. Some examples of these two camps (respectively) would be a Buddhist who has a vision, or a modern day charismatic Christian who "gets a word from the Lord." The final possible source of authority is Sola Scriptura (Scripture Alone). Every single person falls somewhere within these four categories of authority. 

    Historically, Baptists have always been people of the book, holding up the Scriptures as our sole basis of authority for faith and practice. The Historical Baptist Confessions all begin with the authority of the Scriptures. This past week I began preaching through the New Hampshire Baptist Confession of 1833 on Wednesday night, which is the Confession that my church adheres to. Article One opens with the words, "Of the Scriptures We believe that the Holy Bible was written by men divinely inspired, and is a perfect treasure of heavenly instruction; that it has God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth without any mixture of error for its matter, that it reveals the principles by which God will judge us; and therefore is, and shall remain to the end of the world, the true center of Christian union, and the supreme standard by which all human conduct, creeds, and opinions should be tried." 

    The simple reason that Baptists don't speak with "unknown" tongues is because the practice of tongues that we see in churches today cannot be found within the pages of Scripture. If someone comes to the opposite conclusion, they have at best been fed a gross misrepresentation of Scripture, or at worst placed all of their faith in their own experiences with no regard to Scripture at all. As we shall see, someone can believe in modern day tongues speaking and be some form of mystic, but they cannot believe in modern day tongues and also believe in Sola Scriptura. The two are mutually exclusive. 

    The Scriptural Evidence

    The first place that we must visit in order to see what tongues was as practiced in Scripture is Acts chapter 2. First of all, it is important to remember that Acts is a transitional book. There are things that happened in Acts that we simply don't see today. At the time there were no NT Scriptures and Christ had ascended to Heaven. So, God gave the Apostles special powers in order to confirm His men and His message. For example, the Apostles had a 100% success rate when it came to healing and raising the dead. In fact, Peter had so much power that merely his shadow passing over someone would heal them. This does not happen today. If such people are on planet earth today they have to be the most selfish individuals to have ever lived. With modern technology they could travel to all of the hospitals in the world in a relatively short period of time and yet they are MIA. When we use Acts to get our doctrine in exclusion to the rest of the NT we will fall into error. We can't experience another Pentecost anymore than Christ can experience another Calvary. Some might argue that "God is the same yesterday, today and forever." but my reply is always, "then why aren't you still sacrificing animals?" It is true that God never changes, but His unchanging plan unfolds throughout different seasons in time. 

    Second, in Acts chapter 2 we find the very first time that people spoke with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. The context is this, people have come from all over the world to be in Jerusalem for Pentecost. The Lord used this opportunity to allow His Apostles to supernaturally speak with the tongues (languages) of all the different people groups who were there. Verses 6-7 read, "Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak IN HIS OWN LANGUAGE.  And they were all amazed and marvelled, saying one to another, Behold, are not all these which speak Galilaeans?" The text could not be clearer. God empowered the Apostles to speak in human languages that they did not know for the purpose of preaching the gospel to these different people groups. The result was that 3,000 people were saved. This text places an immediate burden upon the modern day proponents of tongues to give a clear text showing when, how and why this meaning of tongues somehow changes into an unknown, Heavenly prayer language. If no such text exists (and it doesn't), then we must use the definition of human languages as our lens for interpreting the other few times that tongues are found in the Bible. 

    The next text that we must visit in order to determine what the Scriptures say about tongues is in I Corinthians chapter 14. First of all, this is a very difficult chapter to interpret, regardless of which theological camp that someone is in. It seems that the Corinthian church had some sort of background information in order to receive this instruction. We aren't privy to that information today, God didn't see fit to give it to us. Also, nowhere in this text do we find a Heavenly, angelic language. We aren't told what such a tongue is, or what it accomplishes. All of those things must be read into the text by proponents of tongues. We cannot isolate difficult texts and create doctrine out of it. Doing so puts the "cult" in difficult. However, there are certain things in this text that are crystal clear. 

    For starters, the Corinthian church wasn't a spiritual body. They were carnal. Paul said in chapter 3 that he had to speak to them like babies because all they could handle was milk. This church was also full of sexual sin, even to to the point of one man having relations with his own mother (5:1). In chapter 8 we find that the Corinthians were also eating meat sacrificed unto idols. This was not the church that anyone would want to model after. 

    This sets the stage for chapter 14. Paul isn't commending the Corinthians. He is scolding them. He scolds them for their childish use of other tongues. However, when Paul uses the term "unknown tongue" it does not mean gibberish and it does not mean a Heavenly angelic language. It means to speak with human languages that others do not know (unknown to them). Years ago I had the opportunity to preach to a group of Chinese middle school students who didn't speak a word of English. However, I had an interpreter. I would preach a few sentences in English, which is an unknown language to them, then the interpreter would repeat what I had just said, but in Chinese. What good would I have done them without an interpreter? To prove this is Paul's point, he goes on to say in verses 18-20- "I thank my God, I speak with tongues more than ye all: yet in the church I had rather speak five words with my understanding, that by my voice I might teach others also, than ten thousand words in an unknown tongue." Paul spoke many human languages, but he always used the one needed to communicate the gospel. 

    As a final death knell to the modern tongues movement, Paul goes on to regulate the use of tongues, even as it was meant to be used. In verse 27 Paul states that only two or three at the most could speak in tongues. In verse 28 he says that if there is no interpreter, keep quite. In verse 34 he tells the women keep silent. If the modern tongues movement only allowed 2 or 3 to speak in tongues, never spoke in tongues without an interpreter and didn't allow the women to speak in tongues, their entire movement would be extinct over night. Is I Corinthians chapter 14 the concrete proof for the gift of an angelic language? Hardly

The Historical Evidence

    Church History and the Confessions can't be our final authority, but they help us in the same way that bumpers help us in bowling. They don't control how we thrust the ball down the lane, but they keep the ball from going into the gutter. If someone interprets or teaches something totally different than what's been taught throughout church history, it's probably not true. The modern teaching of tongues was never found in church history until the Azusa Street revival of 1906. What this means is that this modern tongues interpretation was never taught by the church for the first 1900 years of its existence. This was a new teaching. Why didn't the church always teach tongues in that way, especially if that's what the NT actually teaches? Because they never practiced it and they would not allow the text of Scripture to be interpreted in such a way. The burden of proof falls on the proponents of modern tongues to prove why they changed this doctrine, and why the church got it wrong for the first 1900 years of church history until they came along.

The Silent Evidence

    There isn't a single example of someone speaking or praying in a heavenly, angelic language in the Bible, not one. Some try to claim that Paul made a reference to him speaking an angelic language in I Corinthians 13, but this an easy one to refute. He said,"though I speak with the tongues of men and angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling symbol." Paul is giving an analogy. Paul did speak several languages. He is saying that even if he could speak in an angelic language it would be worthless without charity. This is proven by the fact that he continues this analogy in the following verses. Paul didn't understand all mysteries or have all knowledge. He didn't have all faith or give his body to be burned. He was saying that even if he did, it would be worthless without charity. Again the tongues proponents must read their assumptions into the Scripture to make their narrative work. The burden of proof is on them to explain why there isn't a single example of someone speaking in a Heavenly, Angelic language in the Bible, especially if it's so essential to the Christian faith and to the function of the church. 

    Much more could be said on the subject, even to the question "are tongues still in use today?" The short answer is no, now that we have the Scriptures that season is over (I Corinthians 13:9-10), but that is a blog for another day. I will simply say that the modern use of tongues never ceased because it never existed in the first place. 

    Conclusion

    In conclusion, Baptists don't speak in tongues because the modern use of tongues can't be found anywhere in the Bible. Someone can believe in tongues, but they can't be a true historical Baptist, and they can't believe in Sola Scriptura (at least not in this one area). By definition they are a mystic in the way that they approach truth. Many times when I have approached modern tongue talkers with the truth of Scripture, they default to their own experience (which is the text book definition of a mystic). However, we must always measure our experiences by the Word of God, and not the Word of God by our experiences. 

    I live and pastor in the heart of Mormon country Utah. Mormons are some of the most mystical people that I have ever encountered. Their leaders even encourage it. A few months ago we had a very nice Mormon lady to visit our church. After the service I shared the gospel with her. In response, she told me that she knows Mormonism to be true because she prayed about it, and one night Jesus came into her room, sat on her bed and told her that Joseph Smith was a true prophet of God and that Mormonism is true. This kind of thing is all too common in Mormonism. This is a form of subjective and not objective truth. I told her that I've had Catholics and Muslims tell me similar stories. They also claim their own experiences as proof that their particular faith is true. How can any of these experiences be proven to be true above the others? They can't. This is why we must submit ourselves to the objective truth found in Scripture. In the words of the great Puritan writer John Owen, "If extra Biblical revelations agree with Scripture, they are needless, and if they disagree, they are false."