Tongues, and Praying in the Spirit

This note is interpretation, not translation. It asks what scripture says about speaking in tongues and praying in the Spirit, and what any of it has to do with Revelation. The short answer: in this book “tongues” are the languages of the peoples, no one in it speaks in tongues or prays in tongues, and the one place the Spirit is heard praying is at the very end.

The word. Glōssa, tongue, occurs 50 times in 47 verses in these writings. It is the organ in the mouth (Mark 7:33, 35; Luke 1:64, 16:24; Acts 2:26; Romans 3:13; James 1:26, 3:5–8; 1 Peter 3:10; 1 John 3:18); the language a people speaks (every tongue will confess, Romans 14:11 and Philippians 2:11); and the gift (Mark 16:17; Acts 2, 10:46, 19:6; and 21 of the 50 uses, in 1 Corinthians 12–14). Mark 16:9–20 is missing from the earliest manuscripts, so 16:17 stands on less than the rest. In Revelation seven of its eight uses are one of the lists of how peoples are counted — tribe, language, people, nation (5:9; 7:9; 10:11; 11:9; 13:7; 14:6; 17:15) — and the eighth is the mouth: people chewed their tongues in pain (16:10).

Is “languages” fair? In Revelation, yes. In every list the word stands among words for the ways a people is named, in the same four-part form Daniel uses (marked at 7:9), and at Pentecost Luke uses glōssa and dialektos, language, for the same thing. So the translation says “languages” in the lists and “tongues” at 16:10, and each is marked as a Greek word you can open. It would not be fair as a blanket rule for the whole New Testament, because 1 Corinthians 14 describes speech that its verses do not say is a human language. The translation only has to decide it in Revelation, and this note decides it no further.

Pentecost: languages people recognized. The disciples were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues, as the Spirit gave them to speak out (Acts 2:4). The crowd, from every nation under heaven (2:5), each heard in his own language (tē idia dialektō, 2:6, 8), in our own tongues the great things of God (2:11), and Luke lists the places, from Parthians and Medes to Egypt, Libya and Rome (2:9–10). Peter says what it is: I will pour out from my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and daughters will prophesy (2:17–18, from Joel). Acts 10:46 and 19:6 do not say whether anyone recognized the words: speaking in tongues and magnifying God, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied.

1 Corinthians 12–14. Paul says tongues are one gift among others (12:10, 28), that not everyone has it (12:30), and that love is greater (13:1–3). The one who speaks in a tongue does not speak to people but to God, for no one hears, but in spirit he speaks mysteries (14:2). He builds himself up (14:4). It needs interpretation if the assembly is to be built (14:5, 13, 27–28). In the assembly five words with my mind are worth more than ten thousand words in a tongue (14:19). It is a sign for unbelievers, and if everyone speaks in tongues an outsider will say you are mad (14:22–23). Do not forbid speaking in tongues (14:39), and Paul says he speaks in tongues more than all of them (14:18).

What points toward real languages: there are so many kinds of voices in the world, and none is without meaning; if I do not know the force of the voice I will be a foreigner to the speaker (14:10–11), and the quotation about people of other tongues (14:21). What points away: no one understands it (14:2), the mind is unfruitful (14:14), and the tongues of people and of angels (13:1). The Greek has no word “unknown” anywhere in these verses; it says only “tongue”. So the texts do not say whether the speech at Corinth was a human language, and this note does not either. At 13:8 tongues will stop (pausontai, from pauō, to stop doing something), while prophecy and knowledge are katargēthēsontai, “will be done away,” a different verb. The “when the complete comes” of 13:10 is said of to ek merous, the partial, which 13:9 names as knowing in part and prophesying in part; it does not name tongues. So the passage says that tongues will stop and gives no time for it.

Praying in the Spirit. The phrase is praying … in the Spirit at Ephesians 6:18 (at every time, with all prayer and request) and Jude 20 (building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit). Neither verse mentions tongues. 1 Corinthians 14:14–15 is the one verse where prayer, the spirit and a tongue stand together: if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays but my mind is unfruitful. What then? I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the mind also; I will sing with the spirit, and sing with the mind also. Beyond those: the Spirit himself intercedes with wordless groanings, because we do not know what to pray (Romans 8:26–27); the Spirit in our hearts crying, Abba, Father (Galatians 4:6; Romans 8:15); worship by the Spirit of God (Philippians 3:3) and in spirit and truth (John 4:23–24). So praying in the Spirit is wider than tongues. Scripture never says it means praying in tongues and never says it does not; 1 Corinthians 14 shows a tongue as one way to pray with the spirit, and says to pray with the mind as well.

In Revelation, in plain words.
— Every language. You bought people for God out of every tribe and language and people and nation (5:9). A crowd from every nation and tribe and people and language stands before the throne crying Salvation belongs to our God (7:9–10). The good news goes to every nation and tribe and language and people (14:6), and John is told to prophesy again about many peoples and nations and languages and kings (10:11). The same word covers the animal’s reach (13:7) and the waters under the prostitute (17:15). Philippians 2:11’s every tongue will confess is the same thought.
— No one speaks in tongues. The book has no speaking in tongues, no interpretation, and no verb “to pray”. The prayers of God’s people appear as incense in golden bowls held by the elders (5:8), and a messenger adds incense at the altar (8:3–4).
— In the Spirit. John is in the Spirit four times (1:10; 4:2; 17:3; 21:10): the same two words as Ephesians 6:18 and Jude 20, but here they carry him into visions.
— The Spirit speaks. What the Spirit says to the assemblies closes each of the seven letters (2:7 to 3:22), and Yes, says the Spirit (14:13).
— The Spirit prays. And the Spirit and the bride say, “Come.” And let the one who hears say, “Come.” And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who wants it take the water of life free of charge (22:17), and then Come, Lord Jesus (22:20), which is the church’s prayer; Paul’s Aramaic form of it, maran atha, is at 1 Corinthians 16:22. Romans 8:26–27 has the Spirit praying for God’s people. Here the Spirit joins the bride.
— Words not passed on. The seven thunders spoke, and John is told to seal up what they said (10:3–4). Paul heard words that cannot be spoken, which a person may not utter (2 Corinthians 12:4), and 1 Corinthians 14:2 has mysteries that no one hears. All three have speech that was heard and not passed on. That is a likeness of situation, not of wording.
— Fire. Tongues like fire rested on each of them at Pentecost (Acts 2:3), and in Revelation seven lamps of fire burn before the throne, which are the seven Spirits of God (4:5).
— Prophecy. The book calls itself prophecy (1:3; 22:7, 10) and says the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy (19:10). Peter explained Pentecost as prophecy (Acts 2:17–18), and Paul ranks prophecy above tongues in the assembly (1 Corinthians 14:5).

The gift stays — Jon’s reading. Jon reads the gift of the Spirit, tongues included, as a gift that stays with the church to the end. The texts he stands on are Isaiah and Acts, and Isaiah comes first, because it is where another tongue begins as something spoken to God’s people.

Isaiah. With stammering lips and with another tongue he will speak to this people (Isaiah 28:11; Hebrew u-vleshon acheret yedabber el ha’am hazzeh), and the verse needs its setting. In 28:7–10 the priest and the prophet stagger with wine, and 28:9–10 reads as their mockery of Isaiah’s teaching as baby talk: tsav latsav, tsav latsav, qav laqav, qav laqav, ze’ir sham, ze’ir sham, “a bit here, a bit there.” The Hebrew does not mark who is speaking; that is the usual reading. The ki of 28:11, “indeed,” answers it: with la’agei safah, lips that stammer or mock (the same root, l-’-g, gives both), and another tongue, he will speak to this people. Then 28:12: asher amar aleihem zot hamenuchah hanichu le’ayef vezot hammarge’ah velo avu shemoa, “this is the rest, give rest to the weary, and this is the refreshing, and they would not listen.” The Hebrew can be read as what God had said to them before, “to whom he said,” or as what the strange speech says, and it does not choose. Swete’s Greek takes it the second way, with the speakers saying it to this people, and ends with syntrimma, “crushing,” where the Hebrew has “refreshing.” Then 28:13 gives their mockery back to them as the word of the LORD, tsav latsav, qav laqav, so that they fall backward and are broken and snared. “This people” are the rulers of Jerusalem (28:14). So in Isaiah the other tongue is first a sign against those who would not listen, as the nation whose tongue you will not understand was a covenant curse (Deuteronomy 28:49). Paul quotes it as written in the law: en heteroglōssois kai en cheilesin heterōn lalēsō tō laō toutō, “with other tongues and with the lips of others I will speak to this people” (1 Corinthians 14:21). Paul takes Isaiah’s verse that way and uses it of tongues: so the tongues are a sign, not to those who trust but to those who do not (14:22), and 14:23 has an outsider who hears everyone speaking in tongues say you are mad. Isaiah then says what stays with God’s people: my Spirit that is on you, and my words that I have put in your mouth, will not depart from your mouth, or from the mouth of your children, or from the mouth of your children’s children, says the LORD, from now and forever (59:21; Swete: to pneuma to emon … kai ta rhēmata ha edōka eis to stoma sou, ou mē ekleipsē). And: I will pour out my Spirit on your offspring, and my blessing on your descendants (44:3), and until the Spirit is poured out on us from on high (32:15).

Acts 2. Peter says that what the crowd saw is what Joel promised: in the last days I will pour out from my Spirit on all flesh (2:17). Then he gives the promise its reach: change your minds … and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God calls (2:38–39). The same word, dōrea, gift, is what was poured out on the nations at Cornelius’s house (10:45), and Peter says God gave them the equal gift as to us (11:17).

Together: Isaiah says the Spirit and the words stay in the mouth of God’s people, their children and their children’s children, from now and forever. Acts says the gift of the Spirit, which came with tongues, is for their children and for those far off, as many as God calls.

A gift of the new covenant — Jon’s reading. Jon holds that praying in the Spirit, tongues included, did not exist under the old covenant, that it was foretold there in relation to the new, and that it was kept for the church, in honor of Jesus and of the event at Pentecost. The texts, in that order. Not there: the cases of the Spirit on people in the Hebrew Bible are prophecy, as the seventy elders (vayyitnabbe’u, Numbers 11:25) and Saul (1 Samuel 10:10), and the first time the New Testament reports tongues is Acts 2:4. Moses’ wish is for more of the same: who will give all the LORD’s people to be prophets, that the LORD would put his Spirit on them (Numbers 11:29). Foretold: Isaiah 28:11 (above), in the Greek of Swete glōssēs heteras, “another tongue,” and at Pentecost they began to speak in other tongues (heterais glōssais, Acts 2:4): the same adjective and noun. Paul quotes Isaiah as written in the law (1 Corinthians 14:21). And Joel: after this I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters will prophesy (Hebrew 3:1; English 2:28), which Peter says is what the crowd is seeing (Acts 2:16–17). Joel does not name tongues; Peter joins them. Why after Jesus: John says for the Spirit was not yet, because Jesus had not yet been glorified (John 7:39), and Jesus tells them he stays with you and will be in you (14:17) and if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you (16:7). They are told to wait for the promise of the Father (Luke 24:49; Acts 1:4), and Peter says of Jesus, raised to the right hand of God, and having received the promise of the Holy Spirit from the Father, he poured out this which you see and hear (2:33). Paul puts the gifts after the ascent: when he went up on high he took captivity captive, he gave gifts to people (Ephesians 4:8, from Psalm 68:19; the Hebrew has lakachta matanot ba’adam, “you took gifts among people,” and Swete’s Greek elabes, “you received,” where Paul has edōken, “he gave”). Peter says the prophets served not themselves but you and that the good news was preached in the Holy Spirit sent from heaven (1 Peter 1:10–12), and Hebrews says they did not receive the promise, God having provided something better for us (11:39–40), and Paul that the mystery was not made known to other generations … as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit (Ephesians 3:5). Jon’s reason, that it was kept for the church in honor of Jesus and of Pentecost, is his own; the texts show that the Spirit’s outpouring on all flesh followed Jesus’ glorification, and the gifts followed his ascent.

Red flag That praying in the Spirit and tongues did not exist in the old covenant, and were kept for the church in honor of Jesus. Two parts, each short of a stated verse. The first is an absence: the Hebrew Bible’s cases of the Spirit on people (Numbers 11:25; 1 Samuel 10:10; and the New Testament’s Luke 1:41, 1:67 and 2:25–27 before Pentecost) are prophecy and praise, and none is called tongues, but no verse says tongues did not happen. The Spirit also was on people before Pentecost, so “the Spirit was not yet” (John 7:39) is said of the giving to those who trust in Jesus, which is why John explains it by the glorification. The second is the reason: John 7:39, 16:7, Acts 2:33 and Ephesians 4:8 tie the Spirit and the gifts to Jesus’ glorification and ascent, and no verse says tongues in particular were kept for the church, or that it was done in honor of Jesus. That is Jon’s reading. Isaiah 28:11 and Acts 2:4 do share a phrase, and Isaiah’s verse also carries a rebuke, and even so they will not listen to me (as Paul quotes it, 1 Corinthians 14:21).

Edification. Paul ties tongues to prophecy and gives both the same purpose. The one who speaks in a tongue builds himself up; the one who prophesies builds up the assembly (1 Corinthians 14:4). I want you all to speak in tongues, but even more that you prophesy, and a tongue with interpretation builds the assembly too, so that the assembly may receive building up (14:5, 14:13). Neither is set aside: earnestly desire to prophesy, and do not forbid speaking in tongues (14:39). All of it is for building up: let everything be done for building up (14:26), and seek to excel in building up the assembly (14:12). Jude says the same of praying in the Spirit: building yourselves up (20). Ephesians gives the length of the building: the gifts are for the building up of the body of the Anointed, until we all arrive at the unity of the faith … at a mature man (4:12–13), so that we are no longer children (4:14), and the body grows in love (4:16). Jon’s reasoning is that if tongues build the one who prays and prophecy builds the assembly, and the building is needed until the church is mature, then the gift stays as long as the church needs building, which is as long as it is on earth.

Trusting God with the tongue — Jon’s reading. Jon reads Solomon’s words in Proverbs 3:5–6 as a description of how the gift works, one line at a time.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart (Proverbs 3:5)
You need to trust God and give up control. No one of people can tame the tongue (James 3:8), so it is given over to God.

and lean not on your own understanding (3:5)
Language you do not understand. No one hears, but in spirit he speaks mysteries (1 Corinthians 14:2), and my spirit prays but my mind is unfruitful (14:14).

But in all your ways acknowledge him (3:6)
Paul says of this gift, you give thanks well (1 Corinthians 14:17; su men kalōs eucharisteis).

And he shall direct your path (3:6)
What you want.

Red flag That Proverbs 3:5–6 describes praying in tongues. The proverb mentions no tongue. It is about trust and guidance in all your ways (3:6), and your own understanding in it is a person’s reliance on his own judgment, not a language he cannot follow. What Jon has done is set a New Testament verse about the gift beside each line: James 3:8 for the control, 1 Corinthians 14:2 and 14:14 for what is not understood, 14:17 for the thanks. Those verses are there and say what they say. That Solomon meant the gift, or that the proverb is a picture of it, is Jon’s reading.

Magnifying God, and the gifts of Ephesians 4 — Jon’s reading. Jon’s claim is that the gifts Ephesians 4:11 names, apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds and teachers, are amplified by praying in tongues. His texts are the places in Acts where tongues come with praise. At Cornelius’s house, for they heard them speaking in tongues and magnifying God (ēkouon gar autōn lalountōn glōssais kai megalynontōn ton Theon, Acts 10:46). At Pentecost the crowd says we hear them speaking in our own languages the great things of God (ta megaleia tou Theou, 2:11). The two are one root: megalynō is “make great,” “magnify,” and megaleia, “the great things,” is found only at 2:11. Megalynō is eight words in eight verses of the New Testament: enlarging a thing in size (Matthew 23:5, the tassels), declaring the Lord great (Luke 1:46, Mary), the Lord making his mercy great (1:58), a people’s esteem (Acts 5:13), the name of the Lord Jesus (19:17), Paul’s own sphere growing (2 Corinthians 10:15), and Christ made great in Paul’s body (Philippians 1:20). So “amplified” is Jon’s word and the Greek is “made great,” and in Acts 10:46 the one made great is God. What the texts put next to tongues, in Jon’s line of reasoning, is the work of the gifts: at Pentecost the same verb that opens the tongues (apophthengesthai, 2:4) is the one used when Peter stands and speaks out to the crowd (apephthenxato, 2:14; the verb is found only at Acts 2:4, 2:14 and 26:25), and three thousand are added that day (2:41). At Ephesus it is they spoke in tongues and prophesied (19:6), prophecy being the second gift in Paul’s list in Ephesians 4:11. And at the end of Ephesians 6, straight after praying at every time in the Spirit (6:18), Paul asks the readers to pray for me, that a word may be given me when I open my mouth, with boldness to make known the mystery of the good news (6:19; en parrēsia), which is an apostle’s and evangelist’s work set in the next breath after praying in the Spirit. Paul himself is the case in point: he speaks in tongues more than all of them, and in the assembly would rather speak five words with his mind so that I may also instruct others (katēchēsō, 1 Corinthians 14:18–19), teaching and tongues in one man.

Red flag That praying in tongues amplifies the gifts of Ephesians 4:11. No verse says it. The texts show tongues beside magnifying God (Acts 10:46, 2:11), followed by Peter’s speaking out (2:4, 2:14), by prophecy (19:6), and praying in the Spirit followed by Paul’s request for boldness in proclaiming (Ephesians 6:18–20). Those are sequence and company; none says that tongues strengthen apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds or teachers, and in Acts 10:46 what is made great is God, not a gift. Against it, or at least not for it: Paul lists the gifts separately and asks do all speak in tongues?, expecting no (1 Corinthians 12:28–30), and in the assembly he puts prophecy and teaching above a tongue (14:5, 14:19). Acts 4:29–31 has the believers pray for boldness and then speak the word of God with boldness, and the text does not name tongues there. That tongues amplify the gifts is Jon’s reading.

Stirring the gift — Jon’s reading. The passage: Di’ hēn aitian anamimnēskō se anazōpyrein to charisma tou Theou, ho estin en soi dia tēs epitheseōs tōn cheirōn mou. ou gar edōken hēmin ho Theos pneuma deilias, alla dynameōs kai agapēs kai sōphronismou. mē oun epaischynthēs to martyrion tou Kyriou hēmōn mēde eme ton desmion autou, alla synkakopathēson tō euangeliō kata dynamin Theou. “For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God that is in you through the laying on of my hands. For God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but of power and love and a sound mind. So do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, or of me his prisoner, but share in suffering for the good news according to the power of God” (2 Timothy 1:6–8). Anazōpyreō, to kindle again, is found nowhere else in the New Testament: it is zōpyreō, “keep a fire alive,” with ana, “again.” A gift that was given can burn low and be fanned up again. Jon links the gift to dynamis, miracle-working power, the word in 1:7 and 1:8. The small word gar, “for,” opening 1:7 gives it as the reason for 1:6: fan the gift into flame, because God did not give a spirit of cowardice. The word is deilia, found only here in the New Testament, and 1:8 goes on with do not be ashamed. Jon reads that as fear around the gift, with the stirring as the answer to it. What the text shows is cowardice and shame around Timothy’s testimony, which the Timothy flag below covers. Paul uses the word for that: in power of signs and wonders, in power of the Holy Spirit (Romans 15:19), and the one who supplies you the Spirit and works powers among you (Galatians 3:5). So does Hebrews: signs and wonders and various powers and distributions of the Holy Spirit (2:4). In the list of gifts, workings of powers stands beside kinds of tongues in one verse (1 Corinthians 12:10). And Jesus’ promise of the baptism is the same word: you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you (Acts 1:8). The fire picture runs the other way too: do not quench the Spirit (1 Thessalonians 5:19), and Timothy is told not to neglect the gift in him (1 Timothy 4:14). The verses around it say what the power is for: boldness in the testimony and in suffering (1:8), and guarding the good deposit through the Holy Spirit who lives in us (1:14). Jon reads the power of 1:7 as dynamis in the sense of miracle-working power, which is how the Gospels and Acts use the word: power went out from him and healed all (Luke 6:19); God anointed him with the Holy Spirit and power … healing all (Acts 10:38); Stephen, full of grace and power, did wonders and signs (6:8). And the hands are the link he points to. At Ephesus, when Paul laid his hands on the disciples, the next thing the text reports is the Holy Spirit came on them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied (Acts 19:6), and a few verses later, God was doing no ordinary powers through the hands of Paul (dynameis, 19:11). Paul urged Timothy to stay in Ephesus (1 Timothy 1:3). The noun for the laying on of hands, epithesis, is in four verses of the New Testament, 2 Timothy 1:6 among them (Acts 8:18; 1 Timothy 4:14; Hebrews 6:2).

Do not neglect the gift — 1 Timothy 4:14 in its context. Jon’s reading. Paul says it to Timothy a second time, in the first letter: mē amelei tou en soi charismatos, ho edothē soi dia prophēteias meta epitheseōs tōn cheirōn tou presbyteriou, “do not neglect the gift in you, which was given you through prophecy with the laying on of the hands of the elders” (1 Timothy 4:14). The verses around it: let no one look down on your youth, but be an example for the believers in word, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity. Until I come, give attention to the public reading, to exhortation, to teaching. Do not neglect the gift … Care about these things, be in them, so that your progress may be plain to everyone. Pay attention to yourself and to the teaching; stay with them, for by doing this you will save both yourself and those who hear you (4:12–16). The gift sits beside reading, exhortation and teaching, and it is given with the elders’ hands and through prophecy. The same prophecies come up at the start of the letter, tied to the fight: this charge I entrust to you, child Timothy, in line with the prophecies that went before about you, so that by them you may wage the good warfare, holding faith and a good conscience (1:18–19; hina strateuē en autais tēn kalēn strateian). That is the same word for fighting that Paul uses of the believer’s fight in Ephesians 6 (the note below), and the letter just before 4:14 is about the teachings of demons (4:1–5). Jon ties the gift Timothy is told not to neglect to this fight, and to the gift Paul told him to stir up (2 Timothy 1:6): in both letters it was given by hands, and in both he is told to keep it alive.

Red flag That the gift Timothy is told to stir up is tongues, or miracle-working power. Paul calls it to charisma tou Theou and does not name it; 1 Timothy 4:14 says it was given through prophecy with the laying on of the hands of the elders, which points to a gift for his ministry, and in its context (4:12–16) it stands beside public reading, exhortation and teaching, though 1:18 ties the same prophecies to waging the good warfare; and in 2 Timothy 1:7 the spirit of power sits beside love and self-control, not beside signs. The nearest text for tongues is Acts 19:6 and 19:11, where Paul’s laid hands are followed at Ephesus by tongues, prophecy and powers. Dynamis is the word for miracles (Luke 6:19; Acts 10:38) and also for power in general (Romans 1:16; 2 Timothy 1:8). That a gift once given can burn low and be fanned up again is stated; that it is tongues, or that the power is miracle-working, is Jon’s reading. His reasoning is in the next paragraph, and tongues and prophecy are linked in the new covenant (Acts 2:17–18; 19:6; 1 Corinthians 14:5), which is why he reads the gift of 1 Timothy 4:14, given through prophecy, as in the same family.

Under the person’s control — Jon’s reasoning. Jon reads the gift Timothy is told to stir up as tongues because praying in the Spirit is a gift a person can turn on and off. Paul treats it that way. Prophecy is the same kind of gift (1 Corinthians 14:30–32), and the new covenant links the two: your sons and your daughters will prophesy and they spoke in tongues (Acts 2:17, 2:4), they spoke in tongues and prophesied (19:6), and I want you all to speak in tongues, but even more that you prophesy (1 Corinthians 14:5). I thank God, I speak in tongues more than all of you; but in the assembly I would rather speak five words with my mind … than ten thousand words in a tongue (1 Corinthians 14:18–19). When he asks what to do, the answer is a choice: I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the mind also (14:15). His rules assume the same: two or at most three, and in turn (14:27), and with no interpreter, let him keep silent in the assembly, and speak to himself and to God (14:28). And Corinth was getting it wrong in both directions: everyone speaking in tongues at once, so that an outsider says you are mad (14:23), and others holding back, so that Paul has to say I want you all to speak in tongues (14:5) and do not forbid speaking in tongues (14:39). Paul is guiding them in when to use it and when not to, which Jon reads as the gift being theirs to use. Timothy’s case is the same kind: he is told to stir it up and not to neglect it (2 Timothy 1:6; 1 Timothy 4:14), and those are things a person does.

What Corinth was doing — Jon’s reading. Jon reads Corinth as using tongues for public display, when its intended use is self-edification, unless it is given to the assembly through an interpretation. The texts for the use: the one who speaks in a tongue does not speak to people but to God (1 Corinthians 14:2), builds himself up (14:4), and in the assembly with no interpreter, let him speak to himself and to God (14:28). A tongue with interpretation does what prophecy does: the one who prophesies is greater than the one who speaks in tongues, unless he interprets, so that the assembly may receive building up (14:5), and let the one who speaks in a tongue pray that he may interpret (14:13). The texts for the fault: they were zealous for spirits, and Paul tells them to seek to excel in building up the assembly (14:12); everyone speaking at once, so that outsiders say you are mad (14:23); no one understanding what is said, so the outsider cannot say Amen (14:16–17) and the speaker is a foreigner to the hearer (14:11); and God is not a God of disorder but of peace (14:33). And before all of it: if I speak in the tongues of people and of angels but do not have love, I have become a sounding bronze or a clanging cymbal (13:1), with love that does not boast (13:4). Jon’s evidence is what Paul told them to do. He is making order in a chaotic assembly: each one comes with a psalm, a teaching, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation, and all of it is to be for building up (14:26); tongues two or three at most, in turn, with an interpreter, and otherwise silence (14:27–28); prophets one at a time, with the others weighing what is said (14:29–31); and let all things be done decently and in order (euschēmonōs kai kata taxin, 14:40).

Red flag That the Corinthians were using tongues as a public display. Paul does not name their motive. What Jon goes by is what Paul told them to do, which shows a chaotic assembly (14:26–33, 14:40) and not why it was chaotic. Paul names the effects (no one understanding, everyone at once, outsiders saying you are mad, disorder) and gives the rules (14:26–28, 14:33), and 14:12 says only that they were eager for spiritual gifts and should seek to build up the assembly. Nearest texts for the motive: 13:1 and 13:4 on love and boasting, said of gifts in general. Nearest against the intended use being private: tongues are a sign … for unbelievers (14:22), which has a public side, and tongues with interpretation build the assembly (14:5). That their motive was display, and that the intended use is self-edification, are Jon’s reading.

Red flag That tongues in particular stay with the church to the end. Neither passage says it. Isaiah 59:21 speaks of the Spirit and the words in the mouth, and Acts 2:39 of the gift of the Holy Spirit; Isaiah 28:11 and Acts 2:4 are where the other tongue is named, and neither says how long it lasts. The nearest text against is 1 Corinthians 13:8, eite glōssai, pausontai, “whether tongues, they will stop,” which gives no time; the “when the complete comes” of 13:10 is said of the partial, which 13:9 names as knowledge and prophecy. Paul does pair tongues with prophecy and gives both the purpose of building up (1 Corinthians 14:4–5, 14:26), and Ephesians 4:12–16 says the building goes on until the body is mature. But the gifts Ephesians names there are apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds and teachers, not tongues, and no verse says that tongues remain until the building is finished. That step, and the reading that the gift stays, are Jon’s. His answer on the gifts of Ephesians 4:11 is that praying in tongues amplifies them, set out and flagged below.

A pause, and the baptism of the Spirit — Jon’s reading. Jon offers, as one possible reading and not a settled one, that pausontai could mean a pause: that tongues stopped for a time and came back. And he reads Peter’s quotation of Joel, in the last days I will pour out from my Spirit on all flesh (Acts 2:17), as the baptism with the Holy Spirit that Jesus promised, which comes with tongues.

The word. Pauō is fifteen words in the New Testament, and it means to stop doing something. The stop can be for a time or for good. When he stopped praying, one of the disciples asked Him to teach them to pray (hōs epausato, Luke 11:1), and His praying went on. The wind and the waves stopped (epausanto, Luke 8:24). Would the sacrifices not have stopped being offered, if they had cleansed (Hebrews 10:2)? So the verb does not say whether a stop is final. The sentence says only that tongues will stop (1 Corinthians 13:8), and, unlike prophecy and knowledge, it gives them no time (13:9–10).

Poured out is baptized. Jesus is the one who baptizes in the Holy Spirit (John 1:33): he will baptize you in the Holy Spirit and fire (Matthew 3:11; Luke 3:16; Mark 1:8 without the fire). Just before the ascension: John baptized with water, but you will be baptized in the Holy Spirit not many days from now (Acts 1:5). At Pentecost the fire and the tongues are together: tongues as of fire, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues (2:3–4), and Peter says this is the pouring out Joel spoke of (2:16–17). When the Spirit falls on the nations at Cornelius’s house, the gift of the Holy Spirit is poured out (10:45) and they speak in tongues (10:46), and Peter, telling it afterward, says the Holy Spirit fell on them as on us at the beginning and that he remembered the word of the Lord, you will be baptized in the Holy Spirit (11:15–16). So in Acts the pouring out and the baptism are the same event, and each time it is described in detail, tongues come with it (2:4; 10:46; 19:6).

Ephesus. Paul finds disciples there and asks ei Pneuma Hagion elabete pisteusantes, “did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” (Acts 19:2; the participle can be read “when” or “since” you believed). They had only John’s baptism (19:3); they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus (19:5); and when Paul laid hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied (19:6). Here the receiving of the Spirit is asked about as its own question, after believing, and it is shown by tongues. Paul asks the Galatians the same kind of question: did you receive the Spirit from works of law, or from hearing with trust? (Galatians 3:2).

The last days. Joel’s afterward (Hebrew acharei khen) is in the last days (en tais eschatais hēmerais) in Peter’s mouth (Acts 2:17). In Joel the outpouring comes straight after the early and the latter rain: he has given you the early rain for righteousness, and he sends down for you the rain, early and latter (2:23), and then afterward I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh (2:28–29; 3:1 in the Hebrew). Isaiah puts water and the Spirit together in one verse: I will pour water on the thirsty … I will pour out my Spirit on your offspring (44:3). And James has the farmer waiting for the early and the late rain until the coming of the Lord (5:7).

Red flag That tongues stopped for a time and then returned, which Jon offers as a possible reading rather than as a claim. No verse says it. Pauō can describe a stop that is not final (Luke 11:1), but it does not say the tongues come back, and no verse says the gift stopped, or when. The nearest texts for a later return are Joel’s early and latter rain (2:23) beside the outpouring (2:28–29), the water and the Spirit poured out together in Isaiah 44:3, and the early and late rain of James 5:7. The record of a pause and a return is in the church’s history, set out below, and is not in a verse. This is Jon’s reading.

Red flag That the “last days” of Acts 2:17 are a later outpouring and not Pentecost itself. Peter says this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel (2:16), and the letters call their own time the last days: in these last days he spoke to us in a Son (Hebrews 1:2) and it is the last hour (1 John 2:18). None of those verses describes a second outpouring, and none rules one out: Peter says the Spirit fell on Cornelius’s household as on us at the beginning (11:15), which treats Pentecost as a beginning. A later pouring out in the last days is Jon’s reading.

The pause in history — outside scripture, at Jon’s pointer. Whether tongues paused is a question about the church’s history, and no verse answers it. What the record shows, as quoted in modern collections of the Fathers: Irenaeus, in the late second century, says we hear many brethren in the church … who through the Spirit speak all kinds of languages (Against Heresies 5.6.1). Around the year 400 two preachers speak of it as something that had stopped. Chrysostom says the obscurity of 1 Corinthians 14 comes from ignorance of the facts and from their cessation, being such as then used to occur but now no longer take place (Homilies on 1 Corinthians 29), and Augustine, of the Spirit falling on believers who spoke in tongues, says that thing was done for a betokening, and it passed away (Homilies on 1 John 6.10). The modern return is dated to Topeka, Kansas, where on 1 January 1901 Agnes Ozman, a student at Charles Parham’s Bethel Bible College, began to speak in tongues after being prayed for to receive the fullness of the Holy Spirit; Parham was the first to teach tongues as the evidence of baptism in the Spirit. The Azusa Street Revival in Los Angeles, led by William J. Seymour from April 1906, is commonly counted as the beginning of the modern Pentecostal movement. These dates and quotations come from encyclopedia and church-history sources, and the wording of the Fathers should be checked against their own texts before it is relied on.

Tongues as the sign of the baptism — Jon’s reading. Jon reads speaking in tongues as evidence of baptism in the Holy Spirit, though not the only evidence. A scan of every place in the New Testament where the Spirit comes, falls, fills or is received found tongues named in three of them, all in Acts (2:4, 10:46, 19:6), and in those three they are the next thing the text reports. At Pentecost: they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues (2:4), speaking the great things of God (ta megaleia tou Theou, 2:11). At Cornelius’s house: the Holy Spirit fell (epepesen) on all who heard the word (10:44), and then they heard them speaking in tongues and magnifying God (ēkouon gar autōn lalountōn glōssais kai megalynontōn ton Theon, 10:46). The gar, “for,” gives it as the reason the believers from the circumcision knew the gift had been poured out on the nations (10:45), and Peter argues from it: who received the Holy Spirit as we also did (10:47), and later the Holy Spirit fell on them as on us at the beginning (11:15). At Ephesus: the Holy Spirit came on them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied (19:6). At Samaria the Spirit had not yet fallen on any of them (oudepō … epipeptōkos, 8:16), the apostles laid hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit (8:17), and Simon saw that the Spirit was given (8:18): something could be seen, and the text does not name it. And Mark 16:17 has they will speak in new tongues among the signs that follow those who believe, in the part of Mark that is missing from the earliest manuscripts.

The other cases, and the other evidence. The scan found more cases than these, and in them tongues are not named. At Samaria, above, Simon saw something and the text does not say what (8:17–18). Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, speaks to the rulers (4:8). The assembly, filled after praying for boldness (4:29), spoke the word of God with boldness (4:31). Ananias lays hands on Saul that he may see and be filled with the Holy Spirit (9:17); the next verse reports his sight and his baptism (9:18), and Paul later writes that he speaks in tongues more than all of them (1 Corinthians 14:18), which does not say when it began. Paul, filled, speaks to Elymas (13:9–10), and the disciples at Antioch are filled with joy and the Holy Spirit (13:52). Before Pentecost, Elizabeth is filled and cried out with a great cry (Luke 1:41–42) and Zechariah is filled and prophesied (1:67); in the Hebrew Bible the Spirit rests on the seventy elders and they prophesy (Numbers 11:25), and on Saul and he prophesies (1 Samuel 10:10). What runs through these is speech given by the Spirit, and tongues are one of the forms it takes. The cases before Pentecost, Elizabeth and Zechariah, the seventy and Saul, are prophecy and praise, not tongues. Jon holds that tongues were not happening under the old covenant, and the cases above fit that: none of them is tongues, and Isaiah 28:11, above, has the Lord say he will speak in another tongue, in the future, which Paul quotes as written in the law (1 Corinthians 14:21). The texts for it are set out in “A gift of the new covenant,” above. Scripture also gives evidence of the Spirit that is not speech. God bore witness to the nations by giving them the Holy Spirit as he did to the apostles (emartyrēsen, Acts 15:8). The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God (Romans 8:16); God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts crying Abba, Father (Galatians 4:6); by this we know that he stays in us, from the Spirit he gave us (1 John 3:24, 4:13); and to each one is given the showing of the Spirit for the common good (1 Corinthians 12:7). Paul also appeals to the Spirit’s works in the believers: the one who supplies you with the Spirit and works powers among you (Galatians 3:5). So Jon’s reading is that tongues are evidence of baptism in the Spirit, among the others that scripture gives. Three things the scripture does not do are set out here so the reading is not taken for more than it is. It never calls tongues the sign in every case: the accounts of Samaria, Saul, 4:31 and 13:52 do not name them, though that does not say they were not spoken. Jesus’ own words about the baptism speak of power and witness (Acts 1:5, 1:8), and the one saying of his that names tongues is Mark 16:17, which stands on less than the rest. And Paul asks do all speak in tongues?, a question that expects no (mē pantes glōssais lalousin, 1 Corinthians 12:30), in the same letter that says in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body (12:13).

The doctrine, documented — outside scripture, at Jon’s word. That tongues are the initial evidence of the baptism in the Holy Spirit is a stated doctrine, not only a reading of Acts. The Assemblies of God’s Statement of Fundamental Truths, first adopted in 1916, says the baptism of believers in the Holy Spirit is witnessed by the initial physical sign of speaking with other tongues as the Spirit of God gives them utterance (Acts 2:4), and the denomination has a position paper on it. Parham taught it from about 1900 and Azusa Street carried it (above). The doctrine rests on the pattern of Acts 2, 10 and 19. Scholars disagree about what that pattern is worth. Gordon Fee argues that tongues may be a repeatable experience but that Acts narrates what happened and does not make it a rule. Pentecostal scholars such as Roger Stronstad and Robert Menzies argue from Luke’s own purpose, that in Luke and Acts the Spirit is given to empower witness. So the doctrine is well documented, and whether the pattern in Acts is a rule is argued on both sides, including by Pentecostals. Jon’s reading is the narrower one: tongues as evidence of the baptism, and not the only evidence, which is neither the rule the doctrine states nor a denial that tongues are evidence.

In the battle — Jon’s reading. Jon reads praying in the Spirit as part of the spiritual battle, and the sword as the way it is fought. Ephesians 6 sets the fight: our struggle is not against blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual things of wickedness in the heavenly places (6:12). It puts on the armor, and then tēn machairan tou Pneumatos, ho estin rhēma Theou, “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (6:17). The next clause does not break: dia pasēs proseuchēs kai deēseōs, proseuchomenoi en panti kairō en Pneumati, “through all prayer and request, praying at every season in the Spirit” (6:18). The Greek of 6:13–18 has a shape worth stating. The verbs of command are “take up” (6:13), “stand” (6:14) and “receive” (6:17, the helmet and the sword). The pieces of armor between them are aorist participles: having girded, having put on, having shod, having taken up (6:14–16). Then 6:18 has no verb of command at all, only two present participles, proseuchomenoi, “praying,” and agrypnountes, “keeping alert,” with eis auto, “for this,” pointing the second back at the first. A present participle after those aorists is something going on while the commands are carried out. The phrase dia pasēs proseuchēs kai deēseōs sits beside proseuchomenoi, and its noun is the same word as the participle, so grammatically it goes with the praying: “with every kind of prayer and request, praying at every season in the Spirit.” Dia with the genitive can give the means, as at Philippians 1:19, through your request and the supply of the Spirit, or the manner. Jon’s reading is that the sword is taken up, and the manner of the action is praying in the Spirit. The Greek allows that. It does not say “by,” and it does not tie the praying to the sword rather than to the whole armor. There are two places the praying can hang. The commands are “stand” (6:11, 6:13, 6:14), “take up” (6:13) and “receive” (6:17). The armor in 6:14–16 is a chain of participles hanging on “stand,” and “receive the helmet and the sword” is a second command that interrupts the chain. The praying at 6:18 can go back to “stand,” continuing the chain, so that it goes with the standing and the whole armor, or to “receive,” so that it goes with the helmet and the sword. The Greek does not choose. What favors Jon is in the next verse: the praying is for me, that a word be given me when I open my mouth, with boldness to make known the mystery of the good news (6:19; logos, en anoixei tou stomatos mou), and the sword is a spoken word (rhēma Theou, 6:17). So the content of the prayer is the speaking of the word, which is what the sword is. That is an inference from the content, not from the grammar. Colossians 4:2–4 has the same shape: a command, then present participles of watching and praying, and the same request that Paul may speak the mystery as he ought. Jude 20–21 has it with the same phrase: the command is keep yourselves in the love of God, and the participles beside it are building yourselves up and praying in the Holy Spirit. The word for what the sword is, rhēma, is a spoken word, and in this book the sword comes out of a mouth (1:16; 2:16; 19:15, 21).

The rhēma of God, and the logos — Jon’s reading. Ephesians 6:17 calls the sword of the Spirit rhēma Theou, not logos tou Theou. Jon reads the choice as meaningful. Logos is the word of God as a whole, the message, what is written and preached; rhēma is the word spoken, the utterance given in the hour. And he reads letting the Spirit pray as, in his opinion, at least part of that rhēma. The text gives the contrast some footing and does not make it a rule.

The two words in the text. Rhēma is 67 words in 64 verses of the Greek New Testament, from the verb for saying, a thing said. Logos is 331 words in 318 verses. They stand in one verse together only four times (Matthew 12:36, John 12:48, Acts 10:44, Hebrews 12:19), and rhēma is not in Revelation at all. Where they meet they overlap. Jesus says the ones who cannot hear ton logon ton emon, “my word,” are not from God (John 8:43), and two verses on, the one who is from God hears ta rhēmata tou Theou, “the words of God” (8:47). Of the one who rejects him he says, if anyone hears my rhēmata and does not keep them … the logos that I spoke, that will judge him (12:47–48): his words are both. In Matthew 12:36 a person gives a logos, an account, for every careless rhēma. So the Greek does not make rhēma a different kind of word. The Hebrew explains part of why. Davar (דבר) is both “word” and “thing,” and the Greek translation renders it with both: hayah devar YHWH el Avram, “the word of the LORD came to Abram” (Genesis 15:1), has egenēthē rhēma, and u-dvar Eloheinu yaqum le’olam, “the word of our God stands forever” (Isaiah 40:8), has to rhēma tou theou hēmōn menei eis ton aiōna, which Peter quotes and then says is the good news preached to you (1 Peter 1:25). Luke’s egeneto rhēma Theou epi Iōanēn, “a word of God came upon John” (3:2), is that same prophetic formula. And pan rhēma in Luke 1:37, nothing will be impossible with God, is a thing as much as a word.

Where Jon’s contrast has footing. Rhēma is often the word given to a person at a moment. Simon, after a night of nothing: at your rhēma I will let down the nets (Luke 5:5). Mary: let it happen to me according to your rhēma (1:38). Jesus answers the tempter, a person will not live on bread alone, but on every rhēma coming out through the mouth of God (Matthew 4:4), with a present participle, ekporeuomenō, a word that keeps coming out, as it does in Deuteronomy 8:3, kol motsa fi YHWH, “everything that comes out of the mouth of the LORD.” Faith is from hearing, and hearing is dia rhēmatos Christou, “through a word of the Anointed” (Romans 10:17). The rhēmata that I have spoken to you are spirit and life (John 6:63). And of the one God sent: he speaks the rhēmata of God, for he does not give the Spirit by measure (3:34). That last verse puts the spoken word of God and the Spirit in one sentence. It is a footing and not a rule, because the same speech is also called logos: at Acts 10:44 Peter is speaking these rhēmata while the Spirit falls on all who were hearing ton logon.

The Spirit and the word given in the hour. The texts that put the Spirit and the speaking together are these. Do not worry how or what you will say, for what you will say will be given you in that hour; for it is not you who are speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking in you (Matthew 10:19–20; Mark 13:11; Luke 12:12, the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you must say). At Pentecost they spoke in other tongues as the Spirit gave them to utter (Acts 2:4, apophthengesthai). Of Stephen: they could not stand against the wisdom and the Spirit by which he spoke (6:10). Then the groanings of Romans 8:26–27, the sword of the Spirit at Ephesians 6:17 with praying in the Spirit in the next clause (6:18), and Paul’s my spirit prays (1 Corinthians 14:14). The verses give the Spirit giving words in the hour of speaking, and Jon’s reading takes the Spirit’s praying as that kind of word, given in the hour. One other verse has rhēma beside words that cannot be said: Paul was caught up into paradise and heard arrhēta rhēmata, “unsayable words, which a person is not permitted to speak” (2 Corinthians 12:4). It is about what he heard, not what he prayed, and it is not claimed as tongues.

And the word Paul asks for. The prayer in Ephesians 6:18 is for the saints and then for Paul, that a word be given to me when I open my mouth (6:19). That word is logos, not rhēma. So the sword is rhēma (6:17) and what Paul asks to be given is logos, within three verses. The vocabulary does not join the praying to the rhēma; if they are joined, it is by the content, as above.

Red flag That letting the Spirit pray, including praying in tongues, is at least part of the rhēma Theou of Ephesians 6:17, and that rhēma stands against logos as the word of the hour against the whole message. No verse says it. (1) The two words are not kept apart in the text: they are used of the same speech (John 8:43 with 8:47; 12:47–48; Acts 10:44), and in the Greek translation rhēma stands for davar where logos often does (Genesis 15:1; Isaiah 40:8). (2) The rhēma that scripture sets against an attacker is scripture spoken: in Matthew 4:4 it is Deuteronomy 8:3, introduced by “it is written,” and Paul and Peter call the preached good news rhēma (Romans 10:8, quoting Deuteronomy 30:14; 1 Peter 1:25, quoting Isaiah 40:8). Those are the places where the text itself ties rhēma to scripture. (3) No verse calls praying in the Spirit, or a tongue, a rhēma. Romans 8:26 calls the Spirit’s groanings alalētois, “wordless,” which sits uneasily with a thing said. (4) What is stated is that the sword of the Spirit is a spoken rhēma of God (6:17), that the Spirit gives words in the hour (Matthew 10:20; Luke 12:12; Acts 2:4), and that the prayer for a word comes next (6:18–19). That the Spirit’s praying is itself part of the rhēma is Jon’s reading.

Praying in the Spirit, and tongues. Jon’s argument has two legs. The first is Jude 20 with 1 Corinthians 14:4, which say the same thing happens. Jude: epoikodomountes heautous … en Pneumati Hagiō proseuchomenoi, “building yourselves up … praying in the Holy Spirit.” Paul: ho lalōn glōssē heauton oikodomei, “the one who speaks in a tongue builds himself up.” It is the same family of verb, oikodomeō (Jude’s is the compound epoikodomeō), with the same reflexive, and these are the only two verses of the New Testament where the verb has a reflexive in it at all (checked across the 44 verses where the family is used): one is about speaking in a tongue and the other about praying in the Spirit. Jude sets it against those not having the Spirit (Pneuma mē echontes, 19) and then says but you … praying in the Holy Spirit. The second leg is 1 Corinthians 14:14–15, Jon’s main argument. Paul says if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful, and goes on: I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the mind also; I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the mind also (14:14–15; proseuxomai tō pneumati). He calls praying in a tongue praying with the spirit, and says the same of the speech in the verse before: in spirit he speaks mysteries (14:2). Ephesians 6:18 and Jude 20 say en Pneumati, “in the Spirit,” and Paul says he speaks in tongues more than any of them (14:18).

Whose spirit, and for whom. Jon reads Paul’s “my spirit prays” (1 Corinthians 14:14) as the believer’s own spirit, joined to the Holy Spirit when a person is born again. The texts say it in pieces. What is born of the Spirit is spirit (John 3:6). The one joined to the Lord is one spirit (1 Corinthians 6:17, hen pneuma estin, said of the Lord). Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit in you (6:19), and the Spirit of God lives in you (Romans 8:9, 8:11). And the Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God (8:16), which keeps the two in view. Paul writes that no one knows the things of a person except the spirit of the person that is in him; so also no one has known the things of God except the Spirit of God, and that we received the Spirit that is from God (1 Corinthians 2:11–12). Teaching on this is called union with Christ, and it is widely taught from 1 Corinthians 6:17 (Ligonier’s Tabletalk, for one). On the saints, Jon adds that Ephesians 6:18’s for all the saints is part of it, and Hebrews with it. The same verb of intercession is used of the Spirit and of Jesus: the Spirit itself pleads over us with groanings too deep for words … he pleads for the saints according to God (Romans 8:26–27; hyperentynchanei, entynchanei hyper hagiōn), Christ Jesus who also pleads for us (8:34), and he always lives to plead for them (Hebrews 7:25). The verb is five words in four verses in the New Testament (Acts 25:24, Romans 8:27, 8:34, 11:2, Hebrews 7:25), with Romans 8:26 the compound. Jon reads praying in the Spirit for the saints as joining that intercession. Jon does not say all praying in the Spirit is tongues: Paul separates praying with the spirit from praying with the mind and says he will do both (1 Corinthians 14:15), and Ephesians says that every believer has access … in one Spirit to the Father (2:18).

Red flag That praying in the Spirit in Ephesians 6:18 and Jude 20 includes praying in tongues. The grammar of 6:18, above, supports the praying as the manner of the action; it does not mention tongues, and no verse says what praying in the Spirit is. The texts for tongues are 1 Corinthians 14:14–15, Jude 20 with 14:4, and the paragraph above. Where gaps remain: (1) The phrases differ. Paul says my spirit prays (14:14, to pneuma mou) and pneumati (14:2, 14:15); Ephesians and Jude say en Pneumati, and Jude sets it against those not having the Spirit (19–20). Jon’s answer is that the believer’s spirit is joined to the Spirit. The nearest text, 1 Corinthians 6:17, says joined to the Lord, and Romans 8:16 has the Spirit witnessing with our spirit, which keeps the two apart. No verse says that the “my spirit” of 14:14 is that joined spirit; the reading joins them. (2) The shared verb is one link, and it can be read two ways. Heautous in Jude 20 can be reciprocal, “one another,” as heautois is at Colossians 3:13 and Ephesians 4:32, and Jude’s building is on your most holy faith, with the praying a second participle beside it, not said to be how the building is done. (3) The content, narrowed. Ephesians 6:18 is praying and requesting for all the saints, and intercession for the saints is what the Spirit does (Romans 8:26–27) and Christ does (Romans 8:34; Hebrews 7:25). What is still not stated is that tongues are how a believer joins it: in 1 Corinthians 14 they are speech to God, mysteries (14:2), blessing and thanks (14:16–17), and the wordless groanings of Romans 8:26 are not called tongues. (4) Ephesians uses en Pneumati widely, and Jon agrees it may be wider than he put it: access to the Father (2:18), the dwelling of God (2:22), revelation (3:5), and being filled, followed by speaking and singing (5:18–19). Access to the Father in one Spirit is how every believer prays, so praying in the Spirit at 6:18 may be all prayer led by the Spirit, and tongues one form of it, not the whole of its meaning. That is how the note states Jon’s reading. (5) The sword. The praying can hang on “stand,” with the whole armor, or on “receive,” with the sword; the Greek does not choose. Jon ties it to the sword because the sword is of the Spirit, the praying is in the Spirit, and the content of the prayer in 6:19 is the speaking of the word, as above. Both readings are Jon’s.

Free, and asked for — Jon’s reading. Jon says the gift is for everyone and free, so no one should try to earn it. Peter’s word is dōrea, “gift”: you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38), and the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off (2:39). When Simon tried to buy it, Peter said you thought the gift of God could be got through money (8:20). Paul asks the Galatians did you receive the Spirit by works of law, or by hearing with trust? (Galatians 3:2, and 3:5). And Jesus: how much more will the Father from heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him (Luke 11:13). The texts show it asked for and received by trust, and not paid for or earned.

What Jon holds, and what he does not. Jon does not claim that any believer has to speak in tongues. His reading of Paul is that Paul encourages it, mostly in private, and in the assembly only with an interpreter and with prophecy alongside it. The texts, in that order. It is not required of everyone: do all speak in tongues?, expecting no (1 Corinthians 12:30), and the Spirit divides the gifts to each one as he wills (12:11). It is encouraged: I want you all to speak in tongues (14:5), I thank God, I speak in tongues more than all of you (14:18), and do not forbid speaking in tongues (14:39). It is mostly for the one who prays: the one who speaks in a tongue does not speak to people but to God, for no one hears (14:2), builds himself up (14:4), and in the assembly with no interpreter, let him keep silent in the assembly, and speak to himself and to God (14:28). In the assembly it needs an interpreter: two or at most three, and in turn, and let one interpret (14:27), and let the one who speaks in a tongue pray that he may interpret (14:13); and prophecy goes beside it, because the one who prophesies speaks to people for building up and encouragement and comfort (14:3), the prophets speak two or three at a time with the others weighing it (14:29), and Paul’s closing instruction is both together: be zealous to prophesy, and do not forbid speaking in tongues (14:39). That Paul treats it as mostly private is Jon’s summary of these verses; what they say outright is that the assembly use depends on an interpretation and that the private use is to be done.

Why a gift like this — Jon’s reading. Jon’s take is that this is a wise way for God to supply miracles, though not the only way, and a gift to the humble and the submissive. It gives the tongue, and the control of it, over to God, and not understanding what is said makes room for humility and for admitting that one needs help to pray. His argument that this is a way God supplies miracles is 2 Timothy 1:6–8, set out above under “Stirring the gift”: the gift is to be fanned into flame, and the reason Paul gives is that God gave a spirit … of power (dynameōs, from dynamis), which Jon reads as miracle-working power, the sense the word has in Paul’s own uses of it: in power of signs and wonders (Romans 15:19), and the one who supplies you the Spirit and works powers among you (Galatians 3:5; epichorēgōn, “supplies,” and dynameis, “powers”). Among the gifts, workings of powers stand beside kinds of tongues in the same list (1 Corinthians 12:10). The texts he stands on: the Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know what to pray as we ought, but the Spirit itself pleads with groanings too deep for words (Romans 8:26); if I pray in a tongue my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful (1 Corinthians 14:14); and the body as the Spirit’s temple, joined to the Lord (6:17, 6:19), as above. On humility: God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble (James 4:6); God chose the weak things so that no flesh may boast before God (1 Corinthians 1:29); Paul’s speaking was in a showing of the Spirit and of power, so that your trust may not be in the wisdom of people but in the power of God (2:4–5); and power is perfected in weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9). On giving the tongue over: present your members to God as weapons of righteousness (Romans 6:13), and no one of people can tame the tongue (James 3:8). The person is the one who yields it: I will pray with the spirit (1 Corinthians 14:15), as under “Under the person’s control,” above.

Red flag That God gives this gift as a way to supply miracles, to the humble and submissive, by having the person give the tongue over. Jon’s argument for the first part is 2 Timothy 1:6–8, above: the gift is to be fanned into flame, because God gave a spirit of power, which he reads as miracle-working power, and Galatians 3:5 has God supplying the Spirit and working powers. Paul does not name the gift in 2 Timothy 1 (the Timothy flag above covers that), dynamis also means power in general (Romans 1:16; 2 Timothy 1:8), and 1 Corinthians 12:10 lists workings of powers and kinds of tongues as separate gifts. No verse says that tongues are how God supplies miracles. For the second part, Romans 8:26 gives the need and the help, and James 4:6 and 1 Corinthians 1:29 give God’s way with the humble and the weak; none says the gift goes only to them. Against it, or at least not for it: on Jon’s own reading Corinth had the gift and used it for display (13:1, 14:12), and Paul asks whether all speak in tongues (12:30). James 3:8, on the tongue, is taken up in the next paragraph. That the gift is for everyone is the stated half (Acts 2:39). The rest is Jon’s reading.

The power of the tongue — Jon’s reading. Jon adds that the Bible puts the power of a person in the tongue. Death and life are in the hand of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit (Proverbs 18:21; the Hebrew is be-yad lashon, literally “in the hand of the tongue”). James 3 says it at length: if anyone does not stumble in speech, he is a complete man, able to bridle the whole body (3:2); the tongue is a small member and boasts great things (3:5); the tongue is a fire, set among our members, staining the whole body (3:6); no one of people can tame the tongue (3:8); with it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse people made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing (3:9–10). Jon reads the gift of tongues as the answer to that: the one member nobody can tame is the one given over to God. He also reads the James of that letter as Jesus’ brother, and Solomon, whose proverb it is, as pointing to Jesus. Proverbs is the proverbs of Solomon, son of David, king of Israel (1:1), and Jesus is son of David (Matthew 1:1). Jesus says of himself, the queen of the south … came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and look, something greater than Solomon is here (Matthew 12:42; Luke 11:31). Paul calls Christ the wisdom of God (1 Corinthians 1:24), says he became wisdom for us from God (1:30), and says that in him are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, hidden (Colossians 2:3).

Red flag That the James of the letter is Jesus’ brother, that Solomon’s proverb is a witness to Jesus as the greatest wisdom, and that the gift of tongues is the answer to the untamable tongue. The letter calls its writer only James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ (1:1) and does not say he is Jesus’ brother. Elsewhere there is a James the brother of the Lord (Galatians 1:19), one of the pillars (2:9), named among Jesus’ brothers (Mark 6:3), who speaks at the council (Acts 15:13), and Jude calls himself brother of James (Jude 1); that these are the writer of the letter is the traditional view and is not stated in it. Jesus’ something greater than Solomon states the comparison; that the proverb is meant as a witness to him is Jon’s reading. And James 3:8 says nobody can tame the tongue and does not mention tongues. All three are Jon’s reading.

Jon’s own account. Jon says that about twenty years ago he heard of the gift, tried it, and asked God whether it was real. He thought to look up two words he found himself repeating a lot, rama and moso. As he tells it, rama turned out to be a Hebrew word for “lifted up,” which he took to be about Jesus, and moso turned out to be a bamboo, which he joined to the Greek rhizoō, “to root,” in rooted and grounded in love (Ephesians 3:17). A moso bamboo is said to put its strength into roots for years and then to grow faster than any other tree, and he took the five years as the number of grace. He counted the two together as a confirmation, and after twenty years says there is no doubt left in his mind. In his words: when I’m tired or struggling, this is the gift I reach for. What can be checked: Hebrew ramah is “height,” a high place, and the same spelling is “threw” at Exodus 15:1 (rama vayyam, “he threw into the sea”); the verb for “be lifted up” is rum. Moso is the name of a bamboo (Phyllostachys edulis) and is not a word in the Bible; the Greek rhizoō is in two verses, Ephesians 3:17 and Colossians 2:7, and Ephesians 3:16 says the strengthening there is with power through his Spirit in the inner person. A bamboo is a grass, not a tree. The recorded growth in a day is 119 cm for moso bamboo (Kyoto, 1956) and 121 cm for another bamboo, madake (1955), as the encyclopedia entries for the two give it. The telling that it spends four or five years rooting before it shoots up is a popular one, and gardeners’ accounts of the timing vary.

Red flag That words found in a tongue, which match real words, confirm that the gift is real, and that the bamboo and the number five carry the meaning Jon gives them. No verse offers that test. Scripture gives a test of the source, confessing Jesus (1 Corinthians 12:3; 1 John 4:2), and says of a tongue that no one understands it (14:2) and that the mind is unfruitful (14:14), so what was meant cannot be checked against the words. Moso is not in the Bible, and no verse says five is the number of grace; the note on Pergamum says the same of its counts. This is Jon’s testimony, set down as his.

Where this stops. Outside the sections marked as Jon’s reading, this note does not say whether the gift of tongues continues, or what anyone’s speaking in tongues today is. It does not say the book excludes it: Revelation is not about how an assembly meets, and its silence is not proof of anything. And it does not claim the likenesses above are quotations. They are shared words or shared situations, and each is as close as its line says.