"Tongues" in the New Testament carries three distinct but related meanings. (1) Natural human languages — at Pentecost, the disciples spoke in recognizable foreign languages they had not learned, enabling people from every nation to hear the gospel in their own tongue (Acts 2:4–11). (2) A spiritual gift of prayer and praise — Paul distinguishes speaking in tongues for personal edification from its use in the congregation, where interpretation is required (1 Cor 14:2–5). (3) The tongue as the organ of speech — James warns that the tongue is "a fire, a world of unrighteousness" (Jas 3:6), capable of both blessing and cursing. The gift of tongues was a sign to unbelieving Israel (1 Cor 14:21–22, citing Isa 28:11–12) and a foretaste of the reversal of Babel — all nations united under the Spirit of God.
TONGUE, n. [Sax. tunge.] The organ of speech and taste in most vertebrate animals… Gift of tongues, the miraculous power of speaking languages not before learned, granted to the apostles on the day of Pentecost. This was one of the extraordinary gifts of the Holy Spirit in the primitive church. The exercise of the gift was regulated by the apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 14.
The doctrine of tongues has become one of the most divisive in contemporary Christianity. Cessationists argue the gift ended with the apostolic age; charismatics make it a required sign of Spirit baptism. Both distort Scripture. The cessationist dismisses an ongoing gift that Paul nowhere says will cease before Christ's return. The charismatic who demands tongues as evidence of salvation creates a two-tiered Christianity Paul explicitly rejected (1 Cor 12:30). Worse still, the practice is often untethered from Paul's careful order: interpretation required in gatherings, no more than three speakers, and everything done decently and in order (1 Cor 14:27–40). The spectacular has displaced the orderly.
Greek: γλῶσσα (glōssa) — tongue, language, unusual speech
→ glossolalia: glōssa + lalein ("to speak")
→ glossary, glossary note (a marginal explanation of an unusual word)
Latin: lingua — tongue, language
→ bilingual, linguistics, linguist
PIE *dṇǵʰwéh₂s ("tongue") — one of the oldest reconstructed words
→ Sanskrit: jihvā; Latin: lingua; Gothic: tuggō; Old English: tunge
At Pentecost (Acts 2): the reversal of Babel (Gen 11)
Babel: one language divided into many in judgment
Pentecost: many languages unified in the Spirit for mission
• Acts 2:4 — "And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance."
• 1 Corinthians 14:2 — "For one who speaks in a tongue speaks not to men but to God; for no one understands him, but he utters mysteries in the Spirit."
• 1 Corinthians 12:30 — "Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret?" [implied: no]
• James 3:6 — "The tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness…setting on fire the entire course of life."
• Isaiah 28:11 — "By people of strange lips and with a foreign tongue the LORD will speak to this people."