Truth about tongues

W.A. Chriswell, an American pastor said the following on tongues – “In the long story of the church, after the days of the Apostles, whenever the phenomenon of glossolalia has appeared it has always been looked upon as heresy.”

• The kind of tongues we see today are largely confined to the 19th – 20th century.
• Early churches have universally repudiated it as a doctrine, having never accepted it.
• Glossolalia practiced today is a counterfeit that fails to meet the New Testament description of tongues.
• Unlike modern tongues, which are learned behaviors, the New Testament gift of tongues involved a supernatural ability to be able to speak in foreign languages that the speaker had not learned before.
• Even respectable theologians (like Norman Geisler) would agree that those who believe in modern tongues also acknowledge that unsaved people are experiencing the supposed gift.
• A further problem with tongues speaking, as manifested today, is that it is a pagan / heathen concept. At its core, it is a merger of Christianity and paganism. It has been said that Tibetan monks speak in tongues, certain tribes of Eskimos speak in tongues, the whirling dervishes of Persia speak in tongues, and even one of the basic tenets of Mormonism speaks in tongues.