It is written:
“As the Scriptures say, “Using those who speak a different language and using the lips of foreigners, I will speak to these people. But even then, they will not obey me.” This is what the Lord says.” (1 Corinthians 14:21)
The Bible gift of tongues was the ability of a person to speak fluently in another human language without having previously studied such.
Is this what takes place in modern day charismatic churches? Consider the following thorough research:
“As it has been shown, Pentecostal and Charismatic claims of xenoglossia has heightened the interest in and acceptance of the glossolalia phenomenon. But is modern glossolalia actual and authentic foreign language( s), or is it just an artificial imitation? All linguistic studies of the phenomenon to date, of which this writer is aware, find no evidence that glossolalia has the fundamental form, features, or function of any human language extant or extinct, although there are superficial similarities. Consider the following statements of historians, linguists, anthropologists, psychologists, and sociologists which support this conclusion. Sometime in the early 1960s, Charismatic author Sherrill conducted his own linguistic experiment by submitting forty tape-recorded samples of glossolalia to a group of six linguists (i.e., two specialists in modern languages, three in ancient languages, and one expert in the study of language structure) in the hope that one of them would recognize a language. Unfortunately, not one language was identified. Although they identified some language-like patterns.[ 473] A foremost linguist and anthropologist, Eugene A. Nida, associated with the American Bible Society and the Wycliffe Bible Translators, along with a group of other linguists, analyzed tape-recorded samples of Pentecostal and Charismatic glossolalia. Nida concluded that the tape-recording samples of tongues speaking that he examined bore no resemblance to any actual language that has ever been treated by linguists.[ 474] Likewise, William Welmers, formerly a professor of African languages at UCLA, came to the same conclusion. He stated that, “From the viewpoint of a Christian linguist the modern phenomenon of glossolalia would appear to be a linguistic fraud and monstrosity.”[ 475] Samarin, professor of anthropology and linguistics at the University of Toronto, who studied the phenomenon over a period of five years in at least five different countries, stated that: A case of xenoglossia could be proven real only if, on the one hand, it were demonstrated that the speaker could not possibly have learned in any normal way and, on the other hand, that the language spoken was incontestably a real one. Fulfilling these requirements is difficult, hence the number of cases of xenoglossia is negligible or nil, depending of how much credibility one attributes to the investigations. It is extremely doubtful that the alleged cases of xenoglossia among charismatics are real. Any time one attempts to verify them he finds that the stories have been greatly distorted or that the ‘witnesses’ turn out to be incompetent or unreliable from a linguistic point of view. . . . There is no mystery about glossolalia. Tape-recorded samples are easy to obtain and to analyze. They always turn out to be the same thing: strings of syllables, made up of sounds taken from among all those that the speaker knows, put together more or less haphazardly but which nevertheless emerge as word-like and sentence-like units because of realistic, language-like rhythm and melody. Glossolalia is indeed like language in some ways, but this is only because the speaker (unconsciously) wants it to be like language. Yet in spite of superficial similarities, glossolalia is fundamentally not language. All specimens of glossolalia that have ever been studied have produced no features that would even suggest that they reflect some kind of communicative system. This would also mean that contrary to common belief, it has never been scientifically demonstrated that xenoglossia occurs among Pentecostals.[ 476] Likewise, sociologists Malony, Lovekin, and others have arrived at the same basic conclusion.[ 477] Historians Anderson and Williams citing various linguistic studies also concluded that tongues-speaking is not any identifiable human language.[ 478] Hence, the consensus of the scientific studies of the phenomenon to date finds no evidence that the Pentecostal and Charismatic glossolalia is any human language extant or extinct. Furthermore, when the syllable patterns that make up instances of glossolalia are analyzed regarding the use and organization of consonants, vowels, and other phonetic features, they show a significant similarity to the tongues-speaker’s native language. Thus, while the glossolalia utterance of people from England, Russia, and Brazil, all sound quite different from each other, nevertheless, they resemble the English, Russian, and Portuguese languages of the native speakers, respectively. Concerning this issue Samarin stated that, “The explanation for this similarity, to put it simply, is that . . . [the tongues-speaker] is ‘doing what comes naturally’! In other words, he and every other creator of extemporaneous pseudolanguage tend to use what is common in his native language.”[ 479]” (James O’Loughlin, The Truth About Speaking In Tongues: An Examination Of The Pentecostal And Charismatic Doctrine And Experience-From Word Of Faith To Faith In The Word, 4353-4399 (Kindle Edition); Fort Mill, SC; Veritas International Institute)
My friends, what is practiced in charismatic churches in our day and age is very far from biblical Christianity. Why don’t we return together to the Word of God?
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