What does it mean to "speak in tongues"?

Sister Maxine  
This Random Nun Clip is brought to you by A Nun's Life Ministry. Well, Sister, we've got some questions that have come in. Let's take our first one.

Sister Julie  
That sounds good.

Sister Maxine  
Okay, came in from Amelia in Nebraska. And Amelia writes, "The Bible talks about speaking in tongues. But how would you know if you're doing it?"

Sister Julie  
Amelia, thank you so much for the question. Speaking in tongues, this is fundamentally a gift of the Holy Spirit. And I think we get the best articulation in Scripture in Paul's first letter to the Corinthians, chapter 12. I think that's a very good place to start.

Sister Maxine  
In fact, I pulled it up,

Sister Julie  
Sister, you are just so, so holy.

Sister Maxine  
And I looked especially at verses 4 to 10. And that passage reads, "There are different kinds of spiritual gifts, but the same Spirit. There are different forms of service, but the same God, different workings with the same God who produces all of them and everyone. To each individual, the manifestation of the Spirit is given for some benefit. To one is given through the Spirit the expression of wisdom, to another, the expression of knowledge, according to the same spirit. To another faith by the same spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one spirit, to another mighty deeds, to another prophecy, to another discernment of spirits, to another varieties of tongues, and to another interpretation of tongues." So here, St. Paul is talking about diversity and unity within the church in Christ.

Sister Julie  
And essential to that diversity and unity are these different kinds of gifts. And again, one, of course, is the ability to be able to speak in tongues. I think what is most powerful in this piece is, because it is meant to build up the body of Christ, the community, is that these are gifts that are certainly personally meaningful, but also, there's the sense that they are really meant for the community. And in the early church, one didn't understand oneself outside of community. When Jesus talks about that a person can be saved, Jesus was talking about a community being saved, not just this or that individual person.

Sister Maxine  
And that it took the whole community to do that. And I think that's no coincidence that in this passage, we have a variety of tongues. And then we also have interpretation of tongues.

Sister Julie  
Yeah, that's the other side of the coin. Speaking in tongues is basically speaking in a language that is generally unintelligible to most people. And so that's why another gift of the Spirit is the interpretation of speaking in tongues.

Sister Maxine  
So that God's message can be understood.

Sister Julie  
Right. Like, it's really cool, I think, when you get a gift of the Holy Spirit, and it manifests itself--like speaking in tongues--you're like, whoo, that's like, awesome! Awesome God stuff is happening right now! But even more awesome is if you can actually understand what the message is that God's communicating in the midst of that.

Sister Maxine  
Speaking in tongues might be different, for example--like if in my prayer life, I might just be trying to find words for God. That's my own struggling with prayer versus necessarily speaking in tongues. But how would you know that? Because I think Amelia is like, well, you can't just assume that you would know that you're speaking in tongues. Somebody listening to you probably would.

Sister Julie  
I think unintelligibility isn't necessarily a criteria for it to be speaking in tongues. Having the two associated with one another, as Paul does--the interpretation along with the speaking in tongues--is a critical piece here. Yonka mentions, in the chat room, there's another passage where St. Paul says there is always to be an interpreter when they're speaking in tongues; otherwise it's useless. While it may be personally edifying to the person experiencing it, it doesn't have more meaning beyond that--beyond that, "Wow, really cool God moment just happened." And again, that's good in and of itself. But the purpose of speaking in tongues really is that notion that a message from God is being delivered here for the community.

Sister Maxine  
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