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Tongues of Angels, Corinthians and St Paul

August 6th, 2006 by Stephen

Someone wrote to me:
Tongues is not used anywhere in the New Testament with any meaning other than as a language. Paul was given the gift to speak in many languages because he was being used as a witness before the New Testament was written.
This does not fit very well with interpretations of certain accounts in Acts and 1 Corinthians in particular. I think the thrust of Paul’s argument in 1 Corinthians is that he thanks God that he prays in tongues more then any of the Corinthians. Paul is saying to these men who thought themselves so spiritual that he is more spiritual then they! Now this is hardly polite, but Paul often uses sarcasm to make his points, and I think we can assume that he was correct in his assertion.
Also…
Paul said that there were tongues of men AND OF ANGELS. 1 Cor. 13:1. Clearly tongues are not for people to hear alone, as some will be spoken in angelic language. “UNKNOWN” tongues.
I agree that some tongues will remain untranslated, but it is a little tenuous an argument to say these are angelic tongues. Paul says “if I speak in unknown tongues, or even the tongues of angels.” He does not say that he does speak in the tongues of angels, but only that even if he did speak in the tongues of angels, without love he would be making only sounds. I cannot say categorically that tongues (true tongues at least) are not angelic in origin, but I do wonder whether angels really need spoken language, and if they do need it, I wonder why they need more then one.
1 Cor. 14:2 says that tongues aside from an interpretation which accompanies some tongues are for God alone to hear. No man understands him when a man speaks in these tongues. No man.

With one or two exceptions, so we are led to believe.

On that point, I should note that I disbelieve (or treat with caution) all “friend of a friend” stories I hear, so I have filtered out many “true stories” regarding tongues, but I know of one case of a Polish girl who spoke in tongues in English. Very interestingly the words she spoke were of prayer and praise to God.

I shall not recount details of this case as in so doing it will become to readers a “friend of a friend” story. My brother used to have a recording of this as an mp3 file. I shall see if I can locate it.

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One Response to “Tongues of Angels, Corinthians and St Paul”

  1. on 20 Oct 2008 at 6:26 pm1 Chip Crosby

    You can hear this recording of a little Polish girl speaking in tongues in English at chipcrosby.com. I am a professor teaching spiritual gifts and ministries at Life Pacific College, Foursquare’s Bible college.

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