Speaking in Tongues - Right or Wrong?

The email was entitled "Edify Yourself Through Prayer" by Dr. Frederick K.C. Price. Here are some of my favorite quotes from the original email:

"... building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit is praying by the spirit - not your mind or your head. Any time you pray with your head, it is going to be predicated on your knowledge of the circumstances. I can only pray up to my knowledge of the situation, but the Holy Spirit knows every situation. If I will let Him give my spirit the information, my spirit will pray it out so that God can answer it back in the earth realm. This is the highest kind of prayer, and we need to edify ourselves."

"When I pray over the food at the dinner table, I pray in English so everyone around me will be in agreement that the food is not going to harm us. In times such as this, you pray in English, but the true praying - whereby you build yourself up on your most holy faith as Jude 20 says - is praying with other tongues, praying in the Holy Spirit. "

"In the Book of Hebrews, the writer tells us that God is the Father of spirits (Heb. 12:9). It does not say He is the Father of flesh. He is the Father of spirits. He wants to talk to His spirit children, and He has given us a language by which we can talk to Him, which is praying - literally speaking with other tongues. "

First of all, let me start by saying that I am not convinced of Price's sound biblical knowledge. Feel free to form your own opinions.

Concerning the 1st Quote - If God is all powerful, and if God already has the information that people need to pray to Him, then why would He need us to give Him this information again? Can He not give to us or do for others whatever His will is, whether we ask for it or not? This goes along the notion that anything we speak with our mouth will be given to us. The word of faith movement.

If we ask God for something, and that something looks so great but would end up being our death, should He give it to us? Simply because we spoke it? God knows all possible endings, he knows what He will give us, and speaking the things we want will not automatically change his mind.

Concerning the 2nd and 3rd Quote - God created man of flesh and spoke to Adam in the garden, so why would He refuse to speak to us now? If God only wants to talk to his children in spirit, then why pray over our meal in English, it would mean nothing to God, and He would have no reason to honor it.

Speaking in tongues is a large part of most Word of Faith churches. While they do pray in tongues, most of their "Name it and claim it" practices are done in their natural language. Wouldn't this mean that they cannot claim anything that they are speaking because they are not speaking in the spirit?

And about his quote of Jude 20 (& 21), it actually states:
"But you, dear friends, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, expecting the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ for eternal life." (Homan CSB Version). After searching through many different versions including the NIV and the King James Version, Jude 20 does not mention tongues whatsoever - Price inserted that himself and made it look like a quote from the bible.

Back to the first quote, the part that says "praying in the Holy Spirit is praying by the spirit - not your mind or your head" - God never asks us to leave our minds behind to pray or receive information. In fact, the Bible tells us to "prove all things and hold fast to that which is good (1st Thessalonians 5:21). Proving things and holding them to the light of the Bible to decide if they are true takes thought, it takes our minds (even though the mind is simply flesh). Emptying one's mind to receive information is a New Age practice. To be more "spiritual", people clear their mind and allow their "angels" to speak to them. Unfortunately, this act of spirituality has nothing to do with God or his kingdom. Emptying our minds to receive information and to pray seems very close to this New Age practice.

9. "This, then, is how you should pray:
" 'Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
10. your kingdom come,
your will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.
11. Give us today our daily bread.
12. Forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
13. And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one.

Speaking in tongues is discussed in the bible, especially in Corinthians.

1 Corinthians 14:4 says:
He who speaks in a tongue edifies himself, but he who prophesies edifies the church. (NIV)

1 Corinthians 14:14-15:
14. For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful. 15. So what shall I do? I will pray with my spirit, but I will also pray with my mind; I will sing with my spirit, but I will also sing with my mind. (NIV)

Perhaps my judgement is not sound, but it seems to me that 1 Corinthians 14:14-15 is saying that we should also pray with our minds. It doesn't seem to make a separation here, it is not saying to leave our mind and pray only with our spirit - it incorporates both.

2:1 Now when the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place.
2:2 Suddenly a sound like a violent wind blowing came from heaven
and filled the entire house where they were sitting. 2:3 And tongues spreading out like a fire
appeared to them and came to rest on each one of them.
2:4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit,
and they began to speak in other languages as the Spirit enabled them.

2:5 Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven residing in Jerusalem.
2:6 When this sound occurred, a crowd gathered and was in confusion,
because each one heard them speaking in his own language.
2:7 Completely baffled, they said, "Aren't all these who are speaking Galileans?
2:8 And how is it that each one of us hears them in our own native language?
2:9 Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia,
Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and the province of Asia,
2:10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene,
and visitors from Rome, 2:11 both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs -
we hear them speaking in our own languages about the great deeds God has done!"

We often see Acts 2:4 recited as a reason why all believers should speak in tongues. But this verse is only a small part of a much larger picture. These verses together clearly state that tongues are the ability to speak a language that is not your own, and that tongues were used to reach people who could not otherwise understand! Never take one verse as proof of anything - you need to take the entire context of the bible into account, and see what the verses around the one in question have to say. Otherwise, you can be misled.

Even if we could make the argument that tongues as they are practiced today are real, that still doesn't mean that all believers will have that gift. 1 Corinthians 12:7 - 11 states:

12:7 To each person the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the benefit of all.
12:8 For one person is given through the Spirit the message of wisdom,
and another the message of knowledge according to the same Spirit,
12:9 to another faith by the same Spirit, and to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit,
12:10 to another performance of miracles, to another prophecy,
and to another discernment of spirits, to another different kinds of tongues,
and to another the interpretation of tongues.
12:11 It is one and the same Spirit, distributing as he decides to each person,
who produces all these things.

I can't say exactly where I stand on whether tongues (as spiritual communication) are real or not. While attending the Word of Faith church, I too spoke in tongues when told, but I never understood it. I don't mean that I didn't understand what I was saying, I mean that I did not feel a spiritual pull to do it, that I did not understand why I should do it, and in fact I felt pressure from the people around me to speak in tongues. Some people may think that I am not a true Christian because of this, but they don't know my heart, God does.

When Jesus was asked by His disciples how they should pray, He did not say in tongues, and He did not say by the Spirit. In their natural language He gave them the Lord's Prayer (above - Christ's Answer When Asked by His Disciples How They Should Pray).

I have heard apologetics teachers speak about tongues as a means other than "communicating spiritually". One belief is that the speaker using tongues was actually speaking another language, one they did not know, and was reaching people who otherwise could not understand what they were saying. This is the belief I lean towards, and one that makes sense considering the large numbers of people the apostles were preaching to and the diverse languages in the area at that time.