How do you start speaking in tongues?

Answer 1

Different pentecostal denominations have different beliefs on this:

• some believe it is spontaneous when you are first saved (if you can't speak in tongues you must never have been saved according to these denominations)
• some believe it is spontaneous when you receive water baptism
• some believe it requires anointing and laying on of hands by the pastor and/or the church elders
• some believe you must pray yourself to receive it
• etc.

Many nonreligious people say all you need to do is to start practicing babbling nonsense words, as that is often all it seems to be.

Answer 2

Throughout the Old Testament and during Jesus' ministry, God gave special miraculous manifestations of the Holy Spirit in certain places and at certain times to help the community of believers guide themselves in the truth. John the Baptist prophesied that the Messiah, Jesus, would baptise Christians with the Holy Spirit. In Jesus' final days with the disciples, He promised them that when he left them, His Father would send them (and all New Testament Christians) another Counselor to be with them forever-the Spirit of truth (John 14:16). This promised was fulfilled for the disciples at Pentecost, when all of them were filled with the Holy Spirit. The outward sign of the indwelling of the Spirit manifested itself in the speaking of tongues, one of the many spiritual gifts (1 Corinthians 14: Acts 2:4). The various gifts of the Spirit, some natural, some supernatural, are enumerated in verse 8-10 and include

• Wisdom
• Knowledge
• Faith
• Healing
• Miracles
• Prophecy
• Tongues
• Interpretation of tongues

Today, thousands of people are routinely being "slain in the Spirit" in the name of a fashionable and palpable demonstration of Holy Ghost power. Pro Pentecostal resources such as the Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements (DPCM)notes "An entire battalion of Scripture proof texts is enlisted to support the legitimacy of the phenomenon, although Scripture plainly offers no support for the phenomenon as something to be expected in normal Christian life" (p. 790). According to the DPCM, "in addition to God , the source of the experience can be a purely human response to autosuggestion, group peer pressure, or simply a desire the experience the phenomenon (p. 789).

With regards to what the Bible actually says about tongues, Acts chapter 2:6 says "Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language." What language or "tongues" were the disciples speaking in and who could understand them? According to Acts 2: 9-11:

• Parthians
• Medes
• Elamites
• Dwellers in Mesopotamia
• Dwellers inJudea
• Dwellers in Cappadocia
• Dwellers in Pontus
• Dwellers in Asia
• Phrygia
• Pamphylia
• Egypt
• Libya
• Cyrene
• Strangers in Rome
• Jews
• Proselytes
• Cretes
• Arabians

"We do hear them speak in our tongues (language) the wonderful works of God" )Acts 2:11).

Another way these passages have been interpreted is that the disciples were speaking their normal language but that somehow these foreigners could yet understand what they were saying. Either way, there is nothing biblical about being slain in the Spirit (which is how it is described today) and then babbling gibberish that nobody can understand nor interpret.