Is Speaking in Tongues Biblical? Our Honest Take

A pastor pulls a college kid on stage, lays hands on him, tells him to "speak the holy language," and when nothing comes out, tells him his faith is weak.

August 19, 2026

Show Description

A pastor pulls a college kid on stage, lays hands on him, tells him to "speak the holy language," and when nothing comes out, tells him his faith is weak. That's the true story that opens a recent Dial In Ministries episode on tongues. We're responding to their episode . . . and we agree with more of it than you'd expect.


ABOUT THE EPISODE:
Jonny Ardavanis and Hank Bowen make a solid biblical case that tongues in Acts and 1 Corinthians means real human languages, not gibberish or glossolalia in the ecstatic-speech sense, and that "tongues of angels" in 1 Corinthians 13 is rhetorical, not literal. We agree with them on both.


Where we split: they're arguing from a cessationist frame — that the sign gifts of the Holy Spirit ceased with the apostles. We're continuationists and believe the gift of tongues is still active in the church today. We'll discuss where we agree and disagree on the exegesis, and why we land in a different place on whether spiritual gifts like this one continue.

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