I Speak in Tongues — The Lie That Changed Modern Christianity

A Biblical and Historical Investigation by Shadai Perez, published by SP7 Studios. Read the complete book free: download the PDF.

Is speaking in tongues biblical?

Is the gift of tongues from God? Is it what most people today understand it to be? This book takes the question back to its source: what the Bible actually describes when it speaks of tongues, where the gift first appeared, what purpose it served, and what rules the apostles gave for its use — then follows twenty centuries of church history to explain how the modern phenomenon arose. This is not a book against the gifts of the Holy Spirit. God has not retired: He still heals, still gives preachers and teachers, still distributes every gift of 1 Corinthians 12 as He wills. The book examines a counterfeit that borrowed the name of a genuine gift.

What the Bible describes

At Pentecost in Acts 2, unlearned Galileans spoke real human languages — Parthian, Median, Elamite, Latin, Arabic and more — verified in real time by native speakers. The Greek word glossa means language; Luke uses it interchangeably with dialektos, dialect. Paul's rules in 1 Corinthians 14 are concrete: two or three speakers at most, each in turn, always interpreted, silence without an interpreter, the speaker in full control, everything done decently and in order — for God is not the author of confusion but of peace.

From Pentecost to Topeka: the history of glossolalia

If ecstatic tongues had been normal Christian devotion, history would show it. Instead the early church fathers fall silent on the practice; Chrysostom and Augustine say plainly the gift had ceased in their day; and the scattered exceptions — Montanists, Camisards, Shakers, Irvingites — were judged to be in error. The modern movement began on January 1, 1901 in Topeka, Kansas, when Agnes Ozman spoke in "tongues" at Charles Parham's Bethel Bible School. Claimed as missionary languages, the practice failed on the mission field and was redefined as a "heavenly language." Azusa Street (1906) carried it around the world; the Charismatic renewal (1960) and Third Wave (1980s) carried it into nearly every denomination; Toronto, Brownsville, and Lakeland followed. Linguists who analyzed recorded glossolalia — most extensively William Samarin — found it is not language.

What the book covers

  1. Introduction: The Question
  2. Babel: Where Languages Began
  3. Pentecost: The Gift Is Given (Acts 2)
  4. Excursus: What Does "Prophesy" Mean?
  5. The Other Instances of Tongues in Acts
  6. Corinth: The City and the Problem Church
  7. One Spirit, Many Gifts (1 Corinthians 12)
  8. Love Above Every Gift (1 Corinthians 13)
  9. Intelligibility and Order (1 Corinthians 14)
  10. The Biblical Portrait: What the Evidence Yields
  11. Tongues in Church History
  12. What Linguistics Found
  13. Ecstatic Experience: Eastern Practice and Modern Revivalism
  14. Other Commonly Cited Passages
  15. The Private Prayer Language Examined
  16. Answering the Arguments: What People Say in Religious Circles
  17. The Strategy of the Counterfeit
  18. Testing the Spirits: A Biblical Framework
  19. Conclusion — plus a Scripture index, a timeline of the modern movement, and full sources

If tongues has been part of your experience

Nothing in this book questions your sincerity, and nothing says what you felt was fake. The question it asks is gentler and more important: what was the source? Scripture invites every believer to test everything and hold fast what is good — and nothing real about God is ever lost by testing.

Download the complete book free: I Speak in Tongues (PDF, 75 pages) — free to read, free to share. Also available in an audio-friendly edition at ispeakintongues.com.