Where did the modern Tongues movement come from historically?

Summary: This is a study that shows that this movement does have a history reaching back into the pre-New Testament history, but it was in error and even in the New Testament, Paul fought against it.

There is a thinking among Pentecostals and Charismatics and other tongues speakers that because what they are doing is mentioned (supposedly) in the Bible, that we should set reason on a shelf and submit to their interpretation of things. Unfortunately, the typical church speaking in tongues also has various points of divergence from the Bible, usually not just in tongues.

All of this is not new, but has a history. We need to place tongues speaking squarely where it belongs within an historical context.

Tongues is not an exclusively Christian phenomena

One of the problems that many people fall into with tongues is that they think because it is mentioned in the Bible, there cannot be anything wrong with any kind of tongues. This is just plain wrong. We consider that many false religions and heretical sects of Christianity have churches, temples, baptisms, preachers, missionaries, Sunday School, offerings, and a host of other things that would supposedly be "just like in the Bible": But for example, the Mormons have baptisms, but the living members of their church are baptized for dead people. This is similar to the Bible (in that people get wet), but their beliefs and practices make it completely wrong. The Jehovah's Witnesses go out door to door "evangelizing" but they do not carry the true gospel.

From a secular point of view, tongues is very common in many non-Christian religions. Primitive cultures such as in Africa and the South Pacific have witch doctors and such that speak in tongues. Modern anthropology books document this in detail. In eastern religions tongues is a part of some of their rites. Mormons speak in tongues yet we would disagree that they are saved if they follow the mainline Mormon doctrine. Why or how could the Holy Spirit give them tongues if their doctrine is wrong? How could the Holy Spirit give religious groups tongues that deny the deity of Christ? In point of fact, many mentally insane enter trances that cause them to produce something very similar to tongues. Within witchcraft, the use of drugs to put the person into contact with the "spirit world" (we would hold that it is with demons) also produce states wherein tongues can occur.

In my own investigations, I found a reference to an Acadian religious minister speaking in tongues all the way back in 1100 B.C. Many other religions in the ancient world had something that was similar or identical to tongues in their religious worship.

Our point is this, if all of these peoples of various and diverse religions (and religions that are not Christianity) can speak in tongues, then the phenomena by itself should not make us conclude that it is from God. Quite the contrary, we see religions involving demons and the deception of demons (like Mormonism, Catholicism, animistic religions, etc), and we must conclude that it is very possible any tongues speaking COULD BE of demonic source. Studying the circumstances to see if telltale signs would reveal sinful practices involved would be conclusive in itself that it is demonic and not of God. See our study on this here.

Tongues will cease

Paul clearly states that tongues will cease.  Tongues have ceased

The Problem of Tongues in Acts 2 and Corinth

We would mention that there seems to be a very great difference in "what was tongues" in Acts 2 and Corinthian 14. In Acts 2, it appears from the narrative that God gave the gift of tongues to specific ministers present, and these ministers spoke in foreign languages that they did not previously understand nor could they have naturally spoken in those languages. The gift of tongues here in Acts 2 was one of a missionary and evangelistic nature, whereby God empowered these men to preach the gospel message in foreign languages. These languages are clearly listed, so this is not up for discussion.

In 1 Corinthians, we find something different when tongues is discussed. First of all, we find that the setting is not missionary and evangelistic, but in the context of a local church service. We also note that in no uncertain terms, the tone of Paul's letter regarding tongues is not that Paul is commending the Corinthians because they are speaking in tongues, but rather Paul understands the tongues speaking to be a certain and grave problem. This concords with our general understanding of the Corinthian Church. It was not the most spiritual of the New Testament churches, but the most carnal!

The tongues speakers are apparently Christians who were foreigners who came into their services and wished to preach, teach, or exhort, but could not speak the language of the people of that church. Therefore, there is a certain removal of the miraculous that we see in Acts 2, and here the tongues speaker must be paired with "an interpreter". Somebody who understands both languages and can translate. The miraculous has been downgraded from Acts 2, to a simple foreign visiting Christian in 1 Corinthians 14.

This needs to be understood, that Paul's view towards tongues with the Corinthians, is that their particular practice of it was faulty, and a spiritual problem. In fact, we can summarize what Paul teaches about the entire situation in 1 Corinthians as Paul giving spiritual principles to nail down what is of God and what is not of God in regard to the church services and tongues in specific.

History of the City of Corinth

To truly understand what was going on at Corinth, we need to understand the culture setting and history of Corinth. Corinth was founded before the time of Christ. It was a small city on a hill, that had a religious cult formed around it. This cult was the cult of Aphrodite, the goddess of love. Among various perverse teachings, they basically denied the concept of man and woman marrying and be faithful one to another. Their concept was that love (for them this is base sex) should be completely free from such restrictions. They undermined the family, the husband - wife relationship, and various other things. In their temple in Corinth, it is commented by writers of the time that they have 1,000 priestesses. This we understand in the following, if love (sex) is the center of your religion, then the practice of your religion should be sexual. Those who came to "worship" would pick a priestess, and go into a chamber dropping their "offering" into a box, and then have sex with the priestess. There were also male priests, and this followed the typical setup of the ancients, these were homosexual priests, having sex men with men, and not specifically men priests for women.

To get a clearer understanding of the situation, the best I can estimate is that at this time (100 years before Christ), there were 4,000 people living in Corinth. It was a seaport. The camel routes brought camel trains from Asia minor to the Mediterranean crossing through Corinth, and on down further south from them. There is a narrow strip of land that separates the Corinthian gulf on the north of them from the Saronic Gulf on the south. They charged the ships that wanted a short cut through there, and they placed the ships on logs and rolled them across this narrow strip of land about 3 miles across. So Corinth was a city of sailors, and this sex religion was a highlight of their journey.

The Aphrodite temple was set on a hill over seeing the city. Each evening at dusk, these priestesses would gather and they would ring a gong and a cymbal (1 Corinthian 13:1 "sounding brass and tinkling cymbal"). This was the call to worship, or the call to "love" (sex). Paul contrasts this pagan custom supposedly being "love" with real love.

If we estimate that Corinth had 4,000 at this time (100 B.C.), and 1,000 of them being the temple priests, then that means that there were probably at most 1,000 men, and 1,000 women, and 1,000 children. In ancient times it was more likely that there were a half dozen children per family and not one. But then these 1,000 priestesses would descend "looking for men", and the situation was that the men of Corinth were probably outnumbered by these priestesses

Another interesting aside is that the custom of women using a head covering was very important in Corinth. Those in the Aphrodite cult (and the religions that followed it) caused a general chaos in the city. Decent women (Christian or not) that were faithful to their mates had to distinguish themselves from these "priestesses" that visitors and others, so they covered their heads with a veil so as to make a distinction between them and the Aphrodite priestesses. A custom that probably continued until Paul's time.

We have a footnote that around 150 B.C. the Roman Senate tried to pass a law making the Aphrodite cult illegal, because it undermined the family and society. They didn't pass it though, but around 42 B.C. they got so fed up with them that the Romans carried off most of Corinth and dispersed the city and the Aphrodite cult. But they came back.

The Mystery Religions

After this strong arm handling of the Aphrodite cult by the Romans, many of these religious worshippers returned to Corinth and resettled there. This time they changed their religion somewhat so as not to get the ire of the Romans raised up again. Basically there were about four mystery religions (better keep some thing secret so that you don't get carried off again). Although at first they were all different, they were founded on the same principles of the Aphrodite cult, and with time they began to copy each other and all merged into the same beliefs and practices.