According to Mark 16:17, speaking in tongues is one of the signs that are associated with believers. Paul names it in his letter to the Corinthians as one of the gifts of the Holy Sprit. In the fourteenth chapter where he valorises spiritual gifts as regards their relevance to the Christian community, he gives less importance to speaking in tongues saying that it would be much better for one to prophesy than for one to speak in tongues. Above all these, the apostle advises that we should make love our aim and aspiration for “if there are prophesies, they will be done away with; if tongues, they will fall silent” (1 Cor. 13:8) but love will last unto eternity. It is the perfection of all spiritual gift, and “once perfection comes all imperfect things will be done away with” (1Cor 13:9). So I would prefer to speak in the tongue of love than to speak in tongues. And what does it mean to speak in the tongue of love?
To answer this question, we first try to define what we mean by the tongue of love. The tongue of love is the language of God and the language of God is the Word of God and God has only one Word and that is love. The Word of God (which is identical with God – cf. John 1:1) that became flesh in Jesus is nothing but a personification of love. We can actually say that this love is the Spirit of God, His essence, and when He speaks, it is this Holy Spirit of His that communicates. We call the Sacred Scripture the Word of God and rightly so because though written by men, each word was written under the breath of the Holy Spirit. It was God who was speaking and the Holy Spirit inspired the human authors to put down in intelligible words the one Word of God. That is why, I think the Bible is that voluminous. Poor human beings with their limited faculties were trying to put down in human language the one-worded language of God. If God Himself were to write the Bible, the Bible would have been one little sheet with just one word on it – love.
How then does one speak in this tongue of God? We happen to have an example in the Scripture. It is narrated in the second chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. On the day of Pentecost, we are told, after spending 9 days in prayer and expectation in the Upper Room, the apostles received the Holy Spirit. First there was a sudden violent wind that filled the room in which they were. Then there was a big fire which separated into flames and rested on the head of each of them. The fire got into them and became the ‘gift of tongues’. I don’t think they were speaking in tongues in the normal understanding of the expression. There were not speaking intelligible or mysterious words. They were speaking in their everyday language, perhaps Aramaic or Greek. What made the difference was that their words were backed up with the Spirit of God which transformed those words into the tongue of love, for they were saying nothing other than the good news of love, the love of a God who became man and died a shameful death just to save us from sin and death by His raising to life. It is not therefore surprising that everyone there, regardless of region and language was able to understand what they were saying. The language of love is a universal language which everyone understands.
The illustration above was a miracle. It doesn’t happen ordinarily. But there is an ordinary and everyday way of speaking in the tongue of love. The tongue of love is spoken more in act than in words. It consists in loving the other as Jesus loves us. Self-denial is one of the principle character for that is exactly how Jesus showed His love for us – “He emptied Himself, taking the form of a slave, becoming human as we are; and being in every way like a human being, He was humbler yet, even to accepting death, death on a cross.”(Phil. 2:6-8) “No one can have greater love than to lay down his life for his friends.”(John 15:13). So speaking in the tongue involves a kind of dying to oneself God’s sake, and no one can claim to love the God he does not see if he does not love the brother he sees. (cf. 1 John 4:20). In practical terms, it means being patient with the other, not being jealous or boastful, not being rude, always ready to sacrifice rather than seek one’s advantage or even one’s legitimate rights, not taking offence or storing grievances, never rejoicing in wrong doing, being zealous for the cause of justice and truth, and ready to make allowances, to excuse the other (cf. 1 Cor. 13: 4-7). As I said, this is the language everyone can understand, it is the language that God speaks, it is the noblest of all aspiration and that is why I want to speak in this tongue. I invite you to aspire towards the same perfection for that is the ultimate purpose of our being.
