18 - Understanding Biblical Tongues

Well, welcome back to the Striving for Eternity Academy's School of Systematic Theology. We are going through our lessons in systematic theology. As we go through our academy, we want to first off welcome some new students with us who have enrolled.

We are glad that you are here. We are going through, we have just actually finished up really, some lessons on the ministry of the Holy Spirit. And this week, we are going to deal with a somewhat controversial issue that often comes up when discussing the ministry of the Holy Spirit.

We hope to finish it up this week. Who am I fooling? We'll probably finish it up next week. But we're going to go into, because what we're probably going to do next week is formulating some questions that you end up having as you listen through this week's class and you contact us this week and as you do that, we are going to take those responses and try to answer any of those questions.

You can contact us, so write this down so you know where to email us, but it's academy at strivingforeternity .org. Academy at strivingforeternity .org. And you can email us there. If you have questions, write them down.

Let us know what those questions are and we're going to look to answer those next week because I kind of think there may be some questions that you're going to have. If you are a student of the academy, I hope that you have your syllabus out.

You can get that. If you don't have a syllabus, you can get it from us on the website right about there, which you can go and check out the new website. Got a brand new website. It's looking really sharp.

Still going to be adding a whole lot of new things coming up, but you can go to the academy page and you can look to enroll and with that, you'll be able to get the syllabus. And when you have the syllabus, you will have a whole lot of notes that will be there at your fingertips.

So, but as we go through today's lesson, I want to caution. I kind of did this last class. I want to do it again this class just because these issues we're dealing with could be controversial to some.

Not to me. I'm very clear on them, but if you don't agree with me, then you may not be so clear. That's a joke. Put those weapons down. I see you. We got some rowdy students, I'll tell you. But anyway, what we would like to do is we'd like you to contact us either on Facebook or at our email and let us know your questions, that you have either questions where you disagree with us or questions that someone has asked you, which may mean you want to practice trying out some of the stuff we're going to talk about tonight with those who don't agree with you or agree with me maybe on this.

If you agree with me, then you can ask those that don't agree with us on this and see what questions they ask and then bring it back to us and we're going to try to answer those next week. All right? We are in lesson 13 on the understanding the biblical tongues.

The Meaning of Biblical Tongues

Understanding biblical tongues. This is something that, like I said, is a little bit of an issue for some people. And so where I want to start with is this, is I want us to kind of, before we even get into the lesson, I want to give just a real quick, brief historical overview because that's going to help.

We see that there's this thing called tongues and we're going to look at what that actually is in this lesson. What are tongues? How were they used? What, you know, do they still exist today? This has become a popular issue since about 1905.

It really was not an issue before then. In a Bible study in about 1905, a woman talking at a conference with the speaker said that she believed that she had this gift and that really started what became the Pentecostal movement.

Later that led to the charismatic movement which led to the, you know, a whole lot of real bad stuff like the faith healing and the, you know, the word of faith movement and the prosperity gospel and all kinds of crazy things after that.

But we do get with this, when we look at it, some things that are not so radical all the way to extremes that are. But prior to 1905, tongues really, you don't see any writings on it, you don't see anything historically on it other than in Mormonism.

That's right, that's where you see it. Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, they were the only ones since really the first, second century that we see this being used. There's some occult practices that practiced it, but Brigham Young really was the one that brought it in in the 1800s.

And so we don't see this. So right there gets us kind of some questions that maybe we want to answer down the road. But let us start with this question. What exactly is the gift of tongues? That's a fair question, don't you think?

If we're going to understand, or have an understanding of biblical tongues, it would be good to do that. And you can look, we do have two important papers on this on our website. If you go to the website under biblical commentaries, or I think that's where it's labeled right now, but if you do a search for 1 Corinthians, we have a paper on understanding biblical tongues, 1 Corinthians 12, 13, and 14, taking all three of them, it's a short paper, three page paper, one page per chapter of the scriptures, to put them in context to explain what those chapters are saying.

And then we have a separate paper on the meaning of perfect that we'll get into later on what does that word mean in 1 Corinthians 13, 8 and following when it talks about this perfect thing coming. So those papers are available to you.

I encourage you to look those up, have them readily available if you want, because they'll be accessible to you all the time and you can take a look at that. But what exactly is the gift of tongues anyway?

I mean, is this gift still in exercise today or in existence today? This study is going to address some of the confusion surrounding these questionings by examining first the meaning and then the purpose of the gift.

And we hope in covering those two that we'll be able to answer some of the confusion that is. So let us begin with the meaning of tongues, the meaning of tongues. Well, as we look at the meaning of tongues, let us first take a look at some passages of scripture.

OK, first, I'd like us to look at Matthew 16 and verse 17, Matthew 16 and verse 17. If you take a look at this, it says, and these signs will accompany those who believe in my name. They will cast out demons.

They will speak in new tongues. Now, that may seem a little bit confusing because we don't know what tongues are. But maybe if we read it in a different translation, this will help. Let's look. And these signs will accompany those who believe in my name and they will drive out demons and they will speak in new.

Notice that word languages. Oh, that's very interesting. Languages. That is a good translation. That's one of the reasons if you're if you went through a school of biblical hermeneutics and we dealt with the English translations, you'd already pick up.

That's my favorite translation, the Holman. And this is why, because it's very good and very accurate in some of the words that it chooses to translate. So one sign which would follow or accompany, as we saw in the text there, the apostles was the ability to speak in a new tongue or a new language.

That's your blank there in the syllabus, new language or a new tongue. I prefer the word language because that helps to explain what it is. If you look in your in your notes, in your syllabus, you see that the word from the Greek that we get for tongue, kainos, is the meaning of a new to one speaking.

OK, it's a language that's new to one that's speaking. It does not mean something that's newly created. OK, now the word in Greek that we have for for well, sorry, that was the word for new for new tongue.

The word for tongue that we have in the Greek glassa is it means a human language. It's never used. There's only one place where people argue that this is an angelic language. All right. And if you look at that, that is going to be in first Corinthians.

We don't have this text for this, but first Corinthians 13 one. Now that is used to speak of an angelic language in the context of explaining the gift compared to love tongues, to love. People were claiming to speak in tongues and he was comparing it to love.

Now, if that's a literal angelic language, OK, in verse one, then verse two must also be literal in first Corinthians 13 and in verse two of first Corinthians 13. It says, if I have all knowledge and understand all mysteries, but do not have love.

Well, if there actually is an angelic language, then it's actually possible for me to be God. That's what if I was omniscient, if I had all knowledge, I would be God. So the question would be, why would you take the one as a literal and the second as hyperbole?

That if we're going to properly interpret, remember our class on biblical hermeneutics, we've got to make sure that we're interpreting it accurately, because when we do, we see that that is hyperbole in both cases.

Now, one of the things that we also have is the fact that when you look, and I have this in your notes in Acts chapter two, one through 11, you will see that when they first spoke in tongues, the very first time they spoke in these new languages, the languages are even named in scripture.

So we know what those languages were. People understood those languages. That was the amazement. They heard in their own language and they named those languages. All right. So we see that this new tongue or new to the speaker human language was accompanying the apostles.

Now, a good question to ask is, does it accompany all believers or was it just the apostles? Hold that question. We may get back to it. Let's go to Acts chapter two and verse four and see here, it says, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.

Now let's take a look at this in another translation. Which one would that be? Oh, it's the Holman again. There you go. Then they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in different. Notice that word.

Languages as the Holy, as the Spirit gave them, gave them the ability for speech. So do you see there? We see here that in this one, the disciples were filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke in different tongues.

That's your blank for their different, the word different. The first one, they speak a new tongue. That's Mark 16, 17. In here, when we see now this fulfillment of what Jesus prophesied in Mark 16, or was prophesied or stated there, we see here now in Acts 2, 4 that this word different, heteros, has a meaning of different of another kind.

So it's not a completely different. This is different of another kind. The disciples spoke another human language, different than their native language. If you can compare this also with verses 4 and 11, and you'll see this, or compare 4 and 11 with verses 6 and 8.

But you'll see that this is, the word here for language is the word that means to have a dialect of a region. So it's more specific to a language of dialect. So what we see here is that both of these talk about a new, not new created, but new to the speaker, or different, different to the speaker, something different than their native tongue, but in both cases referring to a human language.

Now, we do have an issue. Let's look at 1 Corinthians 14, 2, because here's where we get problematic issues. But this is in the King James Version. If you look in a King James Version, you'll notice a word that I put in red that is not in the original.

If you look in a King James, it'll be in italics, but this created some confusion for people. For he that speaketh in an unknown tongue speaketh unto men, but not unto men, but unto God. For no man understandeth him, howbeit in that the Spirit speaketh mysteries.

Now, in the newer translations, it reads like this. For one who speaks in a tongue speaks not to men, but to God. For no one understands him, but he utters mysteries of the Spirit. So what we see there is the word unknown in the King James is not in the original.

We know that if you were a good student in the School of Biblical Harmonetics because of the fact that we had that word in italics. In other words, the translators added that word to help explain the English as they translated.

But if you remove that word, it removes some of the confusion that people have saying that this is some unknown language, unknown to humans. So you don't see it there, and I think the better translations have removed some of that.

Now, what's the significance of this? As we look at these scriptures, what is the significance? Well, the significance is quite simply this. That tongues, whatever they may be, I'm making the point that I believe they are from the Book of Acts, and everywhere that we see, they are a known human language.

They're a human language. In Acts, when we first see this happen, we are given the actual languages. And the people that are there understand them. They're even saying, how are these guys speaking in the language we know?

And the people that didn't know those languages just thought they were drunk because it sounded like they were speaking gibberish. Now, I don't know if you've ever experienced that. Some of you may know that my wife speaks Chinese, and I pastored at a Chinese church, and there'd be very often that I would be surrounded and be in gatherings with many Chinese people.

And a lot of times, especially when I would be not knowing any Chinese, I would have this experience. And I don't know if you ever had this happen. Maybe you were in a foreign country and you've had this happen.

But I have the experience often where I hear a lot of people talking in Chinese, and it just sounds like gibberish to me when I don't understand the words. But then all of a sudden, I hear something in English, and it just rings out.

All of a sudden, though, everything else sounded like gibberish, and I could kind of tune it out. I'll hear some words in Chinese that I know, or I'll hear something in English, and all of a sudden, it just comes right to the forefront of my mind.

I think that is a good description of what happened in Acts chapter 2. You had all these people suddenly speaking foreign languages, and those that knew those languages suddenly perked up because they heard their native tongue.

And those that didn't understand any of those languages just thought it was gibberish and thought the guys were drunk. Okay? And so that becomes a way. So think of it as a foreign language. The way I like to illustrate it is if I had the gift of tongues, it would be like me suddenly and miraculously knowing a language perfectly that I never knew before.

It's not me speaking something that I don't know, and I don't know what I'm saying. It's actually the gift was where I would speak a language I didn't previously know. All right? So I would speak, say, Cantonese, and I could communicate fluently in Cantonese.

That would be pretty miraculous because I kind of butcher that language. Okay. All right. I'll explain. This is a little off topic, but it'll give you guys a chance to laugh at the professor. I was trying to impress my future mother-in-law with the Chinese that I was learning, and my wife was teaching me Cantonese, and Cantonese is a tonal language.

So if you say it just by emphasizing a little different, you say a totally different word. And I was trying to ask my mother if she had a good breakfast, a good early meal, Jotun, and instead I said Jotun, which was asking her if she had a good abortion.

Yikes. Not a way to impress the future mother-in-law. So if I could suddenly speak Cantonese, boy, it would be pretty neat because I really do a better job butchering the language when I try. So it's a good thing that my wife was there to explain what she knew what I was trying to say because she knew what she taught me.

Yeah. Great way to impress the mother-in-law. You have a good abortion today? Yeah. Her jaw hit the ground and I knew I said something wrong. My wife didn't want to tell me what I said. Maybe it would have been better if she never told me.

But the significance of this is that tongues are spoken in the Bible as a known, intelligible, and contemporary language. Those are three important words. Known, intelligible, contemporary language that were clearly understood by native speakers of that nation or region that understood the dialect which spoke the language, but the language was unknown to the one who received the gift prior.

In other words, if you suddenly are speaking a language that you didn't previously know and those that are native speakers understand it, okay? We hope to be able to explain that if you need more, if you have questions on that as we look into it next week.

But I do encourage you to go to the website and look at the papers that we have on 1 Corinthians 12 -14 because that's going to explain in more detail what I don't have the time to go into here. So, we looked at the meaning of tongues.

The Purpose of Tongues

Let's now look at the purpose of tongues. What is the purpose of tongues? So, what we have here is that tongues were used as a benefit to fellow believers. It was a benefit to fellow believers. We see this in 1 Corinthians 12 -14 that tongues is listed and explained as the gifts, as one of the gifts in chapter 12 verse 4, it is a spiritual gift that bestows favor by God freely and graciously given.

Remember when we talked about those gifts of the Spirit? Tongues is mentioned as a gift and if you remember, the purpose of a gift is to edify the body. So, in some way, the gift of speaking in tongues benefited the body of Christ.

Now, let's take a look at some passages here in 1 Corinthians 12. We're going to stay there for a little bit. Let's look first at 1 Corinthians 12 -7. And if you look in your blank there, it says that spiritual gifts are given to every Christian to profit all.

To profit all. Let's take a look at this. It says, to each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. For the common good. In other words, for all of the believers. So, one of the things that we see is that spiritual gifts were given for the profit of all.

Okay? All the believers. So, in some way, this gift must benefit all. Second, we see that all these are empowered by one in the same Spirit who apportions to each one individual as he wills. So, you see the Spirit works all spiritual gifts.

That's these things that we see here. Referring to the spiritual gifts that he mentions in verses 8 -10. And he's distributing them as he wills. Now, that's speaking of the Holy Spirit. Leave that up for a second because I want to pull this apart a little.

I want you to notice this. It is the Holy Spirit who apportions each of these individual, each of these gifts, one individually as who wills. As the Holy Spirit wills. Do you see that? So, it's the Holy Spirit who gives us these gifts.

Now, why is that important? That's important because when I was in the charismatic movement, it was something that we were encouraged to seek that gift. Now, if you remember from last week, we saw that all spiritual gifts are given at salvation.

Okay? And you say, well, wait a minute. You're saying that Peter and the apostles were saved on the day of Pentecost. Well, remember that that was a transitionary time. The book of Acts is a transition.

So, in that time, some things were happening that don't carry on further. Okay? And, you know, we don't eat, we don't worry if we have meat that's strangled or had blood in it. That was a command in Acts 15.

And that was for a specific purpose because of this transition between a Jewish mindset to a Gentile mindset. So, not all of the things that are transitionary we carry through. So, those are transitionary things.

But after the transition was done, what we do know is that spiritual gifts, as we saw last week, were for all believers at salvation. Which means that going forward now, we would have those gifts at salvation.

And they're given by who? By the Holy Spirit as He wills, not as we will. We could desire a spiritual gift, but that's the whole purpose of chapter 12. It's not about us desiring the gift. It's about the Holy Spirit who gives that gift.

And He gives as He wills. Okay? Let's look further at 1 Corinthians 13. This is a little bit of a long one. It's seven verses. But let's take a look at this and see what we're going to learn from this.

Okay? Excuse me. So, if I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. Now notice, I want to stop right here just to point this out. Do you notice the hyperbole?

What's the contrast here? The tongues of men and of angels, but not love. So, what he's doing here is giving hyperbole. If I spoke the tongues of men, if I even spoke the tongues of angels, he's not saying that there is an angelic language.

He's saying an extreme scenario to say, if I spoke all the languages of men, and even of angels, but I have not love. So, what's he saying? The love is more important. But let's move on. Now, if that's literal, then verse two has to be literal.

And if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so to remove mountains, but have not love, I'm nothing. Now, if we had all knowledge, we'd be omniscient.

So, however you interpret verse one, you must also interpret verse two the same way. They're either both literal saying that we could become omniscient, therefore we could become God, or they're both hyperbole.

So, let's move on now. If I give away all that I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind. Love does not envy or boast. It is not arrogant or rude.

It does not insist on its own way. It is not irritable or resentful. It does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things.

That's a beautiful thing. Many people focus on that. You know, weddings, they talk about that definition of love or the description of love. But in the context, what's it there for? It's there because it's contrasting what's the priority.

The priority is not these gifts, but love. And so, we see that the proper motive for tongue is what, class? Very good, love. That is the motivation, okay? The motivation for tongues is love. And notice that in the first three verses, that the possession and use of spiritual gifts without loves is described, if you look in your syllabus there, as useless and nothing.

Okay? If you have a gift, he's saying if you speak in tongues, but you don't have love, he describes it as useless and nothing. It's all about love. And that's true. That is the focus of the spiritual gifts.

We should use our gifts to love one another, all right? Chapter 14 in verse 2, sorry, verse 12, says, So with yourselves, since you are eager for manifestations, and I want you to look at that because this is describing what we see today, people that are eager for manifestations.

Paul's not saying that in a good way. He's actually saying that in a bad way. You, yourself, since you are eager for manifestations of the Spirit, strive to excel in building up the church. So, you're eager for these manifestations, but what you should be doing is striving to excel in the building up of the church because that is the purpose of these gifts, okay?

So, in 1 Corinthians 14, 12, we see that those that desire spiritual gifts should seek them for the edification, that's your blank there, the edification of the church. That's the purpose. It is not for self-edification.

And there's some that argue that, that it's for self-edification. I want you to think about that. Where in Scripture do you see self-edification? It's only seen in a misinterpretation of a passage. That you see it, where Paul's being sarcastic, okay?

God never tells us to glorify ourselves, to edify ourselves, to build ourselves up. Our pride does a perfectly good job of building ourselves up. That's the problem, okay? That right there, right off the bat, when people are saying that they speak in tongues for self-edification, should be a warning sign.

Because the only one we should be boasting in is Christ. Paul says, boast in Christ, not self. Do you see? That right there should be a warning. Whatever the gift is, gifts are used for the building up of the body of Christ, not self, okay?

Let's look next in 1 Corinthians 14 and verse 6. It says here, now brothers, if I come to you speaking in tongues, how will I benefit you unless I bring you some revelation or knowledge or prophecy or teaching?

Now, if you see in here, it says here, if you look in your syllabus, and I want to keep this up while we look at this because this is going to describe four different things that you have for your syllabus.

In this verse are listed four circumstances under which the gift of tongues will benefit another believer, thereby being used in accordance with one's biblical purposes. So, he gives us four different things here.

First, he gives us revelation. Do you see that? I bring you, it would benefit you more than me speaking in some language that you don't know. I bring you some revelation, knowledge, prophecy, and teaching.

He says those four things are more beneficial, to give you some revelation, some knowledge, some prophecy, or some teaching. Revelation meaning that he's bringing something that wasn't previously known before, or some knowledge, some further explanation, some prophecy, he's expounding on what has already been taught boldly, or some teaching where he's giving some instruction.

Okay, those are all more beneficial. Okay, why? Because those are instructive to the church, to the body. It helps build it up. So, when tongues were spoken and interpreted, the content profited others, because it contained some direct revelation from God at a time when there was no compiled Bible.

Okay, tongues with interpretation was one means that God used to communicate to believers before believers had a full written account of revelation associated with life and death and resurrection of the coming of Jesus Christ.

Okay, so what you see is that before we had our Bible, we now have something that's nice and complete, at least for our day and age, that we can rest upon, and we can hold to, and we can look at, and we have it so that we have the revelation.

But there was a time when all they had was the Old Testament. This part here. They didn't have all this. Okay, they didn't have the New Testament. That was being explained. That was being prophesied. That was explained in a new tongue.

And that's one of the purposes of the gift. So Paul said that when he comes, if he came with a tongue, it better be with revelation or knowledge or prophesying or teaching so that it could add some benefit.

Okay, now, let's look, we looked at the meaning of tongues and the purpose of tongues. Oh, actually, wait, before we get there, I'm sorry. Sorry about that. One part I forgot. Let me get into, we looked at tongues were used for the benefit of believers, but I also want to cover that tongues were used to convince unbelievers because that was another purpose of tongues.

It was used to convince unbelievers, the truth of the message. Okay, as we discussed earlier, one of the signs which accompanied the apostles was that they would preach the word in these tongues. That was Mark 16, 17.

Now, the sign is the, a sign is a mark or a token, something that, usually a miracle in a case that was pointing to something that was distinguishable. Now, I do want to say this, Mark 16 is not a great passage to rest upon because Mark 16, much of that we don't find in the original manuscript.

So we think that those were kind of added in. So it wouldn't really, Matthew 16, 17 would not be so much a prophecy of what was going to happen as much as afterwards some people had kind of copied that in.

We don't see it in the originals. None of it is untrue. All of it we can support in other scriptures, but I wouldn't argue for that being a prophecy in a sense. But what we do see is that as the apostles went forth preaching from that text, the Lord confirmed the proclamation with signs and that's one of the purposes.

How do you know someone's really speaking for God? They do miracles. It vindicates not only the message, but the messenger and that was a purpose, okay? And so when we look at that, we can look at Matthew, also Matthew 16, 20 to see that.

But I don't know we have that here, but it says in Matthew 16, 20, and they went out and preached everywhere. The Lord was working with them and confirming the word through the accompanying signs, okay?

So the two verses that we had there in Matthew, the two verses teach that the reason the apostles were given signs, including tongues, was to confirm the words which were preached and signs were often used by gods to prove the message spoken by the messengers.

This is why you see miracles in three main time periods in history. With Moses, we have new scripture being written and so there was a silence period for several hundred years and then we have the prophets and then we see Elijah with lots of miracles and then there was silence for a while and Jesus comes on scene and now there's lots of miracles again in a third time.

What happens at all three of those times? After a period of silence, there's written revelation and so these miracles were a way of testifying to the messenger that the message is valid and from God, okay?

It vindicated the message and the messenger, all right? And so that's how they would know, especially when they're giving future prophecies that you wouldn't know because you'd be dead before those come true.

It also, we see that the gift of tongues was a judgment for the rejection of the gospel, okay? Let's look at that one. First Corinthians 12, 21 and 22. In the law it is written, by people of strange tongues and by the lips of foreigners I will speak to this people and even they will not listen to me says the Lord.

Thus tongues are a sign not for the believers but for the unbelievers while prophecy is a sign not for the unbelievers but for the believers. Prophecy being the expounding on God's word, giving that explanation of God's word, that's for the believers.

But he's saying for the unbelievers, this was a judgment on the Jewish people that rejected the gospel that Jesus preached and therefore the gospel now was going to go to the Gentiles, those very people that the Jewish people thought were so horrible they wouldn't even enter their homes and they say that for them this is now a judgment and you'll see it in the book of Joel.

But note in this passage in First Corinthians 14, 22 that tongues were therefore a sign for unbelievers. I think I missed by the way, did I? Yeah, I missed. So let me give these three fill in the blanks and I'll go back to one.

Note in First Corinthians 14, 22 that tongues were a sign, were a sign, that's the first blank, a sign not for believers, the second blank is for believers, but for unbelievers, okay? I think the one I missed was that as the apostles went forth preaching the Lord confirmed, and that was the blank up top there on your page, confirmed the proclamation with signs.

But here as under judgment, in the context it appears that tongues were a special sign to unbelievers, especially the Jewish people. Verse 21 is a quote from Isaiah 21, 11, and 12. So this was a prophecy, a warning, a judgment if you look at it, that judgment would come upon unbelieving Jews for their rejection of God's message by means of invading armies, the Assyrians who spoke a language foreign to them.

But just as tongues, the tongues of the Assyrians were a sign of judgment to the unbelieving Jews, so the tongues of believers would be a sign of judgment to the unbelieving Jewish people of Paul's day, okay?

So that's the context there. So we see that it serves the purpose both to the believer and the unbeliever. So now we talked about the meaning of tongues. We talked about the purpose of tongues. Now let's talk about the duration of tongues.

The Duration of Tongues

How long are they going to last? Good question. This is a question that's hotly debated, okay? And if you disagree with me, that's okay. You have the right to be wrong. Kidding. Just contact us and let's chat about it, all right?

So what we see here in your syllabus, number three, the duration of tongues, in this section it will be shown that the gift of tongues, like other revelatory gifts and sign gifts, ceased when the purpose that they served was no longer needed, okay?

I've kind of already tipped my hat to what I think that purpose is, right? The completed Bible. And we're going to look specifically at 1 Corinthians 13, 8. This is the verse that we go to. Now, love never ends.

As for prophecies, they will pass away. As for tongues, they will cease. As for knowledge, it will pass away. Now I want to mention a couple things in here, okay? When we look at this verse, there is something interesting about the pass away, the cease, and pass away.

Pass away that you see both times are something there, so when it speaks of the prophecies and the knowledge, they will pass away because of some cause. But tongues will cease on their own, okay? And so what you have here is you see that this is something where I believe if the tongues were given for the purpose that they were a known language to a person, I suddenly have Cantonese, okay?