Acts 19:6

Acts 19:6. And they spake with tongues. The immediate effect of their baptism, after that Paul had laid his hands upon them, was the visible presence of the Holy Ghost among them manifesting itself in the form of supernatural gifts. These gifts took the form of ‘speaking with tongues' and ‘prophesying.' Of the last of these it is uncertain whether the miraculous influence showed itself in what we terra a strange and peculiar power of preaching, an especial gift for the purpose of winning men to the side of Christ, or whether it included as well an insight into futurity, the prediction of future events; possibly both these powers were conferred on these ‘twelve.'

We have very little knowledge of the gift of speaking with tongues. Not long after this incident was that famous 14th chapter of the first Corinthian letter written, which really contains all we know on this mysterious subject (the various questions have been discussed previously in an Excursus on the Pentecost Miracle of the 2d chapter of these ‘Acts') which St. Paul wrote. The passage in the first Corinthian epistle was written some two years later, or two and a half years at most after this incident. He must, among other instances of the exercise of this gift of tongues, have had this special one in his mind. We can therefore lay down with some certainty the following conclusions respecting the nature of the gift then conferred on these disciples of John the Baptist:

It did not edify any beyond the man who spoke (1 Corinthians 14:4). To be of any service, it needed a specially gifted interpreter (1 Corinthians 14:5-27). Men did not as a rule understand it, though God did (1 Corinthians 14:2). He who used this gift was to those who listened to him as a barbarian or a foreigner (1 Corinthians 14:11). It was therefore no power of speaking in a language which had not been studied in the ordinary way, but it was clearly an ecstatic utterance of rapturous devotion. There were phenomena certainly attending the first exercise of the gift on ‘the Pentecost' morning (Acts 2) which could not have been subsequently repeated; for while at ‘Pentecost' the speakers were understood in their ecstatic utterances by men of various nationalities, the account of the 14th chapter of the first Corinthian epistle clearly tells us that all speaking with tongues without an interpreter was utterly unintelligible. This mysterious power remained, however, but a very little season among men. At a very early date in the history of the Church, it appears to have ceased altogether.