Can Speaking in Tongues be Taught?

Can anybody teach speaking in tongues? No. Speaking in tongues is a gift from the Holy Spirit. If you want to speak in tongues, you can only receive it from the Spirit of God. No man can teach you.

For people who have the gift, they can share knowledge about the gift with those who don’t have it. The knowledge is only meant to help those who don’t speak in tongues know what to expect.

I do speak in tongues and prior to getting the gift, I was told what to expect. The knowledge I received was little. I struggled in my early days of speaking in tongues to know whether I was on the right track or I was doing my own things. Get the full story in this article.

Why Speaking in Tongues cannot be taught

Speaking in tongues is not a language like any other. It involves real languages but it goes beyond that. Normal languages have a structure that never changes. Speaking in tongues has no clear structure.

Some people assume that speaking in tongues is babbling any manner of syllables. The reality is that you can bubble whatever syllables you want and call it speaking in tongues but unless it carries the power of the Holy Spirit, you are wasting your time.

You can teach people to utter whatever syllables you want but they can only receive power from the Spirit of God.

In the Bible, the procedure of sharing the gift of speaking in tongues is usually laying hands on the person. Laying hands on someone imparts the gift of tongues.

The impartation takes place if you have the gift yourself and if the person you are laying hands on is open to receive the gift.

That way, the person not only receives the utterance but also the power. Teaching someone syllables to speak is a waste of time.

If you were to teach speaking in tongues, you would have to master all languages on earth and more. Since someone who has the gift of speaking in tongues can speak in any language on earth, you have to teach a person all those languages. Who can do that?

On the day of Pentecost, the disciples of Jesus who spoke in tongues spoke in a variety of languages that were known to those who heard them.

Those who Claim to Teach Speak in Tongues

It is unfortunate that some servants of God claim to teach speaking in tongues. It is very clear that you can’t teach someone to speak in tongues.

The best you can do is to impart someone with the gift. God enabled impartation of the gift but impartation is not the same as teaching.

While some servants of God impart the gift of speaking in tongues and call it teaching, it is not a wise thing to do.

There is information that people need to be taught before they start speaking in tongues. Someone has to know that speaking in tongues is a gift of the Holy Spirit.

People also have to know that speaking in tongues cannot be purchased. Such information is taught but the gift is imparted.

I once heard of a servant of God who asked a believer who wanted to speak in tongues to repeat after Him what he was saying. Eventually, the believer received the gift and spoke in tongues.

What the servant of God did was impart the gift only that his method of imparting was for the believer to repeat what he heard.

The tough part of speaking in tongues is usually hearing what the Spirit of God is saying. To speak in tongues, someone has to hear what the Holy Spirit is saying and repeat it.

Some people hear what the Spirit of God is saying but they doubt it. Having a servant of God vocalize what the Spirit of God is saying makes the work easier for the person who needs the gift.

Repeating the syllables will help the person who wants the gift gain courage to continue speaking. But then it must be noted that the syllables the person has to repeat are not standard.

This is a way of impartation that works for people with faith struggles.

God’s Provision for Teaching Speaking in Tongues

While teaching someone to speak in tongues is impossible, God does not forbid it. Anyone who teaches another to speak in tongues does not sin.

God considers the heart of the person who wants to learn to speak in tongues. If it is pure, God will grant the gift to the person.

God did not set a fixed way of learning to speak in tongues so that everyone would have a chance. People do receive the gift of tongues in the weirdest way imaginable.

This is true with other manifestations of God. Take an example of the healing miracles of Jesus; there was no formula.

Different people were healed in different ways even when they had the same sickness. When Jesus was raising Lazarus from the dead, he called him out of the tomb but when He was raising Jairus’ daughter, He took her in His arms.

The important factor here is the faith. When faith is complete, whatever action is taken will yield the result.

Learning to speak in tongues is not different. Once the person who wants to speak in tongues has faith, any action can be taken and the person will speak in tongues.

Those who claim that speaking in tongues can be taught need to understand that once faith is full, speaking in tongues happens regardless of the action someone is asked to do.

Can Speaking in Tongues be taught? Conclusion

Speaking in tongues cannot be taught. The only way to get it is by impartation. Whatever servants of God call teaching people to speak in tongues is usually impartation only that they use teaching methods as actions.

Remember the Bible tells us that faith without action is dead. Believing that you can speak in tongues takes faith but without adding an action of some sort, it won’t happen. The action can be anything, LITERALLY ANYTHING!

You can tell the person who wants to speak in tongues to start speaking in tongues when you drop a coin on the floor and he will receive the impartation when you drop the coin.

God made the action required to start speaking in tongues so easy so that no one would struggle.

The important thing is to receive the gift of praying in tongues, how it begins is not a big deal.