The Bible describes a variety of “spiritual gifts”—such as wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, miracles, prophesying, discernment, and speaking and translating tongues (1 Corinthians 12; Romans 12).

Many wonder whether there is a difference between natural talents and spiritual gifts. My view is that all blessings come from God; life comes from Him; all abilities come from Him. Some abilities come from God through His design of genetic encoding and inheritance, what some might call natural talents, and others come as special divine enhancements or enablings, such as Samson’s strength.

So natural talents, as I see them, are the innate abilities and capacities we inherit through God’s design of procreation, whereas spiritual gifts are enhancements or endowments not previously and naturally part of one’s constitution.

But there is another layer here, which I have not always understood, in which natural talents can be woven into the spiritual gifts—and that is this: With what spirit is a person animated and directing their natural talents? If we are not converted to Jesus Christ, if we are not reborn with the Holy Spirit and reanimated with the Spirit of truth, love, and trust, then we are motivated by fear and selfishness, and we will direct our natural talents toward self-advantage, self-promotion, and self-glorification, which will not be a manifestation of the gift of God.

For instance, an unconverted person with natural musical talent will use their talent for their own success, fame, fortune, attention, and praise. They might be a professional musician, or they might be someone who merely performs special music at church but their motivation is to get praise for self.

But when we are reborn, the natural talents are directed, developed, and expressed with a new energy, a new motive, a new power, which will not only direct their actions down new lines that are intended to glorify God and be a blessing to others, but they will necessarily expand and manifest outcomes that would not have been possible without the animating presence and power of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, when a person is reborn and animated by God’s Spirit, even their natural talents become spiritual giftings as they are molded, shaped, and expanded to bring glory to God.

But there are also spiritual gifts that are endowed, bestowed, gifted, by the Holy Spirit upon individuals that are not the purification, expansion, and development of natural talent, but instead are divine endowments of various abilities listed above.

Our focus in this blog is to understand the reality-based meaning of the spiritual gift of tongues, what it is, and how we can recognize the genuine from any counterfeit.

The Role of Spiritual Gifts

Our first step is to clarify the purpose of spiritual gifts.

They are given for the advancement of the kingdom of God, the eternal gospel, to save people from sin and restore the image of God within people. All the spiritual gifts serve this purpose; therefore, if we find a “gift” undermining this purpose, then it would be evidence of a counterfeit manifestation.

Next, what is God required to provide to people so they can experience salvation?

Jesus said, “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:32 NIV84). This saving truth is both cognitive comprehension, knowing God exists, but also experiencing Him as good and knowing Him as friend and Savior (John 17:3; Hebrews 11:6).

If, in reality, salvation requires sinners to know the truth as it is in Jesus, which ultimately wins them to trust so they are reborn with His life (John 3:3; Galatians 2:2), then wouldn’t the various gifts of the Spirit enhance truth, love, and the fruits of the Holy Spirit?

With this in mind, let’s examine the gift of tongues or languages, depending on which translation one is reading, as the Greek can be translated “tongues” or “languages.” How do we understand this gift and its purpose—what does God intend this gift to accomplish in the church?

We must consider God’s movements in the landscape of human history. God is always working for salvation, healing, restoration—Satan is doing the opposite. Therefore, God works to reveal truth and expose and oppose lies, while Satan works to promote lies and obstruct truth.

All the way back in Genesis 6, we find that the world was in complete rebellion against God. The people were violent all the time, hearts were hard, and they refused to listen to any truth or love. The Bible tells us there was only one righteous man and his family left on the entire Earth, so God acted, in love, to put all the people in the world to “sleep” in the grave in order to keep open the avenue for Messiah, not to punish sin. Remember the context: Adam and Eve have sinned, the entire human race is descended from them, and without Jesus, all humans die (Psalm 51:5; Romans 5:12; Ephesians 2:1). God promised in Genesis 3:15 that a Savior would come and provide salvation from sin. So, God acted to stop the loss of humanity by keeping open the avenue for Messiah.

Then, after the Flood, as the human race was populating the earth again, God instructed them to spread out over the globe and subdue it. He told them not to congregate together—primarily as a means of slowing rebellion, to limit the wicked from uniting and reinforcing their wickedness. 

But they did not trust God, didn’t listen, and chose to congregate together and build the tower of Babel in rebellion against Him. So God made yet another therapeutic intervention to slow the spread of sin and keep open the avenue for Jesus to come.

He confused their languages (Genesis 11:7-9).

God did this to interrupt the lies and corruption that are reinforced when people practice such things together. While human history is a sad tale of tribes and groups warring against each other, the entire world has never again been united in unified rebellion against heaven. And God worked through human history, protecting the family line for Jesus, who was born in Bethlehem, grew into a perfect human, defeated Satan, died as our Savior, rose again, and ascended into heaven—and then the Holy Spirit was poured out for what purpose? And what happened?

If God is working to stop lies and promote truth, and the eternal gospel of Jesus’ victory as our Savior is now accomplished and being proclaimed, yet many humans are unable to understand the apostles because they speak a different language, what would God do? If God confused the languages to interfere with the spread of lies and rebellion, then what will God do when His remedy to sin is known? Wouldn’t He act to enhance communication, to remove the language barrier?

And that is exactly what the Bible says happened at Pentecost:

When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard them speaking in his own language (Acts 2:6 NIV84).

The Holy Spirit provides the gift of languages so that the gospel is heard by every person in their own language—which means that God is the translator so we can be sure that each person hears the clearest truth possible. This is the reversal of the Tower of Babel. It is God acting to open the avenue of understanding and communication so that the truth can go forward unhindered.

Satan’s Counterfeit

But Satan fights against truth; he wants to shut down clear communications; he wants to create beliefs, systems, experiences, and methods in which it is easy for confusion to arise, misunderstanding to occur, doubts to form. So how could he counterfeit this amazing gift of God so that people claim that God’s Spirit is working, but in fact, a different spirit that does not bring clarity and clear communication is at work?

How about a spirit that causes people to speak in unintelligible noises in which instead of every person hearing clearly what is said in their own language, no one understands, but everyone is required to believe what they could not understand based on the claim of some other person who claims that they understood it?

Which of these two methods and experiences maximizes transmission of truth and reduces opportunities for miscommunication, error, and confusion—and which does the opposite?

• Every person hearing in their own language truths being translated by God Himself?
• No one understanding what was said and a human being claiming to know what was said?

Again, the first principle to understanding the gift of tongues is to realize it is a gift to maximize clear communication and reduce error and confusion. Therefore, in addition to God acting directly as a translator, He also gifts humans with the ability to speak and translate various languages to open avenues of communication for spreading the gospel. This is what Paul describes in 1 Corinthians regarding speaking in tongues or languages—if someone speaks in an unknown language, then someone needs to translate it so all can understand, and if no one can translate, then that person should remain silent.

Today, when this happens—a person speaks in a foreign language in church, and a translator translates—it can be recorded and taken to other independent translators to verify that the translator did an accurate job (or even an AI translator). This means we can have confidence in the translation, which reduces error, uncertainty, confusion, and doubt, and leaves every person free to think and decide for themselves.

But Satan wants to increase confusion, interfere with clear communication, create many avenues of misunderstanding, and increase doubt—how might he do this?

What if he counterfeited the gift of languages with a manifestation of “tongues” in which what was “spoken” was not any known language that could be recorded, verified, and translated by an independent source, but unintelligible noises that only one person claims to understand, and they proclaim their interpretation? What then? There is no way to verify that what is “translated” is what was said—meaning people who believe will do so based on claims, not on evidence.

Now, in this conflict between Christ and Satan, how much truth is on Christ’s side—100 percent. How much truth is on Satan’s side? Zero!

So, if you have 100-percent truth, do you want to set up a system in which people are conditioned to believe things based on claims only, or do you want them to check the evidence, the facts, the truth? But if you have no truth, what method or system do you want them to practice? A system of claims without evidence!

So, I leave it to you to reason out and consider for yourself—which manifestation is consistent with the Spirit of truth, and which is consistent with a deceiving spirit?