This is just a little ‘did you know’ informational post on the subject of speaking in tongues, shared as some food for thought. Often when we were in our former unhealthy churches, we did not stop and see if things we saw, experienced and were taught were found in the Bible. For Pentecostals, this is one of those teachings/experiences.
We saw people with quivering lips during a church service and were taught that this is the ‘stammering lips‘ spoken of in Isaiah. Many of us experienced this ourselves. People who had not yet spoken in tongues would be told the Holy Spirit was all over them if their lips started trembling. They were seen as just not letting God’s Spirit inside, through lack of faith, pride or perhaps sin. This is seen as a sign in Pentecostalism.
Yet here is where we didn’t realize that there wasn’t anywhere in the entire New Testament that spoke of or showed that the lips of a believer were trembling. There is no teaching in any of the epistles that would lead us to believe that this is a sign that the Holy Spirit is all around someone and wants the person to speak in tongues (another language for those not acquainted with Pentecostalism). There are no examples of Peter grabbing anyone’s chin and shaking it upon seeing their lips tremble, saying something like, “It’s right here! He’s all over you! Let your tongue go!” There is no mention of Jesus ever sharing that a sign to look for is when the lips of a person tremble. In none of the three places in Acts where we see it mentioned that people spoke in tongues, do we read that their lips were quivering. And yet, in spite of all this, many accepted, perpetuated and practiced a teaching that is non-existent in our Bibles.
In the KJV, ‘stammering‘ is seen only twice and it is in the Old Testament: Isaiah 28:11, which says stammering lips, and Isaiah 33:19, which speaks of a stammering tongue. Each comes from a different Hebrew word. (There is also Isaiah 32:4 : “The heart also of the rash shall understand knowledge, and the tongue of the stammerers shall be ready to speak plainly.” Stammerers in this instance, illeg, only occurs one time and the word means speaking inarticulately and to stutter.)
Isaiah 28:11-12 states, “For with stammering lips and another tongue will he speak to this people. To whom he said, This is the rest wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest; and this is the refreshing: yet they would not hear.” You may not realize this, but Paul references this passage in 1 Corinthians 14 when he shares in verse 21, “In the law it is written, With men of other tongues and other lips will I speak unto this people; and yet for all that will they not hear me, saith the Lord.” Do you see the difference in the wording and that Paul never mentions stammering lips?
The verse is translated various ways in different versions of the Bible. The NIV records it as “In the law it is written, With men of other tongues and other lips will I speak unto this people; and yet for all that will they not hear me, saith the Lord” and the NLT states “So now God will have to speak to his people through foreign oppressors who speak a strange language!” The ESV translates it as “For by people of strange lips and with a foreign tongue the LORD will speak to this people,” while the ISV writes “Very well, then, through the mouths of foreigners and foreign languages the LORD will speak to this people.” None of these translations show anything even remotely resembling a teaching about quivering lips.
So how did this one mention of ‘stammering lips‘ in Isaiah (KJV) come to mean what is taught and seen in many Pentecostal type churches today? If we go to the original word meaning, it doesn’t come from there, either. It means mocking. The word has nothing to do with quivering or trembling lips. Spend some time in Strong’s, various lexicons and Bible commentaries and see the actual meaning and don’t accept the distorted meaning that some groups and churches use today.
- Informational post on speaking in tongues #12: Stammering Lips
- Informational post on speaking in tongues #11: Prophesy
- Informational post on speaking in tongues #10: One of many gifts
- Informational post on speaking in tongues #9: Continued evidence
- Informational post on speaking in tongues #8: Acts 8
- Informational post on speaking in tongues #7: Acts 19:6
- Informational post on speaking in tongues #6: Speaking in tongues a second time
- Informational post on speaking in tongues #5: Acts 10:45-46
- Informational post on speaking in tongues #4: Known languages
- Informational post on speaking in tongues #3: 1 Corinthians 12:29-30
- Informational post on speaking in tongues #2: 1 Corinthians 14:27-28
- Informational post on speaking in tongues #1: Pray to interpret
Thanks for this article Lois. Yet another one of those things that sounded “right” and was widely accepted as true but is not found in scripture (at least not the way it was presented to us). As someone who has always been full of questions, this is one that never crossed my mind to ask. I appreciate you shining a light on it.
My lips involuntarily moves when the spirit hits me but I don’t know what it means
My belief is that such isn’t an indicator of the Holy Spirit. We don’t see anything remotely similar being described or taught in the New Testament. Consider this, what purpose would trembling lips serve? Why would God’s Spirit cause such to happen?
Excellent set of articles, thank you. 🙂 You certainly offer some thought-provoking questions that everyone who has been raised UPC/Apostolic should think about, particularly those of us who were taught that, essentially, tongues IS THE SIGN of salvation, and without it, we are going to hell.
One interesting thing I want to bring up: at the end of 1 Corinthians 12, after Paul writes about spiritual gifts and how each of them had gifts and how they all come from the Spirit of God, he writes, “And now I will show you the most excellent way.”
And then he goes on to say (as recorded in chapter 13): “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a ringing gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have absolute faith so as to move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and exult in the surrender of my body, but have not love, I gain nothing. … Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be restrained; where there is knowledge, it will be dismissed. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial passes away…. And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love; but the greatest of these is love.” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3,8-10,13, BSB version)
The greatest gift we can have is the gift of love. Not tongues. Or prophecy. Or anything else. But love.
I think that’s a wonderfully encouraging thought. 🙂
Many seem to fail to realize that the 13th chapter is intricate to chapters 12 and 14. It all goes together with Paul teaching about the gifts of the Spirit and the body of Christ.
Yes, that’s very true, Lois! Agreed! It is a good thing for all of us to remember to read the Word of God in CONTEXT: in context to the other verses, in context to the chapter, in context to the book, and in context to all of the other books. 🙂 “Context matters.” This is one major concept that I try to get across to other people all the time. <3
When I was a child, I began to stammer and if I had not immediately stopped and continued on I would no doubt have spoken in tongues but no one I knew ever taught me there was such a thing, even though I had the gift of discernment. I let my fear of my parents override the gift. I feared they would send me away as if I were crazy. The awful thing is, they knew about tongues.
Lois ,could it be summarized then that these gifts that the Holy Spirit brings into our lives and offers us are not valid and of no value or usefulness in our relationships with Him? Is it not so that our God, the God of all God’s,King of all Kings,Lord of all Lords,does not speak English, or Hebrew, or Russian, or any earthly language for that matter,as they are all learned languages ,men speaking to men using there brains.Men praying to the God that created the earth and all that therein is,with there brains trying to get Him to do things there way,all the while the God of all God’s, has offered them a new born again life ,giving them a new spirit,and new body,new mind,in fact His mind,,and eternal life is His new world that he’s is preparing for them and has offered them His heavenly language, but they refuse to accept it and I fact spend there whole lives denying it with there brains all the while rejecting the God of all God’s that they claim to love and worship.Do you think there is something very important that we are willfully blind too?
When I speak in tongue my lips tremble in my hands move about and I’m American and when I speak in tongue it sounds like that I’m speaking in Chinese or something
The mention of stammering lips in the KJV has nothing to do with quivering or trembling lips. That is a made up teaching.