Christians...How many of you practice speaking in tongues on a regular basis and what are your thoughts on it?

I'm 18 years old and recieved the gift of tongues three weeks ago. On the day I recieved it, my two younger brothers and my two younger sisters did too. My youngest sister is just 11 years old and has only just made her Confirmation. Everyone's tongues is quite different, my 2 sisters have it only at times and in one language, whereas myself and my brothers all pray and sing in it beautifully.

What many people don't understand about tongues, is that everyone has been given the gift of tongues through Confimation but people just don't recieve it or activate it. Many people are not aware of the Charasmatic movement and even a lot of priests are oblivious to these special gifts even though Pope John Paul II himself had the gift of tongues.

I pray everyday in tongues and can also dance and occasionly play music in it too. I find it has brought my family closer than it has ever been before. It makes me feel at peace to pray in tongues. I have spent my whole life asking God to give me the Grace to pray and praise him with real heart and now i can. It's beautiful to finally speak the inatriculate speech of the heart. I have struggled my whole life to express what i'm feeling and thinking in my daily life. My love for God should be the most difficult to express but I can now do that easily. I find praying in tongues relaxes me immensly and focuses me before attending the sacraments. In general, recieving tongues has brought me closer to God and much deeper into my faith.

I have done so in the past but I realized at some point that there is a difference between not having words for a certain experience and wanting to communicate it anyway and the gift of tongues. I've seen the gift work, when someone will speak (usually in spontaneous Hebrew) and someone else in the congregation will then get the interpretation and share it out loud. No interpretation means it was just your personal loss for words in the face of an overwhelming spiritual connection.

I can offer two personal accounts (I have MANY more) for the veracity of this gift. First, myself. I have at times spoken something out in my own prayer time and later have written it down phonetically and research it. That one in particular was Hebrew - "Barcuh HaShem..." it began. And I do not know Hebrew myself.

Second, my friend Sarah. She was in Romania traveling with a Christian drama production. After the show, a woman came up wanting her to pray, but neither spoke the other's language. I have many accounts from other old friends that Sarah immediately begins speaking perfectly fluently in the woman's language. They pray and she goes on her way. To this day, Sarah cannot speak, and has no recolection of ever speaking, Romanian.

I now find the unstructured charismatic churches do not fit the kind of discipline and path I am seeking and prefer liturgical worship, where tongues would not be appropriate. But that does not mean I discount it entirely. I have seen many people that I believed to be mistaken, unknowingly manufacturing something. But I have also seen some real events that I have yet to see an alternative explanation for....

We do not speak approximately it so much. Speaking in tongues is a present of God, and this present is given for a distinctive rationale. When Peter spoke in tongues at the Day of Pentecost it was once in order that the colossal accumulating of individuals from numerous countries might pay attention the gospel preached of their local tongue. It nonetheless occurs that any individual will rise up and deal with a congregation and talk a language that the speaker has in no way studied, and the congregation will have an understanding of him it appears that evidently of their local language. Or a missionary will out of the blue talk fluently in a international tongue in order that the listener will quite have an understanding of, after which the missionary will lapse again into his damaged language abilities. Such stories could also be sacred to the contributors worried, and as such aren't probably shared. I feel it occurs plenty greater than you could consider.

Depends on what you are talking about. So many today believe that you have to babble some kind of nonsense to be heard my God. I for one believe that God understands English as well as all other languages. Remember God said in His Word that if you speak in tongues (another language besides your own) be sure there is an interrupter. Else how will anyone know what you are saying. Also Paul addresses this in the Book of I Corinthians. The Gift of Tongues is simply the ability to understand and speak in other Languages

I believe the gift of tongues does happen, like with foreign speaking missionaries. But not just as a regular occurrance during the middle of church when everyone speaks the same language in the room. I think when God wants it to happen, it's for a purpose, to communicate. If everyone speaks the same language, why would he manifest that particular gift/blessing? To show he's all powerful and all knowing and all giving? There are so many other ways to do it than making a person speak in a language no one in the room would understand.

"...whether there are tongues, they will cease..." (1 Corinthians 13:8)

When you speak in tongues, is it uncontrollable babble, or can you decide to speak or remain silent? Do you know what you are saying and do others present understand what you are saying? Is there an interpreter?

In Acts 2, when the Apostles spoke in tongues, others understood in their own languages.

In 1 Corinthians 14:27-28 it says, "If anyone speaks in a tongue, let there be two or at the most three, each in turn, and let one interpret. 28 But if there is no interpreter, let him keep silent in church..."

Notice it is controllable and it should be understood, at least by the translation of an interpreter.

I can speak in tongues and do so when I feel in my heart I am to, but I often don't just because I have a level of prayer life where I pray to God directly in my own words and if I don't know what to say I'll let my spirit pray. I too believe in the baptism of the Holy Spirit but I also believe you can have that baptism and not speak in tongues as speaking in tongues is just one of the spiritual gifts.

I do not in the sense that you refer.

Acts 2 is the first place it is referred to and it also describes it. It is the speaking of languages unknown to the speaker. These languages are of human origin ie. Spanish, French, Italian etc.

The mix up of tongue and language comes from the King James version of the Bible. It uses the word tongue and Satan has used the word to confuse this issue for too long.

God is powerful and uses the Holy Spirit indwelling the Christian for some amazing things. Speaking in a sound unknown to any man is not one of them.

I would really take a step back and see if what you are doing is from God. What you speak of has never been recorded in the Bible. Pentecost was a fulfillment of Jesus sending a Comforter to His disciples. The evidence was the flames of tongues above their heads and then they started speaking in different tongues. Different tongues means different languages. That is why the gentiles said to one another "How is it that I understand what they are saying?"

Speaking in tongues has ceased. In fact, speaking in tongues in the Bible was merely the ability to speak in a language that you never learned. The point to remember is that in the Bible, when someone spoke in tongues, many people listening understood them.

Speaking in tongues always refers to a known language. It never was just babbling. This is a common misconception. The miraculous ability to speak in a different tongue (language) has ceased.

“Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away. When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then fact to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known. And now abide faith, hope, love, these three, but the greatest of these is love.” 1 Corinthians 13:8-13

“that which is perfect” refers to the perfect Word of God which provides all we need to know. Miracles have ceased, including "speaking in tongues".