How much of a blessing is the real spiritual gift of speaking in tongues by the Holy Spirit? What does scripture say? "Pursue love, and desire spiritual gifts, but especially that you may prophesy. For he who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men but to God, for no one understands him; however, in the spirit he speaks mysteries. But he who prophesies speaks edification and exhortation and comfort to men. He who speaks in a tongue edifies himself, but he who prophesies edifies the church. I wish you all spoke with tongues, but even more that you prophesied; for he who prophesies is greater than he who speaks with tongues, unless indeed he interprets, that the church may receive edification." So wrote the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 14:1-5. There is more to it that is not in that passage though, such as this in an earlier passage in the same epistle: 1 Corinthians 2:4-6 "and my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God. Yet we do speak wisdom among those who are mature; a wisdom, however, not of this age nor of the rulers of this age, who are passing away;" We might well want to have the holiest faith in which to build ourselves up and this kind of faith had best come not from human words of wisdom and cleverness but from demonstration of the Spirit's power, one manifestation of which is the genuine gift of tongues. Then when maturity comes closer as that faith builds us up we need real wisdom from God and one way this comes is through true interpretation of said gift of tongues by the gift of interpretation of tongues. Leaves a question: How holy is your faith? You need to build youraelf up in faith that is truly holy. Even if churches do not encourage such faith, real holy faith is wiser than human wisdom or anything that depends on human wisdom, even wiser than some of the wisdom encouraged in churches who might actively discourage the holiest faith.
