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The Gift of Interpretation of Tongues

This gift bears a special relationship to the baptism of the Holy Spirit, which first took place at Pentecost. On that occasion, many of the tongues that were spoken aloud simultaneously by the disciples were understood immediately by the listeners who gathered in the street. Jerusalem was crowded with visitors from many other nations, and Luke’s account in Acts tells us that all of them heard the good news being proclaimed in their own tongues. As if that were not enough of a miracle, Peter went on to preach in the language that most of them had in common, providing essentially a more complete interpretation or understanding of the messages of procla­mation that had been spoken in tongues. (See Acts 2.)

How the Gift Manifests

In his book Gifts of the Spirit, Derek Prince wrote, “Interpretation must not necessarily be under­stood to mean a word-for-word translation, but rather a rendering of the general sense of what was spoken in the tongue.” John Wimber and others have called this a “dynamic equivalent.”

The gift of interpretation of tongues operates differently through different believers. It has “diversities of operations,” as the King James Version translates Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 12:6: “There are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all.” For some people, an interpretation comes to mind as just one introductory phrase, and they must “launch out in faith” before they receive the rest, while others hear words and whole sentences in their minds, or see words displayed on a scroll or a screen in their mind’s eye. Still others receive visions that they go on to relate in their own words; or, a general thought may drop into their minds, which they “clothe with words of their own choosing,” as the Holy Spirit leads them, to quote Derek Prince.

Guidelines for Using the Gift

A message of exhortation that comes by tongues and interpretation is the same as a prophecy, and it should be judged by the same standards. Paul’s guidelines for using tongues and interpretation in church gatherings apply to exhorting tongues or message tongues only, not to the personal use of the gift, in which the meaning of the words often remains a mystery.

A message in tongues and its interpretation do not necessarily need to come from two different people. If need be, the person who delivers the message in tongues can pray to receive an interpretation and go ahead and speak it aloud, whether in an appropriate public assembly or privately. In some ministries, this practice is not encouraged, but I believe we should make room for every gift and operation of the Holy Spirit. I think the final guidelines should come from the leaders of each gathering.

In public situations, people do not speak out in tongues or interpretations whenever they wish, but only as they are led by the Spirit to do so. The orchestration is up to God.

Boundaries are important. That is why Paul wrote these instructions: “If anyone speaks in a tongue, it should be by two or at the most three, and each in turn, and one must interpret; but if there is no interpreter, he must keep silent in the church; and let him speak to himself and to God” (1 Corinthians 14:27–28). In a church setting, two or three messages are usually sufficient for the assembly to understand clearly the gist of what the Lord is saying. If a few people are involved in bringing the message, extra nuances of God’s words can be received and appreciated, and no one person can claim the limelight.

Remember, this is a gift given by God, not something that a person can study for as you might do in order to learn a foreign language. Again, interpretation of tongues is very much like the gift of prophecy, for which we are also invited to ask: “Pursue love, yet desire earnestly spiritual gifts, but especially that you may prophesy” (1 Corinthians 14:1).

The interpretation is often longer or shorter than the message released in tongues. The best scriptural example of this is Daniel’s interpretation of the mysterious words “Menē, menē, tekēl, upharsin”—his interpretation was about nine times as long as the original message. (See Daniel 5:24–28.) Because languages some­times differ from each other significantly, the time required to convey the essence of a message can vary greatly from one language to another.

There is a woman in Kansas City who has been given the supernatu­ral ability to interpret known languages without learning them. She was once part of a group hosting a Spirit-filled Catholic priest from Italy. They hadn’t arranged to have an interpreter, so when he started speaking, she interpreted what he said. After that, she ended up visiting his group of Franciscans in Italy, and she was able to read and translate from some an­cient document that was written in early Italian, the same kind of Italian dialect that St. Francis of Assisi spoke. She had never even heard it before. The Franciscan friars could understand her perfectly—she was calling them back to their origins.

No interpretation of tongues was needed in the examples above. No interpretation was needed on the day of Pentecost, either, because the people could easily understand the messages spoken in their own native languages. But for situations where interpretation is needed, it is good to be ready. And the only way we can be ready is to grow in our experience of responding to the Holy Spirit, which builds our confidence along with building our “spiritual muscles."