The gift of tongues was a temporary gift for the dissemination of the Gospel at the beginning of the church-age (1 Corinthians 12:1-31; 13:1-10). Tongues served a time-specific purpose, one which was fulfilled, as planned. Then, the ‘gift’ was no longer applicable and thereby removed as a spiritual gift. The Bible is clear on this, yet some people put personal experience over the truthfulness of the Word, saying, “I’ve seen and heard tongues in action, I know it’s real, so it can’t be a temporary gift. I saw what I saw and experienced what I experienced. That verse doesn’t mean what you think it means. We’ll just have to agree to disagree.”
People really do say and think things like this; I’ve spoken to several who said almost this exact same thing. In reality they’re saying the Bible is wrong, God is wrong, and that their personal, emotion-riddled “experience” overrides and overrules the Word of God.
How ludicrous. How arrogant. How willfully-ignorant.
For a more comprehensive look at tongues and other spiritual gifts, please see Spiritual Gifts.