The Gift of Interpretation of Tongues

Question 4050.

The interpretation of tongues is the gift that quietly does the heavy lifting whenever tongues are used in the gathered church, and yet it is the one we hear about least. It sounds technical, and because it is tied so closely to tongues themselves, many believers pass over it without realising that Paul treats it as a distinct and necessary gift in its own right.

Let me explain what this gift is, why Paul insists on it, and what it means for any congregation that takes the New Testament seriously. I write as someone who welcomes the Spirit’s gifts and who also longs to see them used in a way that builds people up rather than puffing people up.

What the interpretation of tongues is

The interpretation of tongues is the Spirit-given ability to render an utterance spoken in a tongue into language the rest of the congregation can understand. Paul lists it among the gifts in 1 Corinthians 12:10, where the Greek phrase is hermēneia, the interpreting of tongues. It is not translation in the dry, word for word sense, but a Spirit-enabled conveying of the sense of what was said.

Think of it as the bridge that carries meaning from the one who speaks in a tongue across to the people sitting in the pews. Without that bridge the words remain locked away, and the church gains nothing it can build on. With it, the same words become food for the whole body.

It helps to be clear that this is a gift, not a learned skill. No course can teach the interpretation of tongues, because it is the Spirit who supplies it, just as He supplies the tongue itself. The same God who prompts one believer to speak prompts another to make the meaning plain, and neither could produce the result by training or effort. That keeps the whole exchange humble and dependent on God rather than on human cleverness.

Why the gift is necessary

Paul is blunt about why the interpretation of tongues matters. “If there is no one to interpret, let each of them keep silent in church and speak to himself and to God,” he says in 1 Corinthians 14:28. An uninterpreted tongue in public is, by his own rule, simply out of order. The Spirit who gives the tongue means for it to be understood.

His reasoning is pastoral. How can the people say “Amen” to a thanksgiving they cannot understand? “You may be giving thanks well enough, but the other person is not being built up,” he writes in 1 Corinthians 14:17. The interpretation of tongues exists precisely so that nobody in the room is left on the outside of what God is doing.

Behind the rule lies a principle that runs through the whole chapter, that everything done when the church gathers should build people up. “Let all things be done for building up,” Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 14:26. The gift turns what would otherwise be a private experience into shared food for the congregation. Where it is absent, the loving thing is quiet, not noise.

How it works in practice

Paul gives a clear order of service. “If any speak in a tongue, let there be only two or at most three, and each in turn, and let someone interpret.” That instruction in 1 Corinthians 14:27 sets a limit and a sequence. Two or three at most, one at a time, and always with interpretation following.

The one who speaks in a tongue is even told to “pray that he may interpret,” according to 1 Corinthians 14:13. Sometimes the same person receives both gifts. At other times one believer speaks and another interprets. Either way, the goal is the same, that the message reaches every heart in the room.

It is worth saying that this calls for patience and self control in the meeting. The one who has spoken in a tongue must wait to see whether interpretation is given, and if it is not, must simply keep quiet. That willingness to hold back is itself a mark of the Spirit’s work, since “the spirits of prophets are subject to prophets,” as 1 Corinthians 14:32 reminds us. Nobody is swept along against their will, and nothing needs to be forced.

Guarding the gift from abuse

Because the interpretation of tongues cannot easily be checked by the congregation, it calls for real humility and accountability. I have seen settings where a vague, flowing “interpretation” was offered that bore little relation to anything, and the people simply nodded along. That is not the careful, orderly practice Paul describes.

So I weigh interpretations the way I weigh any prophetic contribution, asking whether they agree with Scripture, exalt Jesus and genuinely build up the church. The same 1 Corinthians 14:33 that governs tongues governs their interpretation, and order remains the Spirit’s signature. For the wider picture see my piece on the gift of tongues.

Is the interpretation of tongues for today?

Because I hold that the gift of tongues continues, I hold that the interpretation of tongues continues with it, for Scripture binds the two together and never announces an expiry date for either. The list of gifts in 1 Corinthians 12:7-11 is given to the church without a footnote saying that some would lapse after the first century.

That said, I hold it as a cautious continuationist, wary of the disorder that so often surrounds these gifts. A genuine interpretation will edify, agree with Scripture and exalt Jesus, and it will fit easily within the orderly pattern Paul lays down. Where those marks are missing, I am content to wait and to weigh rather than to applaud whatever is offered. Discernment is not unbelief, it is love that refuses to be careless.

Where this gift sits among the others

The interpretation of tongues is one gift among many that the Spirit “apportions to each one individually as he wills,” as 1 Corinthians 12:11 reminds us. No believer should feel second class for not having it, and no believer should parade it. The body has many parts, and each is needed.

Like every gift, this one is given “for the common good,” as 1 Corinthians 12:7 says, not for the standing of the one who holds it. I have never met a mature believer who boasted of it, and that is fitting, because its whole purpose is to serve others quietly. A gift that exists to make someone else understood is, by its very nature, a humble one. If you want to see how all the gifts fit together, I have set that out in my article on the spiritual gifts listed in Scripture.

A gift that serves understanding

There is something beautiful in the very shape of this gift. Of all the things the Spirit might give, He gives one believer the ability to make another believer understood. That tells me a great deal about the heart of God, who is not content for His people to be left baffled in a meeting, but provides for understanding so that the whole body can join in worship with the mind as well as the spirit. Paul makes that his aim when he says, “I will pray with my spirit, but I will pray with my mind also,” in 1 Corinthians 14:15.

It is worth remembering, too, that the gift of understanding one another in worship reverses something of the confusion of Babel, where God scattered human speech as a judgement. At Pentecost the Spirit gave understanding across languages so that all could hear “the mighty works of God,” as Acts 2:11 records, and the interpretation of tongues carries that same Pentecost spirit into the gathered church. Where the world is divided by words it cannot share, the Spirit builds a people who can understand and be understood together.

I sometimes think of the gift this way. When the Spirit moves one believer to speak to God and another to make it plain, the whole room is drawn upward together, and no one is left as a mere spectator. That is the Spirit’s kindness in action, refusing to let any part of the body be shut out of the worship He is stirring. A gift given so that others may understand is, through and through, a gift shaped by love.

So, now what?

If your church makes room for tongues, make sure it makes room for the interpretation of tongues too, because Scripture does not separate them. If you suspect the Spirit has given you this gift, exercise it carefully, prayerfully and in submission to the leaders God has set over you.

And if all of this feels far from your own experience, do not be anxious. The Spirit gives as He pleases, and your standing with God rests on Jesus, not on which gifts you hold. Are you content to let Him distribute as He wills, and to play whatever part He has given you in building up His people?

So with yourselves, since you are eager for manifestations of the Spirit, strive to excel in building up the church.

ESV, 1 Corinthians 14:12