Pentecostal Pastoral Leadership and Global Missions — Unit 2: Early Missionaries and "Missionary Tongues"

Key Verse

"And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance." (Acts 2:4, NKJV)

Learning Objectives

When you finish this unit, you should be able to:

1. Explain what early Pentecostals meant by "missionary tongues" and why many of them believed it.

2. Describe how the first Pentecostal missionaries went out, and name some of the hardships they met.

3. State fairly how historians and critics judge the missionary tongues idea.

4. Explain, from Acts 2 and 1 Corinthians 14, how Pentecostals today understand the gift of tongues and its relation to mission.

5. Apply the lessons of the early missionaries to the preparation and support of missionaries from your own church.

The Voice of This Unit

This unit is written from inside the classical Pentecostal tradition, for pastors who belong to it. It is Trinitarian and conservative. We love the early Pentecostal missionaries, and we believe that the Holy Spirit was at work in them. We also believe that Scripture, and not any person's experience, is the final authority. For that reason we can honor their sacrifice and still say plainly that one of their early hopes was mistaken. Course 1 told the history of the outpouring, Course 2 explained the teaching on Spirit baptism, and Course 3 studied tongues as a gift. Here we ask how all this touched the first missionaries.

A Bold Hope

In the first years of the movement, many believers held a bold hope. They believed that God would give missionaries the gift of speaking a foreign language without study, so that they could preach to a people at once. Later writers call this idea "missionary tongues." Scholars sometimes use the Greek-based word xenolalia ("foreign speech") for it.

Charles Parham, who taught in Topeka, Kansas, in 1901 that tongues were the sign of baptism in the Holy Spirit, also taught that the tongues were real human languages given for the preaching of the gospel. He wrote about this in the early years of the movement, including in A Voice Crying in the Wilderness (1902). Many who received the experience at Azusa Street in Los Angeles in 1906 and in other places shared the hope. They saw no reason why God should not repeat at the end of the age what He did at the beginning.

The Biblical Basis for the Hope

The hope was not a foolish one. It rested on a real passage of Scripture. On the day of Pentecost "they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance" (Acts 2:4). Luke then tells us that people from many nations were present and that each one heard the believers speaking in his own language (Acts 2:5-11). The crowd was amazed because those who spoke were Galileans.

If this happened once, early Pentecostals reasoned, it could happen again. The task before them was huge. Millions had never heard the gospel, and learning a language often takes years. The Lord's return seemed close. If God would give the languages, the work could be done quickly. Their faith was large and their love for the lost was real. Many sold what they had to go.

The hope also fit the movement's picture of a "latter rain," which we met in Unit 1. If the early church received power for the first harvest, the closing harvest would be gathered with the same gifts.

How the First Missionaries Went

Pentecostal missionaries left for the field in great numbers during the first years. The Apostolic Faith, the paper of the Azusa Street Mission, printed reports of workers going out and letters from the field. Many went with little money, without a sending board, and without a promise of support. They went "by faith," trusting God to supply their needs. Many were young, and many were women. Course 1, Unit 5 describes the place of women in the early movement.

A few examples show the range of the early work.

• Alfred and Lillian Garr received the Spirit at Azusa Street in 1906 and traveled to India and then to Hong Kong. The Garrs are reported to have expected to preach in local languages and to have found that they could not. Accounts of their story are often told in histories of the movement.

• John G. Lake, with other workers, went to South Africa in 1908. The movement there grew greatly and gave rise to many local leaders, a subject for Course 1, Unit 7.

• Daniel Berg and Gunnar Vingren, two Swedish men, arrived in Brazil in 1910. They had to learn Portuguese, and their work grew into one of the largest Pentecostal churches in the world. Course 1, Unit 6 tells that story.

• At Mukti in India, Pandita Ramabai's mission saw a revival in 1905, and Minnie Abrams, a missionary there, wrote about it in 1906.

The cost was heavy. Many missionaries suffered from illness in unfamiliar climates, and some died young. Some returned home discouraged. Others stayed for a lifetime. We honor all of them.

What Happened to the Hope

For many missionaries the hope did not work as expected. They went to the field and found that they could not preach in the local language. Some reported that they had spoken in tongues but that the people did not understand. They faced hard choices. Some went home. Others began to study the language the way every missionary has done.

Historians describe the change as gradual. Within the first years, leaders began to teach that missionaries must study the language of the people. At the same time, the movement increasingly stressed the other use of tongues: speaking to God in prayer, and serving as a sign of Spirit baptism. Historians differ about how many early Pentecostals held the missionary tongues view, how long it lasted, and how strongly individual leaders believed it. They agree that it faded fairly quickly as a plan for the mission field.

When the Assemblies of God was formed in Hot Springs, Arkansas, in 1914, its founders gave missions a central place. This was part of a larger turn toward organized support, planned preparation and accountability, which we study in later units. The young movement learned that zeal needs wisdom.

What the Critics Say

We state three criticisms fairly.

Criticism 1: The failure of the missionary tongues idea proves that Pentecostal tongues are not real.

Some critics say that the failure of the claims showed that modern tongues are false or self-produced. Cessationists, such as B. B. Warfield in Counterfeit Miracles (1918), hold that miraculous gifts ended with the apostolic age. Others argue that early Pentecostals ought to have tested the claim before sending people overseas.

Our answer. We agree that the claim should have been tested more carefully, and that some leaders were naive about it. But a mistaken application does not disprove the gift. Scripture warns us to "test all things; hold fast what is good" (1 Thessalonians 5:21). The test that failed was a human expectation about how tongues would be used. It was not the teaching of Acts that tongues accompany Spirit baptism. The church has made mistakes about many doctrines and has corrected them by returning to Scripture. We did the same.

Criticism 2: The early missionaries were untrained and unaccountable, and this harmed the people they meant to help.

Some historians say that going without training, language study, or a sending body caused needless suffering, and that some missionaries left behind confusion.

Our answer. There is truth in this. Courage without preparation can bring harm. We do not defend every decision. Yet we also note that these same movements later built training schools, mission boards and accountability, and learned from those who went before. Many of the early missionaries became language learners and church planters of high quality. The correction is to value both the Spirit and wisdom, as the church in Antioch did when it fasted, prayed, laid hands on Barnabas and Saul, and sent them (Acts 13:2-3).

Criticism 3: Pentecostals today still teach that God gives languages instantly.

Some critics say Pentecostals make reckless promises.

Our answer. The main classical Pentecostal bodies do not require missionaries to depend on miraculous language. They send missionaries to study the language and culture. At the same time, we do not say that God could never give a person a known language for a moment. Believers in various countries have reported that someone heard a message in his own language. Such reports should be examined carefully, not treated as proof, and never used as a plan for the work.

What Scripture Teaches About Tongues and Mission

To see the matter clearly, we must separate the uses of tongues in the New Testament.

Tongues at Pentecost. In Acts 2 the hearers understood what was said, each in his own language. This was a sign to the many nations present, and it led to Peter's sermon, in which about three thousand were added (Acts 2:41). Here tongues served witness directly.

Tongues as a sign of Spirit baptism. At the house of Cornelius, Jewish believers knew the Gentiles had received the Spirit because "they heard them speak with tongues and magnify God" (Acts 10:46). At Ephesus the Spirit came on a group of disciples, "and they spoke with tongues and prophesied" (Acts 19:6). In these two accounts Luke does not say that anyone present needed a foreign language. This is the tradition of our churches: tongues are the first sign of baptism in the Spirit, whether or not an audience understands. Therefore the doctrine of initial evidence does not depend on the missionary tongues idea. It would stand even if no missionary ever spoke an earthly language by miracle.

Tongues in the church. Paul writes, "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" (1 Corinthians 14:2). Tongues are normally prayer and praise directed to God. In the assembly they need interpretation so that the church is built up. Paul himself spoke in tongues, and he put the gift in its place: he would rather speak five words with understanding than ten thousand in a tongue (1 Corinthians 14:18-19).

From these passages, Pentecostals conclude that the gift of tongues may at times take the form of a known language, as it did at Pentecost, but that this is not the usual form, and it is not a plan for reaching a people group. The Great Commission is carried out by preaching, teaching and the patient learning of language, with the Spirit's power.

Lessons for Our Churches

The early missionaries leave us a rich inheritance and some clear lessons.

1. Honor their faith. Many gave up comfort, health and family. Pentecostals today still go to hard places because of their example.

2. Prepare missionaries. Send people who have learned the language and culture, who know Scripture, and who have been tested in a local church.

3. Support them. A church that sends someone must stand behind that person with prayer, money, regular letters and care when they return.

4. Report honestly. Early reports sometimes grew in the telling. We should report what God has done, with truth and humility, and without exaggeration.

5. Depend on the Spirit and use wisdom. The two belong together. The Spirit who gave tongues also gives the patience to learn.

6. Let local people lead. The Spirit was poured out on all flesh. Missionaries who learn to listen help local believers become the church's leaders, a subject for Unit 3.

Pastoral Application

A young man in your congregation named Daniel tells you with joy that God has called him to serve in a country far away. He says he does not plan to study the language, because he believes the Holy Spirit will give it to him as at Pentecost. He asks you to announce his departure next month.

First, rejoice with him. A call to missions is a precious thing, and you should say so. Do not mock his faith.

Second, open Acts 2, Acts 10 and 1 Corinthians 14 with him. Show him that Acts 2 is a real event, but that the New Testament does not give the gift as a method for reaching a people. Tell him, with respect, about the early missionaries who went with the same hope and had to learn the language after all.

Third, ask what he knows of the people, their culture and their church life. Help him find a mission agency or denominational department that will send, train and support him.

Fourth, ask the elders to pray with him and test the call, as the church at Antioch did.

Fifth, encourage him to begin language study now, trusting that the Spirit who gives power also gives patience. If God gives an unusual help in a moment, thank Him, but do not plan on it.

Daniel may be disappointed that the departure is delayed. But a year later he leaves with training, with prayer partners and with a plan, and his church stands behind him.

Summary

Early Pentecostals, beginning with Charles Parham's teaching, widely hoped that God would give missionaries foreign languages by the Spirit, because Acts 2 shows the nations hearing the gospel in their own tongues. Many went overseas by faith with little money or training, and many suffered. For most of them the hope did not work as they expected, and within a few years the movement turned to language study, training and organized support, as in the Assemblies of God, formed in 1914. Critics say this failure discredits the gift, or that the early missionaries were careless; we answer that a mistaken application does not cancel the teaching of Scripture, and we admit and learn from the faults. Scripture shows tongues at Pentecost as known languages, in Acts 10 and 19 as the sign of Spirit baptism, and in 1 Corinthians 14 as prayer to God that needs interpretation in the assembly. The initial evidence doctrine does not depend on missionary tongues. The right path joins dependence on the Spirit with preparation, accountability and honest reporting.

Further Reading

• Charles F. Parham, A Voice Crying in the Wilderness (1902), a primary source.

• Minnie F. Abrams, The Baptism of the Holy Ghost and Fire (1906), a primary source.

• The Apostolic Faith (Los Angeles, 1906-1908), a primary source.

• Allan Anderson, An Introduction to Pentecostalism (2nd ed., 2014).

• Cecil M. Robeck Jr., The Azusa Street Mission and Revival (2006).

• Vinson Synan, The Holiness-Pentecostal Tradition (1997).

• B. B. Warfield, Counterfeit Miracles (1918), a cessationist argument.

• Donald E. Miller and Tetsunao Yamamori, Global Pentecostalism (2007).

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