Are tongues for preaching the Gospel?

I was at a wedding early in the year when a man that had been a member of a United Pentecostal Church (UPC), now backslid, came around trying to engage every UPC member he could get to listen to him.

“You should leave the UPC, the UPC doesn’t save, only Jesus saves. You don’t need tongues to be saved. Tongues were for missionary work, to preach in foreign languages. We don’t need tongues like that anymore, and certainly the UPC doesn’t use tongues that way.”

Since this was his son’s wedding I found it really strange that he would be spending his time going from table to table trying to find an apostolic to engage in the same conversation.

When he approached me I assured him that I was very interested in conversing with him, but that perhaps this occasion wasn’t the best venue for it. He had strayed so far from the truth that now he wasn’t even able to enjoy his own son’s wedding without attacking the church he had left many years ago.

I emailed him a couple of months later wanting to resume the conversation. I asked him where specifically the Bible taught that tongues were for preaching the Gospel in missionary work. He asked for more time to send me his reply. It’s been about four months now, and I have followed up with him on at least three occasions. He hasn’t replied yet. I wonder if he is still trying to find a Bible verse that teaches what he has come to believe about tongues. He will not find such a verse.

The truth is tongues are not a preaching tool, tongues are given as a sign of the infilling of the Holy Ghost (1 Cor 14:22; Acts 2:1-4; 11:15-18). Sometimes they are known languages (Acts 2), some times they are angelic tongues (1 Cor 14:2). They can help us in time of prayer for private edification or even for intercession (1 Cor 14:4; Rom 8:26). Tongues don’t save, the UPCI doesn’t save, Jesus does and He comes to us in the Holy Ghost if we repent of our sins and are baptized in Jesus name (See Acts 2:38-39). This experience is available to everyone that thirsts after God. Jesus is still making the invitation:

“If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. (But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive…)” (John 7:37-39).
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