Who Will Translate?

A word before I begin. What follows is my own conviction, drawn from what I have found in studying Paul's letters — not a settled ruling I would bind on any brother or sister. Faithful Christians read these passages differently, especially on the timing of when the gifts would cease. I offer this as one man's reasoning from the text, laid out plainly so you can weigh it against Scripture yourself and come to your own mind before the Lord.

When Paul lists the gifts of the Spirit in 1 Corinthians 12, he names two of them together. The tongue, and the translation of the tongue. He does not treat a tongue as a wonder to admire on its own. He ties it to the gift that makes it clear. Take the translation away, and the tongue has no place in the gathered church.

"To another the workings of miracles, and to another prophecy, and to another the distinguishing of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, and to another the translation of tongues." (1 Corinthians 12:10, LSB)

That pairing is not a small thing. It is the safeguard Paul built into the practice, and the rest of what he says depends on it.

The Safeguard Paul Required

Paul is not against the gift. He had it himself, more than the people he was writing to, and he thanks God for it. Before going further, I have to be clear about which kind of tongue this article is weighing, because it makes all the difference.

If a tongue is simply a known human language — as it plainly was at Pentecost, where foreigners heard their own native speech (as I understand it) — then there is no lasting problem to solve. A known language can be translated, and today more easily than ever. Anyone can check it against a dictionary, an interpreter, or a translation tool. If that is all a tongue is, then it can always be verified, and there is nothing here to discuss in today's day and age.

But there might be an indication in Corinthians that this might not be a human language. I'm not even sure myself of this from scripture as it may be open for interpretation but for the sake of clarity the tongue this article has to consider is the harder kind: the utterance that no human means can translate — the kind said to require a spiritual gift to interpret, because no ordinary skill or modern tool can reach it. That is the only kind that raises the question at all. And in every case, known language or not, the same rule holds: a tongue had to be translated to do the church. Whatever the tongue was, it was nothing to the hearer until it was made plain.

This is why, even having the gift himself, Paul tells the Corinthians where he would rather speak. He would take five clear words that teach over ten thousand words in a tongue.

Why? Because a tongue no one can understand does not build up the church. Paul gives a simple picture.

"Yet even lifeless things, either flute or harp, in producing a sound, if they do not produce a distinction in the tones, how will it be known what is played on the flute or on the harp?" (1 Corinthians 14:7, LSB)

An instrument that gives no clear note tells you nothing. A tongue with no translation is the same: sound without meaning, no help to anyone who hears it. So Paul does not leave it to preference. He makes it a command, and he attaches the penalty.

"If anyone speaks in a tongue, it should be by two or at the most three, and each in turn, and one must translate; but if there is no translator, he must keep silent in the church, and let him speak to himself and to God." (1 Corinthians 14:27–28, LSB)

One must translate. And where there is no translator, the tongue must stay silent in the church. The translation is not an extra. It is what makes the tongue allowed in worship at all. Take it away, and Paul's own rule shuts the tongue down.

And here is the thing to see from the start. The translation was itself one of the gifts, and Paul names a group of gifts that would come to an end.

"Love never fails, but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away." (1 Corinthians 13:8, LSB)

A word of care here, so I am not misread. I am not saying every gift of the Spirit has passed away. Gifts like teaching, mercy, giving, and service plainly continue in the church today. Paul is speaking of a particular kind of gift — the sign gifts, such as prophecy, tongues, and their translation, which pointed to the authority of the apostles and the giving of God's Word. Those are the gifts in view when he says they would cease. And let me narrow it further still: this article is about tongues and their translation alone. I am not here making the case about prophecy or the other sign gifts — each deserves its own careful treatment, and I leave them aside. My concern is only the tongue and the one who would translate it.

What Paul Warned Would Happen

Paul also warned what happens when this order breaks down. If the whole church speaks in tongues and an outsider walks in, the scene looks like madness. Speech no one can follow does not point people to Christ. It makes the church look out of its mind.

"Therefore if the whole church assembles together and all speak in tongues, and uninformed men or unbelievers enter, will they not say that you are out of your mind?" (1 Corinthians 14:23, LSB)

That is why Paul tied tongues so closely to translation. Without the translator, the gift does not just lose its use. It becomes a stumbling block, and worship turns to confusion.

The Question We Cannot Avoid

Someone will say the gift is still here: pray, and God may give it to you. Grant that at its strongest, and the real problem still stands. The problem was never that translators are hard to find. If the tongue were a known language, we would not even need a gift — a translator or a simple tool would settle it, and we could check the result for ourselves. The problem is the tongue that no human means can reach, the kind that claims to need the gift itself. For that kind, no one can check the translation. Suppose a man stands and says he is turning such a tongue into our language. How do we test him? What tells us his words match what was really said, and are not just his own invention or an honest mistake?

In the early church the apostles were that test. They spoke with the authority of Christ and could confirm or correct what was said in the churches. But the apostles are gone. And they left us no key — nowhere in Scripture does God tell us how a tongue is to be translated, or how a translation is to be judged. There is no rule to hold the claim against. So even a man who truly believes he has the gift and gives us something no one can confirm is true. A translation you cannot test is no safeguard at all. It is only a claim, and we are asked to trust it with nothing behind it.

This is why the missing standard matters more than the missing translator. Paul did not just allow tongues. He guarded them with a check that could actually be used. Take away the means to use it — the apostles who confirmed, and the written rule they never left — and the gift can no longer do what Paul required. In my opinion It cannot be trusted, because it cannot be tested.

So the question in the title is not rhetorical. Who will translate? Name the man, and then tell me how you would know he spoke truly. You cannot. And a gift no one can test is a gift no one can trust — which means it cannot, in good conscience, be practiced as though it were sure.

And this is just what Paul said would happen. He told us plainly that tongues would cease. If I cannot trust a translator today, and I cannot, for there is no way to prove one true, then I can surely trust Paul, who said the gift would end. It seems for me that it has.

Trusting the Apostle's Word

This argument holds not because any of us is clever, but because Paul is trustworthy. He was called by Jesus Christ. He wrote the Lord's instruction to the churches, not just his own opinion. When he pairs tongues with translation, when he prefers five clear words to ten thousand, when he says these gifts would cease, he is not giving us a preference to take or leave. He is giving us the Lord's own wisdom for the peace of the church.

To keep the tongue but drop the translation is to keep half of what Paul said and throw away the half that kept it safe. The honest path is the harder one: take him at his word. The gift that translated tongues has ceased, and our grounds for the practice ceased with it. The loving thing is to set the tongue aside and give ourselves to the clear words that teach, comfort, and build the church.

The Greater Thing

But we would miss Paul entirely if we walked away with only a verdict on a gift. See where his whole argument was going. In the same passage that weighs tongues and their translation, he lifts our eyes higher.

"But now abide faith, hope, love — these three; but the greatest of these is love." (1 Corinthians 13:13, LSB)

The gifts of the Spirit are good. They are given by God for the building up of His church, and I would not speak a word against them. My point is not that we should be suspicious of the gifts, but that we should not let the ones that are unclear or disputed become the thing we fix our eyes on. Paul himself will not let the Corinthians linger there. Above every gift he sets something greater — not one more gift on the list, but love, the command laid on every believer and the character God is forming in all His people.

That is the thing that never fails. A man may have the most amazing gift there is and, without love, be nothing. So whatever we conclude about tongues, and however we hold the gifts God has given, let it be done in love. That is where Paul was leading all along, and it is the one place none of us can go wrong.

Scripture quotations are from the Legacy Standard Bible (LSB).