It all started with a question I couldn’t get away from.
I went to a youth convention in Portland, Oregon, where the worship was so powerful you could feel it in your chest and kids were really awake and asking real questions about God. A young man came up to me after the session. Seventeen, maybe. He had his hands in his pockets and was fidgeting a little, but his eyes were fixed.
“Can you show me that speaking in tongues is real? Like, in the past? Because my friends say it’s just a Pentecostal thing that started a hundred years ago.”
I told him the best thing I could. The Bible. A few references from history. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 14:18, “I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you.”
But I left feeling like I owed him something.
That wasn’t the first time. I’ve been getting letters from college students who are having trouble with this for the past few years. Young adults who spoke in tongues as kids but stopped when their college buddies questioned them. Even pastors, softly and privately, asking for something they could provide to a church member who was wondering. Something that has sources. Something you could look into.
The questions weren’t harsh. They told the truth. And real answers are what honest questions need. Not overused phrases. Not “just believe.” No emotional strain. Answers that have been written down. You can give it to someone who doesn’t believe you and say, “Check it out for yourself.”
So I did what I always do. I began to dig. The result is a research guide that I’m calling Speaking in Tongues: The Evidence You Should See. It talks on historical, scriptural, theological, and scientific proof from the time of the apostles to the present day. Every claim has a source. Every point that is in dispute is marked. I’m giving away the Third Edition as a free PDF at the bottom of this page.
This is the short version of the blog entry. The depth is in the whole document.
Before We Go Any Further — This Could Be for You
You might have come here because someone sent you this link and you’re not sure. Okay. Doubt is not the opposite of faith. Being gullible is. I’d rather you look at all the sources I give you and come to your own decision than just believe me.
You might have come here because you grew raised in a church that speaks tongues, but you’ve never been able to explain it to your roommate, your professor, or your boyfriend’s family. You think it’s true. You know what it’s like. But you don’t have the proof on hand when someone pushes back. The research guide is there to help you with that. It’s the paper I wish I could have given to that boy in Portland.
You might have ended up here because you’ve been hurt. Someone said that the way you pray is evil. Someone told you that if you really possessed the Spirit, you would have spoken in tongues by now. Someone made you feel like you weren’t good enough.
I’m sorry that happened. It shouldn’t have. The God who gave you this gift, the Father Jesus talked about in Luke 11, the one who would never give His child a snake when the child asked for bread, did not let what happened to you happen. You really do have a wound.
But please let me mention one more thing: just because someone misused a gift doesn’t mean the gift is bad. Just because a kitchen knife can hurt us doesn’t mean we stop eating. Just because fire can burn doesn’t mean we live in the cold.
No matter where you’re coming from, keep reading. The evidence can handle your questions.
What I Thought vs. What I Found
I thought that most of the Pentecostal authors would agree with me. The most convincing arguments, on the other hand, came from folks I didn’t expect. Scholars from outside my tradition who had no professional incentive to agree with me but did so nevertheless because of the facts.
D.A. Carson, a Reformed evangelical at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, asserts that “Scripture offers no shelter to those who wish to rule out all claims to charismatic gifts today” (Showing the Spirit, p. 69). That’s not how a Pentecostal would talk. That’s one of the most respected evangelical professors in the last fifty years.
Gordon Fee spent years writing a huge 967-page book about what Paul taught about the Holy Spirit. He concluded that the cessationist argument “is raised not on the basis of reading the biblical text, but from the greater concern as to their ‘legitimacy’ today. But this is a hermeneutical question, pure and simple” (God’s Empowering Presence, p. 893). Fee asserts that for Paul, the gifts persist “as long as we await the final consummation.” This is unequivocal. Not a gray area. Paul’s answer is clear.
When researchers from outside your tradition get to the same conclusions as you do, that’s hardly a talking point. That’s the weight of evidence.
I also saw people in our own groups repeating internet misconceptions. The “Carl Peterson brain study,” which says that tongues release good brain chemicals? There is no such study. There is no peer-reviewed publication, no confirmation from a university, and no sign of it in any academic database. I marked it in the research since believability is more important than comfort. We can’t be reckless with facts if we want people to believe us about the Spirit.
We don’t need fake proof. The genuine proof is strong enough.
I should be honest about something else. I’m not a scholar. I am both a researcher and an apologist. My job is to collect, cross-reference, and organize the published work of researchers who have spent their whole careers on this. They own the arguments. I am in charge of the organization.
Six Things I Found
I’ll keep this short. The whole document goes into much more detail. But this is what stood out:
1. Paul’s final word on this is a command.
Some individuals think Paul was against tongues after reading 1 Corinthians 14. He wasn’t. He was against chaos. This is what Paul really said:
“I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you” (1 Corinthians 14:18). “I want each of you to speak in tongues” (1 Corinthians 14:5). And his last order was, “Don’t stop people from speaking in tongues” (1 Corinthians 14:39).
Not a proposal. Not a deal. An order from the apostle. Robert Menzies has said that this is the only explicit order Paul offers on this topic in that whole chapter.
That’s in every Bible on every shelf. You can look at it now.
2. Non-Pentecostal scholars agree.
This one really caught me off guard. It’s not a denominational talking point when D.A. Carson, Gordon Fee, James Dunn, Anthony Thiselton, Wayne Grudem, and David Garland all get to the same conclusion from their own exegesis that the gifts continue. That’s what most New Testament experts think.
1 Corinthians 13:8-10 (“when the perfect comes”) is the most common text cited to say that tongues have stopped. It talks of Christ’s coming, not the end of the Bible. This is not solely the Pentecostal interpretation. Even Richard Gaffin, one of the most serious cessationist scholars living, agrees that “the view that they describe the point at which the New Testament canon is completed cannot be made credible exegetically” (Perspectives on Pentecost, pp. 109-110). If the cessationist scholars won’t utilize the argument, it’s worth considering if it should still have the weight it does.
D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, probably the most recognized Reformed pastor of the twentieth century, said clearly that cessationism was wrong. Christopher Catherwood, his grandson, said that “he believed that all the gifts existed today” and that he was “both reformed and charismatic, in the biblical senses of the terms” (Introduction to Joy Unspeakable).
That person is not a Pentecostal preacher. The pastor of Westminster Chapel is that person.
3. The history goes deeper than you’ve been told.
When I was a kid, I heard that speaking in tongues stopped after the apostles and didn’t come back until the 1900s. The historical record doesn’t back that up.
Irenaeus, a bishop who was only one generation away from the Apostle John through his teacher Polycarp, claimed in 180 AD that people in his churches “through the Spirit speak all kinds of languages” (Against Heresies 5.6.1). Tertullian in North Africa wrote about tongues and interpretation as active gifts in his church. Novatian in Rome, the Cappadocian Fathers in Turkey, and Cyril of Jerusalem getting people ready for baptism and a spiritual experience. The evidence is there, century after century.
Were there times when the proof wasn’t as strong? Yes. The medieval evidence is more reliant on religious sources that need to be carefully examined. Saying that is necessary for honest scholarship.
But the theological argument for continuance does not rely on establishing an uninterrupted historical lineage. It is based on Peter’s statement that the promise of the Spirit is “for you and your children and for all who are far off” (Acts 2:39), Paul’s belief that the gifts would last until Christ comes back (1 Corinthians 1:7; 13:8-12), and the fact that there is no biblical scripture that says they should be taken away.
4. Cessationism is newer than you think.
For most of church history, people didn’t agree on the assumption that miraculous gifts stopped with the apostles. It has its roots in John Calvin’s Institutes (1559), was expanded upon by Conyers Middleton in 1749, and was organized into a complete system by B.B. Warfield from Princeton in 1918.
That’s the timeline. Three steps over the course of 350 years. Before Calvin, the church, despite its diversity and disagreements, generally believed that the gifts could and did persist.
Jack Deere, a former professor at Dallas Theological Seminary, says it plainly: “No one can become a cessationist by reading the New Testament. The Bible teaches that gifts like miracles and prophecy will be here until Jesus comes back.”
5. 600 million Christians practice this worldwide.
This isn’t a small group. There are more than 600 million Christians around the world who speak in tongues. This includes both Pentecostals and charismatics (279 million Pentecostals and 305 million charismatics, according to Pew Research, 2011). Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, and independent. From Los Angeles to São Paulo to Seoul to Lagos.
As Harvard’s Harvey Cox put it, “the fastest-growing form of worship on Earth.”
It’s not “Why do Pentecostals believe in tongues?” It’s “Why did some Christians stop believing in them, and when?”
6. The science is suggestive, but let’s be honest about what it shows.
Dr. Andrew Newberg from the University of Pennsylvania did brain scans of patients who spoke in tongues in 2006. His main discovery was that the prefrontal brain, which governs speech that is purposeful and voluntary, was less active during tongues. The speakers weren’t making the speech themselves. Researchers had never measured what their brains were doing before.
But I have to be honest with you about the limits. This was a first study. He called it that himself. Five subjects. No independent control group. Never done on a large scale. It gives hints. It is fascinating. It’s in line with what professionals have long said. But it’s not proof.
A brain scan isn’t the only thing that proves tongues exist. It is based on the Bible, history, and theology. And I’d rather be honest about what it can’t do than make it sound better than it is and lose your trust.
Scholars Who Changed Their Minds
I was surprised to learn that many of the strongest supporters of continuation are not longtime Pentecostals. They are scholars who were once cessationists but altered their beliefs after looking at the facts.
Jack Deere taught Old Testament at Dallas Theological Seminary, which is the main school for cessationist theology. He was asked to produce one Bible verse that clearly teaches cessationism. He couldn’t find one. He quit going to Dallas Seminary. “When I was a cessationist, I never saw God heal anyone because I never prayed for healing. How can you pray regularly for something that you feel God no longer does?” Deere understood that the cessationist worldview was self-confirming. And self-limiting.
Sam Storms grew up in a cessationist setting and was a visiting associate professor of theology at Wheaton College. He came to the conclusion that there was no exegetical case for cessationism after reading the Bible without any preconceived ideas about it. He is a Reformed person. A follower of Calvinism. This proves that this is not a “anti-intellectual” point of view. J.I. Packer, looking at the Puritan literature on personal revelation, said that the Puritans “weren’t cessationists in the Richard Gaffin sense.”
Augustine of Hippo, the most important theologian in the history of the Western church, first believed in cessationism. During this time, he saw and wrote down almost seventy miracles in his own diocese. He partially retracted his cessationism in his Retractions. A partial retreat from Augustine is still important. If the most important theologian in church history could change his mind based on new information, maybe we can all do the same.
When the most serious researchers in the room, people who went to schools that teach cessationism and have every motive to stay there, follow the evidence and come to the conclusion that it indicates to continuation, it’s something to pay attention to.
A Word to Those Who Disagree
I respect you if you believe in cessationism. You probably believe it because you learned it from honest, godly professors who loved the Bible. We don’t dispute over whether the Bible is the word of God. It is. We don’t agree on what the Bible really says regarding this issue.
You should know something about me. Before I spent years looking at the case for speaking in tongues, I spent years looking into problems in my own tradition. The NAR. The way it works. The abuse of money. The authoritarianism that uses spiritual language. I spent the same amount of effort into finding out what was wrong in charismatic circles as I do now into defending what is right about the gifts of the Spirit.
So when those who don’t believe in the gifts of the Spirit bring up worries about abuse and anarchy, I don’t ignore them. I have seen it. I’ve written it down. I’ve said bad things about it in public. That’s also why the study guide points out any claim that is disputed, corrects any exaggerations that come from our own groups, and honestly says when the evidence is weak. Hiding difficulties doesn’t make you more credible. It’s built by facing them.
The Bible is the last word. It must be checked against all experience. Not giving up the gifts is not the response to abuse. The answer is to do them the way Paul taught us: with love, order, and responsibility.
The strongest cessationist arguments deserve serious engagement, such as Thomas Schreiner’s reasoning from Ephesians 2:20. The entire research guide talks to them directly. It also addresses a recent argument posed by Philip Blosser and Charles Sullivan, two historians who contend that contemporary glossolalia lacks historical precedence prior to the nineteenth century. Their approach has been formally reviewed in leading publications and directly countered by John Gresham in the Journal of Pentecostal Theology (2025), which received a 2026 Award of Excellence. Paul’s own words in 1 Corinthians 14:2, where “no one understands” the speaker who “utters mysteries in the Spirit,” answer this question clearly. The research guide has the whole case.
Why I’m Sharing This Now
I didn’t write this to show that I was right. I wrote it because real people, young people, and individuals I care about are asking a real issue and they deserve a real answer.
This was my own project for a long time. My own deep dive. But the inquiries kept coming, and I knew that keeping this information to myself wasn’t helping the people who needed it most. This blog is the first time I’m sharing any of it with the world.
The research guide is now in its Third Edition. This isn’t because I’ve published two versions before; it’s because I’ve made that many changes, checked the facts, and added new research. I kept working on it because I wanted it to be perfect before I gave it to anyone.
This blog is also the first of a series of blogs. The whole study guide is very detailed, but I know that most people won’t want to read a 27,000-word document on a Tuesday night. In the next few weeks, I’ll be producing more posts that break down certain parts into shorter, easier-to-understand portions. A single post on history. The evidence from the Bible is another. The science. The scholars who changed their minds. One topic at a time, in simple language, for those who just want honest answers.
Let me know if this post helped you or if it made you think of questions that you want me to answer in further detail. This series is for you. What you ask me to write next is what I write.
The promise Peter made on Pentecost is still true. “For you and your children, and for all who are far off, and for all whom the Lord our God will call” (Acts 2:39).
It is for you if He has called you.
I hold this work with open hands. The proof is powerful, yet I’m still learning. I will keep adding to the document when new research comes out. But I think what’s here is real, honest, and can be checked. And let me know if you discover a mistake. Being right is less important than being accurate.
My prayer is simple: that this will be a blessing for the body of Christ. Not as a weapon, but as a light. For anyone who is willing to look at the evidence and go where it takes them.
Keep looking for the meaning of life.
— Paul Natekin
About the Research
The complete research guide is currently in its third edition. Each edition made citations more precise, fixed mistakes (even those from our own tradition), and added fresh research. Quotes were checked against original texts. If something couldn’t be confirmed, it was either taken out or marked. I said so when the evidence was weak. When cessationist arguments were strong, I made them as strong as I could before responding.
The guide has more than 75 scholarly sources and an appendix that checks every assertion that is in dispute. It includes the historical, biblical, theological, and scientific evidence.
It’s free.
Download the Full Research Guide (PDF)
If you find an error, tell me. This research is ongoing, and your feedback makes it better.
For questions or corrections: contact
