It started with a kid at a youth conference in Portland.
A kid walked up to me at a youth conference.
Seventeen, hands in his pockets, eyes locked in. “Can you prove tongues is real? Historically? My friends say it’s just a Pentecostal thing that started a hundred years ago.”
I gave him what I had. Scripture. A few references. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 14:18 that he spoke in tongues more than anybody. The kid nodded and walked off.
I knew I owed him more.
The same question kept coming. College students are blindsided by their friends. Pastors DMing me: “Got anything I can hand someone with real footnotes?” So I started investigating. The result is a PDF I’m calling Speaking in Tongues: The Evidence You Deserve to See. Sources for every claim. Caveats on every weak spot. Link at the bottom.
This post is the short version.
If You’re Reading This
If you’re a skeptic, good. Skepticism beats gullibility. Check my sources. Don’t take my word.
If you grew up Pentecostal and have never been able to defend this to your roommate or your professor, this is for you.
If you’ve been hurt, somebody called your prayer language demonic, somebody shamed you for not speaking in tongues, somebody made you feel broken, I’m sorry. The Father Jesus describes in Luke 11 doesn’t hand snakes to His kids. What was done to you wasn’t from Him.
What I Found
The strongest case for tongues continuing doesn’t come from Pentecostals. It comes from scholars outside the tradition.
D.A. Carson, Reformed evangelical at Trinity: “Scripture offers no shelter to those who wish to rule out all claims to charismatic gifts today” (Showing the Spirit, p. 69).
Gordon Fee wrote 967 pages on Paul and the Holy Spirit. His verdict on cessationism? It’s “raised not on the basis of reading the biblical text, but from the greater concern as to their ‘legitimacy’ today” (God’s Empowering Presence, p. 893).
When scholars outside your tribe land where you land, that’s not a talking point. That’s weight.
I also caught bad evidence in our own circles. The “Carl Peterson brain study” people quote about tongues releasing chemicals? It doesn’t exist. No journal. No university. No record. The real evidence is plenty strong without making stuff up.
Six Things That Stood Out
1. Paul’s last word on tongues was a command. “Do not forbid speaking in tongues” (1 Corinthians 14:39). Not a suggestion. Robert Menzies notes it’s the only explicit command Paul gives in the whole chapter.
2. Non-Pentecostal scholars agree. Carson, Fee, Dunn, Thiselton, Grudem, Garland. They all conclude that the gifts continue. Even Richard Gaffin, a leading cessationist, admits the “perfect comes” argument from 1 Corinthians 13 “cannot be made credible exegetically.” D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, pastor of Westminster Chapel and the most famous Reformed preacher of the 20th century, said cessationism was wrong.
3. The history goes deeper than you’ve been told. Irenaeus (180 AD): people in his churches “through the Spirit speak all kinds of languages.” Tertullian. Novatian. The Cappadocians. Cyril of Jerusalem. The case doesn’t hang on uninterrupted lineage. It hangs on Acts 2:39 and the fact that no verse anywhere says the gifts stop.
4. Cessationism is newer than you think. Seed in Calvin’s Institutes (1559). Expanded by Conyers Middleton (1749). Systematized by B.B. Warfield (1918). Before Calvin, the church generally assumed the gifts continued. Jack Deere put it bluntly: “No one ever becomes a cessationist by reading the Scriptures.”
5. 600 million Christians worldwide practice this. 279 million Pentecostals, 305 million charismatics (Pew, 2011). Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, independent. Harvey Cox at Harvard calls it “the fastest-growing form of worship on Earth.” The question isn’t why Pentecostals believe in tongues. It’s when some Christians stopped, and why.
6. The science is interesting, but limited. Dr. Andrew Newberg’s 2006 brain scans showed the prefrontal cortex, the part that runs intentional speech, was less active during tongues. Suggestive. Not proof. Five subjects. Preliminary. Never replicated at scale. The case stands on Scripture, history, and theology. I’d rather tell you what the science can’t do than oversell it.
Scholars Who Walked Away From Cessationism
This part surprised me most.
Jack Deere taught Old Testament at Dallas Seminary, ground zero for American cessationism. Someone challenged him to produce one verse that explicitly teaches cessationism. He couldn’t. He resigned.
Sam Storms grew up cessationist, taught at Wheaton, read the New Testament looking for the cessationist case, and concluded there isn’t one. He’s Reformed. A Calvinist.
Augustine of Hippo started as a cessationist. Then he watched almost seventy miracles in his own diocese, wrote them down, and partially retracted his cessationism in his Retractions.
When the most serious scholars in the room follow the evidence and reach a conclusion, pay attention.
To My Cessationist Friends
I respect you. You hold your view because faithful teachers taught it to you from a real love of Scripture.
You should know something about me. Before I built the case for tongues, I spent years exposing abuse in my own tradition. NAR. Spiritual manipulation. Authoritarianism in a Holy Spirit costume. I went after the bad stuff in my own house with the same energy I’m now putting into defending the real thing.
A kitchen knife can feed your family or draw blood. The problem isn’t the knife. It’s who’s holding it.
The answer to abuse isn’t to deny the gift. It’s to practice it as Paul taught. In order. In love. With accountability.
Why Now
I didn’t write this to prove I was right. I wrote it because real people are asking honest questions, and they deserve honest answers.
This post is the first in a short series. I’ll break the bigger pieces into smaller posts. History. The biblical case. The science. The scholars who changed their minds. If something here helped or raised a question, tell me. The series is shaped by what readers actually ask.
Peter’s promise still stands. “For you, and for your children, and for all who are far off, for everyone the Lord our God will call” (Acts 2:39).
If He called you, it’s for you.
I hold this work with open hands. If you find an error, tell me. I care more about getting it right than being right.
Stay hungry for the meaning of life.
Paul Natekin
Coming Next in This Series
This was the overview. In the posts ahead, we go deeper into the evidence one piece at a time:
- Did Tongues Really Stop After the Apostles? A walk through 2,000 years of historical evidence, honestly presented.
- What Does the Bible Actually Say About Speaking in Tongues? Paul’s own words, in context, without the spin.
- The Passage Everyone Argues About: “When the Perfect Comes.” The one verse cessationists lean on hardest, and why most scholars say it doesn’t mean what you’ve been told.
- What Do Non-Pentecostal Scholars Say? The surprising conclusions from Reformed, Baptist, Anglican, and Catholic scholars.
- Who Decided the Gifts Stopped? The history of cessationism from Calvin to Warfield to today.
- Scholars Who Changed Their Minds. Their stories, their reasons, in their own words.
- What If You’ve Been Hurt by This Topic? For anyone who’s been shamed, pressured, or confused.
Each post is short, clear, and sourced. No pressure. Just evidence and an open door.
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 is grounded in a wide range of scholarly sources, with an appendix that verifies every contested claim through historical, biblical, theological, and scientific evidence.
It’s free.
If you find an error, tell me. This research is ongoing, and your feedback makes it better.
For questions or corrections: contact
