Speaking in Tongues: The Evidence, Part 4 of 7
I expected the strongest case for tongues to come from Pentecostal scholars.
Wrong.
The scholars who shook my assumptions hardest weren’t Pentecostals at all. Reformed theologians. Anglican commentators. Southern Baptists. Professors at institutions where speaking in tongues would get you sideways glances in the faculty lounge.
And yet, when they opened their Bibles and followed the text, they landed in the same place.
That got my attention. It should get yours.
Because if the only people arguing for tongues were Pentecostals, you could write it off. Confirmation bias. Echo chamber. Group loyalty.
But that’s not what happened.
Let me introduce you to some of them.
D.A. Carson, Reformed, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School
Carson is one of the most respected New Testament scholars alive. Reformed. Conservative. Not the kind of guy who chases trends.
His verdict on cessationism?
Blunt.
“Scripture offers no shelter to those who wish to rule out all claims to charismatic gifts today.”
— Showing the Spirit (Baker, 1987), p. 69
Read that again. “No shelter.” Not “limited shelter.” Not “some shelter if you squint.”
No shelter.
Carson also explicitly rejects the idea that “the perfect” in 1 Corinthians 13:10 means the completed Bible. He says it refers to the eschaton, when Christ returns. Which means the gifts continue until then.
This isn’t a Pentecostal making this argument. This is one of the most influential Reformed scholars of our generation.
Gordon Fee, Regent College, Pauline Scholar
Fee wrote a 967-page book on Paul and the Holy Spirit. That’s not a typo. Nine hundred and sixty-seven pages. It’s called God’s Empowering Presence, and it’s widely regarded as the most comprehensive study of Paul’s pneumatology ever published.
His conclusion on cessationism is devastating:
“This particular ‘answer’ to the issue 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, and one that Paul could not have understood. His answer is plain: ‘Of course they will continue as long as we await the final consummation.’ Any answer that does not follow in the footsteps of the apostle at this point may hardly appeal to him for support.”
— God’s Empowering Presence (Hendrickson, 1994), p. 893
Translation: cessationism isn’t a conclusion drawn from reading the Bible. It’s a conclusion brought to the Bible from elsewhere. Fee says Paul would’ve found it incomprehensible.
He adds that “the evidence is considerable that a visible, ‘charismatic’ dimension of life in the Spirit was the normal experience of the Pauline churches” (p. 894).
Normal. Not exceptional. Not reserved for super-apostles.
And then Fee drops this about Western Christianity: “It is perhaps an indictment on Western Christianity that we should consider to be ‘mature’ our rather totally cerebral and domesticated — but bland — brand of faith, with the concomitant absence of the Spirit in terms of his supernatural gifts!”
Ouch.
Anthony Thiselton, Anglican, University of Nottingham
Thiselton wrote over 1,400 pages of commentary on 1 Corinthians. The most detailed in the English language. Conservative evangelical Anglican. Not charismatic.
His conclusion? He firmly rejects the cessationist “completed canon” reading of 1 Corinthians 13:10. No New Testament text, he argues, warrants expecting the gifts to cease.
Over 1,400 pages of careful, technical exegesis. Not a sermon. Not a blog post.
And at the end of it: continuation.
The most detailed commentary on 1 Corinthians in existence doesn’t support cessationism. That’s not a minor data point.
James Dunn, Durham University
Dunn was one of the most influential New Testament scholars of the twentieth century. His Jesus and the Spirit (SCM Press, 1975) demonstrated that charismatic experience was foundational to earliest Christianity. Not an add-on. Not a fringe phenomenon.
Paul, Dunn showed, “evidently expects the charismata to be a regular feature of the community’s worship.”
If charismatic experience was foundational for the early church, the burden of proof falls on anyone claiming God withdrew it. You don’t get to remove the foundation and act surprised when people ask where it went.
Wayne Grudem, Reformed, Phoenix Seminary
Grudem is Reformed. He taught at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He wrote Systematic Theology, one of the most widely used systematic theology textbooks in American seminaries.
In The Gift of Prophecy in the New Testament and Today (Crossway, 2000), Grudem systematically dismantles what he identifies as five incorrect assumptions in cessationist reasoning. He argues that 1 Corinthians 13:10 refers to Christ’s return, not the completion of the canon, and concludes: “there is no reason to think that [prophecy] would not continue in the church right up until Christ returns.”
Five assumptions. Not one or two. Five.
David Garland, Southern Baptist
Garland’s 1 Corinthians commentary (BECNT, Baker Academic, 2003) is a standard academic reference. Southern Baptist scholar. Not charismatic.
He agrees that “the perfect” is eschatological. But he makes a point that stops you in your tracks.
Paul’s final word in 1 Corinthians 14:39? “Do not forbid speaking in tongues.”
That’s not a grudging concession. It’s a command. A direct apostolic command. And commands don’t come with expiration dates unless the text says so.
Darrell Bock, Dallas Theological Seminary
This one matters for a specific reason.
Dallas Theological Seminary was, for decades, one of the leading institutions of dispensational cessationism. If you wanted to argue that the gifts had ceased, DTS was your school.
And yet Bock’s Acts commentary (BECNT, Baker Academic, 2007) doesn’t support cessationism. He treats Pentecost as a salvation-historical event with ongoing significance and notes that Acts 2:39 extends the promise beyond the apostolic generation.
A DTS scholar whose exegesis doesn’t support cessationism. Think about that. He followed the text where it led.
D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Reformed, Westminster Chapel
Lloyd-Jones was arguably the most respected Reformed preacher of the twentieth century. Westminster Chapel, London. The Reformed preacher’s preacher.
His grandson and editor Christopher Catherwood confirmed Lloyd-Jones’s position plainly: “he believed that all the gifts existed today” and “He was thus both reformed and charismatic, in the biblical senses of the terms.”
Lloyd-Jones himself warned the church: “Our greatest danger, I feel today, is to quench the Spirit. This is no age to advocate restraint; the church today does not need to be restrained, but to be aroused, to be awakened” (Joy Unspeakable).
The most revered Reformed preacher of the last century believed the gifts continued. Not privately. Not reluctantly.
Publicly, from the pulpit of Westminster Chapel.
That’s not a footnote. That’s a headline.
J.I. Packer, Reformed Anglican, Regent College
Packer, one of the most respected Reformed theologians of the twentieth century, reviewed Puritan writings on personal revelations and made a striking admission. In a personal fax to Wayne Grudem (September 9, 1997), he noted that the Puritans “weren’t cessationists in the Richard Gaffin sense.”
Think about that.
The Puritans, often claimed as cessationist ancestors, did not hold the hard cessationism that many modern Reformed theologians assume is the historic position.
Even the historical argument for cessationism turns out to be shakier than advertised. The tradition that people assume has always existed? It hasn’t. Not in the form they think.
The Honest Part
I want to be straight with you. These scholars aren’t endorsing every charismatic practice they’ve seen on YouTube. Most call themselves “open but cautious.” They support the continuation of the gifts while insisting that every claim be tested by Scripture. Order, not chaos. Substance, not spectacle.
And honestly? I agree with them.
The biblical case for continuation is strong. But the Bible also calls us to “test everything” (1 Thessalonians 5:21) and to pursue love above all gifts (1 Corinthians 13:1). The scholars in this post model that balance: rigorous about the text, open to the Spirit, unwilling to let bad theology close doors God left open.
So What?
A Reformed scholar at Trinity. A Southern Baptist commentator. An Anglican at Nottingham. A professor at Dallas Theological Seminary. The most revered Reformed preacher of the twentieth century. All independently conclude that cessationism lacks biblical support.
That’s not a Pentecostal conspiracy.
That’s a convergence of scholarship across traditions.
The question isn’t whether Pentecostals believe in tongues. Of course they do. The question is: why do so many scholars who have no reason to believe in tongues, who were trained in traditions that reject them, keep arriving at the same conclusion when they open the text?
Maybe because that’s where the text leads.
I didn’t come to this conclusion because I’m Pentecostal. I came to it because I followed scholars who had every reason to disagree. And I watched them follow the evidence to the same place.
If you’re skeptical, good. Skepticism isn’t the enemy of faith. Gullibility is. But don’t stop at skepticism. Read these scholars for yourself. Check their sources. Follow their arguments.
See where the text takes you.
Sources
The following scholars and works informed this post:
- D.A. Carson, Showing the Spirit (Baker, 1987)
- Gordon Fee, God’s Empowering Presence (Hendrickson, 1994)
- Anthony Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (NIGTC, Eerdmans, 2000)
- James Dunn, Jesus and the Spirit (SCM Press, 1975)
- Wayne Grudem, The Gift of Prophecy in the New Testament and Today (Crossway, 2000)
- David Garland, 1 Corinthians (BECNT, Baker Academic, 2003)
- Darrell Bock, Acts (BECNT, Baker Academic, 2007)
- D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Joy Unspeakable (Kingsway, 1984)
- J.I. Packer, personal correspondence with Wayne Grudem (1997)
Full citations with page numbers are available in the free research guide, which you can download from the overview post.
This post is part of the “Speaking in Tongues: The Evidence” series. For the full overview, the free research guide PDF, and links to every post in the series, visit the overview post.
Next: Who Decided the Gifts Stopped? A Short History of Cessationism
