Who Are Tongues Addressed To?

For anyone who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men but to God. Indeed, no one understands him; he utters mysteries with his spirit. 1 Corinthians 14:2 (NIV)

Who are tongues addressed too?

Some Pentecostal scholars have suggested that the audience of tongues is God, and therefore, the interpretation of tongues should address God as well in order to be legitimate. Under such a regimen, an interpretation that addressed people (as in prophecy) would be considered out of order out of hand. Is this intimated in scripture and should this be the standard leaders apply in accepting or rejecting intepretations? No, for two reasons.

1) Although this text says straightforwardly that a tongue speaker speaks mysteries to God, in saying so its intent is not to dictate the direction of tongues. The passage states very clearly why a tongue speaker, in effect, speaks to God-- only God can understand him. No one else does; to the people hearing it, it's merely babble. God alone understands the tongue itself, even if it was directed to men.

To extrapolate from that functional reality and say that tongues must be directed conversationally toward God is to say more than, and other than the scripture says in context. Although there are passages which anecdotally imply direction toward God, that is not the same as asserting that the direction must be toward God just because it was in those instances.

In the Law it is written: "Through men of strange tongues and through the lips of foreigners I will speak to this people, but even then they will not listen to me," says the Lord. Tongues, then, are a sign, not for believers but for unbelievers; prophecy, however, is for believers, not for unbelievers. 1 Corinthians 14:21-22 (NIV)

2) When Paul quotes Isaiah to point to an Old Testament presage of tongues, he clearly reverses the direction of communication. In other words, God speaks to men through the strange tongues that men are speaking to other men. If the model for tongues in the Old Testament has it directed from God to men, why would anyone doubt that the fulfillment of the image in New Testament Spirit-filled tongues would do the same?

Since God inspires both the tongues and the intepretation, it is up to him to determine what is done with them, including the direction of the communication. The only objective tests we are given in scripture regarding any spoken utterance deal with content, not direction. If we listened to the proponents of this directional theory, we would wind up paying undue attention to the pronouns in a message rather than its actual content. What excess or error could that possibly address?

Aren't there enough real problems for charismatics to deal with that we don't have to go around turning stones over looking for intellectual trifles to stumble over?