Speaking in Tongues in the Early Church

Intro Welcome to the Standard of Truth Podcast. In this podcast, Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat and Professor Richard LeDuc explore the early history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the life and teachings of Prophet Joseph Smith. They examine the original historical sources and provide context for events of the past. They approach the history of the Church with faith, expertise and humor.

Gerrit Hi, welcome to another episode of the Standard of Truth Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat, and I'm joined by my friend, Professor Richard LeDuc.

Richard Hello, Gerrit. In this episode, we're going to dive back in to part two of Apostles and Apostates.

Gerrit We are not.

Richard We are not.

Gerrit I think we just put that up as a trial balloon, and what we found was that everyone just, you know, they wanted to only talk about apostates, and we wanted to do both.

Richard Well, so one of the problems is actually, it's your fault, actually, listener, because what happens is we get a lot of emails, and in the emails, we get really good questions, that the emails are far more interesting and funny than anything we have ever done or said. And so we want to share those emails and kind of get into some of that stuff. And so we have, you know, I've used the reference before, Travis Tritt, the best of intentions, but ultimately, we're just never gonna get back to it.

Gerrit Right, so what we need our listeners to do is to just assume that whenever we say we're gonna talk about anything, that we aren't.

Richard So here's a perfect entry into the Phebe Draper mailbag.

Gerrit We've gone away from our...

Richard Pierre, I forget his... De Silva, yes, Pierre De Silva.

Gerrit But that wasn't who he was, he was saying was some Finley, some Englishman.

Richard Right, right. But we referenced the Frenchman that was several years before. But, so not answering questions, this leads to an email, a follow-up. The subject is, thank you. And you know what, Anthony? You're welcome. How about that? How about that, Anthony? Just finished listening to the podcast where you read my email and never answered my question. So that's actually why we wanted to read this email is for that line there. Now I feel like I'm part of the show. The question was actually on the succession crisis, crisis, which we're going to be getting to.

Gerrit I don't know that we'll ever get to the crisis.

Richard Succession crisis. We will be getting to it. We will. We will eventually get to it. Thank you for reading it and the lighthearted comedy. Yes, I will be signing up for the premium content. That's the second reason that I'm reading this. I will accept, by the way, if you want your email read, say you don't actually have to sign up.

Gerrit Well, people will sign up and then immediately cancel.

Richard Yeah, there's no way to check it. But so he says, I will accept the 15-yard penalty. It'll give me more room to maneuver. That's a great football reference.

Gerrit That is a great football reference. And you know what? If it was against the spread, we would know about it.

Richard So the thing is that that flag that Gerrit threw as I was reading the email was about the golden investigator that he taught on his mission that was from Wisconsin.

Gerrit Now it wasn't in Wisconsin.

Richard No, certainly not.

Gerrit Because that doesn't exist. It was in California.

Richard No, certainly not.

Gerrit Because that doesn't exist. It was in California.

Richard San Diego, I believe. So yes, so that's the flag. I had my daughter proofread that original email while reading. She asked if it was those podcast guys. I confirmed it was, and she asked, and asked if she had listened to the podcast. She admitted she had. Not to play down Joseph's experience, but I marvelled. All seriousness aside.

Gerrit I marvelled that she listened.

Richard I've been looking for someone that could teach church history with the same passion as Brother Madsen along with a sense of humour, and you guys fit that bill. You have helped strengthen my testimony. So from one of your listeners from Duchenne County, thank you and have a great July 24th. And Anthony, by the way, I lived in Roosevelt for a year as a young lad, as my dad worked in the oil field. So there's an additional connection.

Gerrit So your dad was literally a LeDuc Roughneck.

Richard LeDuc Roughneck. Now that's a call back to last week when I referenced going to Canadian Tire and wanting to purchase multiple jerseys for the LeDuc Roughneck hockey team that is there just south of Edmonton. LeDuc, Canada, a beautiful this time of year especially. Next email. Dear Dr. Dirkmaat and Professor LeDuc, I was introduced to your podcast by a friend in my branch. I've been listening to your podcast for a few months and I've almost listened to all of it. I love your work and plan to listen for as long as you're still producing free. Content. My wife even says, I've become wiser and more insightful since I began listening to you. That's one of the main impacts that are bringing marriages.

Gerrit Imagine if you're wiser from the free content. Imagine what you'd be for the premium content.

Richard How much more attractive would you look to your wife?

Gerrit Now it hasn't worked with our wives.

Richard No, no, certainly not.

Gerrit They don't seem to think we're any smarter or attractive.

Richard No, no, certainly not.

Gerrit They don't seem to think we're any smarter or attractive.

Richard But they don't listen to the podcast.

Gerrit They're literally in the room right now while we're recording.

Richard Sleeping. Maybe I will be able to talk to her into letting me pay for content one day. Thank you for helping me to not be an idiot in her eyes all of the time. The emailer goes on to reference a podcast that they listened to and said that the podcaster made claims that speaking in tongues was done in the early church. She wasn't referring to missionaries speaking in foreign languages, but speaking in tongues the way that Pentecostals and other similar Protestants do. She makes this claim by quoting many early members and leaders, and referencing the Joseph Smith Papers, she explained that even at the time of Joseph Smith warned the people that this could be dangerous and provided a way for Satan to deceive people. Did early members, including Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, really speak in tongues as she claims? If so, was this different from how Pentecostals do it now? I'm no expert, but it seems that how Pentecostals practice it, there is a temporary loss of control.

Richard This seems to contradict Revelation by study and prayer. I'm just curious for your thoughts on this, and to verify the accuracy of this historical claim, I provided a link to the podcast so you can check it out. Unrelated to the question, but I have several close family members who are snufferites. They are weirdly secretive about the whole thing, and have become increasingly closed off to the world in recent years. Your comments to that movement have been very helpful in me understanding what they believe. Hopefully, when they decide to talk, I will be more knowledgeable and able to talk about the truth with them because of your efforts, a listener in Detroit.

Gerrit We have a listener in Detroit.

Richard That's what he says, he or she says. I don't know that there's any way to confirm that, but that's where they say they're from.

Gerrit I mean, how far away is Rachel's mom from Detroit? Didn't they say like an hour or so? I can't remember.

Richard Yeah, probably. I think something like that.

Gerrit They flew to Detroit when they flew home. Yeah, right.

Richard Yeah, so there you go.

Gerrit We're letting everyone know where Rachel's mom lives.

Richard The address will be in the description of the episode.

Gerrit And we'll be posting her social security number along with Rex's. We'll be posting those shortly so that everyone can go visit Rachel's mom when they go to Michigan.

Richard Yeah, and to Rex's Ellerskorn president, about eight minutes.

Gerrit No, it's gonna be way longer than that. Are we gonna be silly before he starts listening? I don't know. We're silly all the time. This is a really good question, which is the reason why we threw aside whatever we were going to talk about.

Richard Apostles and apostates, the succession crisis, everything. Missouri, all of it.

Gerrit Plural marriage, we were gonna talk about it, and then this came in. Today we were like, you know what, this is too plural marriage.

Richard Let's do it, let's do it, all of it.

Gerrit Yeah, but we decided not to because of that. This is a great question because I think that you are, you're reflecting exactly what a lot of members of the church today would think if they were told that, right? Someone's saying, you know, in the early church, people spoke in tongues. How come we don't speak in tongues? In fact, there's actually antagonists of the church today who will point this out. And they'll point out the fact that because we don't know about it, that that shows that the church is hiding it from people. Da da. Now, of course, I'm guessing that most people are familiar with the Articles of Faith, right? I mean-

Richard Yes, I'm familiar with them. I'm familiar with the things that exist.

Gerrit Did you memorize them for Primary?

Richard I sure did, yeah.

Gerrit Did you memorize all of them?

Richard I did. My bishop made me recite them when I went in for my advancement interview to become an Aaronic, to become a deacon.

Gerrit So as an 11-year-old, you had to memorize all of them.

Richard Well, no, this was back in the day. So, you know, I was 12. So that gave me a whole other year.

Gerrit Well, right, but you had to, while you were 11 years old.

Richard Yes, yes, while I was 11, yes.

Gerrit At any rate, one of the Articles of Faith says very clearly that we believe in the same gifts that exist in the Primitive Church. Can you recite it from memory now?

Richard I would love to, absolutely.

Gerrit But that would make our listeners feel bad. That they couldn't do it off the top of their head.

Richard But we believe in the literal gathering of Israel and that in the restoration of the, and in the restoration of the Ten Tribes, that Zion, the New Jerusalem, kind of feel like this is the wrong one.

Gerrit You know, when you've memorized so many of them, they're just, they're.

Richard Yeah, I mean, I've memorized so many. Like, I don't even remember how many of them there are.

Gerrit I'm kind of questioning whether or not you should be a deacon.

Richard We believe in the gift of tongues, prophecy, revelation, visions, healing, interpretation of tongues, and so forth.

Gerrit Right. And of course, those are biblical gifts that are laid out in the Bible. And so I think, though, the listener is thinking, well, I mean, look, we believe in the gift of tongues and in the interpretation of tongues, but to me, that's, you know, a missionary, you know, got straight Fs in high school, you know, and then went on a mission to Iceland and within a week was speaking fluent Icelandic.

Richard Well, my son, who I love with all of my heart, is going to Peru, and his transcripts in Spanish do not bode well for him, but I believe that he'll do great.

Gerrit Now, this phenomena of speaking in tongues actually has a, you know, a religious studies term that's attached to it that you might hear sometimes. And so just so people know, they'll call it glossolalia. Glossolalia meaning, it means speaking in tongues. That's what it means. So if you ever hear someone say, oh, is the gift of glossolalia in your church, that's, are you saying that you haven't ever heard that?

Richard Not only have I never heard it, no one has ever heard it.

Gerrit There are dozens of people listening right now to someone else's podcast where they're talking about it, who've heard about it.

Richard Okay. Glossola, glossolalia?

Gerrit Glossolalia. Okay.

Richard Sounds, it's, yes, absolutely. Sounds fantastic. It sounds like some sort of incantation that would be, you know, said in some sort of Celtic ceremony.

Gerrit Which maybe it could be.

Richard There you go.

Gerrit Glossolalia.

Richard There you go.

Gerrit Glossolalia.

Richard There it is.

Gerrit But I think many people are really thinking, when they think of the gift of tongues in the modern church, they think more of what you would say, xenolalia.

Richard Well, that's far more common, yes.

Gerrit Well, that's because it's, you know, speaking...

Richard Speaking the tongue of someone, the other guy.

Gerrit Yeah, and that foreign tongue. And so I think that's how it's generally thought of. But let's talk a little bit about this. Now, we all know from earlier podcasts that clearly you've listened to Listener in Detroit, if you've almost listened to all of them. Yes.

Richard Thank you.

Gerrit Maybe the premium content soon.

Richard We hope. We can only hope.

Gerrit It only depends. Once you get to the premium content, all we talk about is tongues.

Richard One of the things... One of the things that we have found is when we read listeners' emails, then they at least claim that they're going to subscribe to the premium content.

Gerrit At this point though, we're rapidly approaching the inflection point of where we've had more people tell us that they've signed up, then we've had people sign up. They're signing up for something. I don't want to say that they're liars, but obviously...

Richard Well, we already know that Anthony stretched the truth when he said he had a golden investigator out of Wisconsin.

Gerrit So Anthony's already... He's already very difficult to believe. Oh yeah, guy from Wisconsin totally wanted to get baptized. Lies, lies, and more lies. Do you have a bridge to sell me to, Anthony? Anyway, in the Early Church, so in the first years of the Church, we don't get reference to any of the early members speaking in tongues at first. Now of course, they all read and know the Bible, so everyone's familiar with the Day of Pentecost, which is where the Spirit's poured out and everyone hears, you know...

Richard And this was just mentioning Come Follow Me a month ago. So, we like to hit on Come Follow Me topics about a month after you've discussed them in gospel.com.

Gerrit Well, what we want is for you to take that information, store it for four years, and four years from now, you're kind of guns blazing. Four years from now, someone's like, and what is the Gifts of Tongues? And you shout, glossolalia, glossolalia!

Richard And they think that you then are speaking in tongues. Exactly.

Gerrit So, have your wife interpret for you. That means Gifts of Tongues. That means speaking in tongues, that's what that means. So, in the Early Church experiences in Palmyra, Fayette, you don't get references to this. At the same time, remember, we talked about it again on an early, early, early podcast, how there were early members of the Church in Kirtland, right, after Parley Pratt and King, and Oliver Cowdery and others go on their mission. And on the way there, they stopped to preach to Sidney Rigdon, right? Remember, there was a whole bunch of people got baptized all at once, and then the missionaries left. And then when John Whitmer went in late 1830, early 1831, what he found was that everyone was crazy, right? At least according to one antagonist's account, Eber Howe, who's the person who wrote Mormonism unveiled in his newspaper, as he reported on these crazy Mormons, he gives at least some type of indication that there's something going on.

Gerrit Now, maybe he's just wrong. He's, you know, he lies about other things. So I mean, maybe this is what he says immediately after Mr. Rigdon and the four pretended prophets left Kirtland. You can tell he's not biased at all. The pretended prophets, a scene of wildest enthusiasm was exhibited chiefly, however, among the young people. They would fall as without strength and roll upon the floor. And so mad were they that even the females were seen in a cold winter day lying under the bare canopy of heaven with no couch or a pillow, but the fleecy snow being acquainted with my wife's aversion to cold temperatures and perhaps yours as well.

Richard Yes, absolutely.

Gerrit I think that this is what struck him most. You don't get it, guys. Even these Mormon women are laying in snow saying that they're not cold. This is how we know it's work of the devil. And he doesn't say it's devil because he doesn't really believe that much in God anyway. But he says, at other times, they would start and run several furlongs and then get up on stumps and preach to imagine congregations, baptize ghosts, etc. And at other times, they are taken with a fit of jabbering that that which they neither understand themselves nor anybody else. And they call this they call speaking foreign languages by divine inspiration. So you do get Eber how commenting that at least among some of these early overly enthusiastic followers, there's at least some claiming that they're speaking in tongues. Now it's important to understand that this idea that these signs would follow those that believe that they'd be able to speak in an unknown tongue is something that is a recurring theme throughout Christian history, and especially in the wake of the Protestant Reformation.

Gerrit And now that doesn't mean that most people are doing it, but it is something that is kind of a recurring sign of believers. So maybe that's what's going on with these early believers in Kirtland. But we don't have now that doesn't seem like it's a terribly legitimate usage of it, right? That's not, you know, you were house, you know, kind of being a jerk. But also at the same time, there does seem to be some things that are going on that Joseph doesn't approve of, right? Remember he writes to hire him when he gets to Kirtland himself. He says, you know, we have been engaged in regulating the churches because the disciples here are numerous and Satan's got a hold of some of them. And he says it's been a serious job trying to regulate, you know, some of these false spiritual gifts. Where there's also a revelation that Joseph is going to receive in the midst of trying to regulate all of this in which the Lord is going to spell out the many different, the many different gifts of the Spirit.

Gerrit This is in Doctrine and Covenants, section 46. So again, received there in early 1841, 1831, not 41, boy, if it was 41, maybe not as early, right? I'm going to leave that in because Richard accuses me of cutting out the mistakes that I make.

Richard Well, yeah. So I mispronounce words often and we leave those in. Gerrit doesn't in the middle, but maybe he'll start off not knowing what his own name is.

Gerrit And we cut it out.

Richard And we cut that out.

Gerrit And we cut it out.

Richard And we cut that out.

Gerrit We cut that right out because I have editorial control. At any rate, these gifts are listed as being gifts of the spirit. And one of them is this gift to speak in tongues. And again, it is given to some to speak in tongues and to another is given the interpretation of tongues. So you have an early revelation that's declaring that the gift of tongues is in fact a is a true gift. And also another gift is the having the ability to interpret it. Again though, I don't think that our listener is asking the question of is the gift of tongues a real thing. It's that the way that he heard it described in this other podcast was that it sounded more like the kind of speaking in a completely unknown tongue rather than you don't know Spanish but you hear someone bear their testimony in Spanish and through the gift of the Spirit you know what it is that they're saying or what Rigdon is going to do on his mission for the next two years.

Richard Right.

Gerrit Right. I have no idea but maybe I'll figure it out. So let's go back and examine some of the early source. Now again, there are lots of sources on this so I'm not going to be able to examine all of them. That's not possible. But we at least have one indication that the first time Joseph Smith heard someone speak in an unknown tongue and it wasn't, you know, crazy people sliding on the floor in Kirtland, but that it actually was from God, was from Brigham Young. November 1832. This is from the history as it's compiled. It's actually an addenda to the history. About the 8th of November, I, so this is, you know, the writing in Joseph's first person, I received a visit from elders Joseph Young, Brigham Young, and Heber C.

Richard Right.

Gerrit Right. I have no idea but maybe I'll figure it out. So let's go back and examine some of the early source. Now again, there are lots of sources on this so I'm not going to be able to examine all of them. That's not possible. But we at least have one indication that the first time Joseph Smith heard someone speak in an unknown tongue and it wasn't, you know, crazy people sliding on the floor in Kirtland, but that it actually was from God, was from Brigham Young. November 1832. This is from the history as it's compiled. It's actually an addenda to the history. About the 8th of November, I, so this is, you know, the writing in Joseph's first person, I received a visit from elders Joseph Young, Brigham Young, and Heber C.

Gerrit Kimball from Mendon, Monroe County, New York. They spent four or five days at Kirtland, during which we had many interesting moments. At one of our interviews, Brigham Young and John P. Green spoke in tongues, which was the first time I had heard this gift among the brethren. Others also spoke, and I received the gift myself. So here, clearly Joseph and Brigham, well, they both speak English. I know that maybe there's a little bit of a dialect difference from someone born in Vermont than someone in Connecticut, but not really, right? Not enough that it would be like that. And in fact, the way that it's described is is that Brigham Young goes to pray and he prays in this unknown tongue.

Gerrit And that Joseph will say that the language that Brigham Young prayed in was actually the pure language of Adam. It was the Adamic tongue. This is something that's going to come up over and over again for Joseph, where if you think about it right, before the tower, at least if you're thinking about it in terms of Adam and Eve and their posterity, everyone spoke the same language, or at least that's how we would look at it. And only after that was where the language has changed. And so Joseph's going to receive multiple things that he's going to say are the pure language of Adam, which of course would sound like gibberish because English isn't that pure language. The name Adam on Diamond, for instance, is apparently in this pure language. And in fact, Joseph will receive multiple revelations that touch on this Adamic language like Ammon.

Gerrit This Ammon is this word for God. In fact, there's one revelation Joseph receives very late in his life in which the end of it, the Lord signs his name to the revelation as Ammon Christ. Because he's God, but he's Jesus God, so that you know which part of the God had his speaking. That's probably a little bit further down the rabbit hole than the listener in Detroit was hoping for.

Richard No, I think that's exactly what the listener in Detroit was.

Gerrit Okay, well, let's keep going down the rabbit hole then. This legitimate use of tongues that wasn't just to speak to people in foreign languages is manifested multiple times. In fact, in a letter that the church is going to, Joseph's going to write to the church in Missouri, Joseph Smith is going to say this, as to the gift of tongues, all we can say is that in this place, we have received it as the ancients did. Now, again, they see the restoration of all things is going to include this gift of tongues because the gift of tongues is something that was part of Jesus's church. And I think what he's making reference to there is actually the minutes of a meeting that took place in January of 1833.

Gerrit So this letter he's writing is in July of 1833. So in January of 1833, in these minutes, they discuss the fact that they receive the gift of tongues. Conference opened with prayer by the president, and after prayer, the president spake in an unknown tongue. So here's Joseph speaking in an unknown tongue. He was followed by Brother Zebedee Coltrane, and he by Brother William Smith. After this, the gift was poured out in a miraculous manner until all the elders obtained the gift together with several of the members of the church, both male and female. So it's men and women that are speaking in tongues. And again, in apparently this unknown tongue. Great and glorious were the divine manifestations of the Holy Spirit. Praises were sung to God and the Lamb besides much speaking and praying, all in tongues. The conference adjourned at a late hour in the night to meet the next morning at nine o'clock and closed by prayer by the president.

Gerrit So the next morning, we met agreeable to adjournment, conference opened with prayer by the president after much speaking and praying and singing, all done in tongues. We proceeded to washing the hands and feet and face in the name of the Lord as commanded by God. So here, this speaking in tongues is actually associated with or at least adjacent to this very holy ordinance of the ceremonial and sacred washing of the feet. So again, this doesn't appear to be speaking in Spanish so that someone who's from Spain can understand. This appears to be an actual speaking in this unknown language and people there interpreting in that language, even praying in that language. That's probably the quotes that I'm guessing that were shared that maybe made our listener go, wait a minute.

Gerrit You will notice though, there doesn't seem to be any rolling around on the floor with this. There's no mention of any kind of confusion that's going on. There's no, and they slid across the floor while they were doing it. There's no gyrating while they were doing it. In fact, it appears to be a very calm speaking in tongues and a very calm interpretation of tongues. To your question of, you know, sometimes I hear people doing it and they're going in a different direction. Well, in another meeting, this is from Joseph's Journal, held a meeting yesterday at 10 o'clock. After meeting, two came forward and were baptized and confirmed them at the water's edge. Held the meeting last evening, ordained brother Freeman EF. Nickerson to the office of Elder, had a good meeting. One of the sisters got the gift of tongues, which made the saints rejoice.

Gerrit May God increase the gifts among them for his son's sake. This morning we bend our course for home. May the Lord prosper our journey, amen. So again, that's in October of 1833. So 1833 is a time of real growth in the church, right? Especially in Ohio, plus you're sending out missionaries to various places. More people are being converted. They're coming in. There's even missionaries being sent to Michigan, maybe.

Richard Maybe even Detroit.

Gerrit Well, I'm sure they passed through it. Yeah, right. So your ancestral forebears, perhaps. I have no idea how long you've lived in Michigan. Maybe. I just moved there last week. Well, if you moved from Quebec, then we would know. The point being, there's kind of a time period of this. You can see that it is something that appears to be taken as a sign that this really is the restoration of Christ's Church. That it really is the restoration of all things. At the same time, there is concern that was expressed about it being used improperly. And those concerns are going to be, they're going to become more fast and furious as we go forward. In another conference, here we have the representation of the churches closed at 3 o'clock p.m. And the council then proceeded to give some general and particular instructions relative to the Word of Wisdom.

Gerrit The gift of tongues and interpretation prophesies improper use of all the spiritual gifts. So the very fact that they are, in this 1835 meeting of the Quorum of the Twelve, talking about how we need to make sure that we use these gifts properly, the gifts of tongues, suggests what? It suggests that someone's not using it properly. And we can find that as we go further forward into the future. In the Kirtland Temple dedication is where you're really going to find multiple instances of this. And of course, the saints actually refer to it like it is a day of Pentecost, the pouring out of the spirit, angels appearing to people, people speaking in tongues, people seeing clove in tongues of fire, just like the day of Pentecost in Acts chapter two. So we'll see some of these things here as well.

Gerrit Again in this meeting, Joseph's, the reference is Joseph says, I left the meeting in the charge of the 12 and retired about nine o'clock in the evening. The brethren continued exhorting, prophesying and speaking in tongues until five o'clock in the morning. So they're already meeting Joseph's got a he's got a tap out. He's been there all day, 1415 hours. It's nine o'clock at night. The quorum of the 12 and others stay. And they're still there eight hours later. And what's going on? prophesying, speaking in tongues. And it's all recorded as miraculous. And at the end of that, the Savior made his appearance to some while angels ministered to others. And it was a Pentecost and endowment indeed, long to be remembered. That's about as good a source you can get as that some speaking in tongues is endorsed in the early church.

Gerrit And you'll notice it's actually a part of these hugely miraculous events, like things surrounding the dedication of the Kirtland Temple. This is actually a meeting preceding it, but still surrounding the completion of the temple, the Quorum of the Twelve, there are these powerful meetings, the appearance of Jesus, where these speaking in tongues are taking place. Now, as time goes on, Joseph is going to start... he's not going to reject the idea of speaking in tongues, because probably right now our listener is wondering, now wait a minute, if they are speaking all the time, then maybe these antis are right. I mean, we're no longer that church. How come we don't speak in tongues now? Well, it's because unlike antis, we believe in prophets. And unlike other Christians, we believe in modern prophets. And so we believe in line upon line and precept upon precept.

Gerrit The very fact that we don't do exactly now what was done in the earliest days of the church is not evidence of literally anything. Because we believe God continues to give revelation through prophets. Those early experiences of speaking in tongues seem to be something of a sign to people who are wondering or to early believers that this really was Jesus' church. But by 1839, Joseph is going to give a series of instructions to people because he's a little worried that the gifts of tongues is being used falsely. Now, I can actually come up with a lot of examples of this. We don't have time, nor do any of our listeners have the inclination to listen to all of the examples. I'm already listing off way too many, right?

Richard Well, those were all helpful to understand where it was. Yeah, they were fine.

Gerrit You'll cut them all out.

Richard Yeah, I will.

Gerrit In post. Every spirit, so this is a teaching of Joseph Smith, a discourse. Every spirit and vision or singing is not of God. The devil is an orator. He is powerful. He took our Savior to the pinnacle of the temple and kept him in the wilderness for 40 days. The gift of discerning spirits will be given to the presiding elder. Pray for him, et cetera. Speak not in the gift of tongues without understanding it or without interpretation. The devil can speak in tongues. The adversary will come with his work. He can tempt all classes, can speak in English or in Dutch. Let no one speak in tongues unless he interprets, except by the consent of one who is placed to preside. Then he may discern or interpret or another may.

Gerrit So here, that's a pretty strict rule that's placed upon it, right? If the speaking in tongues is actually one that is from God, then it would only be done with the consent of the presiding elder of that meeting. So that's a pretty big caveat to it. Now, when Joseph endorsed it, when Brigham Young did it, obviously that's the presiding elder of the whole church endorsing it. But you can tell that there's a concern there. That people are speaking in tongues outside of that. In fact, there's a couple of cases in which cases will come before Joseph, where people will say, well, I mean, yeah, I mean, I guess Brother So-and-so must be right because he started speaking in tongues and then said that that was what we were supposed to do. And Joseph kind of refutes that, saying, that's not how God is going to tell people what to do, right?

Gerrit You're not gonna win church court cases by speaking in tongues and claiming that that's what God wants. So this is gonna be made even more succinct in July of 1839. Well, late June, early July, we're not exactly sure, where Willard Richards is going to write this down. That tongues were given for the purpose, again, Joseph is teaching this, tongues were given for the purpose of preaching among those whose language is not understood. As on the day of Pentecost, etc. So if you wonder, why is it that the church focuses its attention on the gift of tongues primarily being for foreign languages? The answer is because the Prophet Joseph Smith in 1839 said, Tongues were given for the purpose of preaching among those whose language is not understood as on the day of Pentecost, where people are all from different languages, and yet understood the speaker in their own language.

Gerrit So he goes on to give even more, I guess, counsel on this. It is not necessary for tongues to be taught to the church particularly. For any man that has the Holy Ghost can speak the things of God in his own tongue, as well as to speak in another. For faith comes not by signs, but by hearing the Word of God. So again, if you're wondering, why is it that in the Early Church, it seems like there was all kinds of pouring out of gift of tongues? And now we, you know, aside from some pretty incredible fast and testimony meetings where you probably have had someone get up and do that. We didn't have that, but we were recently at a fast and testimony meeting where we kind of wished it had been. Richard and I were attending one where we're pretty sure that the person bore their testimony that their mom had been reincarnated as a flower.

Richard That's right.

Gerrit And when I say pretty sure, that's literally what she said.

Richard That is what she said. And I feel that it's possible that maybe I misinterpreted her English.

Gerrit Right.

Richard She was speaking.

Gerrit Right.

Richard She was speaking.

Gerrit Maybe she was speaking in an unknown tongue.

Richard That's what I'm saying.

Gerrit Called false doctrine.

Richard That's what I'm saying.

Gerrit Called false doctrine.

Richard That's possible. You know, it is interesting. I have always wondered this. I remember as a missionary, this would come up occasionally.

Gerrit Every time we met at Pentecostal.

Richard Pentecostal, Assemblies of God, something like that, where this would come up and I would give the answer, well, you know, we believe that it's in this way, but if you're going to have a restoration of all things, you have it in the traditional New Testament sense, and then you have further light knowledge and transition. Yeah, this is fascinating.

Gerrit And Joe is going to continue to provide some clarity on this. Okay, so in 1841, December of 1841, Joseph giving a sermon is going to say, well, this is in third person, because it's minutes of his sermon. So he didn't get up and say, President Joseph Smith said that. Although, you know what? I kind of want to think of Joseph only referring to himself in the third person. Joseph wants to go there. Joseph likes that. Joseph thinks so.

Richard That's good.

Gerrit You think?

Richard That's good.

Gerrit You think?

Richard Yeah, that's good. I should start doing that.

Gerrit Have we crossed the Rubicon of Blasphemy yet?

Richard Yes. Season one, episode two.

Gerrit Yeah. Episode one was...

Richard Yeah, you bore your testimony. It was great.

Gerrit I do have a testimony.

Richard Yeah, you bore it.

Gerrit Just so everyone's listening.

Richard In season one, episode one.

Gerrit I have a testimony, even though I do think it would be hilarious if in fact Joseph Smith did refer to himself in the third person all the time.

Richard Like that episode of Seinfeld where Jimmy's talking about...

Gerrit But they think Jimmy's another person.

Richard That's right.

Gerrit Because he's always saying that. Okay. President Joseph read the 13th chapter of I Corinthians and a part of the 14th chapter and remarked that the gift of tongues was necessary in the church. So again, there are multiple times that Joseph teaches that there has to be a restitution of all things. So anything that was in the original Church of Jesus had to be brought back. Joseph's gonna teach this probably another thing that Latter-day Saints aren't super aware of, but I think we've referenced before, maybe.

Richard I don't know what you're gonna say.

Gerrit I want you to know. I need you to just know what I'm about to say and then stop me if I'm gonna say something wrong.

Richard What you say and I'll let you know if that's what I was thinking.

Gerrit Joseph's gonna teach that even the law of sacrifice...

Richard That's exactly what I was thinking, the law of sacrifice.

Gerrit The sacrifice of animals that there will even be at least one more sacrifice that will be held at the temple or with the Second Coming of Jesus because there had to be a complete restoration of all things. And so he seems to be saying that a little bit here. Christ Church, when it was originally formed, had people speak in unknown tongues. So when Christ Church was restored to earth, it had to have people speak in unknown tongues. So not that everything is going to be exactly the same, but that there was this restitution of all things. And of course, it's one of the gifts listed of the gifts of the Spirit. But again, this caution is even more pronounced here. But that if Satan could not speak in tongues, he could not tempt a Dutchman. I always think Dutch people are the ones that are...

Richard Well, you know why.

Gerrit Well, as a Dutchman, he speaks my language. He could not tempt a Dutchman or any other nation, but the English, for he can tempt the Englishman, for he's tempted me, and I'm an Englishman. Charles is making the point, look, just someone knowing another tongue is not proof that they are from God. Satan speaks in every language because he tempts all men in all of their own languages. But the gift of tongues by the power of the Holy Ghost in the Church is for the benefit of the servants of God to preach to unbelievers as on the day of Pentecost, when the devout men of every nation shall assemble to hear of the things of God. Let the elders preach to them in their own mother tongue, whether it is German, French, Spanish or Irish, or any other. Let those who interpret, who understand the language spoken, in their mother tongue. And this is what the Apostle meant in 1 Corinthians.

Gerrit So here Joseph is even more saying, look, the primary point of the gift of tongues is for people to be able to understand the Gospel spoken in their own language, not in an unknown tongue. Now, Joseph's not saying that, hey, you know how I endorsed the gift of tongues in the Adamic language before I was wrong? He's not saying that either. But I think he is saying at this point in the Church, that's the primary way that it's supposed to be used, no longer as just a sign. Because Joseph's trying to make the point, it's not a very good sign. Why? Because Satan also can speak any language. It's kind of like in the New Testament, right? If all you have to do is say that you believe, that you know Jesus, well, the devils also believe and tremble, right? I mean, knowing who Jesus is, is not enough for salvation.

Gerrit If it was, all of the evil spirits would be saved, because they know who Jesus is, right? It's not just about knowing who Jesus is. It's about living commandments and so forth. So, I know I'm kind of beating the dead horse at this point, right?

Richard No, this is great.

Gerrit I know you have to say that.

Richard I don't. I tell you when it's mostly terrible. This is good, though. I love the additional context that this provides as we transition to where we currently are as a church.

Gerrit So when Joseph's teaching the Relief Society sisters, again, remember, because women were also speaking in tongues at times. We just saw that at the baptism. Joseph's going to teach this. If any have a matter to reveal, let it be in your own tongue. Do not indulge too much in the gift of tongues, or the devil will take advantage of the innocent. So from the early days of the church, Joseph has been warning, right, that the problem with the gift of tongues is how easily the devil can exploit it. Right? So that's why you don't take anything as doctrine that someone says in the gift of tongues. You don't take it as doctrine because that's not how God's going to deliver doctrine. So he tells the Relief Society sisters, you may speak in tongues for your comfort, but I lay this down for a rule that if anything is taught by the gift of tongues, it is not to be received for doctrine.

Gerrit That's pretty cut and dried, right? And again, the way that the gift of tongues in the Adamic language was being used anyway in the Early Church wasn't to declare doctrine, right? It was being used almost as this exuberant demonstration that the Spirit of God was present. That doesn't mean that what was said wasn't right. Obviously it was. Joseph Smith endorsed it. But there's a reason why we eventually move further away from it. Now look, there are, and someone's going to write into the podcast, well, you're wrong that we moved away from it because my great-great-grandfather, who lived in Provo, he was in a meeting, and he's, I know that there are dozens and dozens and dozens of other accounts of people speaking in an unknown tongue that appear to be orthodox, that are from God after this time period.

Gerrit I'm not saying that there aren't any. What I'm saying is how do we get to the, I'm trying to answer the listener's question, unlike all the other listener's questions that I don't attempt to answer at all.

Richard Like Anthony's about the succession crisis.

Gerrit We'll never talk about that. First of all, remember Anthony lies.

Richard First of all, Anthony, all this said is not in good fun. We mean every word we're saying.

Gerrit Yeah, of course. You baptized someone from Wisconsin. I, the scales have not fallen from my eyes yet.

Richard Thank you for your kind email.

Gerrit So I'm not saying that after this, there weren't any gifts of tongues. There were. And sometimes even endorsed at the highest levels. But this is how you get from it happening as a fairly regular occurrence in these powerful spiritual expressions, like the Kirtland Temple dedication, to it being a much more muted aspect among believers. And part of the reason why it's muted is not because, oh, the church, you know, as an anti-mormon, say, well, the church became corporate, and, you know, they piled up all that money, and now do they speak in tongues? No, of course they don't. Or the prophet of the Restoration said, hey, stop doing this as much because it's dangerous. And that was enough for people to say, oh, okay, let's stop doing it. Because the prophet of the Restoration said, the primary purpose of it is for people to speak to each other to share the gospel, not as a demonstration or a sign.

Gerrit Now, having said that, I've been waiting all day to share this with you. I so badly want to share this.

Richard So usually what happens is, we joke a little bit about production meetings, but we usually talk a little bit about what it is we want to do. And oftentimes, Gerrit will give me the reference that he's going to share, and we kind of talk about it a little bit. But in this case, I'm going to be surprised and have never heard this before, and I'm excited because Gerrit seems pretty excited.

Gerrit I almost told him beforehand, and then Richard was like, no, no, wait, I want to be surprised.

Richard I want to be surprised, yes.

Gerrit So after Joseph Smith was murdered, okay, so Joseph's gone, Brigham Young, who we know has spoken in tongues before. I feel like now I've given this such a drumroll that it's going to be disappointing at this point.

Richard I don't know how it's not. I mean, at this point, I would be shocked if I'm excited about it after Gerrit. Because you've done a poor job of managing my expectations.

Gerrit Yeah, I don't manage expectations well. Okay, August 3rd, 1844. Now, there is a group of Norwegians that are converted by early missionary efforts in Europe. And they will come and settle nearby in Illinois. And Brigham Young will go visit them and preach to them and things like that. So, they actually, you know, they appointed Norwegian to be the branch president over them. And it's a great story. You can go read all about it somewhere else where they talk about early Norwegian and Danish members of the church. So, Brigham Young is going to go visit them in August. Again, so August 3rd, 1844, we're just a few weeks removed from Joseph's murder. On August 3rd, the Twelve continued their journey through the day and the night by stage. While upon their journey, they overtook a company of Norwegians who were traveling with ox teams.

Gerrit So, this may not, these are likely not the members of the church who were Norwegians, but I just thought I'd throw that in. They were traveling with ox teams and heavy loaded wagons, one of which was stuck fast in the mud blocking the road. While several of them were whipping the oxen and bawling to them in Norwegian, in the Norwegian language, which seemed to frighten the oxen.

Richard Well, as it would. The oxen obviously speak English.

Gerrit I need Mike to weigh in on this. Now, Mike, I know you don't listen to the podcast.

Richard No, he doesn't. His wife does.

Gerrit But Tammy does. So Tammy, I need you now to go poke Mike and say, Mike, Mike, they're talking about you on the podcast that you never listened to because you hate it. And them. And he can maybe speak some Norwegian to you. Do you think it would get an ox motivated? That's the question.

Richard That is the question.

Gerrit So probably a little bit of xenophobia here too by the person recording this. Like, yeah, the Norwegians seem to frighten the animals. Well, first of all, unless they brought these oxen from Norway, I am guessing that the oxen haven't heard a whole lot of Norwegian before, right? So let's give the oxen a wide berth.

Richard We don't know. Yeah, we don't know where the oxen, we don't know where they studied. We don't know. Maybe the French don't speak.

Gerrit I would hope the oxen went to Oxford.

Richard Oh my gosh.

Gerrit How many clusters did we just lose?

Richard We need Loser Game, so Loser Game show sound to play.

Gerrit But they were unable to move the wagon. So they're frightening them. They're whipping them. They're beating them. It's still stuck. After sitting and looking at them a moment, President Brigham Young got out of the coach and stepped up and took the whip out of the hands of one of the Norwegians, telling them all to stand out of the way. He then talked to the oxen in tongues, which was not understood by the Norwegians or the English who were present. And touching them lightly with the whip, they instantly pulled the wagon out of the mud and continued the journey, much to the astonishment of the Norwegians and to the surprise and amusement of the passengers on the stage. Tell me that's not the greatest gift of tongues story you've ever heard.

Richard That's pretty good. The oxen whisperer. That's pretty good.

Gerrit Brigham Young spoke an unknown tongue to oxen, and they're like, all right, prophet of God says move, we move. Now the question is, did the oxen interpret that to the other oxen? Did they bellow and...

Richard Which oxen presided in that meeting?

Gerrit Well, anywhere the prophet is, he's presiding.

Richard This is the problem.

Gerrit Exactly. Anywhere, of course, he's president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles here in 1844 for anyone who's going to come at me with math, and it's not 1847 yet, yes, it's not. But still the leader of the church. So I thought that's a great way to demonstrate that there still is the gift of unknown tongues on display at times in the church. Now, I know, again, that that's not something that people have readily heard, because we do so much associate it with missionaries learning the gospel, people bearing testimony and understanding in a language that isn't really theirs. Those kinds of miracles happen all the time.

Richard You know, I don't know that this is quite as good as the Oxen story with Brigham Young, but I mean, I felt like I had a similar experience on my mission as it relates to this.

Gerrit You got a horse out of the mud, though.

Richard I did. It was at Clydesdale, though. So it was a big horse. So I served in Riverside, California, and we had a good number of Spanish-speaking missionaries. We got received a member referral.

Gerrit You're not going to tell me that you baptized a bunch of people from Wisconsin, are you? Because I'll throw you right out of the studio.

Richard No, no, I most certainly did not. But, so it was a Spanish family, so they wanted to be taught in Spanish. And so we went on splits, I went with the Spanish missionary. And so he was teaching, and I was just looking for scriptures that I knew were going to be coming up, because I was completely useless in that discussion, much like most episodes of the podcast. And so I was just…

Gerrit It was. It was.

Richard It was, the Lord was preparing me to sit quietly as you talk. But so he was going through it, and I was looking, you know, just for the scriptures so that I could hand it to them so they could read them, right? Not knowing anything that was being said. And it was very nice. It seemed like it was a good discussion. I have no idea what was going on, what was being said. But there was one particular point in the discussion when I was looking down, not paying much attention, much like the recording of the podcast, and I was going to the Moroni, you know, 10, 3 through 5 verses that were going to be coming up. And as I was looking down at my scriptures, I didn't see the missionary preaching or the family or any reaction. But as I was looking down to find that scripture, I felt just an overwhelming feeling from the spirit, kind of like a feeling of peace, comfort, kind of a tingle that went through my body. I look up and I see Elder Libert is pointing to the flip chart of the First Vision experience.

Richard And I noticed, I picked up on a couple of words that he had said as he was sharing that First Vision experience. And even though I had no idea the words that he was saying, and not even paying attention to what it was in the room, it was a powerful manifestation of the spirit that was there as he was testifying of that First Vision experience. And so for me, it became a very real thing that the spirit was teaching me the truth of this thing, even though I didn't necessarily know all of the words that were being said.

Gerrit That's awesome. I mean, and I think we could have a lot of people give multiple of their own experiences where they felt the spirit even though the gospel is being preached in a different tongue or where they understood it when they couldn't. We all know stories of miraculous rapid learning of languages that takes place among missionaries. And I think that is the primary way that God pours this gift of tongue out upon the people. And back to the point, I mean, it is, you know, stuck oxen aside, they need a little Adamic language to get them going. It is the primary use of it, it appears to be in the modern church, to share the gospel with all the world, to help everyone understand what this restoration is. Granting people this ability to both hear and understand, sometimes miraculously, in ways that they wouldn't. And I love that story it's told because I've also experienced things where in another language, I felt the Holy Spirit speak to me and as if I knew what was being said.

Gerrit And I think that's because the Spirit, like, you know, Satan might speak every language, so does the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit speaks every language only without the forked tongue of the devil. And so, one of the reasons why I think the gift of tongues is so fascinating to us is because we really do want all of God's children to hear the beauty of this gospel. We really do want everyone and frankly, when I talk about it all the time on the podcast, it's one of the reasons why I love this gospel. I love the fact that every single person on earth is going to get a chance to hear the gospel preached to them. And they are not going to burn in hell for some arbitrary reason because I didn't learn, you know, Farsi quick enough or get access to Iran to preach to them.

Gerrit The reality is everybody is going to have this equal opportunity to hear the gospel and everyone will eventually hear it in their own language. And so it is great to be a Latter-day Saint. Being a Latter-day Saint means you really believe not only in miracles, Christians believe in miracles, but you believe in a God who has created a plan whereby every single person is going to have an equal opportunity at exaltation. That's amazing and that's something we shouldn't lightly cast aside. Well, thank you so much for joining us this week. We will try to not answer questions well next week.

Richard Yes, that's what we always promise to do.

Gerrit We promise to fail and then we feel like we can live up to expectations. Thank you so much.

Intro Thank you for listening to the Standard of Truth podcast hosted by historian Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat. If you know anybody that could benefit from the material in this episode, please share it with them. And for more resources, visit standardoftruth.com. Until next time.

Speaking in Tongues in the Early Church

Apostles and Apostates, part two?

Articles of Faith 1:7

Acts 2

Eber D. Howe, Painesville Telegraph, on Kirtland converts in early 1831

Joseph Smith to Hyrum Smith, 1831

Doctrine and Covenants 46

Joseph Smith history, addenda, about November 8, 1832

Revelation signed "Ahman Christ" (not named on air)

Joseph Smith to the church in Missouri, July 1833

Minutes of a Kirtland conference, January 1833

Joseph Smith journal, October 1833

Minutes of the Quorum of the Twelve, 1835

Joseph Smith history, meeting before the Kirtland Temple dedication, 1836

Joseph Smith discourse on discerning spirits, 1839

Joseph Smith discourse, late June or early July 1839, recorded by Willard Richards

Joseph Smith discourse, 1839, on faith and signs

Joseph Smith discourse, December 1841 (minutes)

1 Corinthians 13-14

James 2:19

Joseph Smith to the Relief Society, 1842 (date not given on air)

Account of the Twelve's journey, August 3, 1844

Moroni 10:3-5

What religious studies term means speaking in an unknown tongue?

From 1830 to 1847

Putting numbers to words

What this episode talks about more than usual

Names said most

Signature words