Why Wes Huff is wrong about Tongues

Before I respond critically, I want to begin by saying that I genuinely respect Wesley Huff and think many Christians could learn from his seriousness toward Scriptural integrity, history, and apologetics.

I rarely write directly about an individual brother in Christ' perspective but given this is public, and given his profile and influence and given I actually think it feeds a dangerous trend I am doing so. This is why I must write why Wes is wrong about Tongues.

I do respect Wes, particularly in the field of textual transmission and development of the biblical manuscripts, he has demonstrated substantial knowledge and clarity. We all cheered as his showed Billy Carson the folly of his ways. In an age of shallow internet theology, that should be appreciated rather than dismissed. He has also clearly developed meaningful insight into apologetic engagement more broadly.

However, expertise in one area does not automatically translate into expertise in every area. This discussion, in my opinion, shows signs of what philosophers sometimes call “epistemic trespassing”, where confidence extends beyond one’s actual depth of experience or specialised study.

Importantly, this is not merely an academic issue.

When discussing spiritual gifts, especially tongues, there is a significant difference between simply considering texts from a strongly developed conservative Protestant academic perspective and understanding the lived theological, pastoral, spiritual, and experiential dimensions surrounding them. On this issue particularly, the argument feels heavily inherited from one interpretive tradition rather than wrestled through from the full complexity of the scriptural text itself.

More importantly, despite my respect for Huff generally, let me be clear, I believe these claims can unintentionally do real harm to people’s understanding of the Holy Spirit and can legitimise the exact kind of ridicule and dismissiveness that Scripture itself warns about.

Acts 2 does not merely show amazement at Pentecost. It also shows mockery.

“Some, however, made fun of them and said, ‘They have had too much wine.’” (Acts 2:13, NIV)

That matters deeply.

Throughout church history, whenever believers speak about the active work of the Spirit, there are usually two responses.

·        wonder

·        ridicule

Some heard “the wonders of God” being declared. others heard only noise, chaos, irrationality, or drunkenness.

That tension is embedded in the Pentecost narrative itself.

So while I fully agree that discernment is necessary, and while abuses absolutely exist within charismatic circles, I become deeply concerned when arguments are framed with such certainty that they implicitly validate mockery toward sincere believers pursuing the things of the Spirit.

Especially when the biblical and historical evidence is nowhere near as airtight as is often claimed.

The irony is that Acts 2 itself may actually caution us against overconfidence here. Some in the crowd recognised divine activity, others dismissed it as madness.

That should produce humility in all of us before we casually reduce spiritual experiences to “gibberish,” delusion, emotionalism, or fraud. Huff does not directly say this but that is the door opened and the extension.

A few important responses to this argument, because while it is thoughtful and academically framed, several conclusions are being presented with far more certainty than the text itself allows.

1.     Acts 2 does not conclusively prove the apostles literally spoke known foreign languages

Acts 2 absolutely involves miraculous understanding across language barriers.

However, many overstate what the passage actually says.

Notice carefully, Luke repeatedly emphasises the hearing of the audience, not explicitly the mechanics of the apostles’ speech itself. As argued in my blog, "Pentecostals, Gibberish and Acts 2" the dominant verbs are perceptual.

        “each one heard”

        “how is it that we hear”

        “we hear them declaring”

The crowd says,

“How is it that each of us hears them in our native language?” (Acts 2:8, NIV)

Luke could easily have written:

“How are they speaking all our languages?” but he does not.

The focus is consistently on the hearers’ experience of understanding.

This does not prove the apostles were not speaking earthly languages. However, it absolutely weakens the dogmatic assertion that Acts 2 conclusively settles the matter.

2.     The distinction between “tongues” and “dialects” matters

Acts 2:4 says the apostles spoke in “other tongues” (ἑτέραις γλώσσαις)

Yet the crowd says they heard in “our own dialect” (τῇ ἰδίᾳ διαλέκτῳ)

That distinction is important.

Luke does not simply say “they spoke many dialects.” Instead, the apostles speak in “tongues”, the audience hears in “dialects”

That leaves room for a dual miracle, supernatural utterance AND supernatural hearing/understanding.

Whilst Huff seems eager to call on Church Fathers, Chysostom makes it clear, he does not really understand what is happening with the Gifts of the Spirit when he says in reflection to 1 Cor 12. “This whole place is very obscure: but the obscurity is produced by our ignorance of the facts referred to...” (John Chrysostom, Homilies on First Corinthians 29 (on 1 Cor. 12:1). Now don't mishear me, Chrysostom, like Augustine, at least at one point thought the gifts had ceased but atleast in Augustine's case, he ultimately shifted his stance acknowledging this in the The City of God (Book 22). What I am primarily saying in this context, is that they acknowledge either overtly or through changing positions not their authority in this matter, but ignorance.

3.     1 Corinthians 14 creates tension with “known human language only” interpretations

Paul says

“For anyone who speaks in a tongue does not speak to people but to God. Indeed, no one understands them; they utter mysteries by the Spirit.” (1 Cor. 14:2, NIV)

That is difficult to reduce to ordinary earthly languages.

Paul does not say “someone somewhere might know the language.” He says:

“No one understands them.”

Further:

·        tongues are directed “to God”

·        they utter “mysteries”

·        interpretation is spiritually required

·        prayer occurs “with my spirit” apart from normal understanding

This sounds far more like Spirit-inspired utterance than straightforward missionary speech.

4.     Interpretation does not prove earthly languages

The argument assumes that because interpretation exists, tongues therefore must be ordinary human languages.

However, Paul does not describe natural bilingualism as the solution.

He explicitly identifies, “interpretation of tongues” as a spiritual gift (1 Cor. 12:10).

That matters enormously.

If tongues were simply ordinary foreign languages, why would supernatural interpretation be necessary as a charism of the Spirit?

The text itself points toward a supernatural revelatory process, not merely translation by someone naturally fluent in Persian or Arabic.

5.     The mockery in Acts 2 actually creates problems for strict 'human language' reading.

Acts 2:13 says:

“Some, however, made fun of them and said, ‘They have had too much wine.’”

This is often ignored.

If the apostles were simply speaking recognisable foreign languages fluently, why would observers conclude they were drunk?

Jerusalem during Pentecost was filled with multilingual pilgrims. Foreign languages themselves would not naturally sound like drunkenness.

However, ecstatic Spirit-inspired utterance accompanied by supernatural hearing would explain both responses

·        some genuinely hearing “the wonders of God”

·        others hearing what sounded chaotic or irrational

That actually parallels 1 Corinthians 14 remarkably well.

6.     The appeal to the Fathers is overstated

Yes, many Fathers interpreted Pentecost missionally through the lens of human languages.

However, they were not eyewitnesses, they lived centuries later and many believed the gifts had largely ceased and that often because of sin, not because of the canon. As said ealier, Chrysostom acknowledged his ignorance in this matter. He was reconstructing the phenomenon historically, not preserving a living apostolic tradition.

So while the Fathers are valuable witnesses, they do not settle the exegetical question.

A further point worth making is that invoking the Montanists does not actually strengthen Huff’s argument nearly as much as he seems to think.

If anything, the Montanist controversy demonstrates that there was a strong and persistent expectation among many theologically serious Christians in the 2nd century that the gifts of the Spirit had not ceased with the Apostles.

Montanism was not some fringe movement of biblically illiterate enthusiasts detached from the broader theological world. One of the greatest early Christian theologians, Tertullian, famously defended the movement. That fact alone should caution against simplistic dismissals.

Tertullian was not an anti-intellectual ecstatic. He was one of the most influential thinkers in early Latin Christianity

·        foundational to Trinitarian terminology

·        deeply rigorous theologically

·        highly respected historically even by those who reject his Montanist sympathies

The very existence and spread of Montanism reveals something important:there was a deep hunger within sectors of the early church for the continuation of,

·        prophecy

·        spiritual gifts

·        direct experience of the Spirit

·        women functioning prominently in ministry

·        and forms of tongues and ecstatic utterance that exceeded purely institutional categories

The movement included prophetesses such as Prisca and Maximilla, whose leadership itself challenged increasingly rigid ecclesial structures emerging in the post-apostolic church.

Now, none of this automatically validates every Montanist claim. There were certainly excesses, apocalypticism, and difficult authority questions involved.

However, the argument often presented is far too simplistic:

“Montanists practised ecstatic gifts, therefore ecstatic gifts were viewed as heretical.”

That is historically inaccurate. The eventual suppression of Montanism by the increasingly institutionalising church does not prove the gifts themselves were illegitimate.

If anything, it may demonstrate how quickly ecclesiastical power structures become uncomfortable with uncontrolled movements of the Spirit.

History repeatedly shows this pattern, institutional religion often prefers predictability and control, while renewal movements tend to emphasise immediacy, charism, prophetic challenge, and spiritual participation.

That tension did not begin with modern Pentecostalism, it existed already in the 2nd century and we see fairly constant break outs of the Gifts of the Spirit including unknown Tongues throughout history.

Appealing to Montanism (especially without acknowledging one of the earlier Great Church fathers defending it) as though it decisively disproves ecstatic tongues actually cuts both ways historically. The movement’s very existence demonstrates that many early Christians, including highly educated theological figures, believed the Spirit was still actively giving prophetic and charismatic gifts well beyond the Apostolic age. Tertullian believed the Church was already crushing the activity of the Spirit. When institutional pressure caused the Bishop of Rome to withdraw recognition of the prophetic gifts, Tertullian wrote that Praxeas had done "a twofold service for the devil at Rome: he drove away prophecy, and he brought in heresy; he put to flight the Paraclete, and he crucified the Father." (Against Praxeas, Chapter 1)

7.     “Meaningful” does not equal “ordinary earthly language”

This is perhaps the biggest category mistake in the argument.

Many Pentecostals fully agree,

·        Tongues contain meaning We don't EVER think they are irrational, that is rubbish repeated by mockers but rather 'trans-rational' in the same way the ignorant think a person speaking Mandarin sounds like they are speaking 'gibberish'. They are wrong and ignorant.

·        Tongues are not meaningless chaos

·        Tongues communicate mysteries

·        Interpretation reveals propositional content

However, that does not require the utterance itself to be an ordinary human language.

Paul even leaves conceptual room for heavenly speech:

“If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels...” (1 Cor. 13:1)

Even if partially rhetorical, the category clearly exists within Paul’s possibilities and given he specifically speaks of unknown, tongues that are "mysteries" spoken to God, not to men, it is a stretch driven by bias to try and ignore Paul's words here.

8.     The strongest conclusion is modesty, not certainty

A balanced reading is probably

·        Acts 2 clearly involves miraculous cross-language understanding.

·        The text strongly emphasises supernatural hearing.

·        1 Corinthians 14 describes tongues in ways that exceed simple foreign-language categories.

·        The Fathers often interpreted tongues as human languages, but from historical distance, no better than anyone else.

·        Serious scholars remain divided on whether Corinthian tongues were exclusively earthly languages. MY CONCLUSION

I love Wes Huff's apologetic work, but as a Tongue speaking, prophecy operating, cross cultural living Christian leader, who knows the power of the Spirit, and the edification that speaking in Tongues does for my soul (1 Cor 14:4), that knows the reminder that everytime I speak in Tongues I am demonstrating a Kingdom of Heaven over all other earthly things or cultures, that knows the reality of my Spirit praying (1 Cor 14: 14) when I don't have the words to say but only groans from within. I don't buy it, and neither should you. WANT TO READ MORE ON THIS SUBJECT, GO TO THE LINK BELOW WHERE THERE ARE ATLEAST NINE BLOGS RELATING TO THIS MATTER. THE POWER, PURPOSE, PRESENCE AND GIFTS OF THE SPIRIT - an ever building series :)