A Private Prayer Language?
Do you have a private prayer language? A kind of speaking-in-tongues between you and God?
Now I admit that I don’t, but I have many friends that do.
Some people are very much against tongues as ecstatic utterances in corporate worship or even a private prayer life in tongues. I should note, however, that N.T. Wright is open to it and confesses to having spoken in tongues from time to time.
Interestingly, D.A. Carson in his book Showing the Spirit: A Theological Exposition of 1 Corinthians 12-14 (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1988) has the following to say about private prayer language:
[Based on 1 Cor. 12.7] As we shall see, some wish to rule out the legitimacy of any private use of tongues on the basis of this and similar texts: What possible benefit for the entire community is there, they ask, in such private tongues-speaking? Clearly there is no direct benefit: no one but God is hearing what is being said. But Paul was granted extraordinary visions and revelations that were designed only for his immediate benefit (2 Cor. 12:1-10); yet surely the church received indirect profit insofar as those visions and revelations, not to mention the ensuing thorn in his flesh, better equipped him for proclamation and ministry. In the same way, it is hard to see how verse 7 of this chapter renders illegitimate a private use of tongues if the result is a better person, a more spiritually minded Christian: the church may thereby receive indirect benefit. The verse rules out using any charisma for personal aggrandizement or merely for self-satisfiaction; it does not rule out all benefit for the individual (just as marriage, one of the charismata according to 1 Cor. 7:7 may benefit the individual), providing that the resulting matrix is for the common good. The context demands no more."
And where Wright and Carson agree, surely there is a blessed unity of minds indeed.
Upon a first reading Carson's book when it came out years back, I was surprised, too. But then, I recalled his Exegetical Fallacies, where so many fallacies were exposed that were committed by none other than John MacArthur. Carson's reading forever changed the trajectory of my thinking re: tongues (and just about every other thing JohnnyMac said).
I also thought speaking in tongues was whacky and over-spiritual. But then, I had my own experience with the Holy Spirit and received my spiritual language in 2014. It’s increased my prayer life greatly. I never speak them in front of others, but sometimes the visions or words I hear God speak to me during these times of prayer have benefited others when I share!