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True “Pentecostal” Tongue Speaking
In Acts chapter two Luke records the preaching of the first gospel sermon and the establishment of the Lord’s church. He also tells us that on that occasion some persons were enabled to speak in tongues a result of their being baptized with the Holy Spirit.
We want to consider two important questions concerning this event:
• who was speaking in tongues?
• exactly what was the nature of those tongues?
Who spoke in tongues?
It is sometimes claimed that the entire company of the disciples were baptized with the Holy Spirit and spoke in tongues. A careful reading of the text, however, shows that it was the 12 apostles who were involved.
In Acts 1:5, Jesus promised the apostles (not the 120) that “ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence.”
If we ignore the (man-made) division between chapters one and two, it becomes clear that the “they” of 2:1 refers to “Matthias and the eleven apostles” of 1:26.
In response to the charge that he and the other tongue-speakers were drunk, we read that “Peter, taking his stand with the eleven, raised his voice and declared to them: ‘Men of Judea, and all you who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and give heed to my words. For these men are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only the third hour of the day.’ ” (Acts 2:14-15)
Contrary to a common misconception, Holy Spirit baptism was not intended for all disciples in all ages. In addition to Acts 2, it occurred one other time – to the first Gentile converts (Acts 10). This was not something that had been experienced by the thousands of Christians converted since Pentecost. When he was reporting what happened Peter said “as I began to speak, the Holy Ghost fell on them, as on us at the beginning.” (Acts 11:15)
What were the tongues?
Acts 2:4 says that the apostles “were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit was giving them utterance.” In verse 6 we are told “the multitude came together, and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language.” In verse 8 they asked, “how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born?” and again in verse 11, “we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God.”
Luke actually uses two different (but closely related) Greek words: GLOSSA, which means the language or dialect used by a particular people distinct from that of other nations, and DIALEKTOS, defined as the tongue or language peculiar to any people.
The amazing event on Pentecost was that unschooled men were enabled by God to speak in languages foreign to them, but which were understood by those in the audience who normally spoke those languages.
This is very different from what can be observed today. One man who had carefully researched tongues as practiced in the modern charismatic movement reported that they are:
“meaningless but phonologically structured human utterance believed by the speaker to be a real language but bearing no systematic resemblance to any natural language, living or dead . . . Contrary to common belief, it has never been scientifically demonstrated that xenoglossia (speaking in actual foreign languages) occurs among Pentecostals: people just do not talk languages they are unfamiliar with.” (Dr. William Samarin)
It is sometimes asked, “Didn’t the apostle Paul write about speaking in unknown tongues?” It is true that the King James Version does contain that phrase in 1Cor 14:2, 4, 13, 14, 19 & 27. However the word “unknown” is italicized, indicating that it was not in the original text, but was added by the translators.
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“Cut It Down”
One of the most difficult things for most people to do is to forgive those who have done them a terrible injustice. The pain and resentment tend to linger for years.
Robert E. Lee once paid a visit to a lady in Kentucky after the end of the Civil War. Like many places in the South, the woman’s home had suffered the ravages of the fighting. She took Lee to her front lawn and showed him what had once been a grand old tree. Its trunk and limbs had been devastated by artillery fire. As she looked at the tree and wept, she waited for General Lee to sympathize, and perhaps express his resentment for what the Union army had done.
Instead, after a brief silence, Lee simply said, “Cut it down, madam, and forget it.”
Those words are good advice for us. There are times when we must decide whether to forget the wrongs we have suffered in the past or allow the memory of them linger in our heart and poison the rest of our lives.
When you argue with a fool, be sure
that he is not similarly engaged.
