When the Day of
Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven,
as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were
sitting. Then there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat
upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to
speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. And there were
dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men, from every nation under heaven. And
when this sound occurred, the multitude came together, and were confused,
because everyone heard them speak in his own language. Then they were all
amazed and marveled, saying to one another, “Look, are not all these who speak
Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each in our own language in which we
were born?” (Acts 2:1-8)… we hear them speaking in our
own tongues the wonderful works of God.” So they were all amazed and
perplexed, saying to one another, “Whatever could this mean?” (Vv. 11-12).
It seems to be a phenomenon that is all too sought out in
the life of the Christian. Some seek to learn it, some believe that it is given
as evidence of the indwelling Holy Spirit at the point of salvation. Some
believe that it is a secret prayer language between the believer and God. Some
take it seriously, while others are nonchalant about it. Many believe that it
has ceased, while others believe that it is alive and well. It is the spiritual
gift that receives the most focus as evidence of the Holy Spirit being a force
upon the believer and it transcends many denominations from Pentecostalism, to
Catholicism, to Charismatic Baptists. So what is it?
Tongues. It should make sense to you, my faithful three
readers, that after a blog post detailing the biblically defined works of the
Holy Spirit, and also reiterating that the Spirit is a person (He), not a force
(it), that I should address the spiritual gift of tongues. Why? Because many
seek to learn it. Because many believe that it is the evidence of salvation (and
if they can’t speak in tongues then they question their salvation). Because
many believe that it is evidence of the Holy Spirit’s indwelling and working in
their lives. Because many believe that they can get closer to God by speaking
this special “prayer language”.
1.
What is
tongues? Many in the modern church (mostly Pentecostal and Charismatic)
believe that speaking in tongues is a necessary element of the Christian life.
They believe that in speaking this ecstatic language that they are living proof
of the indwelling of the Spirit. Some believe that this gift just happens upon
you, while others believe that it has to be learned and will actually teach it
to you by saying things like (for example) “bananarama homina homina hum”, or
something to that effect. If we look at what transpired during the day of
Pentecost in Acts 2, then it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what is going
on. There were many men from other nations who heard the tongues that were
being uttered by the believers and apostles. They heard the works of God being
spoken in their own language. The word “tongues” literally means “languages”.
These Christians were speaking other languages that were understood by all of
these foreigners. But why such a strange thing as giving these the sudden ability
to speak foreign languages? It would seem if we read the context that these men
understood Peter with one accord, so they obviously must’ve been bilingual to
also understand their native languages as well. I will get to the second reason
why God had them speak in tongues later, but for right now the first reason is
to witness. It says “we hear them speaking in our own tongues the wonderful
works of God…” (V.11). I cannot tell you what the apostles were saying to these
men in their various native languages, but further on in Acts 2, after Peter
delivers his “hit ‘em In the heart” sermon, 3000 were saved. I am assuming that
these bewildered sojourners were among them. So we should conclude that there
was some good gospel preaching going on with these “wonderful works of God”.
This should be very profound biblical evidence that tongues is actually an
established intelligent language, not uncontrolled, unchecked gibberish.
Anytime I hear someone say “we speak in tongues at my church”, I always want to
ask them “Oh really? What languages do you speak?”
2.
Tongues
as a sign of salvation. The second issue with tongues is that many claim
that it is the sign of salvation. Why? Because as we see at the beginning of our
passage the Holy Spirit entered into the believers and then they spoke in
various languages. This, of course, points to the errant thought that the Holy
Spirit is a force that makes you do crazy things, and not a person that is also
“the helper”. He helped the apostles by giving them the ability to witness to
these men. You may ask “Why did He do that when these men were bilingual?
Wasn’t it then unnecessary to have the apostles speak in their native
language?” Well that is a very good question and I am glad that you asked it.
However, the answer to that question is the second reason why God gave them the
gift of tongues and I will speak on that next time. But, for now, the issue at
hand in this paragraph is the issue of salvation’s evidence. To say that the
sudden ability to speak languages (or gibberish these days) is the evidence of
salvation is an error. It is true that the apostles spoke in tongues once the
Holy Spirit indwelled them, however, the Bible does not mention that the 3000
began to speak in tongues as well. It is true that the Gentiles at Cornelius’
home began to speak in tongues (Acts 10:44-46), as well as John’s disciples
(Acts 19:5-6), but what about the Ethiopian eunuch? As a matter of fact, when
we read the account of Paul’s salvation and conversion in Acts, nowhere does it
mention that he spoke in tongues. He does speak of this ability in 1
Corinthians 14 (which I will discuss next time), but it did not take place at
his conversion and to say that it did in those instances, yet was not recorded,
is an assumption at its best. It’s very easy to put an assumption into the
Bible and make it a doctrine when you speak into the text, versus allowing the
text to speak.
3.
Tongues
as a special prayer language. The third issue regarding tongues is that it
is assumed to be a special prayer language. This is the very common argument
once a cessationist has proven that tongues is an actual spoken language and
isn’t a sign of salvation. It especially shows itself as the excuse for one to
speak gibberish, since that is exactly what modern tongue speaking is. However,
such a thing as a “special prayer language” does not exist and is unbiblical
anyway. Many believers cite 1 Corinthians 14 as evidence that this nonsensical
speech is a prayer language, however that is not true and I will cover that next
time. First of all, when the disciples asked Jesus how to pray, He said “In
this manner, therefore, pray: Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. Your
kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day
our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, As we forgive our debtors. And do
not lead us into temptation, But deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the
kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen” (Matthew 6:9-13). You will
notice two things here- Jesus gives a model as to how to pray, and also uses
words, not gibberish. As a matter of fact, Jesus spoke against “vain
repetitions” in verse 7. The Greek word for this is battalogeĊ, which means “to
repeat the same things over and over, to use many idle words, to babble, prate.”
So basically Jesus said not to speak in tongues (gibberish). Second, Jesus
would have wanted what is best for his followers and would not have sold them
short. So if there is in fact a special prayer language that God desires, then
wouldn’t you think that Jesus would have taught that to them instead? Why would
He have kept this “special prayer language” from them? Another little nugget
regarding gibberish as being a special prayer language is that many who
practice it say that it is to bypass Satan and his demons because they
evidently have the ability to stop our normal prayers from reaching God. Again,
unbiblical. Not to mention, as we may recall from Job 1, that Satan still has
to answer to God.
4.
Tongues
as an undiscovered language. After agreeing that biblical tongue speaking
is in fact an actual language, many who partake in modern tongue gibberish will
say that it is not gibberish, but is in fact a true undiscovered language. This
view poses a major problem. If God is in fact delivering, through His Spirit,
undiscovered languages to believers then we are to assume that there are also
undiscovered people who speak these languages. However, with almost all of
these believers, God is not ordering their steps to these undiscovered lands in
order to preach the gospel. Therefore, The Great Commission is made null and
void and through contradiction to His word, God is made out to be a liar. If
God is blessing His believers today with undiscovered languages then He
certainly will call them to preach it to the undiscovered lands.
The reason why I have decided to discuss tongues this time
is not to bash any favorite worship activity for certain believers. It is a
follow up to my last blog post regarding the work of the Holy Spirit. As I had
mentioned He is a “helper” who works to edify other believers and to glorify
God- two things that cannot be done when the believer acts out of control.
Losing control and speaking gibberish, or choosing to train oneself to do so,
does not help but instead creates confusion. The events in Acts 2 prove that
the tongues that were spoken were indeed intelligible languages that were
understood by those who were visiting Jerusalem, not babbling. One of the main
reasons for this event was to witness to these men. However, there is a second
reason why they spoke in tongues and that can be found in 1 Corinthians 14, the
other chapter that gives a great amount of attention to tongues. That will be
for next time…
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