A closer more logical look
at the interaction of the crowd who witnessed the Day of Pentecost! COULD dozens
of scholars have got it Wrong???
Speaking In Tongues -
Acts 2
Published 20260308 -:- Revised 20260309P
Caution! possible
spelling mistakes - Scriptures from Modern King James (MKJV) unless noted
otherwise.
AIM
Lets look at where
speaking in tongues originated? What does the bible say about it? What does the
church generally say about it? And what exactly was it or is it? And is it in
the past, a one off incident, or an ongoing gift from God?
It’s Origin
The first incident
happened on the day of Pentecost in Acts chapter two. Lets have a read…
The Coming of the Holy Spirit
Act 2:1 “And in the fulfilling of the day of Pentecost, they were all,
(the 120 disciples) with one accord in one place. :2 And suddenly a sound
came out of the heaven as borne along by the rushing of a mighty wind, and it
filled all the house where they were sitting. :3 And tongues as of fire
appeared to them, being distributed; and it sat upon each of them. :4 And
they were all filled of the Holy Spirit, and began to speak in
other languages, as the Spirit gave them utterance. :5 And
dwelling at Jerusalem there were Jews, devout men out of every nation
under heaven. :6 But this sound occurring, the multitude came
together and were confounded, because they each heard them speaking in
his own dialect. :7 And they were all amazed and marveled, saying
to one another, Behold, are not these who speak all Galileans? :8 And
how do we each hear in our own dialect in which we were born?” Then it
continues with a list of some 17 different countries or regions, from which all
these pilgrims had come from. So how many different dialects could there have
been?
So What Was This
Speaking In Tongues?
You can ask numerous
church scholars, and you will get a wide range of answers. Probably based on the
particular doctrine they have been taught in their different
seminary schools. My thought is that there are 3 basic options. So let's look
at the different opinions or interpretations that I have heard of over many
years. Also, I have looked at All the commentaries I could find in eSword. These
are the three Options that I have narrowed my study down to.
Option: 1. “It
doesn’t matter what it was, it only happened on Pentecost, and it will
never happen again!” So the idea is that the Holy Spirit only came into
the world ONCE! I found only ONE commentary that sided with that option and I
have shown it here below: -
Refer to eSword, [Great Texts on Acts 2:4 “Thus one of the
popular ideas of Whitsun Day has been that it commemorates the gift of
languages to the Apostles, by which, though uneducated men, they were qualified
in a moment of time to preach the Gospel to every nation under heaven. But,
indeed, this gift of tongues (even if it were what is here supposed) is but a
small part of the matter. The gift of tongues concerned only one
generation, at any rate, and a very few individuals.]
Option: 2. “They
were speaking in known languages otherwise the crowd that had
gathered around them would not have been able to understand what they were
saying!” I have given you a collection of some of the well-known commentaries I
have found through eSword, that believe this option. But my thought is that
option really doesn’t hold water because the rest of Acts chapter 2 will show
you why, when we get to ‘Option 3 Explained’, further down.
Option: 3. “They were
speaking in a new Holy language, which was NOT a known language, but those that
heard them, received it in their ears in their own language.” This really is
the only option that fits and makes sense and I will show you why later.
Studying The Commentaries
I went to eSword in
which I have 35 commentaries via eSword’s free to download. It is not often
that all of them make some comment on the same verse! But on this topic
33 of them added in their words of wisdom. One of them has sided with Option 1
as I have shown above, which leaves 32 commentaries. 24 commentaries sided with
Option 2! And the other 8, I just couldn’t find anything constructive. What I
did was a word search for the words, ‘tongue, language, speak etc.’ and from the set of 24, I found and
copied a short note from each, and have listed them below in
alphabetical order. Basically these commentaries listed below all think the
disciples were speaking in one or many known languages!
NB: I am not
saying that you have to read ALL or Any of them! But they are there for you to
have a quick look at or go to eSword and verify the comments for yourself.
But let me first
explain, years ago in 1985, I was involved with a team of intercessors for some
15 years, starting when I was 33 years of age. The next youngest member of the
team was 25 years older than me, so the team simply faded away over the years
because they all just got older! And during that time I saw, what I believe was
the correct operation of Spiritual Gifts. Complete with the appropriate checks
and balances. Example, ‘Two or three Witnesses’, or is the Word of prophecy
that was spoken, supported by scripture? etc. So I found this study to be quite
an eye opener to find that a lot of these scholars sided with Option 2?
If you prefer you can
skip down to Option 3 Explained below. Where I will cut to the chase and
give you my opinion. Then may I suggest you go back to this list of “24
Commentaries”, have a look at the underlined issues, and hopefully you will see
what I think, in my humble opinion, are glaring mistakes with their
commentaries.
The Commentaries
1/ Adam Clarck on Acts 2:4 “To speak with other
tongues - At the building of Babel the language of the people was
confounded; and, in consequence of this, they became scattered over the face of
the earth: at this foundation of the Christian Church, the gift of various
languages was given to the apostles, that the scattered nations
might be gathered; and united under one shepherd and superintendent (επισκοπος) of all souls.”
2/ Albert Barnes on Acts 2:4 “Began to speak with other tongues
- In other languages than their native tongue. The
languages which they spoke are specified in Act_2:9-11….
As the Spirit gave them utterance - As the Holy Spirit
gave them power to speak. This language implies plainly that they were now
endued with a faculty of speaking languages which they had not before learned.”
3/ Alexander MacLaren on Acts 2:1-13 “the speaking with other tongues,
but the communication of the Holy Spirit. The sign and result of that was the
gift of utterance in various languages, not their own, nor learned
by ordinary ways. No twisting of the narrative can weaken the plain
meaning of it, that these unlearned Galileans spake in tongues which their
users recognised to be their own.”
4/ B.W. Johnson on Acts 2:4 “With other tongues. In the
languages of all the different countries from which Jews had come
up to Pentecost. Many would be unable to understand the Hebrew dialect of Judea
in that period, and hence, they must be preached to in the tongue of their own
country if they understood.”
5/ Biblical Illustrator on Acts 2:1-4 “II. With other tongues. 1. This
is a power inherent in all men. Men speak with new tongues every year. Some
can converse in many languages. Here the Spirit quickened this
power.”
6/ Cambridge Bible on Acts 2:4 “they began to speak with other tongues]
Spoken of as new tongues (Mar_16:17). It means languages which they had not
known before, and from the history it would appear that some of the
company spake in one and some in another language, for the crowd
of foreigners, when they come together, all find somebody among the
speakers whom they are able to understand.”
7/ Chuch Smith on Acts 2:1-47 “So, they were praising God, or they were
glorifying God. They were declaring the wonderful works of God in the various
languages and, of course, this amazed the people.”
8/ David Guzik on Acts 2:1-47 “In response to the filling of the Holy
Spirit, those present (not only the twelve apostles) began to speak with other
tongues. These were languages that they were never taught,
and they spoke these languages this as the Spirit gave
them utterance.”
9/ Expositor’s Bible on Acts 2:1-13 “Some have viewed it as a miracle
of hearing, not of speaking, and maintained that the Apostles did not
speak different languages at all, but that they all spake the one Hebrew
tongue, while the Jews of the various nationalities then assembled miraculously
heard the gospel in their own language.” (This is close! If he didn’t
say, ‘the one Hebrew tongue, but had said a Holy unknown tongue’, it would be
the same as Option 3)
10/ F. B. Meyer on Acts 2:1-13 “and the hearers heard in their own
tongue, the wonderful works of God. The Holy
Spirit used the telepathy of mind and heart, so that involuntarily the speaker
clothed his thoughts in language borrowed from his hearer’s
vocabulary. This was the sign of Babel’s undoing.”
11/ Geneva on Acts 2:4 (d) By this we understand that the apostles were
not speaking one language and then another by chance at random, or as eccentric
men used to do, but that they kept in mind the languages of their
hearers: and to be short, that they only spoke as the Holy Spirit
directed them to speak.”
12/ George Haydock on Acts 2:4 “Began to
speak divers tongues. Perhaps the apostles spoke only their
own tongue, and the miracle consisted in each one’s understanding it as if
they spoke it in his language. (St. Gregory of Nazianzus, orat. xliv.)”
13/ Jamieson-Fausset-Brown on Acts 2:4 “they ... began to speak with
... tongues, etc. — real, living languages, as is plain
from what follows. The thing uttered, probably the same by all, was “the
wonderful works of God,” perhaps in the inspired words of the Old Testament
evangelical hymns; though it is next to certain that the speakers themselves
understood nothing of what they uttered (see on 1Co_14:1-25).”
14/ John Gill on Acts 2:4 “And began to speak with other tongues;
besides, and different from that in which they were born and brought up, and
usually spake; they spake divers languages, one spoke one language,
and another, another; and the same person spoke with various tongues, sometimes
one language, and sometimes another. These are the new tongues,”
15/ John Darby on Acts 2:1-47 “This marvel attracts the multitude; and
the reality of this divine work is proved by the fact that persons from
numerous countries hear these poor Galileans proclaim to them the wonderful
works of God, each one in the language of the country whence he
came up to Jerusalem. The Jews, who did not understand these languages, mock;”
16/ John Wesley on Acts 2:4 “And this family praising God together, with
the tongues of all the world, was an earnest that the whole world
should in due time praise God in their various tongues.”
17/ Joseph Benson on Acts 2:4 “And began to
speak with other tongues — To speak languages of which
they had before been entirely ignorant. For this miracle was not in the
ears of the hearers, as some have unaccountably supposed, but in the mouths of
the speakers.”
18/ King Comments on Acts 2:2-4 “Another accompanying and perceptible
phenomenon is that they “speak with other tongues” or better: “speak in
other languages”. The different languages are a consequence of
sin and lead to division. The languages spoken by the Spirit remove the effects
of sin. The believers thereby understand each other and they result in unity.”
(This is close; but I couldn’t find any other part of that commentary to
suggest a unified Holy language?)
19/ Paul Kretzmann on Acts 2:1-4 “For they now began to speak, in
connected discourse, in other, strange tongues, in languages and dialects of
which, for the most part, they had probably never heard. The Holy Ghost
not merely taught them the various languages for their own
understanding, but actually gave them the ability to express themselves
correctly in these tongues.”
20/ Preacher’s Homeletical on Act_2:4. Other tongues.—In this case foreign
languages, not previously learnt by the speakers, which required no
interpreter (Act_2:8), but were understood by the hearers. Act_2:13 shows that
they resembled the “tongues” of the later Corinthian church by being
accompanied in their possessors with an ecstatic condition of consciousness.
(See Homily on Act_2:1-4.)
21/ Pulput on Acts 2:1-47 “What these tongues were on this occasion we
are explicitly informed in Mar_16:6, Mar_16:8, and Mar_16:11. They were
the tongues of the various nationalities present at the feast—Parthians,
Medes, Elamites, Mesopotamians, Egyptians, Phrygians, Arabians, etc.”
22/ Robertson’s Word Pictures on Acts 2:4 “With
other tongues (heterais
glōssais). Other than their native tongues. Each one
began to speak in a language that he had not acquired and yet it was a
real language and understood by those from various lands familiar
with them. It was not jargon, but intelligible language.”
23/ Matthew Henry on Acts 2:1-4 “It is probable that it was not
only one that was enabled to speak one language, and another another (as
it was with the several families that were dispersed from Babel), but that
every one was enabled to speak divers languages, as he should have occasion to
use them.”
24/ Vincent’s Word Studies on Acts 2:4 “It would seem that each
apostle was speaking to a group, or to individuals. The general
address to the multitude followed from the lips of Peter.”
Option 3 Explained
Option: 3. “They
were speaking in a new Holy language, which was NOT a known language, but those
that heard them, received it in their ears in their own language.” This really
is the only option that fits and makes sense with the rest of scripture, and I
will show you why now.” Why does
this Option make more sense? Well let’s first look at why Option 2 falls apart.
In Acts 1 verses 13 to 15 we find that
the disciples, “went up into an upper room.. where Peter and the other ten
disciples abode…These all continued with one accord in prayer and
supplication, with the women…and there were 120 of them”
Then in chapter 2 “sound of rushing wind…the crowd arrives…speaking in
tongues…and the crowd are amazed!!
The Crowd
How many were in the crowd? Well Act
2:13 says, “But others mocking said, These men are full of sweet wine.”
Then go to Acts 2:41 which says, “those who gladly received Peter's word
were baptized. And the same day there were added about three thousand
souls.” So the crowd consisted of 3000 saved, plus some who mocked
them, plus who knows how many were undecided? Maybe a crowd of say 3500?
First let's say the disciples were
speaking in known languages? And you are in the back row
of the crowd of 3500, and for you to hear one of the disciples speaking in YOUR
language; he or she would have to be YELLING OUT like
a regimental sergeant major! And if ALL the disciples were Yelling Out
to be heard, in DIFFERENT LANGUAGES! Then NOBODY except the front row in the crowd would hear anything!! Think
of an example you are familiar with. You are in a large shopping Plaza, and you
are in the Food Court with some 300 to 400 plus people. And the ambient noise
is quite loud. You order a coffee. And you are waiting until your name is
called to collect your coffee. If you walk too far away from the servery you
just won't hear your name called!! So, the idea that the disciples were speaking
in known languages just falls apart!
Next thought let's look at Act
2:13 “But others mocking said, These men are full of sweet wine.” Now I
was in the Army Reserve for 25 years. I often attended our annual Regimental
Beersheba dinner. And of cause some poor souls over indulged in the abundant
supply of PORT! I being a ‘teetotaller’ often had to help those that were under
the weather. And they would invariably try to make themselves understood. But
when they talked, their mouth is moving, sound is coming out, but it is nothing
intelligible, they are just speaking as we called it, “Left-Handed Scribble”! ‘These
men are full of sweet wine’. So, if the disciples were speaking
known languages; are we to assume that those mocking the disciples were
unable to understand at least ONE of those, known
languages? I find it very hard to believe that anyone could read this
account of Acts 2:13 and interpret it that way. Or completely miss on seeing
how God has given us this verse to help us understand that the disciples were NOT speaking in a known language!
Remember Paul says in 1Co
13:1 “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels”
What is Paul talking about? Don’t angels speak in known languages?
Well yes, they can, but obviously as Paul says the angels seem to have their own
language, which Paul was able to speak. Let's say it is the Holy language of
the Spirit. So, if anyone who was a mocking type, heard Paul speaking in the
tongue of angels, they would probably say he was speaking “Left-Handed
Scribble”! Paul tells us that same thing in 1Corinthians 14:23 (KJV) "If therefore the whole church be come together into one place, and all speak with tongues, and there come in those that are unlearned, or unbelievers, will they not say that ye are mad?"
So, let's go back to Acts 2:4 “And they
were all filled of the Holy Spirit, and began to speak in other languages, as
the Spirit gave them utterance.” (Many other translations say 'speaking in tongues')!! If the disciples were speaking a Holy
language, and there were 3000 people in the crowd that were ready to be saved,
don’t you think the Holy Spirit would be fully capable of translating the
gospel message into the ears of each individual, in their own language? And
those who mocked them, who were NOT ready to receive the gospel, simply heard
the disciples speaking “Left-Handed Scribble”? That is, they were Speaking
In Tongues! That is not too difficult to accept. There are plenty of other examples, like at Jesus baptism. Some heard a voice from heaven; others just thought it was thunder!!
Now you can go back and look at the 24
commentaries and read them carefully and I am sure you will see the downfalls
in the logic of each of them.
Example Story
Here is a story
for you I hear decades ago, and you be the judge as to whether it is true or
false? In the Pacific war when Japan was moving through and slaughtering
thousands. There was a Christian group in a small church, who were pleading to
the Lord for help. The church doors burst open and a Japanese officer and his
men barged in. At that moment a petrified small child stood in front of the
officer babbling and screaming! The officer claims he heard her say in clear
Japanese, “These are My children and if you harm them, you will NEVER see your
children again!” Stunned, the officer ordered his men to STOP! Ultimately the
officer was reprimanded, demoted and sent home in disgrace. His home was in
Nagasaki, a major military city. On reaching Japan because he was in disgrace,
he had to move his whole family to another city. What happened to Hiroshima and
Nagasaki? Was the child overwhelmed with fear, “Not knowing what to pray as she
ought but The Holy Spirit gave her utterance”? Romans 8:26 “Likewise the
Spirit also helps our infirmities. For we do not know what we should pray for
as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings
which cannot be uttered.”
I Believe
I believe that ‘Speaking In Tongues’ is best explained as a Holy language that God will
freely give to those who ask, so that your spirit can commune directly with the
Holy Spirit, without stumbling over, “how, why, if, please etc.” It is not
hard, as Jesus said in Luke 11:13 “If you then, being evil, know how to
give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask
Him?”
I don’t wish to go into the gifts
of the Spirit; I bow to the expert, the apostle Paul. He has written plenty to
explain all about it to various churches in the early years. But I hope that
has helped to clear up what, Speaking In Tongues is all about, as per the day of
Pentecost.
Hope you enjoyed
that, it is not one of my usual subjects, and if you have any comments, please
drop me a line.
Here are some of my other talks that you might find interesting: -
GBY (God Bless Ya)
Yours Adrian
