Tongues: What? Why? When? Who?
Series: Acts
Chuck Sligh
June 22, 2014
TEXT: Acts 2:1-13 – “And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. 2 And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. 3 And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. 4 And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.
INTRODUCTION
Illus. – I remember when my cousin was stationed in England that they asked Susan and me one time if we’d keep their little son Iain for a weekend so they could have a get-away. Of course we said yes.
Susan kept him most of the time, but she needed to get some housework done, so she asked me if I would watch him for awhile. “Sure,” I said.
Iain was partial to women at that time and when I took over guard duty, he wasn’t the least bit impressed with me. I spoke to him, but he just looked away. I tried tickling, but he looked like he’d break into tears, so I instantly stopped that! I tried to sing to him…to no effect whatsoever. I even brought out the guitar, but he just turned away like I was a real nobody.
Finally, I got in his line of vision and started acting totally, insanely silly…hopping up and down, making faces, screaming out baby songs, and swaying back-and-forth. Suddenly, I HAD HIM: He looked at me and started giggling. I had finally gotten his attention, and we were fast friends from then on.
Believe it or not, that’s kind of what happened at Pentecost. God put on a pyrotechnic display the likes of which had never been seen before. But God wasn’t just “showing off”—He never does that. Everything God does, He does for a purpose, and God had a very specific purpose for everything that happened on the Day of Pentecost.
The last time we were in Acts, we investigated this passage.
• If you’ll recall, we looked at what Pentecost originally was—a feast for the Jews, bringing multitudes of Jewish males from all over the then-known world to Jerusalem.
• Then we examined what happened that day—namely the Holy Spirit came to indwell permanently believers to empower them to be witnesses for Christ to the whole world.
• In doing that, God used unmistakable signs to show the Jews—since that’s all that were present in the upper room, and pretty much in all of Jerusalem during the Jewish Feast of Pentecost—that this was a work of God with God’s approval. We saw that the mighty wind was an Old Testament symbol of God’s POWER and tongues of fire over their heads were biblical symbols of God’s PRESENCE.
What we left for another sermon was the sign of SPEAKING IN TONGUES. Well, I promised you I’d come back in another sermon and talk to you about the meaning and purpose of tongues, so that is what we’re going to do today.
So without further ado, let’s jump right in:
I. FIRST, WHAT WERE TONGUES IN THE NEW TESTAMENT?
The word translated “tongues” in the New Testament is the Greek word, “glossa.”
Glossa has all the same uses as our English word tongue, such as…
• the actual physical organ in our mouths that we taste and talk with, or…
• anything shaped like a tongue (like a “tongue of fire” in our text), or…
• a particular manner of speaking (as in “She has a sharp tongue”) and finally…
• a “language” (as in “He spoke in a foreign tongue.”)
Obviously, when any New Testament writer speaks of “speaking in tongues” he refers to the supernatural ability to speak in a LANGUAGE the speaker had never before learned.
We see this in our text. Verse 4 says, “And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues [languages], as the Spirit gave them utterance.”
There would no miracle here if they all spoke in gibberish; we could all do that. But if all of a sudden, in a multicultural atmosphere of people from many different ethnicities, people began to spontaneously SPEAK in human languages they had never learned and visitors in the congregation UNDERSTOOD what was being uttered in their language—THAT would be truly miraculous!
That is EXACTLY what happened at Pentecost. – Look at the verses following our text, in verses 5-6: “5 And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven. 6 Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language.”, and verses 7-12 list all the languages that were spoken and understood.
So tongues were LANGUAGES spoken supernaturally by people who had never learned the language, and understood by someone who spoke that language.
II. SECOND, WHAT WAS THE PURPOSE OF TONGUES IN THE NEW TESTAMENT?
Was tongues given for us to mumble to ourselves to get a kind of “spiritual high?” No.—In fact, every religion—including Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, various American Indian religions and animist religions—have subgroups of practitioners who repeatedly utter ecstatic utterances that take them into heightened states of euphoria. This was also common in the Greek and Roman cults devoted to various deities.
So this practice was closely associated with paganism and occultism in Bible times. I can tell you now that this clearly is NOT the purpose of tongues.
If not to make believers feel good, then what exactly were tongues for?
Without getting too deep in the technical and theological weeds, the “Reader’s Digest” version is that tongues were primarily, if not exclusively signs to the Jews. The supernatural character of Old Testament Judaism required miraculous signs to convince the Jews that what they were witnessing was from God:
• Paul noted in 1 Corinthians 1:22 that, “…the Jews require a sign…”
• Jesus experienced this during his ministry on earth – John 4:48 says, “Then said Jesus unto him, Except ye [he was speaking to Jews…] “Except ye…] see signs and wonders, ye will not believe.”
• In John 6:30, Jesus’ Jewish hearers said to Him “…What sign shewest thou then, that we may see, and believe thee?...”
These Jews needed proof that Jesus was who He claimed to be and that His works were not from man, but truly a supernatural moving of God. There are several other similar references in the Gospels that talk about how God used signs and wonders to authenticate Christ to Jews. (Such as Matthew 12:38, Mark 8:11, Luke 11:16, and John 2:18)
The purpose of the tongues on the Day of Pentecost was to validate to JEWS—NOT Gentiles, but TO THE JEWS (who required a sign)—that Jesus was indeed from God, and the Gospel message Peter and the disciples preached was from God!
It was God’s version of me and Iain—God jumping around, shouting and singing, trying to get Jews’ attention to say, “Look! I’m in this. Listen to my messengers.”
Look at Acts 2:14-16 – “But Peter, standing up with the eleven, lifted up his voice, and said unto them, Ye men of Judaea, and all ye that dwell at Jerusalem, be this known unto you, and hearken to my words: 15 For these are not drunken, as ye suppose, seeing it is but the third hour of the day. 16 But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel.”
Do you see what Peter did?—He used the supernatural speaking in tongues—known, bona-fide human languages—to PROVE that what the Jews were seeing that day in Jerusalem was a fulfillment of Joel’s prophecy. It was a SIGN that this event was truly the work of God!
Again, later in Acts, tongues were used as a sign to Jewish believers of the universal scope of the Gospel—that is, that God intended for the Gospel and salvation through Jesus Christ to be offered to the WHOLE WORLD, not just to Jews.
We take for granted the idea of the Gospel being for all people because we’ve been conditioned by 2,000 years of Christian history. But this idea was INCONCEIVABLE to these Jews who saw themselves as God’s people; Judaism as the center of the moral universe; and Jerusalem as the center of the geographical universe.
So to help them to break out of this Jew-centric mold, God used signs to prove that taking the Gospel to other ethnic groups was indeed God’s plan. And what other symbol would better imply the Gospel being for all peoples than the ability to speak in the languages of all peoples?
You may be surprised to discover that speaking in tongues is found only two other places in Acts, and BOTH instances served to demonstrate to Jews that the Gospel was for a different group of people.
When Peter preached the Gospel to the Gentile Cornelius (against his wishes!), the Jewish believers were appalled by Peter’s actions! Jews didn’t even EAT with Gentiles, and viewed them as unclean. Preaching Christ to Gentiles without bringing them under the Old Testament law and being circumcised was a SERIOUS violation. So the Jewish believers called a big council because they couldn’t accept the idea that GENTILES could be included in God’s plan. It was a contentious meeting, but then when Peter reported how the household of Cornelius had spoken in tongues—just as they had on the day of Pentecost—that settled all arguments. It was only then, that the Jews accepted Gentiles into the church.
The only other place tongues is mentioned in Acts concerned a group of holdover followers of John the Baptist. When Paul first met them, he thought they were Christians. But when he discovered that, yes, they had been baptized by John the Baptist, but had not even HEARD of the Holy Spirit, he knew something was missing in their understanding. So he preached Christ to them and they believed in Christ. They too spoke in tongues, proving to every Jew who had been a follower of John the Baptist that Jesus superseded the message and ministry of John the Baptist, the last Old Testament prophet. Truly a new era had begun that was truly worldwide in scope.
So the purpose of tongues was to prove to doubting Jews that the message of salvation through Jesus Christ was indeed sanctioned by God and that the Gospel was for ALL people—Jews, Gentiles and John the Baptist’s followers.
Tongues was NOT a special gift given to make people into better Christians. Furthermore, there’s no evidence that every believer, or even that most believers, spoke in tongues in the New Testament church. Tongues was not given as a gift for personal benefit. It was a sign to the JEWS to prove that God had a much broader, more sweeping plan than their provincial little minds could conceive.
His plan embraced the WHOLE world!
III. THE LAST QUESTION WE WANT TO ANSWER IS, WERE TONGUES MEANT TO BE PERMANENT OR TRANSITORY?
A study of Bible reveals something very fascinating but little known by most believers. One is often left with the impression that the Bible is one extraordinary display of miraculous signs and wonders exercised by godly people after another.
Actually, that’s not the case.
What you find is that PERIODICALLY God endowed certain chosen vessels with miraculous power to perform signs and wonders when God wanted to use them to deliver new revelation or inaugurate a dramatically new way of doing things. They validated God’s messengers so God’s people would accept their message. This is exactly why the Jews in Jesus’ day required a sign—it was how God had always worked to inaugurate a new way of dealing with mankind or His people.
But in between these big explosions of signs and wonders, the NORM for millions of people has always been to trust God day by day without extraordinary exhibitions of the miraculous.
You see this played out all through the Bible:
• In Genesis, 2000 years go by with no “signs and wonders” performed by any biblical character: Not Noah, not Abraham, not Jacob, not Joseph…no one.
• But suddenly, there is an explosion of signs and wonders performed by God’s servant, Moses—through whom God gave the Law and the Tabernacle—and through whom God inspired the first five books of the Bible, that is, a new way of God’s dealing with mankind and God’s giving of new revelation to man.
• Hundreds of years go by with only periodic and isolated miracles, all of which resulted in the writing of some new portion of the Bible (Joshua to Ecclesiastes).
• Then suddenly there’s another explosion of signs and wonders in the time of Elijah and Elisha, resulting in the writings of the major and minor prophets.
• This is followed by 400 quiet years of NO signs and wonders known as “the silent years.” – Even John the Baptist, as remarkable as his ministry was, and whom Jesus said was the greatest of all the prophets, performed ZERO miracles.
• Then suddenly Christ comes on the scene and BAM—there’s a new paroxysm of the signs and wonders used to authenticate His identity and validate God’s approval of Him—and give us the four Gospels.
• This was followed by many miraculous signs and wonders by the apostles, which God used to demonstrate that their Gospel was indeed from God as was the outward reach to the Gentiles—and to give us Acts through Revelation.
But then something strange happens.
• If you examine the number of miracles in the early part of Acts, they far outnumber those in the later part of Acts, which slowly taper off in frequency.
• There were several miraculous prison escapes early in Acts, but Paul went all the way to Rome as a prisoner where he was executed, and John lived out his later life in exile as a prisoner.
• Peter and Paul could heal at will early in their ministries, but late in Paul’s ministry he could not even heal his co-workers Titus or Epaprhoditus.
And when John, the last apostle, died, miraculous signs and wonders completely cease.
• The early church fathers are silent about supernatural phenomena in general and the only references to tongues are of their use by heretical groups.
• Chrysostom, the great exegete and preacher who lived 347-407, in commenting on the spiritual gifts of 1 Corinthians 12-14, confesses that the whole passage is “very obscure,” but adds, “the obscurity is produced by our ignorance of the facts referred to and by their cessation, being such as then used to occur, but now no longer take place.” (Unger, New Testament Teaching on Tongues, p. 139).
You see, tongues were a supernatural SIGN for a SPECIFIC PERIOD in church history. Once they served their purpose, it was God’s plan all along that they pass away, along with all the other signs and wonders of the New Testament era.
CONCLUSION
Now, you might wondering why we are going over this. It’s important to understand these things because if you don’t, you can be deceived by certain writers, teachers and preachers who teach that tongues are for believers today. If God did not mean for tongues to be for today, it is wrong to seek them.
Illus. – Years ago, I was a Charismatic and I spoke in tongues. When seeking the gift of tongues, I was coached to repeat the same phrase over and over again and try to lose myself and try to lose control my tongue. Eventually, I began to utter ecstatic utterances that I believed to be the gift of tongues, and when I prayed in tongues, I felt an uplift; a kind of high; a euphoria. It felt good; it felt right; it felt like something that helped me emotionally.
But later, in a time of reexamination, three things changed my thinking on this issue:
• First, as I read and studied, I began to understand the transitory nature of much of the book of Acts and the supernatural signs and wonders in particular.
• Then I read how the adherents of all false religions have some in their religions who speak in ecstatic utterances, experiencing rapturous experiences. As I investigated what exactly they experienced, I found that it was identical to the euphoric highs I experienced when I prayed in tongues. I began to doubt that these experiences were necessarily from God.
• Then I read a book by a linguist who studied speaking in tongues scientifically. He pointed first of all that through the New Testament—no exceptions—the Greek word for speaking in tongues meant bona fide languages. Next, he noted that all true languages have specific rules and elements present: big words like phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics. Although a linguist may not be able to interpret what is spoken, any linguist can listen to any verbal communication and quickly ascertain if the speaker is speaking a true language or uttering ecstatic gibberish. Then this highly trained linguist explained how he had spent years examining hundreds of people who spoke in tongues, and NOT ONCE did he find one who spoke a true language he or she had not learned.
Confronted with the facts of Scripture, logic and science, I realized that though God determined that tongues were for a time in history for very specific purposes; our day was not the time, and God’s purposes for them have already been fulfilled. I stopped being a tongues speaker.
What motivated my quest for tongues and sign gifts was a genuine desire to attain a deeper spirituality by acquiring these gifts. But God showed me that my spirituality is not measured by my gifts, but by my love for Jesus.
Illus. – The true story is told of a WWII soldier who, prior to shipping off to war in Europe, found a used book in a USO store. In the margins, a woman had written some remarks he found insightful and caring.
Touched by this unknown person’s insights, the soldier made inquiries until he found out the name and address of the donor—and then he wrote her. He told her of how he had found the book; how impressed he was by her thoughts; that he was soon going off to war; and that had no one to write. Would she correspond with him?
She replied and said she would. Throughout the war, they exchanged letters and in time, he fell in love with her. He told her so in one of his letters, to which she replied that she had the same feelings toward him. He sent her his picture and asked for one from her, but she wrote back saying that if he truly loved her, a picture would not be necessary.
At last, he was to return from the War and wrote her that his ship would be docking at New York, not far from where she lived. If she could come and meet him at the dock, he would bring the book and she could wear a red rose on her lapel to help him identify her.
When his ship docked, he descended the gangplank and searched the crowd for the woman he had written to for so long and who had been such an inspiration to him. Suddenly he was approached by a stunningly beautiful blond woman, dressed in a crisp green suit and eyes twinkling as she looked at him and walked up to him. In the wonder of that moment, he neglected to see that she was not wearing a rose on her lapel.
“Hi soldier,” she said as she winked and walked on.
For a moment he was tempted to follow her, but then he noticed a woman standing alone, wearing a red rose on the lapel of her brown suit. She was 40ish, plain, with thick ankles, in a worn suit that was not well pressed.
He struggled for a moment, but then realized that this was the person who had given him so much strength and encouragement in the midst of difficult times. Perhaps he could not feel romantic love for her, but the very least he could do was to ask her out to eat and explain how much her letters had meant to him.
Straightening himself, he crossed to her and saluted. Taking her hand, he introduced himself and asked if she would do him the honor of eating with him.
With a startled look, the woman said, “Look, mister, I’m not sure what’s going on, but that blond woman you just passed gave me this rose to wear and said that if a soldier asked me out to eat, she’d be across the street in the diner waiting on him.”
Brethren, our spirituality is not measured by our special gifts or abilities or endowments, but by how much we love Jesus and how that affects our lives.
My friend, don’t pursue the GIFTS from God; pursue the GIVER of the gifts with all your heart and mind and soul and strength.
