Introduction — The Music of Words
Language. That simple word carries a universe inside it. Gustave Flaubert once wrote that language is “a cracked pot on which we beat out a tune for bears to dance, while we long to make music that will melt the stars.”
What a contradiction—clumsy and celestial at the same time. He called it cracked, yet he made it magnificent.
We live, move, think, and even dream inside words. They shape our prayers, our humor, our memories, and our worship. Culture itself is woven from language—our stories, our recipes, our songs, our faith. More than our clothes or customs, it is our speech that identifies who we are. Strip a people of their language and you strip them of their soul.
Every human being is born wired for it. Before we know arithmetic or geography, before we learn to walk, we learn to speak. The first cry in a newborn’s lungs is the beginning of a lifetime dialogue with heaven and earth.
God made us this way because He Himself is a communicator. “And God said, Let there be light.” The universe began not with thunder but with a Word. So it should not surprise us that when God wanted to form a people, He gave them a vocabulary of covenant—law and promise, prayer and praise. When He wanted to redeem the world, He sent the Word made flesh.
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Pentecost — When Heaven Spoke Every Language
Acts 2 records one of the most startling moments in human history. Jerusalem was filled with pilgrims celebrating the Feast of Weeks. The city hummed with prayer and conversation in a dozen dialects. Suddenly, Luke says, “there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house.” Fire appeared—flames dividing and resting upon each believer—and then came something even more astonishing: speech.
Those ordinary Galileans began to speak in languages they had never studied, and every listener heard “the wonderful works of God” in his or her own tongue. Parthians and Medes, Egyptians and Romans, Asians and Arabs—all heard heaven addressing them personally. The crowd gasped: “What meaneth this?”
It meant that God’s grace had just broken the sound barrier. It meant that divine love would no longer be translated through a single culture or confined to one sacred tongue. Hebrew had carried the story so far, but the Spirit now burst the seams. The same God who once scattered languages at Babel now used language to gather hearts at Pentecost.
Wind, fire, and word—three symbols of one reality: the living Spirit of God filling His people. And the miracle was not that people spoke; it was that everyone understood. Pentecost was not the birth of noise; it was the birth of meaning.
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The Promise Fulfilled
When the crowd accused the disciples of drunken babble, Peter stood up—steady, clear-eyed, and full of Scripture. He said, “This is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel.” Then he quoted the ancient words:
> “And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God,
I will pour out of My Spirit upon all flesh:
and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
and your young men shall see visions,
and your old men shall dream dreams…
and it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
The key phrase is all flesh. Not only Israel, not only men, not only the educated or the pure, but all flesh—sons and daughters, servants and strangers, every tribe and tongue. Joel’s prophecy was a crack of lightning across the narrow sky of nationalism, and now the storm had broken.
Peter’s sermon that day was the first to proclaim a gospel big enough for the world. And when he reached his conclusion—“Repent, and be baptized every one of you”—three thousand souls stepped forward into the flood of grace.
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Beyond Monopolies of Grace
What happens whenever the Spirit moves is that people who think they have a monopoly on God are gently—or sometimes not so gently—disabused of that illusion. Pentecost was God’s way of saying, “You don’t own Me.”
God will not be confined to the walls of a denomination or the lines of a creed. Lutherans do not own Him. Methodists do not own Him. Pentecostals do not own Him. Adventists, for all our Sabbath light and prophetic insight, do not own Him. He moves where He wills. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh or whither it goeth.
That is both humbling and liberating. It means that the Spirit can work in a Buddhist heart seeking truth, in a Catholic nun serving the poor, in a Baptist choir lifting praise, in a Muslim scholar wrestling with the name of God, and yes—in an Adventist classroom where a child first hears Jesus loves me. We do not have to defend the boundaries of grace; we are invited to live inside its vastness.
When we imagine that God fits neatly inside our doctrinal box, we are like a child trying to bottle the ocean. The bottle may be labeled correctly, but it cannot contain the sea.
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Stephen’s Testimony — Where Is God?
A few chapters later, another follower of Jesus stood before the Sanhedrin and told the story of Israel from Abraham to Solomon. Stephen’s sermon in Acts 7 is often remembered for how it ended—with stones—but we should linger over how it began.
He asked a series of quiet questions that thundered through the council chamber:
Where was God when He called Abraham? In Mesopotamia—far from the Holy Land.
Where was God when Joseph was in Egypt? In Egypt, saving His people.
Where was God when Moses wandered the Sinai? In the wilderness cloud.
Where was God when Israel sat by the rivers of Babylon? In exile with them.
And then Stephen drew the conclusion that sealed his fate: “The Most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands; as saith the prophet, Heaven is My throne, and earth is My footstool.”
To men who believed the temple guaranteed God’s presence, that sounded like heresy. But Stephen wasn’t denying the sacredness of the temple; he was proclaiming the omnipresence of the Holy One. The God who fills heaven and earth cannot be reduced to an address or a system.
And if heaven is His throne and earth His footstool, then every culture, every continent, every church is floor space for His glory.
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The Scandal of the Wide Table
Years ago, I attended a ministers’ convocation in Dallas called by Billy Graham. Thirteen thousand pastors gathered from across North America—Baptists and Presbyterians, Pentecostals and Adventists, black, white, Latino, and Asian—each one yearning to serve Christ better.
During the final service Sandy Patty sang the Lord’s Prayer, and then we all joined in. We sang it once—not enough. We sang it again—not enough. We sang it a third time, voices rising like incense. For a few minutes there were no labels, no barriers, only worship.
The preacher that night was a Baptist from Memphis whose sermon was titled “Children, Come to Supper.” I will never forget his closing moment. He looked out over that sea of clergy and said, “When I come to meetings like this, I see Pentecostals in the front raising their hands. I accept you—but you need to know I don’t have to give up who I am. I’m a Baptist. I see Presbyterians who talk about election and predestination. I accept you—but I’m still a Baptist.” Then he smiled and said, “And I see some Adventists out there. I accept you too. But I’m still me.”
It struck me then that true unity does not require uniformity. We do not have to surrender our convictions to stand together at the table of grace. When Jesus broke the bread, He did not check denominational membership cards; He washed feet.
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Unity Without Losing Self
What would we lose if we admitted that God works mightily through people who disagree with us? Nothing.
What would we gain? Perspective, humility, and an army of co-laborers.
To say “God is working in you” does not mean “God has stopped working in me.” The Body of Christ has many members, and every one of them matters. My hand does not have to become my foot to cooperate with it. The eye cannot say to the ear, I have no need of thee.
When we open our souls to the larger work of God, we discover not competition but companionship. The Spirit that spoke every language at Pentecost is still multilingual today. He speaks Methodist hymns and Pentecostal shouts, Anglican liturgy and Adventist prophecy, Spanish and Swahili, Urdu and English. Wherever someone calls on the name of the Lord, heaven bends close to listen.
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Let God Be God
That is the heart of this message: let God be God.
Let Him be bigger than our doctrines, freer than our institutions, wilder than our expectations. When we try to domesticate Him, to make Him an Adventist or an American or a conservative or a liberal, we commit a subtle idolatry—we fashion God in our own image.
But when we let Him speak, the world changes. The same Spirit who hovered over chaos and brought order, who brooded over Mary and brought forth Christ, now broods over His church, waiting for permission to do something new.
He is the God of all cultures. The God who delights in samosas and curry, cupcakes and tea, sauerkraut and kimchi. The God who understands every accent of prayer and every rhythm of praise. The God whose throne is in heaven and whose footstool is the earth.
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When God Speaks Your Language
One of the quiet marvels of Pentecost is that God did not erase difference; He addressed it.
He didn’t make everyone speak Hebrew. He didn’t standardize the accent of heaven. Instead, He honored the individuality of every listener. Each one heard “in his own language the wonderful works of God.”
The Spirit never flattens culture—He sanctifies it.
If you grew up singing country gospel, He meets you in a steel-string hymn.
If you worship with drums and ululation, He meets you in rhythm.
If you whisper your prayers in silence, He meets you there too.
What Pentecost declares is that no one has to learn a foreign accent to be loved by God.
He speaks your language so that you can learn His heart.
That’s why a child can lisp a bedtime prayer and be heard by the same Almighty who receives the liturgy of cathedrals.
Every conversion story is a translation miracle: God making Himself understood to one more heart.
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The Spirit Still Moves
Some believe Pentecost was a one-time spectacle.
I believe it was the opening movement of an unfinished symphony.
Every revival, every mission endeavor, every quiet awakening in a human heart is another verse of that same song.
The wind still blows in hospital rooms, in refugee tents, in prison cells, in classrooms, in sanctuaries, in Zoom meetings where believers pray through screens.
The fire still falls on women and men, on the young and on the old.
The languages keep multiplying—through music, through technology, through mercy, through art, through courage.
And the message remains unchanged: “Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
Not whoever gets the theology exactly right.
Not whoever worships on a certain day alone.
Whoever calls.
The Spirit insists on the word whosoever because the cross insists on the word all.
All who thirst, come.
All who labor, come.
All who call, come.
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What We Lose—and What We Gain
When we open our theology to the wideness of God’s mercy, we fear we might lose our identity.
But identity rooted in fear is not faith.
Israel feared losing its uniqueness; yet through Israel’s line the world received a Savior.
The Church fears losing its purity; yet purity guarded by pride becomes pollution.
You don’t lose anything essential when you affirm that God is working elsewhere; you simply admit that the ocean has more waves than the one breaking on your beach.
You gain humility, joy, and allies.
You gain wonder again.
God is too vast to fit inside our institutions—and that is very good news, because when our institutions fail, God still remains.
When the temple crumbles, the Presence still fills heaven and earth.
When denominations fracture, the Spirit still moves upon the face of the deep.
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The Danger of a Domesticated Deity
There is a kind of religious certainty that builds walls higher than Babel.
It says, “We alone are right; therefore God must look like us.”
But whenever we make God smaller to make ourselves larger, we end up worshiping a mirror.
That is why the prophets thundered against idols—not only statues of stone, but ideas of control.
To make God manageable is to make Him mute.
The living God will not live in our cages.
He shatters them—not to destroy our faith but to release it.
When Stephen said, “The Most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands,” he wasn’t tearing down faith; he was freeing it to travel.
He was declaring that the God who met Abraham under foreign stars and Moses in a desert bush is still taking His meetings on the road.
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Every Culture, Every Table
Look at the ministry of Jesus.
He was at home in a fisherman’s boat, a Pharisee’s house, a Samaritan well, a Roman courtyard, and a borrowed tomb.
He spoke Aramaic, but His love translated itself into touch, tears, and time.
He ate with tax collectors and zealots at the same table.
He healed foreigners who called Him by the wrong titles.
He told stories about widows, shepherds, and Samaritans because heaven’s dictionary has no slur words.
If Christ could cross every boundary, so can we.
When we meet people of another culture or another church, our task is not to correct their vocabulary but to recognize the Spirit’s accent in their lives.
Somewhere in every sincere soul, God is already speaking—perhaps in grammar we do not know, but in grace we can recognize.
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Hearing the Spirit in Our Own Tongue
Think of the first time you truly heard God speak to you.
Not through the preacher’s microphone or your mother’s counsel, but directly into your soul.
The words may have been familiar, but something alive carried them.
That moment was your personal Pentecost—the Spirit translating divine love into your dialect of pain and hope.
The Spirit knows exactly how to reach each heart:
To the intellectual, He speaks through reason.
To the artist, through beauty.
To the wounded, through compassion.
To the skeptic, through questions.
To the sinner, through mercy.
And in every case, the grammar of heaven is grace.
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Heaven’s Throne, Earth’s Footstool
Stephen’s final vision was of heaven opened and the Son of Man standing at God’s right hand.
Even as stones flew, he saw beyond the walls of Jerusalem into the infinite dwelling of God.
That vision is the cure for all small-minded religion.
If heaven is His throne and earth His footstool, then the cosmos itself is the temple.
The cathedrals are miniature models, the churches are outposts, the hearts of believers are candles in the vast sanctuary of space.
God is not homeless—but neither is He housebound.
He is simultaneously transcendent and near.
He is present in the incense of St. Peter’s and the silence of a mountain cave, in the laughter of a potluck and the tears of a hospital hallway.
He fills them all, because He fills everything.
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The Call of the Open Door
What does this mean for us, practical people living between Pentecost and Paradise?
It means we are to be translators of grace.
We speak the language of heaven into the dialect of our neighbors.
To the lonely widow across the street, we translate love into presence.
To the discouraged coworker, we translate hope into encouragement.
To the estranged family member, we translate forgiveness into a phone call.
To the child asking hard questions, we translate faith into patience.
Every believer is bilingual: we speak human and holy.
The more we listen to the Spirit, the more fluent we become.
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A Personal Reflection
I often think back to that gathering in Kansas City—thirteen thousand ministers singing “Our Father which art in heaven.”
When the harmonies rose, I felt the veil between earth and heaven thin.
I thought of Acts 2—the sound of many tongues becoming one song.
I realized that God was not asking me to stop being who I am, only to stop thinking I’m all He has.
My Seventh-day Adventist convictions remain precious to me—the Sabbath, the nearness of Christ’s return, the beauty of health and wholeness.
But they are gifts to be shared, not fences to keep others out.
Truth loses nothing by being generous.
The Spirit who inspired Ellen White also inspired Francis of Assisi, William Booth, Fannie Crosby, and a thousand unnamed saints who loved Jesus in their own language.
One day in glory, I suspect we will recognize the accent of every redeemed soul and find that they were all saying the same Name.
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Let the Spirit Broaden Your Soul
Luke’s gospel and Acts together form a two-volume testimony to this truth: God’s plan keeps getting bigger.
In Luke 2, angels say “good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people.”
In Luke 3, John proclaims, “All flesh shall see the salvation of God.”
By Acts 2, it is happening before their eyes.
God’s story always expands.
Our fear always resists.
And the Spirit always wins.
So open your heart again.
Let God melt your narrowness like wax before His fire.
Let Him teach you to celebrate difference instead of fearing it.
Let Him remind you that the same blood that redeemed you flows for every nation, kindred, tongue, and people.
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Closing Appeal — Speak, Lord
Maybe today you are waiting for God to speak.
He is.
The question is: are you listening in the right language?
He may not thunder in Hebrew or whisper in Greek; He may speak through the laugh of your child, the ache of your conscience, or the voice of a friend.
When He does, answer like Samuel: “Speak, Lord; for thy servant heareth.”
The miracle of Pentecost was not tongues of fire—it was hearts on fire.
When you let the Spirit ignite your soul, you become the translation the world is waiting for.
Let us pray:
> Lord, broaden our vision until we see every human being as a word You have spoken.
Teach us to listen for Your voice in unfamiliar accents.
Make us grateful for the melody of difference.
And let our lives declare the wonderful works of God—
until the whole world sings in its own language,
“Jesus is Lord.”
