And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit was giving them utterance. Now there were Jews living in Jerusalem, devout men from every nation under heaven. And when this sound occurred, the crowd came together, and were bewildered because each one of them was hearing them speak in his own language. They were amazed and astonished, saying, “Why, are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we each hear them in our own language to which we were born? Parthians and Medes and Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the districts of Libya around Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs–we hear them in our own tongues speaking of the mighty deeds of God.” And they all continued in amazement and great perplexity, saying to one another, “What does this mean?”Acts 2:4-12
I told you in this Gem I would look at the matter of “tongues” as Luke uses it in Acts 2.
In this passage before us for this Gem there are two Greek words that are translated “tongue” or “tongues.” Twice the word is derived from the Greek Word glossa and once it is translated from the Greek word dialektos. Glossa is found twice in Acts 2:3,4 where it is translated “tongues” both times. Elsewhere in the New Testament it is translated:
- 1. The organ of taste and speech in the mouth (Rev 16:10; Luke 16:24; Mark 7:33-35; James 3:5-6).
- 2. “Every tongue” is a personification for “every person” I.e. The tongue represents that totality of the person. (Phil 2:11; Rom 14:11).
- 3. Metaphorically it can mean speech (I John 3:18; I Pet 3:10; James 1:26, 3:8).
- 4. It signifies the shape of a tongue in Acts 2:3 5. It often means known dialects and languages (Rev 5:9, 7:9, 10:11, 11:9, 13:7, 14:6, 17:5; I Corinthians 13:1) including the supernatural God-given ability to speak a language without having learned it. (Mark 16:17; I Corinthians 12:10, 30; Acts 2:4, 11, 10:46, 19:6)
Dialektos is found six times in the New Testament, twice here in Acts 2:6,8 where it is translated “language, a dialect or separate language”.
When we look at the lexical options (dictionary definition) for these two words in the context in which we find them, it is obvious that Luke’s intention here is that we should interpret these words in the way they have been translated. The first meaning a flame appearing in the “shape or form of a tongue”. That is how we would normally apply glossa if applied to a flame. The other appearance of the words glossa and dialektos demand the word “language”or “dialect” given the context.
These were recognisable languages which the speakers had not previously learned. Many Charismatic Christians regard this passage as miraculous and seek to interpret it in terms of glossalalia. Glossalalia is a word which scholars have invented from Greek (the combination of glossa (tongue) and lalia (speech) to describe the phenomena of “speaking in tongues”. (The word glossalalia does not appear in the NT). But that is not what Luke means here. It is clear from the passage that the meaning of the word ought to be “speaking in known languages”. Many like to seize on the construction, “They began to speak with other tongues” to suggest the tongues spoken in Acts 2 were OTHER worldly, in other words, heavenly. But the context does not support that. I suspect the sense of “other” here just simply means languages other than (different to) the normal languages they used or were aware of.
We are told the miracle here was that local Jews, Galileans primarily, whose ordinary use of Aramaic set them apart as being country bumpkins. Their usual dialect was easily detected as being strange sounding and marked them as less educated. These men were suddenly speaking in Parthian, Medean (a language of Medo-Persia), Elamean Mesopotamian, Cappadocian, the language of Pontus and other surrounding languages of Asia Minor:Phrygian, Pamphylian, Egyptian, Lydian, Cyrenean, and Latin. These Jews were also speaking fluently the dialect of Aramaic spoken in the south, around Judea. The response among the hearers was astonishment. They were both amazed, astonished and bewildered all at the same time. These rural backwater people were suddenly speaking the languages and dialects from countries spread around the middle east and Asia Minor and even across into Northern Africa. These men were speaking these languages as though they were mother tongue speakers of the languages and dialects across a wide area of the Middle East and the nations surrounding the Mediterranean.
The miracle that the Charismatic Christians seek, is found in this passage after all. Yes, the coming of the Holy Spirit brought with it a miracle. A move of God focused on communicating to this large crowd of foreigners gathered in Jerusalem for Passover, showing that this was the fulfilment of the Old Testament prophecies. That something remarkable was happening here so that each person in the crowd would understand exactly what was happening here. God was making sure each of the people from countries and languages would understand the explanation of what was happening here in their own language. Don’t miss the scale on which this happened. All those gathered in the Upper Room (at least 120) were ALL filled with the Spirit of God and thus were ALL given the ability by the Holy Spirit to speak in languages they had not learned. The debate about glossalalia aside, there are occasions in these modern times when people who practice the gift listed among charismata (the manifestation gifts of the Spirit) have lapsed into “tongues” and people present have recognised what was spoken as an already recognisable language of the world’s languages. I have personally heard of people who though untrained in Hebrew, have come forth speaking fluent Hebrew in the context of tongues speaking. This is true also of people speaking local languages or dialects of the areas they are as missionaries, though not having learned the language in question.
Now that is miraculous! It indicates that the work of the Holy Spirit on this occasion was to bring understanding of what was happening to the people gathered in Jerusalem. Luke tells us they were amazed and perplexed (2:12) and asked, “What does this mean?” They were clearly not perplexed with the words they were hearing. We have been told each person heard what was said, in their own language. The words of mass communication were not confusing them. I believe what was amazing and perplexing them was that each person was hearing their own language spoken, yet all came from a different region. Yet how could that be, that a Phrygian person would hear what was spoken in Phrygian, while a person from Cappadocia heard it in Cappadocian? Now that would have been remarkable! The text Luke wrote seems to indicate that was what happened.
There was a miracle on both ends of the communication process. The 120 speakers had been given the ability to speak in languages they had never learned. It was like breaking out in tongues in the pentecostal sense where even you, the speaker, don’t actually know what you are saying but the person in front of you is clearly understanding every word, nodding and even asking you questions. But perhaps what is more remarkable is that a crowd of people who originate from different places all over the wider region and each of them is understanding what is being said, in their language, despite the fact that each one is speaking only once in one language. They are not repeating it in different languages. They are just giving the message once, yet everybody listening is hearing and understanding it.
One day arriving at church with JPCC I was asked to take part in the annual evaluation of the Interpreters ministry. I initially told the person who offered me a head set that I didn’t need it, I could understand and speak Indonesian. But he made it clear to me they wanted my help in evaluating the quality of the interpreter’s work. The services in JPCC are interpreted into a number of different languages – English, Mandarin and other languages as they are requested. Each person receives a headset tagged for the specific language interpreter they require. As I performed the evaluation for the English interpreter, I sat there thinking about the passage in Acts and what I would be writing in the Gem today. It made me think there was no need for an interpreter on the day the Holy Spirit came. Not even for one language, not even Mandarin, let alone English and Italian, Tamil and Thai. All that was needed that day in Jerusalem was for the speaker to speak and each listener heard what was spoken in their own language simultaneously. The miracle was not just in the tongue, it was also a miracle in the ear.
Think about it, there are 120 different people speaking different languages of the region and yet what is being heard by EACH listener is being heard in the language of the hearer. That boggles my mind. Little wonder that these people were perplexed, confused, astonished and amazed. I think I would be too, even more so as a linguist-translator.
Thank you also LORD for the timeliness of what I was asked to do yesterday in the context of the Gem this morning. You are amazing in the way You orchestrate things. Your timing never ceases to amaze me.Ian Vail
The ability to speak several languages is an asset but the ability to keep your mouth shut in any language is priceless.Feibe Setiadi
I’m not lucky, you don’t know how much I prayed.Theresia Yap
I cannot live the Crucified Life unless my tongue is nailed to the cross. My words betray my true condition.Rick Warren
If you want to know where you’ll be in 5 yrs listen to what you talk about most now. “Your tongue is a rudder.”Rick Warren
If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.Nelson Mandela
If you read the Bible today in your mother tongue; spare a thought for the speakers of languages who don’t have one word of Scripture.Ian Vail
How many languages have Scripture? Over 3,350. Of these, 683 have a complete Bible, another 1,534 have the New Testament. 1,133 others have at least one book of the Bible.Wycliffe Statistics
How many languages still need translation? In addition to over 2,659 active projects worldwide, work needs to be done in a further 1,189 languages.Wycliffe Statistics