Audio only:
In this episode, Jimmy Akin dives deep into Acts 2 to reveal exactly what happened on that wild day—mighty rushing wind, tongues of fire, and disciples suddenly speaking real foreign languages to an international crowd! He settles the glossolalia/xenoglossy debate with clear Scripture, proves it was a miracle of speaking (not hearing) and that the tongues—at least in this instance—were not private prayer languages. He also reveals how Pentecost was far more than a Babel reversal—it was the firstfruits of the greatest harvest in history.
Mind-blowing biblical truth you won’t want to miss!
TRANSCRIPT:
This week, we celebrate Pentecost.
The day of Pentecost was a momentous one in the history of Christianity, and some really unusual things happened on it.
So what was Pentecost, and what was the nature of the strange tongues that the disciples spoke in?
Let’s get into it!
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What Was Pentecost
Pentecost was an ancient Israelite feast. It’s first mentioned in Exodus 34:22, where we read:
Exodus 34:22
You shall observe the Feast of Weeks, the firstfruits of wheat harvest.
Here Pentecost is called the Feast of Weeks. This is because it occurred seven weeks after Passover. Since there are seven days in each week, those seven weeks would add up to 49 days. 7 x 7 = 49
However, these 49 days were understood as the interval between Passover and Pentecost, so Pentecost is actually the 50th day, and that’s where its name comes from. In Greek, Pentécosté means = Fiftieth.
Thus Leviticus 23 says:
Leviticus 23:15-16
You shall count seven full weeks from the day after the Sabbath, from the day that you brought the sheaf of the wave offering. You shall count fifty days to the day after the seventh Sabbath. Then you shall present a grain offering of new grain to the Lord.
Pentecost and the Feast of Weeks are thus two names for the same celebration.
The other thing to notice is that the Feast of Weeks is described as the firstfruits of the wheat harvest.
Firstfruits were the first and best part of a crop that you harvested. What you did was cut a sheaf of wheat and then take it to the temple to be presented to God as what is known as a wave offering, because the priest waved it in front of God’s presence.
Leviticus 23 states:
Leviticus 23:10-11
When you come into the land that I give you and reap its harvest, you shall bring the sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest to the priest, and he shall wave the sheaf before the Lord, so that you may be accepted.
This waving of the sheaf symbolized the fact that God is the source of everything we have, including the harvest. By waving the first sheaf of wheat you harvested, the priest symbolically returned the sheaf to God—acknowledging him as the source of the whole harvest.
Since the Feast of Weeks was the firstfruits of the wheat harvest, that made Pentecost a harvest festival. The wheat harvest was coming in, and it was time to celebrate that fact and thank God for giving you the wheat that would sustain you through the coming year.
In later centuries, Pentecost also came to commemorate the renewal of God’s covenant with his people, so—in addition to being a harvest festival—it also came to be a covenant renewal festival.
Mysterious Events on Pentecost
Luke reports that, on the day of Pentecost in A.D. 33,
Acts 2:2-4
Suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.
This is one of several mentions of speaking in tongues in the Bible.
It’s mentioned several times in Acts, and the major discussion with it outside of Acts is in 1 Corinthians 12-14.
In the nineteenth century, the term Glossolalia was coined to refer to speaking in tongues. In Greek, Glóssa = “Tongue” and Lalia = “Speech,”, so according to its word parts Glossolalia = Speaking in a Tongue.
However, in the twentieth century, this term became involved in a controversy about the nature of the tongues in question.
In the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements, it is sometimes held that “glossolalia” does not involve real human languages but “private prayer languages” that God enables a person to speak.
Consequently, some have begun to refer to miraculously speaking a real, foreign language as Xenolossy. In Greek, Xenos = “Stranger, Foreigner” and Glóssa = “Tongue,” so according to its word parts, Xenoglossy = (Speaking) a Foreign Tongue.
It’s also called Xenolalia, which would mean = Foreign Speaking.
What Happened on Pentecost?
So what happened on Pentecost itself?
It’s clear that the manifestations the disciples witness are cause by the Holy Spirit, since they began speaking in other tongues “as the Spirit gave them utterance.”
The sound of the mighty, rushing wind signals the arrival of the Holy Spirit.
The Greek word Pneuma also means = Breath, Wind, Spirit, so the sound of the mighty wind symbolizes the arrival of the mighty, Holy Spirit.
The “tongues as of fire” (i.e., individual flames) that rest on each of them signify empowerment to speak in tongues.
Fire is a powerful force—you really don’t want to touch it!—so the tongues or flames of fire symbolize the power to speak in other languages.
It’s providential that both an individual flame and a language can be spoken of as a “tongue.”
What Kind of Tongues?
But what about the tongues that they began speaking in? What were they?
The normal meaning of “other tongues” would be foreign languages—i.e., ones other than the Aramaic that the disciples would have known from their upbringing.
This is confirmed by the text, which goes on to say,
Acts 2:5-6
Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. And at this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one was hearing them speak in his own language.
This means that the disciples were not speaking in private prayer languages but real-world languages that the international crowd of Jews already knew.
However, some have proposed that something different was happening. Focusing on the statement that “each one was hearing them speak” in these languages, some have held that this is really a “miracle of hearing” rather than a miracle of speaking.
In other words, the disciples were still speaking in their native Aramaic, but the crowd was hearing them in whatever their own native languages were.
This is a creative idea, but it is poor exegesis.
First, the word “hearing” is consistent with both the idea that the disciples were miraculously speaking foreign languages and with the idea that the crowd was miraculously hearing foreign languages.
Acts 2:8-11
“How is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language? Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians—we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God.”
After all, if one of the disciples was miraculously speaking in Latin, then one of the visitors from Rome would obviously hear him speaking in Latin.
And if the disciples were speaking in Aramaic but these visitors were hearing them in Latin, then—again—they’d hear them speaking in Latin.
So, either way you go, Latin is what they’d hear.
The word “hearing” thus doesn’t prove one interpretation over the other.
We thus need to take a step back and look at how the text conceptualizes the miracle, and here we do get an answer.
Luke explicitly states that the disciples “began to speak in other tongues.”
He also conceptualizes the miracle as taking place on the part of the disciples—not on the part of the crowd.
The miracle is happening as soon as the disciples begin speaking; Luke doesn’t present it as beginning when others start hearing what is said.
The fact that this passage and others in the New Testament refer to the miracle as Speaking in Tongues rather than Hearing in Tongues strongly indicates that it is a miracle of speaking.
Confirmation from 1 Corinthians
This is also indicated in 1 Corinthians 12.
Paul distinguishes between the gift of speaking in tongues and the gift of interpreting tongues. He says,
1 Corinthians 12:8, 10
For to one is given through the Spirit . . . various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues.
Similarly, he asks,
1 Corinthians 12:30
Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret?
So speaking with tongues and interpreting tongues are two different gifts.
And in 1 Corinthians 14, Paul makes it absolutely clear that speaking in tongues is not understood by itself. He writes:
1 Corinthians 14:5, 9-11, 13-14, 19
Now I want you all to speak in tongues, but even more to prophesy. The one who prophesies is greater than the one who speaks in tongues, unless someone interprets, so that the church may be built up. . . .
If with your tongue you utter speech that is not intelligible, how will anyone know what is said? For you will be speaking into the air. There are doubtless many different languages in the world, and none is without meaning, but if I do not know the meaning of the language, I will be a foreigner to the speaker and the speaker a foreigner to me. . . .
Therefore, one who speaks in a tongue should pray that he may interpret. For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays but my mind is unfruitful . . .
In church I would rather speak five words with my mind in order to instruct others, than ten thousand words in a tongue.
So—in order for tongues to be understood—it requires someone who has the gift of interpreting tongues, and so this is not a miracle of hearing.
In fact, Paul indicates that without an interpreter, not even the person speaking in tongues mentally knows what he is saying. That’s why he says that in tongues his spirit prays but his mind is unfruitful.
Now, some have argued that the speaking in tongues mentioned in Acts is different than the speaking in tongues mentioned in 1 Corinthians, but this is exegetically unsound.
Luke and Paul were companions, and if they were describing two different phenomena then the two companions would not use the same name for two different things.
We thus have very strong evidence that—on the day of Pentecost—the disciples were miraculously enabled (by those “tongues as of fire”) to speak actual, real world languages that they didn’t know.
Other Kinds of Tongues?
This does not mean that the Holy Spirit cannot give other, related charismatic gifts.
In 2016, the Congregation (now Dicastery) for the Doctrine of the Faith published a document titled Iuvenescit Ecclesia in which it noted that, although there are several lists of charismatic gifts in the New Testament,
Iuvenescit Ecclesia 6
None of these lists claims to be exhaustive.
And that
Iuvenescit Ecclesia 9
There has never been a shortage of different charisms arising in the temporal course of ecclesial history.
Including the charisms that inspire new movements.
I thus don’t have any problem with the idea of new charismatic gifts being given in new eras. If God wants to do miracles of hearing or give private prayer languages in later Church history, that’s up to him.
I’m not going to tell the Holy Spirit, “Hey, wait a minute! You can’t do that!”
It’s just not what Luke described happening on the day of Pentecost or what Paul described in 1 Corinthians.
The Christian Meaning of the Feast?
So what is the Christian significance of the day of Pentecost?
You often hear it described as a reversal of what happened at the Tower of Babel. BABEL
Back in Genesis 11, mankind got too big for its britches and started building a tower to the heavens, so God came down and confused the people’s speech, giving rise to all the different languages, which fragmented mankind into different communities.
Now, on Pentecost, God is getting the band back together by miraculously uniting people despite the fact they speak different languages.
This is a possible interpretation, and I don’t have a problem with it. But if you stop there, I think you’re missing something, because you’re not looking at the nature of Pentecost itself.
Remember, it eventually came to represent a covenant renewal celebration. It already had that as one of its meanings around 150 B.C., so it’s possible that early Christians understood the Pentecost of A.D. 33 as a renewal of God’s covenant in the form of the new covenant that Jesus had announced, telling the Twelve:
Luke 22:20
This chalice which is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.
However, even more fundamentally, Pentecost was a harvest festival. It was the beginning of the wheat harvest, which was the most important harvest of the year.
And the Pentecost of A.D. 33 was the beginning of the major wave of converts that came into the Christian faith after Jesus’ resurrection.
Jesus had specifically empowered the disciples for purposes of bringing these converts in, telling them:
Acts 1:8
You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.
Then, in fulfillment of this prophecy, the day of Pentecost happens, the disciples preach to an international crowd of visitors, and they literally make thousands of converts. Luke tells us that:
Acts 2:41
Those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.
I thus regard those three thousand souls as the firstfruits of the great Christian harvest of which we are all a part.
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