The Bible Nerd

God occasionally does stuff that we just can’t explain.  That’s the whole point of a miracle or what we call a sign.  We aren’t supposed to be able to give a rational explanation or figure it out.  If we could, then it wouldn’t be a sign or miracle, right?  It is given to build faith, illuminate, and draw people to Himself.  Part of me still feels completely unable to grasp what happened one time at a worship service at a missions campus that I worked at.  A young man from Canada was worshipping God along with everyone else.  Then suddenly, he starts speaking in tongues, except many around him felt the language sounded familiar.  You can imagine the shock when a man from South Korea standing near him realized that the Canadian was speaking Korean fluently.  The Canadian did not know (still doesn’t know) Korean, nor has he ever even BEEN to South Korea.  It was in the most simple terms, a sign from God.

I bring up this story for two reasons  First, we need to remember that though we might personally find tongues “weird”, the weird comes from it being supernatural.  People from the Western world are always complaining that they never see miracles or signs, but then they want to have nothing to do with tongues.  Second, this story highlights how tongues were first used when they manifested in Acts 2 on the day of Pentecost.  We call these “sign” tongues to differentiate them from “prayer” tongues (often called a prayer language) which we will discuss later.  Sign tongues are the ones that Paul has in mind when he quotes from Isaiah 28 and talks about what tongues were meant for in the corporate worship service.

The prediction in Isaiah 28 is quite amazing when you step back and look at it.  God is in the midst of condemning the nation of Israel for it’s sin and pride, predicting the judgment of Assyria that is soon coming.  Israel has refused to learn from God, and rejected the instruction through the prophets.  At face value, verse 11 would seem like God is saying that because they wouldn’t listen to him, soon they will be listen to a foreign tongue as they will be stripped out of the land and sent away into exile.  However, Paul under the inspiration of the Spirit, says the true fulfillment of this verse is in the church age, as God uses the gift of tongues to speak to people, including the Jews.  The “strange lips” and “foreign tongue” wasn’t from the Gentiles to the Jews, it was from God’s people to the unbelievers (including Jews).

That is what happens in Acts 2, when the Holy Spirit first empowers the disciples to fulfill the Great Commission.  The religious and political leaders of the Jews had, as a majority, rejected Jesus and the disciples are hiding and waiting.  During Pentecost, thousands of Jews are pouring into Jerusalem from the Diaspora, most of who speak a foreign language (other than Hebrew or Aramaic).  Though most had rejected the Gospel in Aramaic or Hebrew, God isn’t finished with these people.  He gives the disciples the gift of tongues, and thus fulfills Isaiah’s prediction to speak to them through a “foreign tongue”.  The end result and goal of sign tongues is clear in Acts 2:41, “So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.”

Here, the disciples were speaking real languages, and no one needed interpretation as they were from that foreign nation.  In Corinthians 12 – 14, we must leave open the possibility that sign tongues may also be what we might call a “heavenly language”, meaning sounds that aren’t representative of an actual language.  No matter whether this is the case or not, Paul’s point is that there must be interpretation in the service (people could be speaking some actual remote language, but again, if no one in the church understands and can interpret, there is no point for it in the worship service).

I love that Acts includes the interpretation of what the disciples were actually saying in tongues.  “both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians—we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God.”  How cool is that!  As they worshipped God, the Spirit spoke through them an actual language, and in that language they spoke out the mighty works of God.  I don’t know about you, but I would love to see 3,000 people get saved at every open air meeting we have.  God and the disciples weren’t trying to just impress people, the disciples weren’t merely seeking an experience with God, the goal here was more people in heaven.  Peter was ready with a whole evangelistic sermon packed with Old Testament quotes as soon as the gift of tongues stopped.  Are we ready?  is that message in our hearts and minds?  are we open to the power of God?