and signs on the earth below,
blood and fire and billows of smoke.
The sun will be turned to darkness
and the moon to blood
before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord." Acts 2:-18-20
I prayed someone painted the day of Pentecost as a nightmare when I was looking for good images for this blog....The picture above is the pretty close to what i had in mind.Outside of everyone being white in the picture (which of course isn't true), the dark gloom resting above the audience as Peter is preaching his famous service seems to capture something we miss as Pentecostals:
The Infilling of the Spirit is frightening.
What I aim to do here is outlay a kind of theoretical theology of tongues. (through a series of post in coming weeks). I wrote a semi-hefty paper for school attempting exactly this, but I want to get at the role of tongues in our movement with less academic jargon. So i will touch on various thing we do well as a movement regarding one of our highest relics of our movement (Tongues) and where we are off Biblically.
I am a Pentecostal. I think Tongues are good, earth-shattering. I think they still exist for us today. I think we should all aim to speak them at least once in a while. I don't think we need to speak in tongues routinely to ensure our salvation. But at the end of the day my curiosity is this:
Why God chose speaking in tongues as the sign of spirit infilling in Acts 2 (as well for us today).
At the end of the day, God could have chosen any "sign" to represent the Spirit Infilling and the quote which we so proudly hail in the book of Joel about Young Men dreaming dreams, old men prophesying and everyone who calls on the name of the Lord being saved....well that quotation has nothing to do with tongues at first read. There really is nothing previous the Acts 2 passage that suggested tongues would be the sign of his infilling in the Old Testament....
I mean some people would point to the day of Pentecost being the reversal of the collapse of the Tower of Babel, which is certainly a possibility....But ask yourself this...is Tongues unifying when Interpretation isn't Present in a church service?
No! Tongues is a bunch of gibberish to the human ear (keep in mind the audience outside of the Upper Room thought tongues indicated they were drunk). If anything, the "unity" behind the language of tongues is that there is no unity. Each is speaking their own ugly language. A language so vulgar that Paul compares it to the tongues of invading soldiers from a foreign country in I Corinthians 14.
SO then, "why tongues?" I could quote at length some of the biggest scholars in our movement trying to get at the question and in every single case, they say there is nothing explicit in the Bible of the "Why" of tongues (why God chose it as the sign).
And then the irony of all ironies....
For Apostolic Pentecostals, the noises that come out of our mouth that we call speaking in tongues...is typically thought of as the evidence of the Presence of the Holy Ghost in the body of the one uttering the tongues...
And we love ourselves some of that evidence....the evidence whose "certainty" of salvation is a complete "uncertainty" in terms of it being in a foreign language that we can't even understand....
Oh it's so beautifully weird.....
Acts 2
For the greater part of my life, I have been absolutely embarrassed about tongues....It was so weird. So irrational. Of course it was only natural that God would choose me to have "the Gift of Tongues" as outlined in I Corinthians 14. I can tell you that if God gave me a pick of which Gift of the Spirit I would want, the Gift of Tongues would be the last one i would choose. I would have taken the Gift of Administration over the Gift of Tongues. Yet, it is the only Gift that I have seen work in my own life.....
But that didn't stop my doubts about tongues (some of which I still have).....
But last month I was reading Acts 2, and I noticed....Peter is fully aware of how weird tongues is and how it doesn't make sense to the observers. He starts off his speech to those outside acknowledging, "We aren't drunk, i swear!" But he doesn't claim it's ridiculous to come to that conclusion.
So what does Peter do? Does he ease the worries of the audience regarding the tongues? No! The humor is when he quotes Joel, he acknowledges the Weirdness of the event and says in a sense "In these last days, this is just the beginning of the weirdness..."
Think about it.. THose verses we so proudly preach from the book of Joel that PEter quotes.....We conveniently skip the verses about the darkened sun, the bloody moon, the reference to smoke, fire and blood...
Why do we ignore the heart of Peter's quotation? We like the stuff that PROVES our salvation (the tongues) but we don't wwant to acknowledge the context that this "evidence" exists in....
As the announcement of these last days.....TO which Peter uses Joel to paint the Last Days (to which we are living) as a kind of horror scene....
It's not that Peter eases the worries, and says "look, i know tongues is weird, but it's the evidence of the Holy Ghost and I can show you the scriptures to prove it." Except he didn't even have scripture to go to showing tongues as the evidence of the Holy Spirit.
Rather Peter says, "Yeah it's so weird...and beyond us..you know what else is weird in the end times? Smoke! Fire! Blood! a Black Sun! And a Moon that is Bleeding!..and it's going to get worse..and you killed Jesus you idiots!"
Acts 2 for the audience hearing Peter's speech is surely not a celebration....rather i can imagine being in the audience of Peter and thinking Peter a great scary story teller...Because he doesn't ease my anxieties about tongues, but he just makes them worse....
So bad that all the audience has left to say by the end of the speech, is wanting to know what they can do to be saved from the revealed truth (which is absolutely horrifying to them)...
And then we get Acts 2:38 as Peter's response....
For the Christian's in the Upper Room and those who witnessed the event, one thing is certain: God's ways on earth from this point forward will be fully beyond us and our liking....
Tongues isn't the ease of our salvation to which we know "we are saved" as the murdering audience wanted salvation to be (of which we as sinners are murderers of Christ ourselves in our sin)....
But rather, tongues is the Announcement of the Holy Spirit that this whole Christian thing isn't going to make sense....
It's going to be weird...
People are going to be upset.
People are going to call you Crazy....
People are going to be saved....
People are going to be healed....
And it's not up to you the believer to know every aspect about it (because if it was, wouldn't God cause tongues to be understood by the one who speaks the utterances)...
The Implications
DOn't get me wrong...I love Pentecostals. I love our movement...But i think our emphasis of Acts 2:38, causes us to miss the bigger context....
Spirit Infilling is a joyous and wonderful thing....It's lovely. I remember the feeling I had when I got it...I remember not being weirded out myself as the tongues started flowing.....
But the celebration of the Infilling was not and should never be "YAY! If i die today I will go to heaven..." (if that was the case i would have demanded to be killed on the spot of my infilling to ensure my salvation....
But rather the Infilling is an Event of Infinite Proportions to which we cannot fully grasp what is going on....It's just (along with repentance and baptism) our volunteering to be these vessels to which God can use and God letting us know through his grace that he has Chosen us through the infilling.
And how does God's choice of us play out? Through the Spirit Infilling which announces itself as kind of a monster who takes over our tongue and lets all kind of weird sounds come out.....
Which to the human Ear, don't make sense....
But then again, God's mercy and Grace and the Love he has for us doesn't make sense (it is beyond understanding)....But yet it is so....
So is tongues a symbol of God's inexplainable love that won't make sense to the unbeliever (and will probably offend the unbeliever), but to us it is real nonetheless (even when it doesn't make sense)?
About Peter
If you are offended, ask yourself if you are offended by my interpretation of Acts 2 or rather offended at me calling weird something which is so normal to us as Pentecostals?
Because, I know God is beyond comprehension. I know the Bible says that "Great is the mystery of Godliness." I also have never met a preacher who says he understands God's love. So I would argue that saying tongues is beyond us and that may be the very reason God chose tongues is nothing offensive to the believer but completely in line with the offensiveness and Absurdity of the Cross (that God could become man and be murdered by men) and what Christianity is....
For Peter, the one who made that famous Acts 2 speech to the accusers outside the upper room.....
Christianity was in many ways offensive to him later on in Acts (He was stubborn in regards to Cornelius and the Gentiles being saved until he saw that were filled with the Spirit themselves) and even in Galatians where Paul talks about calling out Peter for his contradictory example of being a Christian (who won't eat with Gentiles)....
But yet the offensiveness of Christianity did not stop him from proceeding to preach the Christian message....
And did it ever make sense to him?
Well at the end of the day, the one who experienced God's love via SPirit Infilling in Acts 2 ended his life to this effect-
Dying the same way as God, except as legend has it, he asked to be crucified upside down....
If we want to regulate Christianity and our movement to making sense and working in an orderly box we will get nowhere...The Monstrosity of Christ, of tongues, of the Crucifixion, is that it requires our emptying and understanding it will be uncomfortable for our flesh...
While I agree that the xenolalic phenomena that happened at Pentecost was "weird" in many ways but what makes you think it was gibberish?
ReplyDeleteWhat confounded those who heard these men speak in earthly languages is that they could understand them speak in their own native tongues knowing that the speakers were Galileans.
"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 they were all amazed and marvelled, saying one to another, Behold, are not all these which speak Galilaeans?"
It was the nature of their xenolalia that caught their attention .. the apostles weren't just speaking but their praises and languages were towards God. Tongues are unto God (1 Cor. 14) ...
v. 11 ... "we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God."
Part of Joel's prophecy is that men and women would prophesy, see visions, have dreams ... as to show the signs and wonders of the Lord.
The metaphorical language present is not to be received in nightmarish in sum total but rather a picture of the judgment we find in the "day of the Lord" ... a judgment satisfied by the death and resurrection of the Lamb ...
With the judgment is the promise of eternal life ... in Joel's prophecy in Joel 3.
"The LORD also shall roar out of Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem; and the heavens and the earth shall shake: but the LORD will be the hope of his people, and the strength of the children of Israel.
So shall ye know that I am the LORD your God dwelling in Zion, my holy mountain: then shall Jerusalem be holy, and there shall no strangers pass through her any more.
.... " But Judah shall dwell for ever, and Jerusalem from generation to generation.
For I will cleanse their blood that I have not cleansed: for the LORD dwelleth in Zion"
We find those in the household of Cornelius overwhelmed by the Spirit of God in the "same manner" ... speaking in tongues and MAGNIFYING GOD.
If we study out the initial outpouring of the 20th century Parham sought to validate the tongues experience of the likes of Agnes Ozman as being xenolalic and intelligible tongues. You will find evidence of this in photos taken of what is supposedly Ozman writing in Chinese ... under the unction of the Spirit.
ReplyDeletePart of his rift with Seymour ... while rooted in some racial undertones is that he felt that the gibberish and emotionalism he saw at Azusa was not the Pentecostal experience.
Joel also said: "Each is speaking their own ugly language. A language so vulgar that Paul compares it to the tongues of invading soldiers from a foreign country in I Corinthians 14.'
ReplyDeletePaul's use of barbarian here is to emphasize not the ugliness of tongues but rather the inefficacy and selfishness of praying in our Spirit audibly ... in a tongue without either praying to interpret, having someone else interpret in order to edify the Body.
He compares this to singing a song in another language having little impact ... while blessing God in the Spirit with our tongues out loud have the same effect.
Wherefore let him that speaketh in an unknown tongue pray that he may interpret.
For if I pray in an unknown tongue, my spirit prayeth, but my understanding is unfruitful.
What is it then? I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also: I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also.
Else when thou shalt bless with the spirit, how shall he that occupieth the room of the unlearned say Amen at thy giving of thanks, seeing he understandeth not what thou sayest?
For thou verily givest thanks well, but the other is not edified.
All the gifts are given to edify. From the gift of healing ... a word of knowledge, tongues, prophecy, revelation, etc.
How can the listener say amen to my spirit praying in tongues unto God so audibly and unintelligibly that the hearer cannot say "Amen"?
Daniel,
ReplyDeletei will try getting to this as much as possible....(you unpackaged a lot so i doubt i get to every point)...
First, Yes, the acts 2 event was in the language of the audience listening. But can it not be assumed then that the tongues were not understood by the speaker (as Paul describes tongues in I Cor. 14 wherien the tongues without interpretation are unfruitful to the mind...)...
Romans 8 and the groanings of prayer as well as the Spirit crying out to spirit are probably a reference to tongues (something that most non-Pentecostal scholarship has argued for a long time but we as Pentecostals are just now figuring out and were scared to argue simply because it didn't say "tongues" explictly)....
My argument was from how we as humans view tongues....
While the tongues are to God and at times can be interpreted in the language of the listener but also can be understood through the gift of interpretation, there is nothing to suggest Biblically that tongues can be understood straightway by the speaker (thus Paul saying that we should ask for interpretation of what has been said)....
The judgment you speak of in acts 2 i accept as a purpose of the speech of peter....However I am unsure about what you say in regards to the the judgment being fulfilled in the cross and resurrection as the "day of the lord" described...
The day of the lord as quoted by peter and in joel is described in as an event to come...not something that has been fulfilled...
Further the events of the last days-e.g. the bloody moon are in no way indicative of the cross (nor do we have any evidence that such a thing happened in the crucifixion)....
The judgment to come is the purpose indeed but when we place ourselves as contemporaries of the audience (the accusers who are also sinners), it's very easy to see how it would be a completely confusing and monstrous event...
ReplyDeleteOf course i am not making this argument from a literal perspective (as if it's written in the scripture explicitly), but rather with literary criticism which anyone who has studied Luke-Acts in depth would acknowledge that the author has been themes running below the surface of the text that can only be understood from a literary perspective...
As for Parham, Ozman's "Chinese" is comical in a way...since of course it isn't chinese at all....
I am not asking for a madness in our churches (as I corinthians 14 indicates the ridiculousness of speaking tongues out loud without interpretation in church as it will confuse)...
but as Paul says at the end of the chapter...."do not forbid speaking in tongues."
Further about the Barbarian reference (v. 21)...Paul explictly said following that tongues are for the unbeliever....
And as Paul's context suggests...When an unbeliever here's tongues, they are going to accuse the tongues speakers as being "out of their mind." Now it seems you are suggesting that this is the same kind of tongues in Acts 2...but i think such an argument, which is popular amongst non-Pentecostal scholars is rather weak....Because Paul then says prophesy in church is to be preferred over tongues since prophesy will lead the unbeliever to feel convicted (and not tongues)...
To assume tongues as defined in I Corinthians 14 is xenolallia is not only an argument from silence but it doesn't work consistently through the chapter....
We know firsthand of testimonies of xenolalia working. When one person hears the tongue speaker speaking in their own language, the reaction is not "They are insane" but rather dumbfounded because the foreigner is speaking their language....This happens with some of the audience in Acts 2:12....
But yet as Paul describes tongues as the language of barbarians (the reference to Is. 28 here is key), the idea is the unbeliever will be so confused at the gibberish that they will get offended....
Lastly, back to Parham...what are your sources for Parham being upset at the use of tongues in Seymour's church? because everything i read...he is upset at the craziness of the church worship but have never read anything about Seymour's church incorrectly using tongues...
So just a quick question here, because Ive heard differing views in Pentecost, would you say Pentecostals believe a person is destined for hell if they dont speak in tongues? Just curious what the prevailing belief is...
ReplyDeletegt - That isn't for us to judge whether God would bar a person from heaven if they have not spoken in tongues. I would however, say that they've missed out on a wonderful part of their relationship with God that was available to them.
ReplyDeleteJoel, the reference to "do not forbid tongues" in no way cancels out the clear instructions as how we should handle tongues in our services in the very same passage.
ReplyDeleteMost definitely the tongues that Paul speaks of have significance and intelligibility ... and there is more to them being earthly tongues than can be exegeted from this very passage than those who proof text about grunts, groans and heavenly languages.
ReplyDelete1 Cor 14:10-12
"Undoubtedly there are all sorts of languages in the world, yet none of them is without meaning. 11 If then I do not grasp the meaning of what someone is saying, I am a foreigner to the speaker, and the speaker is a foreigner to me. 12 So it is with you.
I most definitely believe these tongues are a sign of the hand of God to the unbeliever but all gifts are to edify ..
Further the references in Acts 2, 10 and 1 Cor 14 allude tongues being more related to our spirit praying unto God ... magnifying God ... speaking of His wonders than those who have made them a conduit of a direct message from the mind of God in which an interpreter begins with "Thus saith the Lord".
Parham on the manifestations he saw in in the "Pentecostalism" of his day:
ReplyDeleteDavid McCloud, in his book The Strange History of Pentecostalism said of this visit that "even he was shocked by the confusion of the services. He was dismayed by the 'awful fits and spasms' of the 'holy rollers and hypnotists.' He described the Azusa 'tongues' as 'chattering, jabbering and sputtering, speaking no language at all' (Synan, p. 102).
The Azusa Street meetings were so wild that Parham condemned them with the term 'sensational Holy Rollers.' He testified that the Azusa Street meetings were largely characterized by manifestations of the flesh, spiritualistic controls, and the practice of hypnotism (Sarah Parham, The Life of Charles F. Parham, Joplin, MO: Tri-State Printing, 1930, p. 163). According to Parham, two-thirds of the people professing Pentecostalism in his day 'are either hypnotized or spook driven' (Parham, Life of Charles F. Parham, p. 164).
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ReplyDeleteJoel, again I believe tongues are new to the speaker but throughout the witness we find tongues being used in the following ways : 1. They are unto God. Our spirit prays magnifying God and declaring his wonders 2. Those congregated understanding these tongues 3. When they are not, the apostleship correcting this error.
ReplyDeleteAnd I most definitely agree the apostle Paul encouraged prophesy in our midst in favor of tongues ... for the mere fact that it would be intelligible, edifying to the body as it is unto men in order to exhort, comfort, etc. and it is prophecy that will bring sinners to their knees.
I most definitely believe that tongues will seem weird to the human view but time and time again we see God's intent to provide a way in which they are understandable to hearer ... whether it's a tongue that is common to the hearer or whether the tongue talker or someone else interprets.
Paul does not want inquirers and unbelievers to come in and think we're crazy ... he says as much, Joel. To say that the intent is to offend cannot be exegeted.
Paul in no way seems to be advocating the pleas we hear in some Apostolic pulpits demanding everyone open your mouths and begin to speak in tongues.
Intelligibility is the onus of Paul's clear instructions on tongues ... not let's shock and awe with craziblity ..
ReplyDeleteHis words:
Again, if the trumpet does not sound a clear call, who will get ready for battle? So it is with you. Unless you speak intelligible words with your tongue, how will anyone know what you are saying? You will just be speaking into the air.
But IN THE CHURCH I would rather speak five intelligible words to instruct others than ten thousand words in a tongue.
23 So if the whole church comes together and everyone speaks in tongues, and inquirers or unbelievers come in, will they not say that you are out of your mind? 24 But if an unbeliever or an inquirer comes in while everyone is prophesying, they are convicted of sin and are brought under judgment by all, 25 as the secrets of their hearts are laid bare. So they will fall down and worship God, exclaiming, “God is really among you!”
Then clear instructions given as to how to use them orderly
With this possible end in mind ....
If there is no interpreter, the speaker should keep quiet in the church and speak to himself and to God.
So just a quick question here, because Ive heard differing views in Pentecost, would you say Pentecostals believe a person is destined for hell if they dont speak in tongues? Just curious what the prevailing belief is...
ReplyDelete@Anonymous
ReplyDeleteIt's always spoken in a "round-about way". But yes, the prevailing belief is that if you have never spoken in tongues, then you must not have the Holy Ghost, therefore, hell bound.
Daniel Response
ReplyDeleteDaniel,
I would first say thank you for the quotes about parham's distaste for Seymour...I had never read that before and changes my understanding of Parham all the more.
After that, I am disappointed at the arguments you are bringing up. YOu seem to be arguing points which i have never said and you seem to have confused me with a standard apostolic pentecostal preacher.
I have not and will not endorse the speaking of tongues in church outside of it being accompanied with interpretation or privately to the point of it not being a distraction to other people praying. So to be saying such lines as
"no way cancels out the clear instructions as how we should handle tongues in our services in the very same passage" when I have not raised this issue is irksome.
Not to mention your denunciation of “proof-texts” about “grunts, groans and heavenly languages” is either against my reference to Romans 8 or once again you are arguing about things that have not been brought up…And if that was a reference to me, making allegations about Proof-texts does nothing for your argument when the likes of Witherington, Vincent, Fee, Obeng, Denney, and Kittel reference tongues as the Abba reference of Paul in Romans 8:15, each of whom are non-Apostolics, each of whom are Greek scholars/theologians…
And not to mention that the groanings of the spirit in Romans 8 in my experience, have been explained as tongues by most liberal theologians that I have read with only hypothetical suggestions of what the groanings may be outside of tongues, but nothing close enough to sway the majority opinion.
So to merely call these “proof text” is just a poor manner of argumentation which will get you nowhere….
Rather it seems like you are arguing against typical poorly constructed arguments from Apo-Pento preachers from the past….And you seem to do quite well with it….
But what I am not making the traditional argument for tongues nor have I argued as such….
And about the intelligibility of tongues, goodness…Check scholarship, look at their explanations.,...and the best part about most of these theologians (save Fee) is that they aren’t Pentecostal nor have an anti-Pentecostal bent…Basically we get about as close to an unbias perspective from many theologians when they discuss tongues as one can get (more than you are me can claim neutrality)
Tongues as being intelligible is rarely utilized by theologians these days, in my experience other than those who have a gripe against tongues (typically cessationists)…
ReplyDeleteRather the likes of Raymond Brown and Luke Timothy Johnson, and Gordon Fee all make sense of tongues in light of the Hellenistic context to which Christianity was birthed in, wherein (and I am sure you are quite familiar), tongues was quite popular within the prophetic cult… So even the context is against your argument….
I guess my point is from here on out, we will be arguing to a wall with one of us more concerned to persuade the other that they are right, than we actually care for the truth… so I am just suggesting that the issue is not so obvious to demonize those who argue tongues are strange utterances, especially when so much scholarship argues otherwise….
The only thing I found that was very odd was the chosen selection of what verses of chapter 14 you omitted…..
(you failed to bring up interpretation as a gift from chapter 12 but of course that is out of your per view….and not to mention the idea of the gift of interpretation according to your theory I would suspect to be the gift of those who are bilingual)..
I Cor. 14:2- “For anyone who speaks in a tongue does not speak to people but to God. Indeed, no one understands them; they utter mysteries by the Spirit.”
Naturally this was omitted I am sure because you didn’t have time to bring it up…or was it because it contradicted this line-“Most definitely the tongues that Paul speaks of have significance and intelligibility.”
Regarding v. 9 (which you mention)
While not explicit, doesn’t Paul’s line of argumentation suggest that tongues are not intelligible since he describes it as talking to the air?
I Cor. 14:8-“I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you.”
Now note I am not quoting this like an Apostolic would…the issue of the chapter is about the use of tongues in church….But going at your line of argument, why on earth would Paul be so happy to speak a language more than everyone else, and at the same time not want to do it in church (where there could be a
translator)? Especially in light of v. 14 where praying in tongues infers that it is without understanding?
ReplyDelete“If there is no interpreter, the speaker should keep quiet in the church and speak to himself and to God.”
And how does this work out in church when there is an interpreter? Does a person say, “Yo, I am about to speak in tongues, I don’t know what I am going to say, but I do know it will be in Swedish…so if someone who speaks both Swedish and English can come up and translate for me what I am about to say, that would be great?”
You said “I believe tongues are new to the speaker but throughout the witness we find tongues being used in the following ways : 1. They are unto God. Our spirit prays magnifying God and declaring his wonders 2. Those congregated understanding these tongues 3. When they are not, the apostleship correcting this error.”
Are you setting this up as a model for the entire Bible or just in Chapter 14?
And then you said “I most definitely believe that tongues will seem weird to the human view”…which is all my post was trying to explain….i guess “offend” is the wrong word…. “weirded out” may be a better explanation….
Note I am not saying that tongues don’t magnify God, for they do! And I am not saying tongues don’t edify, for they do…
I am saying, that to me, chapter 14 makes more sense if the tongues in church in chapter 14 are a different beast than the tongues we see used in Acts 2 (I would like to point out that the standard line of argument for tongues as evidence for Apostolics is used under the faulty notion that Acts 2 sets the precedent for every other salvation experience in the rest of the book and for history….But relying on Acts 2 as precedent as the anchor that shows the intelligibility of the tongues is equally as problematic)….
I could go on and give a verse by verse commentary on how I really believe there are no holes of my understanding of 14 (with the presupposition that these tongues are unintelligible) as more probable than your theory but I think it would be once again us talking to the wall….