Yesterday was Pentecost, the day the Holy Spirit was poured out on the Church. In celebration and contemplation of the day and the new season of the church year that we will be in for awhile, I would like to pose a couple questions:
(1) At the first Pentecost, those upon whom the Holy Spirit descended spoke in tongues. But why is this associated with the charismatic practice of glossolalia? Wasn’t what the disciples did the opposite of that? The whole point is that their languages were understood. People from every nation, speaking many different languages, were all hearing the apostles preach “the mighty works of God” in their own language. Isn’t Pentecost fulfilled even today as people all over the world are hearing the apostolic testimony recorded in the Word of God, which has been translated into so many of the world’s languages?
Speaking in tongues that no one can understand is referred to in the epistles to the Corinthians, so I’m not totally discounting the phenomenon. But I’m just saying that the Pentecost account is describing something very different.
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