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Summary
We are reminded that spiritual gifts—specifically tongues and prophecy—served distinct, historically grounded purposes in the foundation of the early church. This passage teaches us that the biblical gift of tongues was the miraculous ability to speak known human languages, given to authenticate the gospel across ethnic boundaries and signal judgment on unbelieving Israel, and that these gifts carried a built-in expiration once their purpose was fulfilled.
Key Lessons:
- Prophecy encompasses both the proclamation of God’s already-revealed Word and the reception of new revelation, but only the former continues today since Scripture is complete.
- The gift of tongues was always the ability to speak recognizable human languages—not incoherent babbling—and was given to spread the gospel, authenticate the salvation of Samaritans, Gentiles, and incomplete disciples, and serve as a sign of judgment against unbelieving Israel.
- The apostles and prophets form the foundation of the church (Ephesians 2:19-22), and just as a foundation is not continuously re-laid, the revelatory offices tied to that foundation are no longer in operation.
- In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul uses a distinct Greek grammatical form (middle voice, *pausontai*) for tongues, indicating the gift had something built into it that would cause it to cease on its own—apart from any external event.
Application: We are called to evaluate all claims of miraculous gifts by returning to Scripture, keeping the focus on glorifying God and serving others rather than on the gift or the gifted person. We are to use the gifts still in operation—teaching, encouragement, service—to build up the body on the foundation already laid.
Discussion Questions:
- How does understanding prophecy as ‘proclaiming God’s Word’ rather than only ‘predicting the future’ change the way you read the Old Testament prophets?
- Why was it significant that the Samaritans, Gentiles, and disciples of Apollos each received the Holy Spirit with the same outward sign as the apostles at Pentecost?
- If the miraculous sign gifts have ceased, what gifts do you believe God has given you, and how are you currently using them to serve the church?
Scripture Focus: 1 Corinthians 12:10 (listing the gifts); 1 Corinthians 14:21-22 (tongues as a sign to unbelieving Israel); Ephesians 2:19-22 (apostles and prophets as the foundation); Acts 2, 8, 10, 19 (the four recorded instances of tongues); Isaiah 28:11-12 (the prophecy Paul quotes); 1 Corinthians 13:8-10 (the cessation of tongues, prophecy, and knowledge).
Outline
- Introduction
- Understanding Prophecy
- The Gift of Tongues: What It Really Means
- Tongues at Pentecost: Acts 2
- Tongues Among the Samaritans: Acts 8
- Tongues Among the Gentiles: Acts 10–11
- Tongues Among the Disciples of Apollos: Acts 19
- The Purpose of the Gift of Tongues
- The Built-In Expiration of Tongues
- Conclusion
Introduction
Let’s start our Sunday school. This week we are continuing our discussion on spiritual gifts and especially the miraculous sign gifts in a position that we hold at Calvary called cessationism.
Today we’re going to talk about tongues and prophecy.
There is a lot to cover. I was just talking to Pastor Bobby, and I could talk about this subject for hours without notes or even having a Bible handy because of all the scripture that I know. Let’s see if we can condense all of this into an hour and make it helpful and clear.
We go to our main passage. I’m not going to read it all in 1 Corinthians 12. I do want to highlight verse 10, which in talking about spiritual gifts says: “and to another the effecting of miracles and to another prophecy and to another the distinguishing of spirits to another various kinds of tongues and to another the interpretation of tongues.”
You can see the underlined ones we’re looking at: prophecy, various kinds of tongues, and the interpretation of tongues. First we’re going to look at prophecy.
Understanding Prophecy
Which actually can be a confusing one because there are multiple types of prophecy shown in the Bible. The word itself just means to speak forth.
What I’m doing right now, if the Bible put a label on it, would be called prophecy. So the first thing to think of is that sometimes when you see the phrase prophecy or a command to prophesy, it’s not always what we think of as prophecy—telling the future. We might think of a Christian version of Miss Cleo or something like that. We think a lot of times of prophecy as just being about the future, something that’s going to happen far off or when Jesus is coming back. And that is prophecy, but so is teaching.
How do we make the distinction? It’s the proclamation of the word of God. So we need to make a distinction between the types and also the impact. First Corinthians 14:3 sums it up very well and says, “But the one who prophesies speaks to men for edification and exhortation and consolation.”
We see that there is a distinction there even in teaching, where it doesn’t have to be in an extremely formal setting. The bulk of the ministry of the Old Testament prophets was them just preaching the same message over and over. If you go to Isaiah, which is 66 chapters, a lot of the book of Isaiah is narrative. How long would it take over a 50-year life, even 30 years in public ministry or 40 years, to preach through the book of Isaiah if you’re just saying it once? That’s a day, two days if you take a few breaks.
So the bulk of what Isaiah did year after year, month after month, week after week, was preaching the same message. He was calling people to repentance and telling them what would happen if they didn’t repent. Then he was telling them what’s going to happen because they already didn’t repent and it was too late. He was even talking about the future and what God would restore them to.
And that’s Isaiah, Jeremiah, any of the others—we see this happening. So even with the prophets who spoke of future events, the bulk of their ministry was them preaching the already revealed word of God. There are these two kinds of levels of prophecy, if you will.
We can’t say that the ministry only involved teaching even when we go into the New Testament. Ephesians 4:11 makes it clear that there are two different roles in talking about the gifted people who would serve the church. Prophets and teachers are two separate groups. So you can prophesy without having a formal teaching role.
You can teach, but you can’t teach without it being considered prophecy unless maybe you’re doing one-on-one counsel. But anything where you’re standing proclaiming the word of God to an audience is considered prophecy.
“Even with the prophets who spoke of future events, the bulk of their ministry was preaching the already-revealed word of God.”
But we believe that since the word of God has been completed, there is no longer a need for the revelatory part of the ministry of a prophet or prophecy.
The Test and Standard of a True Prophet
A couple of things that we see in the Old and New Testament about prophecy, mainly declared in the Old Testament, but definitely ideas carry forward in the New is that one of the tests of a prophet is that every time they declared something, it came to pass.
And if it didn’t, you can stone them because they’re speaking on behalf of God falsely. God wouldn’t give them a false message to bring to his people.
So even when we come to the New Testament, the test of a prophet who is speaking as if they are getting revelation, new revelation from God is that that revelation would be 100% true. And that is a distinction I think you’ll find between what we see and someone who believes some of the gifts are still going on. They call it a continuationist—they have to make up these big words.
But someone who believes that some of these sign gifts are still going on today would say, “Oh, wait. But in the New Testament, we’re allowed to prophesy and not have to be held to it coming true.”
“The test of a prophet speaking new revelation is that the revelation would be 100% true.”
I can prophesy about your life and say, “That job you applied for, God just told me you’re going to get that job.” And then when you come back and say you didn’t get it, we can say, “Oh, that’s okay. I’m still a prophet.” Well, according to the rules of a prophet, you’re supposed to get stoned now.
Especially when you’re saying, “God told me. God told me to give you this message.” Why? God always had to give a message through somebody. He’ll never tell me directly. He’ll just tell somebody else. And sometimes it may come true.
Some people may know something about you. I remember someone prophesying to me and said, “You’re going to work in finances. You’re going to work in money.” And that’s kind of what I do now. But I don’t know if that was God telling her to tell me that because it didn’t impact anything. I wasn’t going to apply for a job and then she told me that. I’m like, “Oh, okay, good. Now I’m going to apply.” But we have to be careful to not diminish God’s standards.
And we never see any scripture that says you’re going to have prophets who are going to speak new revelation, but sometimes it might not be true.
What’s the purpose? If it’s for some encouragement, then just tell me it’s from your heart. Don’t bring God into it. Try to minister to me from God’s word already revealed, which is what the job of a prophet is now.
“Minister to me from God’s word already revealed—that is what the job of a prophet is now.”
Prophets as the Foundation of the Church
And we’ll see that their ministry—we look at one passage, Ephesians 2:19-22—shows that the prophets are considered the foundation of the church. Ephesians 2:19-22 says: “So then you are no longer strangers and aliens but you are fellow citizens with the saints and are of God’s household, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord. In whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the spirit.”
Usually we are compared to a body, but now he gives us this analogy of a building. He says that the chief cornerstone—the stone that is set first and all of the angles of the foundation are set based on that cornerstone—is Jesus Christ.
Then the foundation that was set is the apostles and prophets: their teaching, their ministry, them revealing the word of God as he revealed it to them. That is the foundation.
Throughout the history of the church, this household that it references in verse 19—God’s household, this temple—is being built up. We are the bricks being built on top of the foundation.
Even if we don’t know anything about building, you don’t have parts of the foundation going throughout the structure. The foundation is at the bottom. The foundation has already been laid and set. What we have coming upon it is important bricks, blessed bricks by God, but it’s not foundation pieces that have already been laid.
“The foundation has already been laid and set. What we have coming upon it is important bricks, but not foundation pieces.”
If you see parts of your foundation up this high, there’s a problem in your structure.
We don’t see the foundation being laid again and again. That ministry that the apostles and the prophets held—to proclaim to us God’s word as he revealed it to them—is no longer in effect because it was part of the foundation of the church. God has been building on that foundation for almost 2,000 years.
Just a reminder, and I’ll probably say it at the very end too: next week we’re going to do a Q&A about the spiritual gifts and sensationalism. This covers anything we’ve discussed the last couple weeks and what we’ll cover today. I’m saying that because now I’m moving on from prophecy to talking about various kinds of tongues and interpretation of tongues. If you have a question about that, please email me by Tuesday so I have a chance to include it in the lesson for next week’s Q&A.
The Gift of Tongues: What It Really Means
Okay, we’re probably all very familiar with the topic of tongues. Various kinds of tongues is the ability to speak another language that was previously unknown to the speaker. The interpretation of tongues is the ability to interpret a previously unknown language.
We’ll see some of that in a second.
The word in Greek that we see here is glossa, which actually means tongue. Literally means your tongue. But we sometimes figuratively use the word tongue to talk about a language.
We’ll talk about someone’s mother tongue a lot of times, and all of the nations and peoples and tongues. It’s talking about the languages that are spoken, the sounds that are made from the tongue. But it’s a compound word to talk about in 1 Corinthians 12, and it literally is the word for speak and the word for tongue or the word for language. So the gift is speaking languages, and then you have another word gana that means kind or a class. So it’s different kinds of nature.
The word different is supplied by the interpreters and translators, but you understand that it’s saying the gift is the ability to speak different kinds of languages. This is one of those cases, and I’ve said it before with the word baptisma, or now we transliterate it into baptism, where you take a word and the translation just takes the word very literally, which in most cases is good but in some cases it can cause more confusion.
If the Bible said the ability was the gift of languages or the gift of speaking languages, we probably wouldn’t have as much confusion and as many things coming under the cover of the biblical gift that we do now. Tongues sounds a lot more mysterious. When you look in a dictionary for tongues or speaking in tongues, the only definition that you get is what you see today in a lot of extreme cases of charismatic churches. I’m not even saying mainstream to the extreme ones. It talks about just incoherent babbling.
That’s what it is. That’s the definition according to the world because that’s what’s so popular. But if it said languages, the gift of speaking languages, or speaking unknown languages, or languages unknown to you, then we probably wouldn’t have as much confusion. Think of it like that. Sometimes I’ll go back and forth in how I describe it just because of what people already know.
“If it said ‘the gift of speaking languages,’ we probably wouldn’t have as much confusion about what the biblical gift actually is.”
But I want us to now walk through some of the places just like we did with healings and miracles and other things where we see the gift of tongues or the gift of languages in effect. We see different groups experience this gift, and that’s going to be important as we walk through it. But for now we’re going to be in the book of Acts. At least the next four passages are going to be in the book of Acts. If you have your Bible you can turn there. That will be on the screen as well.
Tongues at Pentecost: Acts 2
But Acts 2 is often considered the birth of the church. Acts 2:1-13 says:
“When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a noise like a violent rushing wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them tongues as of fire distributing themselves. And they rested on each one of them.
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?
Cappadocia, Pontus, Asia, Parthians, and Medes and Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea, and Phrygia, and Pamphylia, Egypt, and all 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?’ But others were mocking and saying they are full of sweet wine.”
I don’t know why that was the accusation. If somebody came in here speaking a language I don’t know, I’m not going to say he must be drunk because he knows how to speak my language. I don’t know Swahili, but if somebody who only knows English came here speaking that, you wouldn’t say he must be drunk. You would say, “Wow, I didn’t know you could speak that language. I can’t. The Holy Spirit just filled me.”
So let’s walk through what we see happening. There was a huge feast, one of the holy days for the Jewish people, and they were supposed to return to Jerusalem. You have people living all over the place.
There are 16 languages or dialects that were represented in that list. They came from all over so they could celebrate the feast of Pentecost with other Jews. When they come, they have this miracle happen where they see tongues of fire appearing above the heads of the disciples that were there, distributed themselves, and rested on them.
They knew that was the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit allowed them to speak in other languages. And the crowd was amazed because they’re saying, “First, these men are unlearned. They’re uneducated and they’re speaking all of these different languages and we hear them. We understand what they’re saying. All of these languages here and they’re speaking in verse 11 speaking of the mighty deeds of God.”
It wasn’t just for a show. It wasn’t just a miracle for miracle’s sake. As we saw last week with casting out demons and healing, it typically accompanied a presentation of the gospel and many were saved because of it. We don’t have time to go through all the 40-some verses in this chapter, but you’ll see many were saved and added to the church after hearing the gospel.
“It wasn’t just a miracle for miracle’s sake—it accompanied a presentation of the gospel and many were saved because of it.”
Then after this, Peter gets a chance to preach the full gospel to them as well, going back into their history and showing them what would happen, even explaining what they were seeing.
Tongues Among the Samaritans: Acts 8
That’s one—that’s the first time that we see the gift of tongues happening. And we’re going to kind of summarize this as we go back through all of them.
Then we see in Acts 8:14-17. This is maybe a case, but I included this one with the Samaritans.
Acts 8:14-17 says, “Now when the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent them Peter and John who came down and prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit. For he had not yet fallen upon any of them. They had simply been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. They then began laying their hands on them and they were receiving the Holy Spirit.”
We’re not told for sure that this involved speaking in tongues. This is one that I’m including because it seems like it was and it fits the pattern.
The Samaritans, if you don’t know, were mixed with foreigners according to the Jewish people. The Assyrians came and brought people in when they had the first exile. So now you have this mixed group of people. They weren’t purely Jewish.
And so they were hated by the Jews. They might have hated them even more than they hated the Gentiles because they represented a corruption of Jewish blood. The Gentiles were just dirtier on the outside. But now you’re bringing that dirt into the Jewish people, so they kept them far away and they were hated.
Which is why even in the story of the good Samaritan, it was such a shock that a Samaritan would be the one to offer help when the priests and Levites refused to help this Jewish person.
So the Samaritans heard the gospel. They received the word of God with joy and gladness. Now let’s go and test them. Let’s check and make sure that this is legitimate. Peter and John go down and pray for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit. And it says that they laid their hands on them and they were receiving the Holy Spirit.
And so it seems like there was some sign—something that showed that the Holy Spirit came and fell. But how else would we know? How would you know today? You don’t have a glow or an aura or something about you now. Although Christians sometimes walk around telling you that they saw the light, but what they mean is something different. There was something that must have happened, so I’m going to just say it’s possible that it was speaking in tongues. And it’s important because of who it was doing it, and we’ll kind of come back to that when we summarize all of this.
Now, this one—all right, we’re going to have to do some reading.
“They received the word of God with joy and gladness. There was something that showed the Holy Spirit came and fell.”
Tongues Among the Gentiles: Acts 10–11
This is a long passage that we’re not going to read all of it, but this is a chapter and a half at least talking about the Gentiles receiving the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues after they heard the gospel and submitted to the call to submit to Christ.
I’m going to summarize some and then we’ll read some. First, Acts 10:1-8 shows God giving a centurion named Cornelius a vision and telling him to send for Peter, who’s in a nearby town.
Now let’s read verses 9-16 and see what’s going on from Peter’s perspective, because this is very important.
On the next day, as the men that Cornelius sent were on their way and approaching the city, Peter went up on the housetop about the sixth hour to pray. But he became hungry and was desiring to eat. But while they were making preparations, he fell into a trance.
And he saw the sky opened up and an object like a great sheet coming down lowered by four corners to the ground. And there were in it all kinds of four-footed animals and crawling creatures of the earth and birds of the air.
A voice came to him, “Get up, Peter. Kill and eat.” But Peter said, “By no means, Lord, for I have never eaten anything unholy and unclean.” Again a voice came to him a second time. “What God has cleansed, no longer consider unholy.”
This happened three times and immediately the object was taken up into the sky.
Verses 17-23 show Cornelius’s men finding Peter after he has this vision. They find Peter and bring him back to Caesarea.
Then in verses 24-29, Peter and Cornelius finally meet. This is what Peter tells him in verse 28: “You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a man who is a Jew to associate with a foreigner or to visit him. And yet God has shown me that I should not call any man unholy or unclean.”
That is why I came without even raising any objection when I was sent for. We see how important it was that he saw this vision. This wasn’t just about him eating food, but it was the way that he, in his Jewish mind and the way that he was raised, saw other people who were not Jewish.
Then we have the next four verses. Cornelius tells Peter about the vision that God gave him, saying, “I’m going to give you a message, but you got to send for this person named Peter to bring the message to you.” Then Peter gives the gospel to Cornelius along with his relatives and close friends. Verse 24 tells us that’s who Cornelius assembled around.
And then this is what happens. This is after he gives them the gospel. Verse 44 says, “While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit fell upon all those who were listening to the message. All the circumcised believers who came with Peter were amazed because the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out on the Gentiles also.”
For they were hearing them speaking with tongues and exalting God. Then Peter answered, “Surely no one can refuse the water for these to be baptized who have received the Holy Spirit just as we did, can he?” And he ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they asked him to stay on for a few days.
Now let’s stop there and back up a little.
We see that after the gospel is presented—or actually while the gospel is being presented—once they heard enough and their hearts were captivated, they were accepting Christ and they received the Holy Spirit. The Bible says that the same way that the Spirit fell on the apostles and the close disciples of Jesus in Acts 2 is the same way it fell upon the Gentiles.
With Peter, and I’ll bring up Galatians in a second, he definitely had an issue with seeing Gentiles as being unclean. Here he says, “Look, earlier I wouldn’t have even come here to a foreign city, to a Gentile’s house, if it wasn’t for what God had just shown me.”
Even now, Peter has to say, “Look, we can baptize them, these Gentiles, because they receive the Holy Spirit the same way that we did.” He still kind of had to be convinced and say, “Wait, this looks exactly like it did to us. They’re like us. God saved them the same way and brought them into the same family.”
This is one of the reasons we’ll see why speaking in tongues or speaking with another language was important. Even here everybody was speaking the same language. Now people start to hear about this. The Gentiles—you’re talking to the Gentiles now. You’re bringing the Gentiles into our family.
They’re still considering themselves to be Jews. They’re still Jewish because they were living waiting for their Messiah to come and their Messiah came. They’re not looking like we’re starting a brand new religion now. No, this is just us following the same God that we were taught to follow from our youth.
He had to open their eyes. But then later on we’ll see so many didn’t that it seems like a new religion was forming, but it really wasn’t. It was those who had believed the fulfillment of the promise that was given all the way back to Adam and Eve.
But that’s what they hear. In Acts 11, it says, “Now the apostles and the brethren who were throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God. And when Peter came up to Jerusalem, those who were circumcised took issue with him, saying, ‘You went to uncircumcised men and ate with them.’”
But Peter began speaking and proceeded to explain to them an orderly sequence, and then he basically recounts everything that happened that we’re not going to go through. But then at the end in verse 15 it says, “And as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them just as he did upon us at the beginning.”
“And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he used to say, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ Therefore, if God gave to them the same gift as he gave to us also after believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could stand in God’s way?”
When they heard this, they quieted down and glorified God, saying, “Well, then God has granted to the Gentiles also the repentance that leads to life.”
Again, you see how important it was and what’s the focus here. Throughout this, especially talking about this issue, I try hard to not focus on others and say we don’t want to be like that church or be like them. I want to see what the word of God is saying.
But when we do evaluate modern claims of some of these gifts happening, we have to go back to the Bible. One of the things we see is the focus. The focus always with miracles, with casting out demons, with healings, even with speaking in tongues is serving the people, glorifying God, constantly making a way for the gospel to be heard. That’s the focus.
It’s not on the person who has the gift. It’s not even on the things that they are doing, but it’s always on God and always on service. Even all of the gifts that we see in operation today, the focus is what? To serve each other and to bring glory to our God.
“The focus with miracles, healings, and speaking in tongues is always on God and always on service—never on the person who has the gift.”
That needs to be the focus before anyone talks about anything. Before we even talk about whether the church down the street, if what they said is happening is real or not, or the pastor said that they spoke in tongues yesterday or they did this.
That’s the first thing. Who are we glorifying? What are we focusing on?
And then we could go from there and talk about what each individual thing is. But let’s focus on that first and see what God is drawing our attention to.
Also remember that when we’re looking at Acts, we’re looking at narratives. We’re looking at history being recorded. These are events that are happening. Much of Acts is not teaching us the exact things that we should be doing in church. Some of it provides a model. Some of it just tells us what was happening, especially in this transitional period in the first century when the church was just being established and the foundation is still being set.
If the foundation is being set even on a building, that doesn’t really give me much information on how to maintain the bathrooms. But maybe if something goes wrong, then I can go to someone who’s experienced in this. It’s like what we have here. When things are broken or shifted or not working properly, we go to those that God has given us.
Sometimes it’s in our personal lives and we go to people who God put in our lives. That’s why the Bible says in Ephesians 4 that he’s gifted us with men to have these gifts, to be able to teach and to lead and to rebuke and to correct and to encourage. And that is the focus.
We’re not still focusing just on the foundation of coming in every day and examining what’s going on unless that’s what’s needed from time to time. Make sure there aren’t too many cracks going on in it. But our focus needs to be on the building, not constantly looking back at all the miraculous things and praying for them today as if God hasn’t given us what’s sufficient for us for life and godliness today.
We have another group, and this is the last one. This is the last time that we actually see a group speaking in tongues. It says disciples of Apollos.
Tongues Among the Disciples of Apollos: Acts 19
So, Acts 19:1-7.
Acts 19 says, “It happened that while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul passed through the upper country and came to Ephesus and found some disciples. He said to them, ‘Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?’ And they said to him, ‘No, we have not even heard whether there is a Holy Spirit.’
And he said, ‘Into what then were you baptized?’ And they said, ‘Into John’s baptism.’ Verse four, Paul said, ‘John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in him who was coming after him, that is in Jesus.’
And when they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. And when Paul had laid his hands upon them, the Holy Spirit came on them and they began speaking with tongues and prophesying.”
They were in all about 12 men. We see this smaller group here.
What was distinct about them was the message that they heard. They were taught by Apollos. And you don’t have to turn there, but just going back to chapter 18, we are introduced to Apollos. I’ll just read what it says there. Acts 18:24-26.
“Now, a Jew named Apollos, an Alexandrian by birth, an eloquent man, came to Ephesus, and he was mighty in the scriptures. This man had been instructed in the way of the Lord, and have been fervent in spirit. He was speaking and teaching accurately the things concerning Jesus, being acquainted only with the baptism of John. And he began to speak out boldly in the synagogue.
But when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately.”
He was a passionate, bold preacher who didn’t have the fullness of the gospel revealed to him yet. He knew that this Messiah was coming. He probably knew that it was Jesus by then. Many people heard that Jesus had been crucified.
Now, we’re talking about several years out after that. He hadn’t put it all together or there were some things that were just missing. You can imagine the people that he was preaching to and converting also had things missing because they were taking their instruction from him.
This group had to hear the gospel more fully. Just like Apollos had to be pulled aside by this couple and lovingly explained the full gospel and that what he was teaching was incomplete, his disciples would need that same explanation. God shows there that those people who may have been fervent in their belief but didn’t have this complete understanding still belong to him.
It’s one of the things that we try to emphasize: the Holy Spirit is sanctifying and teaching and instructing people at a different pace and at different levels. I believe that this was instructive for the Jewish community, but also instructive for us as well. Everybody isn’t going to be up here with their sanctification on day one, but they still belong to God. It’s our job to explain to them the way more comprehensively and fully, and to live it out for them.
We see that this other group that was kind of in a limbo. Once they heard the full gospel and they understood that the Holy Spirit was promised to come and dwell in us, then God not only gave them the Holy Spirit but gave them the same gifts, the same expression of the spirit that the Gentiles received and that possibly the Samaritans received and that the apostles received back in Acts 2.
“Everybody isn’t going to be at the top of their sanctification on day one, but they still belong to God.”
Why are we saying all of this? We see that when the gifts are mentioned, there are other times where salvation is being presented to us where we do not see speaking in tongues happening.
Even in Acts 8 where we see it with the Samaritans, we don’t see it with the Ethiopian eunuch.
Just keep that in mind: the Bible does not always present it as a package of salvation and speaking in tongues or indwelling of the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues. That is not a package that the Bible presents. It’s three, possibly four times throughout the recorded history of the early church in the book of Acts that it’s mentioned.
Then it’s only mentioned again in one epistle, and that’s First Corinthians. That’s it. It’s mentioned in a kind of corrective sense. There is well, I’ll save that for next week talking about Mark 16, but just keep that in the back of your head. If you have any questions about it, you can ask me.
The Purpose of the Gift of Tongues
So, what was the purpose of the gifts? And I’m saying here the gift of languages, what was the purpose of it?
I will also note that we don’t have any record in scripture of the interpretation of languages being shown. But we do see in 1 Corinthians 14 commands about how to use one with the other, though we don’t see any examples of it.
The main practical purpose of this gift was to preach the word of God in other languages. There were people who did not all speak the same language, and the Holy Spirit gave the speakers, the preachers, the ability to speak the word of God in the language of the hearers.
We used to actually have a translation ministry at Calvary for people who were native Spanish speakers, people who didn’t speak English at all or who were struggling with their English. Sometimes it’s hard to listen for an hour and a half to something being spoken in another language, even if you do somewhat know it. So we had a translation service for that.
Imagine not needing one. Imagine having the ability to preach the word of God in any language, to go to any place, go to a region and say, “Well, these people are speaking Spanish.” Okay, well now I have this ability. God’s given me this ability to speak Spanish or speak this language.
So that was one of them. How can you spread the gospel to the world if you can only speak the language of your local region?
As I said earlier, there were at least 16 regions or dialects mentioned in Acts 2 when they were saying, “Well, there’s all of these different people around and we all hear them preaching.” And because of that, actually, because of how miraculous it is, I’ve heard people argue that the gift wasn’t with the speaker, it was with the hearer.
And he’s like, “But it’s not the gift of ears, it’s the gift of tongues.” They were making the observation that all these different languages were spoken and we’re hearing it. But just remember there was more than one person there. It wasn’t just Peter by himself in Acts 2.
There were 120 people in that upper room, 120 people around them, 120 people praying, expecting the Holy Spirit to come. And so when they went out, they were able to spread out. They had a main speaker, but I’m sure others were pulling them aside and preaching the word of God to them in that way as well.
“How can you spread the gospel to the world if you can only speak the language of your local region?”
So the Bible reveals the gift of tongues. It says that they even saw tongues of fire hanging around them.
But again, if we say gift of languages, it just fits. The purpose of it was to be able to preach the word of God in other languages. And then we see also it authenticated in the minds of the Jews. It authenticated the salvation of other people groups.
So we see the gift of tongues being given in Acts 8, chapter 10, and chapter 19.
And it was because the Jews were bigots. The Jews really thought they were superior because God chose them to deliver his promise. And so they thought they were superior to every other group of people around them.
They took great liberty with the commands that God gave for them to be separate. And they said, “Oh, separate means superior. Separate means greater.” They went much further than what God said about some of the things they could and couldn’t do.
And Jesus pointed out their hypocrisy over and over about how some commands they were even more strict in scripture and other commands they wouldn’t even listen to at all.
So for them, if they heard that these other people who were lower than them, these people who weren’t worthy of even hearing the word of God, these people who God could never accept because they’re filthy people or they’re uncivilized or whatever other thing they thought about them—they would have never just said, “Oh, yeah, of course God’s called them into the kingdom. Of course we’re equal and I can sit next to them in church service and have them over and be hospitable to them and pray with them and for them.”
No, that’s not what it was. They had to see that they received the Holy Spirit in the same exact way. And even after they saw that, this still was an issue.
“They had to see that the Gentiles received the Holy Spirit in the same exact way—and even after that, it was still an issue.”
Tongues as a Sign to Unbelieving Israel
The last one is that it was a sign to unbelieving Israel.
In 1 Corinthians 14:21-22, we read about two main gifts and how they were to be used by the early church: the gift of tongues or languages and prophecy. Verse 21 says, “In the law it is written, ‘By men of strange tongues and by the lips of strangers I will speak to this people; and even so, they will not listen to me,’ says the Lord.”
Then verse 22 says, “So then, tongues are for a sign, not to those who believe, but to unbelievers. But prophecy is not for unbelievers, but to those who believe.”
One very quick thing: where it says “But prophecy is for a sign,” the phrase “is for a sign” is not in the Bible. The translators put it there because there is a contrast between tongues, which is for a sign to unbelievers, and then it literally says prophecy is not to unbelievers but to those who believe.
So they saw that and said, “Okay, he must be saying one is assigned to this group and the other is assigned to this group.” But the Bible doesn’t say that. It could be, but we don’t see anything else in that passage or anywhere else in the Bible that talks about prophecy being a sign.
I’m just indicating that in case we read this and say, “What is he talking about? Prophecy is a sign to believers.”
Why is it a sign? It’s something that we’re using and benefiting from even today.
Isaiah 28 and the Message of Rest
Let’s look at where he gets this quote from. It’s a loose translation of Isaiah 28:11-12, but I want to read this in context so we can see the state of Israel at this time.
Isaiah 28:7 says: “And these also reel with wine and stagger from strong drink. The priests and the prophet reel with strong drink. They are confused by wine. They stagger from strong drink. They reel while having visions. They totter when rendering judgment. For all the tables are full of filthy vomit without a single clean place.”
I’ll stop there. What he’s saying is that the religious leaders at the time were getting drunk all the time. With drunkenness, there are usually other things involved as well—especially opening themselves up to worship of other gods and these pagan festivals. The priests and the prophets reel, they stagger, they toddle back and forth.
They don’t even have good vision. They don’t have the ability to walk right. And then they’re vomiting all over the place. Just imagine people constantly drunk and drinking, living that lifestyle.
These are the people who are supposed to be leading them spiritually and who are the judges of the nations and different tribes. And this is what he’s saying: “Those religious leaders—to whom would he teach knowledge and to whom would he interpret the message? Those just weaned from milk? Those just taken from the breast.”
Verse 10: “For he says, ‘Order on order, order on order, line on line, line on line, a little here, a little there.’ Indeed, he will speak to these people through stammering lips and a foreign tongue. He who has said, ‘Here is rest, give rest to the weary, and here is repose.’ But they would not listen.”
What’s underlined is where we get the quote that Paul says in 1 Corinthians 14.
So what’s he talking about here? The religious leaders are complaining that the message God is giving them is too simple. It’s so basic that it sounds like something you would say to a child.
Who is he giving this to? Who is he talking to? Who’s he teaching? Who would benefit from this simple baby message? Those just weaned from milk—those just taken from the breast, the little babies.
Who else is going to benefit from the message that God is giving? The message sounds like something basic that you would teach a toddler: “Order on order, order on order, line on line, line on line.” Like you’re teaching them to do some basic little act. Verse 13 is kind of similar as well if you actually have it open.
But then this is what Isaiah says, what God says through him: “Indeed, he will speak to the people through stammering lips and a foreign tongue.”
What is the message? What is he saying here? Rest. Give rest to the weary. Preach this message of reconciliation. Preach this message.
What Jesus said in Matthew 11:28 when he said, “Those who are weary and heavy laden, I’ll give you rest for your souls. Take my yoke upon you.” This simple, basic message of salvation—not a list of 600 laws that you had to follow, but salvation is about surrendering your life to God.
That basic, simple message. How many times do we talk to people and try to give them the message and they say it’s too simple? They say, “All I have to do is what? Just believe?”
So somebody could be a mass murderer and then on their deathbed they come to faith in Christ. No, that doesn’t make sense. That’s too easy. You’re telling me Mother Teresa probably didn’t make it to heaven, but some mass murderer who confessed on his way to the electric chair made it? That doesn’t make any sense. This message is too simple.
Even Paul said that to the Corinthians: our message is simple. Our message sounds like foolishness to the world. He didn’t use anything wise. So even in the Old Testament, the message was too simple for those drunken religious leaders. They just had to go to the people and say, “Here is rest. God is offering you rest. You have to rest in him.”
And they thought that was too simple. So they instead did their own thing. And he said, “Okay, I will bring judgment upon you and it will come from those who speak a foreign language. To you it’s going to be something you can’t even understand.”
Matthew 11:28: “‘Those who are weary and heavy laden, I’ll give you rest for your souls.’ This simple message—how many times do people say it’s too simple?”
I gave you the simplest message and you thought it was too simple. Okay, now how about I give you another language? You want something complex? Speak a different language.
There are other times where the idea of foreigners coming—people who speak another language, people with a foreign tongue, a language that they couldn’t understand—are going to be God’s instrument in executing judgment upon Israel. We see it in Deuteronomy 28:49. We see it in Jeremiah 5:15. We see it throughout the prophets as well.
The idea doesn’t always say people who speak a foreign language, but just the idea that another army would come in. There was even one going to the Assyrians where the leader comes and they’re like, “We’re going to pray to our God.” It’s like, “Who do you think sent us? Your God is the one who sent us to you because you didn’t follow him.” A foreign leader had to come and tell them that.
And then we see the ultimate judgment happen in AD 70. I say ultimate—at that time, Jerusalem was overtaken. The temple was destroyed. The city was burned. Many of the Jewish people were either murdered or they were taken captive and then they were sold on the slave markets. That was even something that was promised to them in the Old Testament—that they would go back into slavery, back into Egypt. And in AD 125 we see that happening.
A sign to unbelieving Israel is what tongues were—especially that these people who were speaking other languages were coming and receiving their blessing. Something that they thought was only for them, that they refused to go and tell other people. They refused to be a light to the world.
And so now God is going out to the world. Even their leaders are speaking the languages of those people to bring them in. Now there’s a people of another tongue who are making them ashamed because they heard the message—this simple message—and received it, while the Jews rejected it for the most part. God himself came down and they murdered him. The Gentiles hear this message and God is bringing them into the kingdom.
So the purpose of tongues again is spreading the gospel to those who spoke a different language from the preacher, authenticating the salvation of other people groups—at least in the minds of the Jews—demonstrating what God was doing to everyone in the world, and a sign of impending judgment against unbelieving Israel.
The Built-In Expiration of Tongues
Also, we see one thing that’s kind of interesting here is that the gift of languages has a built-in expiration.
Turn to 1 Corinthians 13:8. After talking about love and the qualities of love—which a lot of people like to have read at their wedding—nobody goes into this part here. They’ll stop at verse 8, but it says love never fails. But if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away. If there are tongues, they will cease. If there is knowledge, it will be done away.
For we know in part and we prophesy in part. But when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away. Then he says, “When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child. When I became a man, I did away with childish things. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, just as I also have been fully known.
But now faith, hope, and love abide in these three. But the greatest of these is love.
So just very quickly, we see here love is everlasting and never fails. It will always be an expression of love. But for the other three—prophecy, knowledge, and tongues or languages—there will be an end because they will no longer be needed in God’s plan. They had a purpose and that purpose has been or will be fulfilled.
You have to at least acknowledge that before you even land on a position. You acknowledge that love is going to be permanent while these all were temporary.
“Love is everlasting and never fails. Prophecy, knowledge, and tongues will end because they will no longer be needed in God’s plan.”
But in talking about not failing, Paul uses a different word. It’s eipto, which means to fall or to fall away. That’s different than he does when he talks about knowledge and prophecy, which is caro. Why is that important? Why are we talking about Greek? Because the idea of failing—even in talking about love—he doesn’t just say love doesn’t do this and prophecy and knowledge they do that thing. He uses a different word to describe how prophecy and knowledge will stop and love will continue.
Then on top of that, he uses another word to talk about tongues, to talk about the gift of languages. He uses a different word for tongues than he used for anything else.
This word is Paulo, and we get the word pause from it. So when he talks about tongues will cease—if there are tongues, they will cease—he uses something called the middle voice. In English, we just have an active voice and a passive voice. If I’m doing something, I can say, “Danny punched me.” That’s active. “I was punched by Danny.” That’s passive voice.
There is something called a middle voice. If you ever have bullies or something that grab your arm and make you hit yourself—stop punching yourself, stop punching yourself—at least it happens on the Simpsons. I don’t know if that happened in school with y’all, but in that case, that’s kind of the middle voice. The idea is that the one performing the action is the one that the action is performed on.
When it talks about an inanimate object, there is something built into the object that causes the action to happen. So there was something built in. God built in something to the gift of tongues, the gift of languages, that would cause it to stop on its own.
It’s like if you have a toy that winds up and he wound it up and said, “Okay, all right, there you go,” and set that gift on. Then when the power in that wound-up toy stops, it just stops. That’s it. The perfect didn’t have to come to stop it. A person didn’t have to come. It wasn’t the second coming. It wasn’t a person or a thing that had to come and do something to the gift to make it inoperable. It just fulfilled its purpose.
And so even in the language there, we see that the gift of language, the gift of tongues, are treated differently than those other two gifts that were also considered temporary according to this passage here.
And then like I said, even the testimony of the Bible itself—we only see it mentioned, and prophecy as well. When we see prophecy spoken of differently in the later books, the later writings except for Revelation, we see it. But when we see it in its working in the church, we see it written about differently than we do see it written in the earlier books like 1 Corinthians, which was actually written before Acts was written.
Even though some of the things that were happening were happening before the book was written after that, you see it in Acts, you see it in 1 Corinthians, and that’s it.
Same way that we saw healings and miracles and casting out of demons mentioned early on. And then we even see as the book of Acts comes to a close, they’re barely mentioned. And we see in the later books of the Bible, it’s not even written and not even mentioned. And we see Paul having these gifts not exercising them because maybe he didn’t have them anymore. Maybe they also were done away with by that time, or they didn’t fit the purpose of the gift, so he didn’t use them in those cases.
“The gift of tongues had something built into it by God that would cause it to stop on its own once its purpose was fulfilled.”
Conclusion
And the same thing we see with the gift of languages here—that they were done away with. It’s 10:00, so we need to stop because I could talk about this forever.
If you have any questions about tongues, prophecy, about any other sign gifts, healings, miracles, casting out demons, or if you just want to talk about spiritual gifts in general and what we are to do today rather than just talk about the gifts we don’t have, please submit them. If you have questions about the gifts that are still in operation, please submit them by Tuesday so I have time to come up with an answer or to grab someone else and make them answer it.
Let’s bow for a word of prayer. Our gracious God, we thank you for all the gifts that you have given to us, the gifted people and the gifts you’ve given. We thank you, God, that you have given us your word and it is sufficient for us.
We thank you, God, that you have given us the gifts to carry out the commands that you’ve also given us on how we should interact with each other, how we should serve each other, how we should view each other, how we should treat each other. You haven’t just given us those gifts and left us in our sinful state.
But God, you change our hearts and change our minds daily. You renew our minds and transform our minds according to your word. I pray, God, that as we continue to submit to the Holy Spirit in us, you would continue to fill us and allow us to serve each other and to see your glory.
I ask that you would bless us now as we go into a time of fellowship and then as we go into your service to celebrate the gift of salvation and to hear your word preached. All this in Christ’s name. Amen.