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NASB | Acts 2:4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit was giving them utterance. |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | Acts 2:4 And they were all filled [that is, diffused throughout their being] with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues (different languages), as the Spirit was giving them the ability to speak out [clearly and appropriately]. |
Subject: Capitalization |
Bible Note: The gift of the day of Pentecost belonged to a critical epoch, not to the continuous life of the Church. It implied a disturbance of the equilibrium of man’s normal state; but it was not the instrument for building up the Church. Widely diffused as this belief has been, it must be remembered that it goes beyond the data with which the New Testament supplies us. Each instance of the gift recorded in the Acts connects it, not with praise and adoration; not with the normal order of men’s lives, but with exceptional epochs in them. The speech of St. Peter which follows, like most other speeches addressed to a Jerusalem audience, was spoken apparently in Aramaic. Not one word in the discussion of spiritual gifts in 1 Cor. 12–14 implies that the gift was of this nature, or given for this purpose. Nor, it may be added, within the limits assigned by the providence of God to the working of the apostolic Church, was such a gift necessary. Aramaic, Greek, Latin, the three languages of the inscription on the cross, were media of intercourse throughout the empire. What, then, are the facts actually brought before us? What inferences may be legitimately drawn from them? The utterance of words by the disciples, in other languages than their own Galilean Aramaic, is distinctly asserted. The words spoken appear to have been determined, not by the will of the speakers, but by the Spirit which “gave them utterance.” The word used, ajpofqevggesqai, has in the LXX a special association with the oracular speech of true or false prophets, and appears to imply a peculiar, perhaps musical, solemn intonation. Comp. 1 Chron. 25:1; Ezek. 13:9. The “tongues” were used as an instrument, not of teaching, but of praise. Those who spoke them seemed to others to be under the influence of some strong excitement, “full of new wine.” Questions as to the mode of operation of a power above the common laws of bodily or mental life lead us to a region where our words should be “wary and few.” It must be remembered, then, that in all likelihood such words as they then uttered had been heard by the disciples before. The difference was that before, the Galilean peasants had stood in that crowd, neither heeding nor understanding nor remembering what they heard, still less able to reproduce it; now they had the power of speaking it clearly and freely. The divine work would in this case take the form of a supernatural exaltation of the memory, not of imparting a miraculous knowledge of words never heard before. The peculiar nature of the gift leads the apostle into what at first appears a contradiction. “Tongues are for a sign,” not to believers, but to those who do not believe; yet the effect on unbelievers is not that of attracting, but of repelling. They involve of necessity a disturbance of the equilibrium between the understanding and the feelings. Therefore it is that, for those who believe already, prophecy is the greater gift. The “tongues,” however, must be regarded as real languages. The “divers kinds of tongues,” 1 Cor. 12:28, the “tongues of men,” 1 Cor. 13:1, point to differences of some kind, and it is easier to conceive of these as differences of language than as belonging to utterances all equally wild and inarticulate. Connected with the “tongues” there was the corresponding power of interpretation. From the Pastoral Epistles, from those of St. Peter and St. John, they are altogether absent, and this is in itself significant. 2. It is probable, however, that the disappearance of the “tongues” was gradual. There must have been a time when “tongues” were still heard, though less frequently and with less striking results. For the most part, however, the place which they had filled in the worship of the Church was supplied by the “hymns and spiritual songs” of the succeeding age. After this, within the Church we lose nearly all traces of them. The gift of the day of Pentecost belonged to a critical epoch, not to the continuous life of the Church. It implied a disturbance of the equilibrium of man’s normal state; but it was not the instrument for building up the Church. William Smith; revised and edited by F.N. and M.A. Peloubet, Smith’s Bible dictionary [computer file], electronic ed., Logos Library System, (Nashville: Thomas Nelson) 1997. |