Lord endows chosen with ability

Rev. Beau Abernathy, pastor, Crosspointe Church, 1414 W. Sixth St., Suite 100:

The first appearance of tongues is in Acts 2: “On the day of Pentecost all the believers were meeting together in one place. Suddenly, there was a sound from heaven like the roaring of a mighty windstorm, and it filled the house where they were sitting. Then, what looked like flames or tongues of fire appeared and settled on each of them. And everyone present was filled with the Holy Spirit and began speaking in other languages, as the Holy Spirit gave them this ability.

“At that time there were devout Jews from every nation living in Jerusalem. When they heard the loud noise, everyone came running, and they were bewildered to hear their own languages being spoken by the believers. They were completely amazed. ‘How can this be?’ they exclaimed. ‘These people are all from Galilee, and yet we hear them speaking in our own native languages!'” (Acts 2:1-12, New Living Translation).

The Holy Spirit enabled the apostles to speak in languages they had not previously learned. Two other examples of speaking in tongues are found in Acts 10:46 and Acts 19:6. One extended passage in the New Testament deals with the spiritual gift of tongues (1 Corinthians 12-14).

What does it mean to speak in tongues, then? “Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true” (Acts 17:11, New International Version).

– Send e-mail to Beau Abernathy at beaumerna@sbcglobal.net.

Sacred language a gift from God

George Wiley, ordained Episcopal priest and Baker University professor of religion:

Speaking in tongues belongs to the Pentecostal form of Christianity. If you don’t know about Pentecostalism, you should, for a couple of reasons.

First, this global movement started in Topeka, at Bethel Bible College, on Jan. 1, 1901. Second, there are 400 million to 500 million Pentecostals today. In other words, one Christian in four, worldwide, is a Pentecostal. Both of these facts are significant and not well-known.

What is speaking in tongues? Pentecostal and charismatic Christians say, first, it’s a prayer language through which believers address God. Second, it’s speech sent from God to a believer during public worship as a message for the congregation.

In both cases, it sounds like a string of syllables that you wouldn’t recognize as the English language. With the second, message-from-God version, another worshipper would offer an interpretation of what the tongue speaker said.

Speaking in tongues has a firm grounding in Scripture as one of the spiritual gifts that God gives to believers – think of being at a wedding and hearing someone read, “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels,” from I Corinthians 13.

Skeptics think that someone who speaks in tongues is faking it. To them, what is supposed to be a divinely initiated gift shows up too predictably at 11 a.m. on Sundays. That may be so, though a Pentecostal might reply that tongue speaking is not required of members and that the “message from God” version seems to occur at God’s initiative and in God’s good time.

– Send e-mail to George Wiley at george.wiley@bakeru.edu.