the G sides

This is part of a weekly e-vo series through the New Testament book of Acts. Today is from Acts 2.

Much is made of speaking in tongues. Some call it a special language, others call it blabbering. Clearly the phenomenon here is neither of these things. In fact, Luke is very clear that the languages heard on this day were real languages that people could understand. People heard the story of God in their mother tongue. That seemed to be the point of the exercise.

Another pattern starts in this chapter that we’ll see throughout Acts - whenever the Spirit moves it is always accompanied by truth…not emotion. When the Spirit causes tongues to be spoken, the result isn’t an emotional outburst or a mystical worship experience. What results is the communication of truth for the point of action. In this chapter it’s the truth of the story of Jesus - he was alive, he performed miracles, ‘you’ killed him, and he rose from the dead. The Spirit brings these facts to the forefront of everyone hearing. It’s these facts that He wants them to deal with not the miracle of hearing the story in their own tongue.

Peter stands up and re-focuses the crowd to this. He doesn’t focus on them being able to hear the story of Jesus in their own tongue other than to say - “Hey, God told us this would happen in Joel…no biggie. The real biggie is dealing with the claims and the reality of Jesus that all of us have seen and experienced.” The ‘miracle’ of speaking in tongues is secondary to the facts of Jesus.

And so we will see this pattern again and again in Acts concerning the work of the Spirit. He seems to move us into the intersection of dealing with reality, not away from it. He moves to point us toward the REAL Jesus. When the Spirit moves, He never points to himself or to the experience itself. He points to Jesus. Always.

That is what happens on this day. The spirit moves so that people from all over the world will hear and wrestle with the facts of Jesus - facts that no one stands up and denies. Where are the Pharisees? Where is the Roman government? Where are the protectors of truth proving that what Peter is saying is false? Where is the body of Jesus that the Romans and Jews tried so hard to protect so that they could prove that resurrection never happened? Here’s Peter in the middle of the public square during Pentecost - a major holiday - claiming Jesus was God and he rose again. Why isn’t there a revolt? An upheaval? Where is the dramatic moment where the Romans and Jews drag the dead body of Jesus into the middle of the square to prove Peter wrong?

We’ll come back to this over and over again in Acts but it bears saying clearly now. Anytime the Spirit moves, He will point to Jesus and cause the audience to deal with TRUTH…not emotion. It’s my one huge critique of the Pentecostal/Charismatic movement. It’s not that the gifts of tongues or healing or other ‘dramatic’ gifts exists or even that they make me uncomfortable. It’s that in scripture we see those gifts pointing to Jesus and TRUTH, not emotional experiences for the sake of emotional experiences. Were they hard to explain and made the witness uncomfortable? More than likely but in scripture they always pointed beyond themselves to Jesus and Truth.