In die Skriflig / In Luce Verbi ISSN: (Online) 2305-0853, (Print) 1018-6441 Page 1 of 7 Original Research The Pentecostal Movement’s view of the continuity of tongues in Acts and 1 Corinthians Author: Pentecostals see a continuity between the speaking in languages as a part of the filling or 1 Marius Nel baptism with the Spirit in Acts 2 and the other four incidents in Acts (8, 9, 10, 19). This is also Affiliation: the case of the phenomenon described in 1 Corinthians 12–14, and their own experience, in 1Faculty of Theology, contradistinction to most Protestants who regard the gift of tongues in terms of Acts 2’s North-West University, description. It is described as the miraculous ability to speak in real foreign languages with the Potchefstroom Campus, purpose to reach people from different nationalities with the gospel of Jesus Christ. In this South Africa article the pentecostal claim of continuity between the speaking in languages in Acts and Corresponding author: Corinthians and our own day is being analysed and criticised. The position poses several Marius Nel, questions that need to be addressed, like the seeming and presumed discontinuity between [email protected] languages in Acts 2 and 1 Corinthians, with the modern pentecostal phenomenon of speaking Dates: in languages related to what happened in 1 Corinthians and not in Acts. The implication is that Received: 24 Sept. 2016 a difference exists between the languages used by the Galileans on the Day of Pentecost and Accepted: 28 Nov. 2016 the phenomenon of languages occurring in the Corinthian assembly – with the Corinthian Published: 20 Apr. 2017 assembly associated with the modern charismatic movement. This poses the question whether How to cite this article: a differentiation between speaking in languages in Acts and the phenomenon designated with Nel M., 2017, ‘The the same term in 1 Corinthians is sustainable; also whether the identification of modern Pentecostal Movement’s Pentecostals with the Corinthian phenomenon is allowed. view of the continuity of tongues in Acts and 1 Corinthians’, In die Skriflig 51(1), a2198. https://doi. Introduction org/10.4102/ids.v51i1.2198 Pentecostals consider the events on the Day of Pentecost (Ac 2) as repeatable in terms of the Copyright: promise that the gift of the Spirit was for the attendees and their offspring (Ac 2:39) as part of their © 2017. The Authors. hermeneutics that reads Acts as a model for the church today (Menzies 2016:2). They argue that Licensee: AOSIS. This work speaking in tongues serves as precedent and archetype of Spirit baptism (Mittelstadt 2010:71) but is licensed under the 1 Creative Commons also as repeatable evidence of the Holy Spirit’s continued presence (Synan 1994:75). However, Attribution License. they (are forced to) allow that there is a significant difference between the original experience on the Day of Pentecost in Acts 2 where the respective languages are recognised by people of different regions (xenolalia)2 and the separate gift of languages described in 1 Corinthians 12–14, and which according to 1 Corinthians 14:13 needs a further gift, namely the gift of interpretation (gift regions; Thiselton 2000:970 translates it as ‘intelligible articulation of tongues-speech’) to make sense (glossolalia) (Lockwood 2000:435; Warrington 2008:93). They believe that the Corinthian experience of speaking in languages is consistent with modern pentecostal believers’ experience of Spirit baptism (Thiselton 2000:970–988; Busenitz 2014:65–69) and they posit a continuity between Acts, Corinthians, and the contemporary charismatic experiences of speaking in tongues.3 Horton (2005) posits: The parallels between Acts and 1 Corinthians 14 indicate that the gift is the same in form as the evidence of Acts; however, the purpose of tongues in 1 Corinthians 12 is a gift used in the church and needing interpretation to bring edification. (p. 223) This was not always the case. Initially pentecostal believers in the earliest days of the movement identified themselves as the restoration of the Acts 2 church and considered their experience of speaking in languages as a supernatural impartation of power that allows the gifted person, 1.Acts 2:3 uses the strange term, ‘tongues like fire’ (γλῶσσαι ὡσεὶ πυρός), that does not occur in the rest of the Bible. An interesting intertextual reference is found in the third century bce non-canonical work 1 Enoch 14:15, where Enoch sees in a vision a second house ‘built with tongues of fire’ (tr. G.H. Schodde 1882:3). 2.Menzies (2016:3) acknowledges that Acts 2:4 is ‘probably’ the only instance in the New Testament where speaking in tongues is Read online: manifest in xenolalia, i.e. the miraculous, spontaneous ability to speak a previously unknown language. Scan this QR 3.Thiselton (2000:970–988) gives a detailed overview of various views of the nature of tongues based on exegetical and contextual code with your grounds: tongues as angelic speech; tongues as the miraculous power to speak other languages; tongues as liturgical, archaic, or smart phone or rhythmic phrases; tongues as ecstatic speech; tongues as the language of the unconscious which becomes capable of consciousness mobile device through interpretation; and tongues as language of the unconscious released in ‘sighs too deep for words’ (from the depths of the to read online. heart). Glossolalia makes unconscious depth dimensions of life accessible, which may involve reassumptions of a more primitive level of speaking to which one regresses at times, as a return to egocentric use of language (Theissen 2007:306, 312–313). http://www.indieskriflig.org.za Open Access Page 2 of 7 Original Research equipped in this way with an unknown existing language, to other descriptions of filling with the Spirit in Acts, and the evangelise the world without the difficulty of laboriously phenomenon of speaking in languages in Corinth are learning the languages needed to reach the lost (Synan 1997:4). hampered by two diffficulties. The first is the inherent This was the kind of language utilised by early pentecostals, difficulty in describing spiritual experiences with its affectional that God gives believers the ability to speak in languages perspective, and in linking the experiences of one individual which they had not learned, with the purpose to bring in the with that of another due to the uncomparability of subjective harvest of the last days, as happened at Pentecost (McGee individual experiences. The second difficulty consists in 2006:100; 2007:1).4 The anticipated proclamation in different finding appropriate words to describe the intimate experiences tongues, however, soon disappointed the earliest missionaries of the individual. Pentecostals react to the last difficulty by on mission fields when nobody understood their ‘Spirit explaining that they use the words utilised in the New tongues’, and early Pentecostals had to look again at what the Testament to describe their spiritual experiences, including New Testament teaches. They found this time that these ‘speaking in tongues’. Placing historical and contemporary tongues serve as a useful way to praise and worship God, as a descriptions of spiritual experiences next to each other in an prayer language (Anderson 1979:89–92; Busenitz 2014:69–83; undifferentiated form, in methodological terms, requires McGee 2007:1; Synan 1997:89–92, 101–102; Wacker 1999:44–49). careful consideration (Lombaard 2011:211–225). Another Little is recorded about this failure, leading the well-known factor is that there is no means whereby (ancient) literary and British pentecostal leader, Donald Gee (1949:11–19), to deduce experiential expressions of spirituality can be compared with that it represents a chapter in the history of the early each other because of its subjectivity per se as well as Pentecostal church that they would like to forget. differences in worldview, language, culture, and personal differences (Lombaard 2015:93). Speaking in tongues do play an important role in the Pentecostal Movement in order to sensitise the believer to This article looks critically at Pentecostals’ arguments that the promptings of the Spirit, to give confidence to witness, continuity exists between the experiences of speaking in and provide power to live a holy life (in the language of tongues in Acts 2, 1 Corinthians, and those experienced by pioneers like Taylor [1907:128] and Haywood [1908:3]).5 contemporary tongues speakers in the pentecostal fray. However, it is argued here that the claim that the events during the Day of Pentecost should be repeated and replicated in the modern church, is only valid if the tongues Pentecostal arguments for of Acts 2 can be proved to be identical with the tongues in 1 continuity between tongues in the Corinthians 12–14 and contemporary experience. However, New Testament and the Pentecostal if speaking in tongues in 1 Corinthians refers to another, respective experience that matches that of the contemporary Movement 6 Pentecostal Movement’s experience of Spirit baptism, then it Pentecostals allow that modern tongues may as an exception is evident that continuity cannot be claimed between Acts, consist of translatable foreign languages as in Acts 2 (Keener Corinthians, and the contemporary experience. For this 2005:113). They, however, emphasise that speaking in reason protestant cessationists define the New Testament gift tongues primarily consists of incomprehensible speech of of tongues consequently as the miraculous ability given by a mysterious nature and