As I said last week, I think that this passage of scripture is the most mysterious and controversial in Acts.
There is very intriguing material for the Christian to study, but then there isn’t enough information to enable us to be really dogmatic.
HOWEVER, dogmatism is exactly where people go when it comes to mysterious scriptures like this.
When I was still in Bible school I heard a rumor that a student saw the sermon notes of one of the most famous preachers in the Baptist Bible Fellowship.
As the young man was glancing down the page he read a comment in the margin.
people make a lot of extra noise in an effort to establish their position.
“And when Paul had laid his hands upon them, the Holy Ghost came on them; and they spake with tongues, and prophesied.”
There are millions of people from every denomination within Christendom, who point to this verse and a few others like it, in an effort to justify what they call “speaking in tongues” or “glossolalia.”
Of course, there are the Charismatics and Pentecostals, but also mainline Protestants and some cultists.
There are some Roman Catholics who say that tongues are more a Catholic phenomenon than Protestant.
And sadly there are a lot of Baptist churches and former Baptist churches which now speak in tongues.
But someone opened the door to glossolalia and in a very short period of time, one by one they lost their Baptist doctrines, until they removed the name from over the door.
I don’t think that anyone should point to this verse as a justification of the modern misuse of tongues.
And tonight I’d like to try to prove that to you.
But upon investigation, they were so ignorant and untaught that, among other things, they knew about the Holy Spirit.
They had received what they called “the baptism of John,” but it’s quite obvious that they had not been baptized by John, but by someone who was teaching a very limited gospel, and claiming to do so with the authority of John the Baptist.
When Paul showed these men that, as Christians, they should have been baptized under the authority of Christ, they consented and were rebaptized, but this time in “the name of the Lord Jesus.”
So as far as we can determine, the first ana-baptist, or rebaptizer, was the Apostle Paul.
And as Bro. Stewart so pointed out last week, we have scriptural authority to re-baptize professing Christians, before we receive them into our fellowship, if they haven’t been baptized with proper authotiy.
Now here, once again, are some of the many unknowns about this history:
Did these twelve men have prior contact with any of the other disciples of the Lord there in the city?
Were they, as Apollos had been doing earlier, going to the Jewish synagogue and trying to evangelize the Jews there?
Could it be that they had been ostracized by both the unsaved Jews and by the few saints who were there in Ephesus?
Unknown, unknown, unknown.
Make sure that when you come up with an opinion that you establish your position by yelling loud and long.
Subsequent to their baptism in water, Paul specifically and deliberately did something called “laying his hands on them.”
Perhaps he had all twelve men kneel down togther in a circle or semi-circle around him.
They were probably shoulder to shoulder and probably holding hands.
And then, with Paul either standing or kneeling in the midst of them, he began to pray,
and their desire to magnify the name of the Lord Jesus.
The power of the Holy Spirit came upon them, and one by one they began to declare some aspect of the doctrine of the Lord Jesus Christ.
That preaching, or as it was called here “prophesying,” was done in languages which those men had previously never spoken and never had the opportunity to learn.
There is no indication that any of these men begged Paul to lay his hands on them in order that they might speak in tongues and prophesy.
This was the choice of the Lord and something which He had laid upon the heart of the Apostle Paul.
I would suspect that none of these men had ever seen or heard of this sort of thing before.
And even if they had heard rumors about that first Pentecost or some other similar event, they were not seeking it or expecting it for themselves.
And what was it that they did?
It was certainly nothing like the only exhibition of glossolalia that I have ever seen.
I am told that the majority of participants in tongues-speaking today are women.
I’ll come back to this in just a moment, but I think that I Corinthians 14 specifically teaches that women, among other things, are not to speak in tongues in public church services.
The first known case of Christian glossolalia took place on the day of Pentecost.
And as is often the case, the first use defines every other use.
And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven.
Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language.
And they were all amazed and marvelled, saying one to another, Behold, are not all these which speak Galilaeans? And how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born?
Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judaea, and Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia,
Phrygia, and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes,
Cretes and Arabians, we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God.
And they were all amazed, and were in doubt, saying one to another, What meaneth this?”
And although I have no proof of this: it’s very likely that they never had the ability to use those foreign languages again.
From the only experience that I have had directly with a church service where glossolalia was used,
the general rules and principles for tongues which are given to us in these verses are not often followed in modern practice.
The Lord does not break His own rules.
“Wherefore tongues are for a sign, not to them that believe, but to them that believe not:”
In clear and unmistakable language, Paul says that the purpose of the gift of tongues was for a sign to the lost, and I might add, primarily to lost Jews.
In I Corinthians 1 Paul said, “For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness.”
Think about those specific occasions in Acts where Christians are described as speaking in tongues.
The first was at Pentecost.
Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language.
And they were all amazed and marvelled, saying one to another, Behold, are not all these which speak Galilaeans?
And how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born?
And they were all amazed, and were in doubt, saying one to another, What meaneth this?”
Somewhat reluctantly Peter obeyed, but he wisely took with him some of the Jewish saints.
When he reached the city and house of Cornelius, Peter preached Christ,
“While Peter yet spake these words, the Holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the word.
For they heard them speak with tongues, and magnify God. Then answered Peter,
Can any man forbid water, that these should not be baptized, which have received the Holy Ghost as well as we?”
Why did Paul put his hands on these men, and why did the Holy Spirit come upon them in His power?
As a testimony to others who were present.
It might have been in order to prove to unbelieving Jews that the testimony of these men was sent by God.
But I think that in this case, the significance of the sign may have been directed to other saints in Ephesus.
To demonstrate God’s satisfaction with these new-comers, their salvation, and their re-baptism.
Whichever it was, this display of glossolalia, as always, was as a sign.
And that becomes entwined with the fact that tongues was a temporary gift of God.
When our son Kraig was a little boy, he loved balls and to play with balls.
He would eat his peas, when we reminded them that they were little green balls.
He would eat just about anything, if we could shape them into balls.
And if we were looking for a gift to give him, a ball was always appropriate.
Over and over again, what things were once welcomed as wonderful gifts are outgrown and become inappropriate.
And such is the case with the gift of tongues.
I believe that I Corinthians 13 clearly says that sometime after the writing of that letter, glossolalia would no longer be given by God.
And I am of the opinion that that scripture is referring to the time when the Word of God was completed.
Let’s read I Corinthians 13.
Not only does the Bible say that tongues would come to an end,
But the way to which they are referred in the Bible, suggest that the Lord stopped giving such childish gifts, and started giving more adult gifts to this people – long before the conclusion of the Bible.
I Corinthians was one of Paul’s earliest epistles and there is much about tongues written therein.
and in their lists of the gifts of God there isn’t any mention of tongues at all.
To conclude this evening, I say to you really, really loudly, that those twelve men in Ephesus, were given the gift of tongues in order to prove to other saints that God was pleased with their salvation, their re-baptism and their desire to serve the Lord.