The Product of Pentecost: Birthmarks of the Newborn Church (Acts 2:41-47)
CrossWay Community Church
November 4th, 2018
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Acts 2
Resurrection | The Acts of the Apostles
The following belongs to a series entitled “An Introductory Biblical Theology of Resurrection.” Read other posts belonging to this series here.
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The Acts of the Apostles
Acts begins by acknowledging Jesus’ resurrection and His appearance to many for forty days (1:3; 2:32; 3:15; 10:40-41; 13:31; cf. 1 Cor 15:5-8) and to Paul later on in the narrative (9:1-16; see also 10:13-15; 18:9-10; 22:6-11, 17:21; 23:11; 26:12-18). In fact, witnessing the resurrected Christ appears to be a requirement for apostleship (1:21-22), exposing a primary function of the apostles—to bear witness to the resurrection (1:21-22; 4:33; 10:41). With no surprise then, the heart of the apostolic message quickly becomes the resurrected Messiah.[1]
Tongues | The Biblical Manifestation of Tongues-Speaking
The following belongs to a series on the continuation or cessation of the miraculous phenomena of tongues-speaking. Read the previous post here.
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Before directly handling the issue of cessationism versus continuationism, one does well to first establish what the miraculous phenomena of tongues-speaking is in the Bible, and therefore, what it should look like if in fact the gift is for today.
Intelligible Human Languages and/or Babbling?
The first manifestation of tongues in scripture occurs in Acts 2.1 Verses 4-11 are undeniably clear that the nature of the tongues in this passage is unlearned, intelligible human languages.2 This is a miraculous phenomenon produced by the poured out Spirit (v.4) and is a miracle of speaking, not hearing.3 And in the following occurrences of tongues in Acts (ch. 10, 19, and possibly 8), Luke uses the same word that he used in chapter 2 to refer to this miraculous activity—glossa.4 Nothing in Luke’s writing implies that the manifestation of tongues in these proceeding texts differs at all from that of Acts 2.5
