Singing in the Reign, despite being by Roman Catholics, has become one of my favourite blogs. Michael Barber has marked Pentecost there not by quoting Aquinas, as he did for Easter and Ascension Day, but with a fascinating post on the significance of the tongues of fire which appeared at the first Pentecost.
Now, despite what some translations make of them (and my humorous misunderstanding of one of them!), “tongues as of fire” in Acts 2:3 cannot mean “tongues that looked like fire”, at least in any sense that these were the physical body parts tongues. Rather, surely, they were tongue-shaped pieces of fire, or what looked like fire. That is, they were what we would now call flames. It is good to keep the word “tongue” in a translation to preserve the link in the original text with the “tongues”, languages, in which the first Christians began to speak in verse 4, but the word can be misleading in a language like English which doesn’t usually call flames “tongues”.
What did these tongues mean? Michael Barber considers some possibilities, and I am sure that the meaning is not exhausted by any one or two of them. One idea which he does not mention is that the tongues which rested on people without burning them are reminiscent of the flame which did not burn up the burning bush, Exodus 3:2. That fire was of course the presence and glory of God, and surely the tongues of fire at Pentecost symbolise the presence and glory of God the Holy Spirit resting on the believers.
But there is more to it than that. Michael points out the description in the Jewish book 1 Enoch of the heavenly temple as “built with tongues of fire“. Since this book would probably have been familiar to Luke and the readers of Acts, the suggestion is that the tongues of fire at Pentecost symbolised the believers as a new temple, whose stones were the first Christians as in Ephesians 2:21 (and more clearly, I would add, in 1 Peter 2:5).
Todd Bentley, like many revivalist preachers, makes a big thing of praying for the fire of the Holy Spirit to fall on his congregations. This is clearly a re-use of the imagery of tongues of fire at Pentecost, although I haven’t heard of visible flames of fire at modern revival meetings. This fire is understood as the power of the Holy Spirit inside someone, to burn up what is wrong in their life, to ignite within them a passion for God, and to continue to burn as a symbolic light of God’s presence. Michael’s post suggests another sense in which believers today need this fire, to be built together all the more firmly as God’s church. For it is by the Holy Spirit that
you also, like living stones, are being built into a temple of the Spirit to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. … 9 … you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.
1 Peter 2:5,9 (TNIV, following the marginal reading in verse 5)
Does this contribute to your ponderings?:
http://www.webcom.com/~gnosis/library/tongfi.htm
But I’m going to digress and point out that whatever allegedly happened on Pentecost did not involve the bogus notion of a “Holy Spirit” but rather the “holy breath” of the deity – hence the sound of a mighty rushing wind and the power of utterance.
Bill Ross
http://bibleshockers.com
Perhaps this un-impassioned analysis will be of help:
http://twistedphysics.typepad.com/cocktail_party_physics/2007/02/tongues_of_fire.html
It turns out that, scientifically speaking, the “tongues” (languages) spoken are really about what one might expect to be uttered by stoned retarded people who were deaf, dumb and stupid.
The key to recognizing the absurdity of this “phenomena” is to know that “tongues” are “languages.” And if a “language” is *contrived* by the speaker under the duress of an overly emotional religious “service” and consists of gibberish… the incongruity of the term “speaking in languages” and “shikaminonnaHonda” just reeks….
Bill Ross
http://bibleshockers.blogspot.com
Well, Bill, thanks for the Dead Sea Scrolls text, but if the Christian church was started and spread around the world by “stoned retarded people who were deaf, dumb and stupid”, that is an even greater miracle than I realised!
>>>…but if the Christian church was started and spread around the world by “stoned retarded people who were deaf, dumb and stupid”, that is an even greater miracle than I realised!
The phenomenon described in Acts is completely different from the modern stuff because they spoke real languages and communicated actual concepts:
Acts 2:
5 ¶ And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven.
6 Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language.
7 And they were all amazed and marvelled, saying one to another, Behold, are not all these which speak Galilaeans?
8 And how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born?
9 Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judaea, and Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia,
10 Phrygia, and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes,
11 Cretes and Arabians, we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God.
12 And they were all amazed, and were in doubt, saying one to another, What meaneth this?
The part that modern preachers have seized on is the verse that they interpret to justify carrying on like stoned retards:
Acts 2:13 Others mocking said, These men are full of new wine.
Gibberish is not a language. To relate modern “tongues” with the Biblical “languages” is as reckless as relating “denying one’s symptoms by faith” to texts like this:
Ac 19:12 So that from his body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs or aprons, and the diseases departed from them, and the evil spirits went out of them.
Acts 5:
15 Insomuch that they brought forth the sick into the streets, and laid them on beds and couches, that at the least the shadow of Peter passing by might overshadow some of them.
16 There came also a multitude out of the cities round about unto Jerusalem, bringing sick folks, and them which were vexed with unclean spirits: and they were healed every one.
True Believers have great difficulty distinguishing their local religious expression from Biblical descriptions which they pretend they are modeled after (when they are as different as night and day – actually modeled after Rome).
Bill Ross
http://bibleshockers.blogspot.com
Bill, this post is about Acts 2, not about modern speaking in tongues. Hence my misunderstanding of your first comment as about the Acts 2 tongues. But I could say that if the worldwide Pentecostal and charismatic movement was started and spread around the world by “stoned retarded people who were deaf, dumb and stupid”, that is an even greater miracle than I realised!
>>>Bill, this post is about Acts 2, not about modern speaking in tongues. Hence my misunderstanding of your first comment as about the Acts 2 tongues.
So are you saying that the modern “speaking in tongues” is not a Biblical event but rather a post-biblical divine doing, sort of like “The Book of Mormon” and stuff like that? That is NOT what I believe the purveyors of this practice would say. They say that this is the “latter rain” of the original Acts 2 stuff. So, I believe you only speak for yourself by distancing yourself from the text.
>>>But I could say that if the worldwide Pentecostal and charismatic movement was started and spread around the world by “stoned retarded people who were deaf, dumb and stupid”, that is an even greater miracle than I realised!
I did not make that claim. That is a straw man. I said that the alleged “language” that is produced is gibberish. It is as patently false to say that this meaningless babbling is a language as it would be to refer to the sounds uttered by a stoned, deaf, *dumb* and stupid as a “heavenly language.” If you insist that this is a language, every science of language opposes you. If you say that it is a new, extra-biblical religious thingie that cannot be evaluated for correctness by the Bible, then have at it. Slaughter pigs in your services and say “this is the new thing God wants us to do.” You will get a huge following, emotionally touched, I can almost guarantee.
I mean, 3 teens getting miracles from “the Virgin Mary” is as well attested as the “worldwide Pentecostal movement” that so impresses you. But I hope you will agree that it is just another example of people being “blessed” by the imaginary.
Bill Ross
http://bibleshockers.blogspot.com
No, Bill, I am not saying that modern speaking in tongues is not biblical. To me it is clearly what is described and encouraged in 1 Corinthians 14. But its relationship to Acts 2 is less clear. I really don’t want to get into discussion of the rest of your comment.
This is a fantastic article-
thank you for clarifying tongues of fire for me– a good ole methodist!
Thank you Peter Kirk for the interesting article. I am writing a novel and I am thinking about calling it “Tongues of Fire.” I thought I should show know what that means though first. Your writing was the best as far as clarity and ease of understanding. It was very helpful. The other comments from Mr. Ross are baseless/ Arguments become hollow when the writer needs to resort to name calling
Carol, thank you for your support, and best wishes for your novel!
Very good site.Thanks.