The following "Question" was asked by a member of the congregation at Grace Community Church in Panorama City, California, and "Answered" by their pastor, John MacArthur Jr. It was transcribed from the tape, GC 70-8, titled "Questions and Answers--Part 36."  A copy of the tape can be obtained by writing, Word of Grace, P.O. Box 4000, Panorama City, CA 91412 or by dialing toll free 1-800-55-GRACE. Copyright 2001 by John MacArthur Jr., All Rights Reserved.

Question

In the account in Acts 2 of Pentecost, as I read my New American Standard Bible, over and over I come to the feeling that this miracle was in the hearing. I’ve never heard anybody comment on that and I just would like to hear your opinion of that.

Answer

There are those who believe that it was a miracle of hearing; there are those who affirm that. There are quite a few who would because they say, “everyone heard in his own language.” I don’t hold that view, and I don’t think that view holds up very well, particularly when you recognize that they were all “filled with the Holy Spirit,” verse four, “and began to speak with other languages.” That seems to me to be a fairly open-and-shut case for a miracle of speaking rather than a miracle of hearing.

But there are those who believe that. In fact, if you would read any treatment, I might suggest to you maybe The Theology of the Holy Spirit by Frederick Dale Bruner, you can find it in our great library. Bruner might have a section dealing with that in which you could get the argument for that.

But, I believe it was a miracle of speaking rather than a miracle of hearing, particularly when you see the cloven tongues of fire and when you compare the rest of Acts and the other phenomena that occurred, which seems clearly to be a speaking phenomena rather than a hearing.

But then when you come to I Corinthians 14, it is definitely speaking and not hearing. So, why would you have tongues...why would you even use the expression “languages” if you’re not talking about languages and you’re talking about the hearing miracle? So, I don’t think that that really holds up very well, particularly if you want a consistent interpretation of the miracle of tongues in Corinthians; it is very clear that he’s talking about a language spoken, not a language heard.

And in my book entitled The Charismatics--I don’t know if you have that--it would help you. Also, I wrote a book called The Truth About Tongues.

Added to Bible Bulletin Board's "MacArthur’s Questions and Answers" by:

Tony Capoccia
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