Bewildered by Praise

 DEVOTION

THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES

BEWILDERED BY PRAISE

Acts 2:5-12

5 Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. 6 When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard them speaking in his own language. 7 Utterly amazed, they asked: "Are not all these men who are speaking Galileans? 8 Then how is it that each of us hears them in his own native language? 9 Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome 11(both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs — we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!" 12 Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, "What does this mean?"

NIV

These are fifteen different regions, each with its own language and because of the power of the Spirit, men who normally speak the dialect of Galilee. We think it is interesting that most of these men that were in Jerusalem from all over the nations were devoted Jews. These men from all those other nations most likely spoke Hebrew originally, but either adopted the native tongue of the nation they now lived in or had created a combination of some form of Hebrew combined with another dialect, or simply had their own dialect of Hebrew. We are not sure these Galileans spoke a different language, as the Greek word here is dialektos, which is clearly where we get the English word dialect. It could mean language, but considering all that heard these Galileans were God-fearing Jews who, although they may have adopted a new language, would be familiar with Hebrew. Nevertheless, the point is the power of the Spirit enabled uneducated men, who were looked down upon, as we have references to, such as can anything good come out of Nazareth. This should also give us a clue as to what it means about being Pentecostal or accepting the power of the Spirit in the modern church with the evidence of other tongues, or another dialect. The point here is that when this happens it will and should be an act of giving praise to God. Paul made this very clear that tongues is man talking to God, and someone must be able to understand what was said, to interpret those words or dialect that were praising God. Prophecy, on the other hand, is God talking to man. If someone speaks what they think is the interpretation and starts with something like, “This is what the Lord says” they are not interpreting what was said by the person speaking some dialect. Everything is done through the power of the Spirit and this day he caused the men from Galilee to praise God in fifteen different dialects they did not know. This is but one demonstration of what the power of the Spirit can do and to think that we have that same Spirit dwelling within us. Should we not feel His power coursing through us? Could we have suppressed His power, wanting to exert our own pitifully weak power? That would be absolutely stupid to think our power is capable of doing anything. Jesus said that apart from Him we can do nothing, so why would we not want the Spirit to manifest all his power in and through us, showing his gifts to the world, using his gifts to lead us into a living praise that will bewilder all men, enough to gather to see and hear what we have to say.