Q415 : Tongues as a Sign to Unbelievers and Acts 10

Hi Tony,

I thoroughly enjoyed Q125 on How are tongues a sign for the unbeliever?^a and I believe I agree with your conclusions.

Question - if the launching point for that discussion is Paul's statement (1Cor. 14:22), then does that still apply in the Acts 10 case, considering that the Jews in Acts 10 were believers by the time they heard tongues? I recognize that the purpose in Acts 10 was different, i.e. God was showing the Jews that He would be working through the church, not Old Testament Israel.

I guess my question is - do you see 1Cor. 14:22 as being related to the Acts 10 case, or is 1Cor. 14:22 only related to the events in Acts 2, and Acts 10 is completely separate?

A415 : by Tony Garland

Thanks for submitting your question (below).

As you observe, the Acts 10 case is somewhat different than Paul's statement in 1 Cor. 14:22—and its related Old Testament basis. In Acts 10, those who were intended to hear the tongues (Peter and his Jewish companions): (1) understood what was being said (probably in Hebrew); (2) were not unbelievers.

Still, there is an aspect of the Acts 10 situation which is somewhat parallel to that of the unbelieving Jews in Jerusalem in Acts 2 who didn't understand what was being said on the Day of Pentecost. In both cases, there was an element of unbelief involved.

In Acts 2, the scoffing Jews were skeptics, unbelievers in Christ. In Acts 10, Peter and his companions were believers in Christ, but still working through a lesser unbelief: that God would place Gentiles on an equal footing with Jews in the formation of the Church.

This is evident from God's working with Peter on the rooftop of Simon the Tanner's house (Acts 10:10-17) and Peter’s subsequent report to skeptical Jewish believers about what transpired at Cornelius' house (Acts 11:5-17, especially his conclusion in verse 17).

Although Peter and his fellow Jews were already believers in Christ, they hadn't yet fully grasped that Gentiles were accepted by God on an equal basis to themselves. In this sense, then, the tongues spoken in Acts 10 serve as a "correction," although not a judgment.

In conclusion, I would concur that 1Cor. 14:22 and Acts 10 are different in their essentials, although both involve tongues serving as a corrective for misconceptions.