Acts 2:13

Others mocking, &c. Better, But others mocking said; They are full of new wine. There is no Greek for the words these men, as is shewn by the italics of the A. V.

The sight presented to the bystanders on this occasion was certainly unusual. We cannot but believe that the disciples would be in a fervour of excitement and enthusiasm, and the people who composed the several groups were likely to be no less moved by the account to which they listened in their various languages, coming from the lips of men whom some in the throng recognized for Galilæans, and whose garb and manner would be like that of the ordinary natives of Jerusalem. The excitement exhibited on both sides will account for the remark of the mockers.

new wine Lit. sweet wine, defined as made of the drippings from the clusters before the grapes were trodden.

In the above description of the events of the day of Pentecost, the meaning which St Luke intends to convey is very plain in every respect, except that we cannot with certainty gather from it whether the disciples, as well as speaking new languages, also understood what they uttered. It would seem most reasonable to conclude that the Holy Spirit with the one power also bestowed the other, and this may have been so in the case of the disciples at Pentecost, even though it was not so at other times and under other circumstances. The only Scripture which bears upon the question is St Paul's first Epistle to the Corinthians (1 Corinthians 12:10 to 1 Corinthians 14:30). There among the gifts of the Spirit the Apostle enumerates "divers kinds of tongues" (1 Corinthians 12:10; 1 Corinthians 12:31), and as what might be a separate gift not included in the first, "the interpretation of tongues," (1 Corinthians 12:10). He mentions in the next chapter the tongues of angelsas well as of men (1 Corinthians 13:1), but not in such an enumeration as to connect the words with our enquiry. It should be borne in mind that all which the Apostle says in the Epistle is addressed to the Corinthians, not as missionary labourers but as members of a settled Christian Church, and he is instructing them what the best gifts are after which they should seek. Now their labours and utterances were to be among their own people and mostly among those already professing Christianity. St Paul repeatedly dwells on "the church" as the scene of their labours, which expression without necessarily always implying an edifice (which however here seems to be its meaning, see 1 Corinthians 14:23; 1 Corinthians 14:27) indicates a Christian community. The Apostle tells them that gifts of tongues are not for these. Tongues are for a sign not to them that believe but to the unbelieving. To speak with tongues was therefore not the best gift to be desired for the Church at Corinth. Yet we can fancy that some members longed for such a power, and it is to such as these that the Apostle's remarks are directed. In such a congregation as theirs, he tells them, "he that speaketh in a tongue, speaketh not unto men, but unto God" (1 Corinthians 14:2), meaning to teach them that if a man had this gift he would yet profit his neighbours nothing, for they would not be men of a foreign speech like the crowd at Pentecost, or like those in foreign lands which the Christian missionaries must visit. Next he adds "he that speaketh in a tongue edifieth himself" (1 Corinthians 14:4), for he feels the power and tells of the great works of God. The Apostle could wish "they all spake with tongues," if, that is, there were an advantage to the Church therein, but under their circumstances he rather wishes the gift of prophecy, i.e. power of exposition of the Scriptures and preaching, for them. We next come to those sentences which bear directly upon our enquiry (1 Corinthians 14:13), "Let him that speaketh in a tongue pray that he may interpret." There were then in the Corinthian Church examples of that division of these closely connected gifts which in the enumeration of spiritual gifts the Apostle seems to imply, some spake with tongues who could not interpret, and others could interpret who did not speak with tongues. And the next words confirm this view, "If I pray in a tongue my spirit prayeth," (and in this way I edify myself,) "but my understanding is unfruitful." Therefore the Apostle desires that form of power for himself which in a congregation shall exercise both spirit and understanding. He himself bad this gift in great fulness, but in the Church it is not that which he would desire to use, lest the unlearned should not be able to say Amen to his giving of thanks. For in the ordinary church-assembly if the gift of tongues were exercised, it would seem madness to those Corinthian unbelievers who came in, when they heard a speaker uttering a foreign language to a congregation who were all Greeks, and their minister a Greek likewise. St Paul therefore ordains that if any man speak in a tongue in the Church, he must have an interpreter or else must keep silence. From which ordinance also it appears that there were those who, though endowed with the gift of speaking with tongues, were yet not able to interpret to the congregation the words which they were empowered to speak.

In these passages we have all the references to this gift of the Holy Ghost which seem to help us to appreciate in some degree what its character was. Whatever may have been the case at Pentecost, certainly in the Corinthian Church the power of speaking seems not always to have had with it the power of interpretation, though in some cases it had, and all were to pray for the one to be given with the other. Yet in this whole account it is to be borne in mind that we have no indication that such gifts were frequent in Corinth, but only that the members of the Church longed to possess them. From this wish the Apostle dissuades them, because their duty was to minister to believers rather than to unbelievers, whereas on those occasions where the gift was most markedly bestowed, as related by the author of the Acts, viz. at the house of Cornelius, and in the heathen and multilingual maritime city of Ephesus, as well as at the outpouring on Pentecost, there was the probability of having an audience on whom such a display of God's gifts would be likely to produce the same kind of effect which had been produced in Jerusalem on the first manifestation.