Many Don’t Realize THIS about Pentecost…

Pentecost as a Sign of Judgment, Not Excuse for Disorder

This happens all the time and maybe you've done this or have seen this yourself. People will attempt to justify this sort of behavior by pointing to the event at Pentecost in Acts chapter 2. It goes a little something like this.

Hey man, this is totally legit. Don't speak against something you don't understand. The Holy Spirit works in many different ways. Remember, they thought the disciples were drunk in Acts 2. Did they though?

Did the onlookers in Acts chapter 2 who were hearing the disciples speak in foreign languages actually think they were drunk? First of all, I don't know what kind of sweet wine you're drinking that would make you act like this.

The disciples were not flopping on the ground nor convulsing. They were proclaiming the gospel in the languages of the surrounding nations who had gathered in Jerusalem for the feast. And the text actually says that mockers said they were drunk.

Mockery, Scoffing, and the Pattern of Divine Judgment

Mockery is inherently insincere, similar to scoffing, and there is a deceitfulness involved in this activity. For example, the same word translated deceiver is translated as scoffed in 2 Chronicles 36 .16, wherein under the reign of Zedekiah in Judah, the Lord sends prophet after prophet to his people who were following all the abominations of the nations and defiling the house of the Lord.

But they continually mock the messengers of God, despised his words, and scoffed at his prophets until the wrath of the Lord arose against his people. And of course, in judgment upon his people, he allows them to be taken into Babylonian captivity.

And note this, the temple is destroyed to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah and the other prophets of Yahweh. So what's really going on when Luke, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, includes this detail about the mockers in Acts 2?

Tongues in Acts 2 and the Judgment on Unbelieving Israel

Well, it isn't that they actually thought the disciples were drunk, and it wasn't included to be used as a proof text for excusing wild behavior in churches. Speaking the gospel in the tongues of the Gentile nations was an act of divine judgment upon hard-hearted, stiff-necked, unbelieving Israel who has crucified her Messiah and who now mock the disciples as they prophesy to the nations under the power of the Holy Spirit just as Zedekiah and the people mocked God's prophets in 2 Chronicles 36.

And just as it resulted in the destruction of the temple then, so too will the temple be destroyed in 70 AD. The tongues spoken in Acts 2 are a sign of God's judgment upon those mockers and unbelievers.

Paul’s Teaching on Tongues in 1 Corinthians 14

Paul actually draws upon the fact that God uses unintelligible speech as a sign of his judgment to exhort the church at Corinth to a mature exercise of the gift lest unbelievers hear uninterpreted tongues and mock them.

Will they not say that you are mad, thus becoming hardened in their unbelief? 1 Corinthians 14 .22. So then tongues are for a sign, but to unbelievers. And in the preceding verse, he quotes the very prophets that the people of Israel mocked and from Isaiah 28 .11, 33 .19, and Jeremiah 5 .15, Paul says in verse 21 of 1 Corinthians 14,.

This is not what the mocking in Acts 2 is about. They did not sincerely believe them to be drunk. Peter answers their mockery in Acts 2 .15, and let us answer those who use this text to excuse unbiblical, buffoonerific behavior with a right understanding of God's word.