Holy Spirit falls (watch out!)

 Second Saturday of Advent

Yesterday was Marianne's and my 38th wedding anniversary. It was the first anniversary we have ever had on which we did not go out to dinner. We did order and pick up from Stoney River in Chapel. The food was both excellent and bountiful. We're still feasting on leftovers.

Today our long term friends, frequent travel companions, and avid blog readers, Kin and Vicki Church drove from N. Wilkesboro to have lunch on our socially distanced deck with us. We spent a great four hours together; hence, the lateness of today's blog.

We did determine some suspected email problems. While you can make comments on the comment section of my blog, you cannot (if you are getting the blog off your email) hit reply on the blog to email me personally. You need to hit "compose" on your email server and send directly to candmwilson401@att.net.

I know that I have missed some email from some of you. 

Today is Acts Bible Study. Please read Acts 10:44-48. 

This a brief but highly complex pericope that will take me two days to unravel. Peter has just preached a powerful and effective sermon to a predominantly gentile crowd in Caesarea. Our text today is the crowd's response. 

Many scholars have noted to the effect that while Jesus is the leading character in the gospels, the Holy Spirit--not Peter, not Paul--is the leading character in Acts. That is certainly the case in today's text. Peter has preached, but the Holy Spirit has inspired. The Holy Spirit is "poured out" upon the gentiles, like water in a baptism. Indeed Peter will instruct them to be baptized, their having already been "baptized in the Spirit." Here we come to an important point for Christianity today. in this age of rapidly growing world-wide Pentecostalism, while virtually every other form of Christianity is in decline. 

Peter and the other Jewish Christians who were with him heard these new believers "speaking in tongues and extolling God." Is their speaking in tongues a repeat of Pentecost? Are they speaking in other known languages or are they doing glossolalia, speaking the sounds of language in a "non-language speech," or as Paul would call it, "the tongues of Angels." 

In Acts 19 we will encounter the one other instance of speaking in tongues in Acts. Luke gives us no clear indication as to whether this is a speaking in other known languages or whether it is glossolalia. Paul will talk extensively about speaking in tongues in 1 Corinthians 12 and 14. There it is clear that he is talking about glossolalia. 

 

Speaking in tongues was a common practice in Christian churches in the first and second centuries. In the the late second century a Christian leader named Montanus made speaking in tongues and prophecy the keys of his message. He had two prophetesses (perhaps I should just say prophets), Priscilla and Maximilla who carried his evangelistic message with him. His movement rapidly grew in popularity. Montanus himself got a little too carried away with it all. He began to claim that he, Montanus, was the Holy Spirit. He was soon proclaimed a heretic by the Great Church. His movement declined and fell and with its end came the end of speaking in tongues until...the beginning of the 20th century, December 31, 1900.

To be continued.

Faithfully,

Christian