On Sunday 24 May the church celebrates Pentecost. Before the sermon about the Spirit and the fire, there is a detail in Acts 2 that is easy to read past: God spoke to every person in the room in the language they grew up with. A few thoughts for the week before Pentecost.
On Sunday 24 May, churches around the world celebrate Pentecost.
Most of us know the outline of the story: the disciples gathered in one place, a sound like a mighty rushing wind, tongues as of fire, Peter standing up to preach. There is a detail in the middle of it that is easy to read past, and it is the one we keep coming back to.
"When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place." (Acts 2:1, ESV)
Then the Spirit came, and "they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance." (Acts 2:4, ESV)
Luke tells us who was in the city that day: "Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. And at this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one was hearing them speak in his own language." (Acts 2:5 to 6, ESV)
And the crowd asks the question that carries the whole scene:
And how is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language?
Parthians and Medes, people from Egypt and Libya, visitors from Rome, Cretans and Arabians. Luke lists them almost like a roll call, and their conclusion is simple: "we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God." (Acts 2:11, ESV)
Think about what God did not do that morning. He did not give the crowd one shared language for the occasion. He did not ask the visitors from Mesopotamia and Cappadocia to manage in Aramaic, or in Greek, the language most of them probably could have followed.
Instead, each one heard the mighty works of God in the language of their own home. The language of their mother, of their childhood prayers, of the market at home. Many who have preached on Acts 2 have read it alongside Babel in Genesis 11, where languages scattered people. At Pentecost the languages were not taken away. They were gathered, and every one of them carried the same good news.
We find that deeply moving. The first sermon of the church was received in many languages at once, and none of them was treated as second best.
People who have learned a second language well know the difference. You can follow a lecture, a news broadcast, a business meeting in your second language. But when someone speaks to you about grief, or love, or God, something in you listens differently in the language you grew up with.
Missionaries and Bible translators have a name for it: the heart language. It is why so many have given their lives to put Scripture into the languages people actually speak at home. And Pentecost tells us that God thought of it first.
At Pentecost the languages were not taken away. They were gathered.
Peter ends his sermon with a promise that reaches well beyond the room: "For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself." (Acts 2:39, ESV)
In many of our churches, the people who are "far off" are not far away at all. They are sitting in the room. A family who moved for work. A student here for a year. A grandmother who came to live with her children and never learned the language of the country. They are welcome, they are greeted at the door, and then the sermon begins in a language they only half follow.
None of these needs a budget, and none of them is a test of anyone's church. They are simply ways of letting the story of Acts 2 be heard in the room.
Read Acts 2 in several languages. Ask members who grew up with another language to read verses 1 to 11 aloud, one after the other, in their own language. Let the room hear what the crowd in Jerusalem heard.
Pray in more than one language. A short prayer in each of the languages present, even a single sentence, says more than any announcement about welcome.
Put the reading on the screen in a second language. If you know a guest speaks Persian or Spanish or Ukrainian, show the Bible reading in their language too.
Ask the guest about their own Pentecost. Many churches around the world celebrate it with their own customs. Ask, and listen.
We build MulingStream because of this chapter. It lets a guest follow the sermon live, in their own language, on the phone in their pocket: they scan a code, pick their language, and listen or read along. Since March it translates what the preacher means rather than word by word, and when a verse is quoted, Smart Hints show that verse from a Bible translation in the listener's own language.
If you would like to hear what that is like, the listener demo room is open around the clock. Pick a language and listen for a few minutes.
But this post is not about a product. It is about a morning in Jerusalem when God made sure that every person in the crowd heard Him in the language of their heart. May your church have a joyful Pentecost, and may everyone in your room hear the mighty works of God.
Tell us about your congregation and the languages in your room. We answer every message ourselves.