Beyond the Walls with Jeremy Thomas
Jeremy approaches Bible teaching with a passion for getting the basic doctrines explained so that the individual can understand them and then apply them to circumstances in their life. These basic and important lessons are nestled in a framework of history and progression of revelation from the Bible so the whole of Scripture can be applied to your physical and spiritual life.
Beyond the Walls with Jeremy Thomas
NT Framework - Tongues of Fire
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The visible manifestation of tongues of fire residing on the apostles at Pentecost followed by those hearing their own dialect spoken perfectly was proof of the Holy Spirit at work. And thus begins the Church, a unique and distinct entity from Israel.
More information about Beyond the Walls, including additional resources can be found at www.beyondthewalls-ministry.com
This series included graphics to illustrate what is being taught, if you would like to watch the teachings you can do so on Rumble (https://rumble.com/user/SpokaneBibleChurch) or on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtV_KhFVZ_waBcnuywiRKIyEcDkiujRqP).
Jeremy Thomas is the pastor at Spokane Bible Church in Spokane, Washington and a professor at Chafer Theological Seminary. He has been teaching the Bible for over 20 years, always seeking to present its truths in a clear and understandable manner.
Welcome And Quick Setup
Welcome to Beyond the Walls with Jeremy Thomas and our series on the New Testament framework. Today, a smaller, bite-sized piece from the larger lesson. We hope you enjoy
Tongues Of Fire As A Sign
it. Verse 3 is the second miracle. It's a visual. It says, And there appeared to them tongues as of fire. Tongues as of fire, like flames of fire, distributing themselves, and they rested on each one of them. Back in my early days of seminary, which was in Fort Worth, we would we lived in Lubbock, but we would go there for courses and conferences, Robin and I. And one of the places that we went was Biblical Arts Center that was up in Plano, Texas. It burned to the ground actually a few years after. But they had a giant panoramic of Acts chapter two. It was huge. It was the distance from that corner to that corner, probably. I think it's 120 feet or something like that. And you it was an amazing piece of piece of art. Obviously all burned now, but um it pictured you know the tongues as a fire resting on each of I think the uh twelve in that great picture that
Fire Spreads From One Source
was done. But you'll notice if you read this verse carefully, the flame was at one point, one source, and then it began to move out and settle or rest upon each of the either twelve or hundred and twenty, whichever ended up speaking in in tongues, right? Um and the meaning of the the text when it says distributing themselves is that the like fire, it moves rapidly. You really got to get it under control, or you'll be in big trouble, right? And so um it rapidly moved from one source to rest upon either the twelve or the hundred and twenty, and they were presumably in this one place, together in this one room.
Spirit Filling And Church Beginnings
And verse four describes they were all filled with the Holy Spirit. Like I said, this doesn't say they were baptized, but we know they were because chapter one, verse five says, hey, not many days from now you're going to be baptized. And that is what introduced them at this moment into the body of Christ. This is when the body of Christ technically began. Because the baptism of the Spirit is what is necessary to introduce a person into the church. And we've gone through the proofs for this in the last months or so. So you know, 1 Corinthians 12, 13, for we are all baptized into one body by one spirit. Okay, and that one body is the church, Christ Jesus Himself being the head. So this is a new thing that has begun. Now they don't understand that. Again, they they're gonna have to figure this out over the course of the book of Acts. But it did begin at this moment.
Glossa And The Miracle Of Speech
And notice what they did when they were all filled with the Holy Spirit. It says they began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit was giving them utterance. So this is the third miracle. It's an audible and visual, because you've got the fire, tongues of fire resting above them, and they're audibly speaking. The tongues, which is the Greek word glosa, in specific dialects, because later dialect is actually a Greek word that's used in this chapter.
Dialectos And Why It Matters
Notice verse 6. And when this sound occurred, the crowd came together and they were bewildered because each one of them was hearing them speak in his own language. But that word is not glosa, which we usually just translate language, but it's the Greek word dialectos, which we get that word dialect. So there's language. We all speak English, probably as our first language here, but there are different dialects across our country. The people in Georgia don't speak the same as the people in Boston, you know. Uh, and the people in Boston don't speak the same as the people in California. They speak different dialects. There are nuances, and when you run into these people, you always say, wait, where are you from? Uh because you are associating that dialect with a specific area. And they did the same thing. The amazing thing was not so much that they spoke foreign languages, lots of people speak foreign languages. What was so amazing is that these people were Galileans, and they were able to speak in the specific dialectical nuances, basically perfect speech for each of the regions mentioned in this chapter.
Galilee Versus Judea Shock Factor
So, again, let's don't forget, there are two types of Jews here. There are the native and the diaspora, but then there's another distinction that's happening. There's a distinction between Judea and Galilee. Judea is the area around Jerusalem in the south. Galilee was to the north, around the Sea of Galilee, which is a lake, not a sea, a freshwater lake, also called the Lake of Kinneret. Got some other names. But the people that lived up there were the rural people. And the people that lived in Judea were considered the urban people. And they had the same divisions that we have, uh, as far as people who are urban and people who are rural. The people who are urban who live in all the big cities think that that's sophisticated. And they're educated. And those people out there, those rural people, they're stupid country pumpkins. And that's the way that they think. This is the way people think. And uh even the people who are rural think, I don't want to be one of those people. And the people who are urban say, I don't want to be one of those people. Well, that's the same exact distinction that they had among Jews who lived in the land. You had the country bumpkins, the Galileans, and you had the sophisticated, educated urbanites. And um so that's part of why they are so shocked and astonished when they hear language, languages in very specific nuanced dial dialect coming out of the mouth of country bumpkins. Uh this just is what is going on? They could not believe it. So that's part of what is happening.
Visuals Online And Final Thanks
Thank you for joining us on Beyond the Walls with Jeremy Thomas. If you would like to see the visuals that went along with today's sermon, you can find those on Rumble and on YouTube under Spokane Bible Church. That is where Jeremy is the pastor and teacher. We hope you found today's lesson productive and useful in growing closer to God and walking more obediently with Him. If you found this podcast to be useful and helpful, then please consider rating us in your favorite podcast app. And until next time, we hope you have a blessed and wonderful day.