This morning we come to two of the temporary gifts. One is a gift of discernment, or discerning of spirits, and the second one is tongues. I wanted to include interpretation of tongues as well this morning, and I realized yesterday, late this morning, when I got up, And I might then combine it next week with the first of the permanent gifts. And so we're almost at that point of being able to look at the permanent gifts. And to me, that's what's exciting, because that's what's a here and now. And there's so much there to encourage us when we look at those. But you've got to have this basis. Otherwise, the here and now is all confused, as it is for most of Christendom today. And that is particularly the case when it comes to the gift of tongues. Now, if you have kind of said, okay, what you're saying makes sense over the past few weeks, and yeah, temporary, permanent, but you just don't, you know, not entirely convinced or it's not clear. as you go through, you may not be able to need to do that. But there's so much more that is so important today that's not on your sheet. But if I were to put it on your sheet, you would have had three or four, and then it would have just got a bit overwhelming. So better to concentrate on what I'm saying and try to get everywhere that you know you want to take out Just this week, I had a colleague come up to me and ask a question about the gift of tongues. I won't go into all the details of that. This is something that confuses a lot of people. Fortunately, I was able to give her some insight and print off that chapter that I used, the basis of our lesson today, and give to her. So there's a lot of confusion. And I don't in any way intend to be critical of people that believe that the gift of tongues still is here. In fact, to speak in a language they don't know that other people understand. There's so many reports on the mission field. And you all have heard some of them. And I heard one in particular years ago when I was in seminary. The missionary was a tribes missionary that go to primitive people. And he was talking about being in a jungle situation with a primitive tribe, unable to communicate with them. and he just spoke in English and somehow they understood or thought he was speaking in English, who knows? Now, I don't have any reason to doubt that because God can do miracles and he's free to do whatever he wants. But that missionary had one experience of a miracle. He didn't go around all the tribes in the world doing this, okay, so he didn't have If God wants to enable someone to be able to communicate across languages, he can and he will. But we're talking specifically now, and this is critical, we get this in our minds at the beginning, we're talking specifically about what is the gift of tongues, the gift of tongues, and is what we see or is anything we see today equivalent to what the scripture tells us about it. And I think this will be eye-opening and hopefully very helpful. So let's begin. Gifts of discernment, discerning of spirits it's called in 1 Corinthians 12. I just shortened it to discernment, discernment in tongues. We'll start with discernment, but before we do that we're going to talk about both of their limitations. And this is something we've done every week, just to kind of refocus and review. So this is not new information. Prophecy, tongues, and knowledge. Those three gifts are mentioned in 1 Corinthians 13a as being gifts that will come to an end or be rendered inoperative, or you might even use the term, will be made obsolete, because that's basically what happens. When you go to 1 Corinthians 7 or 12, 7 to 10, it lists nine gifts. They're all temporary. Six, you have three are prophecy, tongues, knowledge. It's over there a chapter later. Six other gifts are grouped with prophecy, tongues, and knowledge to make a total of nine, and they're grouped into three classes in 1 Corinthians 12, 7 to 10. The gift of discernment is grouped into the second class, tongues into the third class. We haven't talked about why they were rooted in the circle of life, and I just realized that's kind of a hole in what we've done so far, but I'll probably come back to that next week. So in verse 10 of 1 Corinthians 12, to another discerning of spirits, to another different kinds of tongues, to another interpretation of tongues, but we're not gonna get to interpretation today. Again, our chart. The first two, wisdom and knowledge, are grouped together with an adjective which means another of the same kind. Then you have a different adjective beginning with faith. It says another of a different kind. So different than the first two. And then it's grouped with the same adjective we used up here to say another of the same, another of the same, another of the same. So that makes a second class. It ends with a discerning experience. And then when it comes to tongues, it says in the original to another of a different kind tongues and interpretation of their group into that final classification of two. Now, here's 1 Corinthians 13a, love never fails, but whether there are prophecies, they will fail. Prophecies? The second class, right? So all these are the same as prophecy. That's class two. And whether there are tongues, they will cease. Tongues is a representative one in 1 Corinthians 13, eight. And you find it here, and another one like it. Same kind of interpretation. And then finally he says whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. And that was up here, and it's linked to the same with wisdom. You have your three classes. So let's talk about the gift of discernment. The word translated discerning, in 1 Corinthians 12, 10, the discerning, the gift is called the discerning of spirits, of spirits, tells you what it is that the discerning is focused on. The word translated discerning means literally, I'm going back to the Greek definitions on every one of these gifts, How it was used in the Greek Koine language, Koine Greek, which was the specific type of Greek that was spoken at that time. The word translated certainly means to examine or judge something. That's the way it was used throughout Greek literature. The gift involved an unusual and heightened capacity to rightly distinguish between truth and error. So let's look at some references. Here's where you're gonna need your Bible. in Acts. First one, chapter 8 of Acts. So if you could turn there with me, it would be, I think, most helpful to you. I'll be reading out of the New American Standard. Acts chapter 8, beginning at verse 18. This is the story, the account of of Peter being called to go to Samaria. Philemon has already went there and preached and people had been saved. The Samaritans were not Jews, they were part Jews. You'd all probably know that story, when the northern tribes were taken captive, they were, you know, a great a group of them taken away and they'd have to be never to return. And they left some, and then they brought in other Gentiles, so they intermarried, and they were just, you know, they developed their own idolatry and religion. So they weren't really Jewish, but there was some sort of a connection. And Philip took the gospel, the first one to take the gospel, to the Samaritans. And that's where we have, that's where we take up the story in verse 18. Now when Simon, there's a Simon here, is Simon the sorcerer. There was a particular guy there that involved probably in the Samaritan worship and sorcery and magic and all the rest. And verse 18 says, now when Simon saw the spirit was bestowed through the laying on of the apostles' hands, he offered them money, saying, give this authority to me as well so that Everyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit. Well, that's a little presumptive there. He didn't suddenly become an apostle, but that's easily misunderstood maybe by him. Verse 20, but Peter said to him, may your silver perish with you because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money. You have no part or portion in this matter for your heart is not right before God. How did Peter know that? Well, he thought he could purchase something that was spiritual. That's a hint. But what about this? Some people think, well, maybe Simon was a believer. He just wasn't taught. He wasn't thinking straight when he said this. Maybe he was a little materialistic. But Peter looks at the situation and says, gee, no. This guy's not even a believer. He's wanting to have the power of authority. That's what Peter is saying. He says, you have no part or portion in this matter. Your heart is not right before God. Therefore, verse 24, verse 22, therefore repent of this weakness of yours and pray to the Lord that if possible the attention of your heart may be forgiven you. Peter is able to look at him and diagnose his spiritual condition, discern his error versus what was the real thing. I suggest you, and again, we've said this before, we're looking at Acts, it's a book of history, tells you what happens. Now, we're trying to look at the theology of Paul, and then go back to the book of Acts and say, how does it occur, or how did it occur? So we can't say this with 100% accuracy, but it seems like this was a case that could be included. Let's go to Acts 13. Acts 13, Paul and Barnabas have embarked on their missionary journey, and they have left Antioch. They've sailed to Cyprus, they're there. Chapter 13 of Acts, at verse nine. Let's back up, actually. Let's back up to verse seven, let's back up to Verse five, when they had reached Salamis, which is a city there on the island. When they reached Salamis, they began to proclaim the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews, and they also had John as their helper, John Mark, who later went home, if you remember. When they had gone through the whole island, as far as Papos, they found a magician, a Jewish false prophet, whose name was Bar-Jesus, who was with the procouncil, Sergius Paulus, a man of intelligence. This man summoned, that is, Sergius Paulus, the procouncil, the Roman governor. He summoned Barnabas and Saul and sought to hear the word of God, but Elimas, the sorcerer, the magician, or so his name is translated, was opposing them, seeking to turn the procouncil away from the faith. But Saul, who was also known as Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, on him, underline that. It seems to be something that indicates discernment given by God as far as I can tell in the text. He fixed his gaze on him and said, you who are full of deceit and fraud, the son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, will you not cease to make crooked the straight ways of the Lord? Paul didn't know he was supposed to be sensitive to And behold, the hand of the Lord is upon you, he says, and you will be blind and not see the sun for a time. And we cover that when we talk about the gift of miracle. But before there was the miracle, I think there was the complete discernment Paul had. Let's go to chapter 14, just one chapter over. At verse nine, and here we have something that happened in Lystra, John, or Acts 14, nine. Backing up to verse eight, at Lystra a man was sitting who had no strength in his feet, lame from his mother's womb, who had never walked. This man was listening to Paul as he spoke. Who, Paul that is, the who, the relative there, who when he had fixed his gaze on him, there it is again, I underline it, I think it's an indication from an outward observation made by Luke, as he describes it, of something going on with Paul that brought discernment to the matter. It's his gaze on him, and had seen that he had faith to be made well. How did Paul see that? He discerned it. In other words, he discerned that while this lame man was listening to him, that he already had placed faith in what Paul was saying, placed faith in Jesus Christ. Paul also had the discernment to know that the man could exercise his faith. Now, I'm not saying the man had to be faith or had to have enough faith to be healed. That had nothing to do with this. That's not what it's saying. And unfortunately, some faith healers like to use that as an excuse, well, they can't heal this or that, well, they, that person didn't have enough faith. Look, if you have the gift of healing, according to the Bible, you can heal, it's God's will. It doesn't matter what the faith is of the other person, even if that person's a believer or not. So why does this say, Paul perceived, or Paul was able, where we at? Verses nine and 10. Let's go back and make sure. This man was listening to Paul, and Paul had fixed his gaze on him, and had seen that he had the faith to be made well. But watch what it says next. said with a loud voice, Paul said with a loud voice, stand up on your feet, and he leaped up and began to walk. Now, there was the faith Paul knew he would exercise. It wasn't the faith to be healed, it was the faith to accept the healing. To some degree, I can't say I fully understand it. But Paul's first command was get up and walk. That takes some faith, right? You've never walked? And someone tells you to walk? Why did Paul want him to do that? Why did Paul not let him leave him alone, let him discover later? It's a sign, signs of an apostle we talked about earlier. It was so other people would see and believe. So I think we see discernment in each of these cases. Would you also throw the story of Ananias and Sapphires in there with Peter exposing their failure to give everything that they purchased or paid? Yes. Acts 5? Yes, I think you could. Here's why. If you read Acts 5, again, Acts is telling you what happened. Peter just was informed by somebody who knew. Maybe it wasn't. But really, when you read it, he doesn't hesitate. And he doesn't say, somebody told me, or we have the evidence on you. He just says it. So I think that's probably another case. Another edit I've got to make. Thank you, Larry. That should be added here. OK. Any questions? You see so many things in the apostles in so many contexts, it's almost hard to keep them all in mind. All right, let's go to the next step, and this is just a final comment I have here. The gift of discernment would have been of great importance in the early days of the church when there was no New Testament. Yeah, there were pieces of it, letters of it going around, but most people didn't have that. And it certainly wasn't complete. with the danger of false preaching and teaching about, this was a very important gift. So we will leave discernment with that. We've got much more to talk about. Can I ask a question? Sure. Before we get off discernment. There have been times in my life and probably maybe other people in this room where we prayed for discernment, judgment, making the right decision. How do you distinguish that prayer from the gift of discernment? Well, my mind immediately goes to James. James says, if anyone lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, and God will give it. So, wisdom, discernment, I don't think there's a whole lot of distinction there in our case. In other words, what you're describing is that this, this is what we need to understand. All these things we see in the temporary gifts, have really, they were possessed by individuals, not everybody. I had a question recently by somebody about, you know, why some people spoke in tongues and some people don't, and shouldn't, if you believe in tongues, shouldn't everybody speak in tongues? And so, you just go and you find that in the New Testament. Some did, some don't. Some did, some didn't. So what is limited in the temporary gifts really is expanded to everybody. It's not a gift. It's not a spectacular, but through the word, we can have that discernment that you're talking about. When it comes to prayer and asking God for wisdom and it comes through the sources of wisdom he provides for us. So there's a correlation there. It's not exactly the same, but it's still what's needed. Yeah. What I think is really important is to be finally in tune with the Holy Spirit so that you can hear him. To have that discernment, you've got to quiet your mind. You've got to not be stressed out and agitated and just trying to rush into something, but to hold back and wait. the Lord. That's why we talk about waiting on the Lord a lot. To have that discernment to say, Lord, I don't wanna just rush in and just do whatever. I want you to guide me and to be completely still before him so that he. I think that's that's important. And I think it's neat cuz sometimes Michael and I we pray about certain things and we'll come up with the same exact answer and we're praying right separately over time and I said, I know you're not gonna believe me. This is what I came up with. He says, you're not gonna believe this. I got the exact same So it was like a confirmation. My experience in life has been that there are certain times, there have been certain occasions where I couldn't explain it, but I knew exactly what I needed to do. But they're fairly rare. Most of the time, God puts you in the circumstances and the situation and sovereignly controls that. And, you know, we talk about open doors, shutting doors, and giving us opportunities. A lot of times His will is communicated to us that way. And I've always, years ago, this is back before my wife and I got married, we were talking about something about God's will, and I remember the conversation, and I remember telling her at the time, I said, you know, I've come to the conclusion that sometimes I got real clarity, and other times, even though I would like to have it, to me to make a decision. But God's sovereign and when he does that, as long as we're in a right relationship with him, I think we can trust our decision. If he doesn't, if we're put in a position where we have to make a decision at a certain point. You know, just as an illustration or for purposes of discussion maybe, I think back to our prayer today for Karen and for making the right decision and knowing how to make the right decision to share with her daughter-in-law concerns about boundaries and so forth. To me, that's asking the Lord to give her, well, wisdom, certainly, discernment to know how to say or deal with the situation in a way that the other side can be sensitive to her loving correction or Judgment. Right, exactly. And the situation, the circumstances. This army of God has brought the situation that she knows she needs to deal with, and she still needs wisdom to know how to deal with it. There's just various ways God thinks through you. It's been very important to have a very good observation. Sometimes we see what needs to be done, but we don't know exactly how. That's the way to do it, because we need that wisdom. Okay, the gift of tongues. Any other, before we go to the gift of tongues, anything else? The gift of tongues. First thing you have to understand, and you're not going to understand the gift of tongues until you understand this. The word translated tongues in the English Bible beginning with the King James Version. It was passed down to the New American Standard and a lot of modern versions are still there. The word translated tons is the Greek word which normally, normally is translated languages. So why do they keep translating it tons? Because that's what, that was the president that was sent by the King James. And probably in the 1500s, there wasn't so much confusion over, say, someone's tongue versus someone's language. But today, there's a lot of confusion over tongues versus language. Because tongues has assumed in Christendom a certain phenomenon. But we have to remember, When you look at the scripture, the scripture here is not coming at us from a modern perspective or what's going on in the church today. It was written 2,000 years ago. And 2,000 years ago, when Paul wrote 1 Corinthians, the Greek reading it would read in languages. what the word meant. So it's not, it's not unintelligible, undecipherable sounds. Whatever it was, it was a language, just like English is a language, or French is a language, or Spanish is a language. So the word translated tongues is the Greek word for languages. Now I want you to turn to Acts 2, 4-11. We need to go to Acts 2, 4-11. This is the account of the apostles speaking in tongues. the people in London did, and the miracle was the people just heard this unintelligible sound as they understood it. Or was it an understandable language? Now you might want to make a little note on your, what's already made for you on your handout. You might want to make this the margin of your Bible. In Acts 2, 4 to 11, where it says the word tongues, it's the word language. And where it says the word language, it's the word dialect in the Greek. It's just confusing. This is translators translating on that King James Precedent and worried about how you've got different people that have different beliefs and how they're going to take all this and then just leave it. Now that may be a little hard. It's a little hard to understand that just when I put it there in print. So I'm going to give you a chart here, or not a chart, And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other, that's tongues in the New King James and other translations. It's the Greek word languages. They began to speak in other languages as the Spirit gave them utterance. And there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews devoutly in every nation. And when the sound occurred, there was a sound that got people's attention. It wasn't the tongue. Or else it also was a sound accompanying the tongue somehow. of all the two came together and were confused because everyone heard them speak in his own and it says language and that's the Greek word for dialect. So where the English says language and language is dialect and dialect and when the English says tongues and tongues, it's language and language. All you have to remember is language is the entire language, the dialect is a subcategory of the language. I grew up in Appalachia. So I had an Appalachian accent. Maybe I still do. I have an Appalachian phraseology of things I would say. A certain way I pronounce words. When I moved to North Carolina, after growing up in West Virginia, pastoring in West Virginia for nine years, moved to North Carolina, I had to learn a new language. No, no, it was English. It was the same language. I had to learn a new dialect. Because they pronounced words differently and they made short words very long. And what happens in the South, right? And certain, they used certain words I didn't understand to mean certain things. I always called the trunk, that thing in the back, the trunk of my car. Is that what you call it? Not in North Carolina, it's the boot. Someone said, I gotta put this in my boot, and I'm like, no, that wouldn't work, you know? Different dialect. Same English language. That's what he's talking about here. They spoke in tongues, which is language. Everyone heard of their own language. But what really grabbed people's attention is they didn't only hear a language, they heard their own dialect. And they heard it from Jews whose natural tongue was Aramaic at this time, who lived in Galilee, who had a specific Galilean dialect and accent. which they didn't have in the south of Israel. Here, okay. I can say, in that circumstance, it seemed like there would be an added effect of a oneness, of a relationship with all these unrelated people that would make them feel like they're more connected. I'm sure that was part of it, yeah. But now, let's talk about what was the language? What was the language they were speaking? It says they spoke in tongues, plural. So one fossil may have spoken one language, another may have spoken a different language, and so on. Yeah. I mean, I never really thought about that. But when we're talking about tongues, did they really speak a different language? Or did they just talk in their own language? But the people who heard it, heard it in their language, the thing is only the Lord can do that. Yes. I mean, I can speak to somebody and they hear it in their language. They didn't know the language they spoke in. So maybe in their mind they were speaking Aramaic or Hebrew or Greek or whatever they knew, but the people were hearing it but yet the scripture says the people who spoke had the gift of tongues. So there's mystery here in the power of God here that's miraculous and is really beyond our ability to fully grasp it, I think, but good point. So languages across the Greek world, I said the Roman Empire, the Rome controlled the whole of the known world, basically, but before Rome controlled that area. Alexander the Great, the Greeks did. And during the time of Alexander the Great, Greek became the universal language of the whole Mediterranean region. It's kind of like today. You can go pretty much to any nation on Earth, to any place where they're involved in, especially in commerce, trade, and somebody there's gonna be speaking English. English is the language of the trade in this world, the predominant one. Doesn't mean everybody knows it, but everybody who needs to know it pretty much knows it. Greek was spoken throughout the entire empire, to some degree or another. The Romans were Italian. They knew Italian, Latin, I guess it would have been, but they also knew Greek. And out in Egypt, they spoke whatever Egyptians speak. Egyptian language, or the Coptic might be the right word. But they also knew Greek. In Jerusalem, the Jews spoke Hebrew in the south a lot. They spoke Aramaic and Galilee a lot, but they all pretty much knew Hebrew, whatever taught that. What was the need? Here's what I want you to grasp right here. Everybody just stop for a minute. Take a deep breath, okay? What we all need to grasp is this. God didn't need to use the gift of tongues for the apostles to communicate with those people. He didn't need to. He couldn't use, they could have spoken Greek in almost Look, these were the predominant Jews throughout the empire who came to Jerusalem for the festival, for the feast. They all knew Greek. This wasn't a communication problem. It was something else. The wheel's turning now because we tend to think, for years I struggled with it. I'll grant you that it'd be better for them to hear it in their own natural tongue, it'd be more clear, but it really wasn't that, hey, the Apostle Paul did all his missionary journeys throughout the Greek, or the Roman Empire, and he spoke what? Greek and everybody understood, except when he spoke tongues. But it wasn't a communication problem. Once you get what tongues was, a language, and then what happened in Jerusalem, was not to overcome a communication problem. You're a long way to understand this. What was tongues? Tongues, the gift of tongues was a sign. So it involved communication. It communicated something very important. It verified, validated the gospel that the apostles were preaching. So it certainly involved communication. But it wasn't something that was designed to overcome a communication problem. It was something that was there as a sign. And to that point, the amazement part that they were, the part that they were bewildered and wondered about was about the dialect, not the language. You're getting ahead of me. We'll come back to that. Let's go to 1 Corinthians 14, 21 to 22. In chapter 14 of 1 Corinthians, Paul has a lot to say about tongues and we'll come back to this next week and sort through this in terms of the interpretation issue. But all I want you to see is Paul writes this in 1 Corinthians 14, 21 to 22. In verse 22 he says, therefore tongues are for a sign, not to those who believe, but to unbelievers. Tons were assigned to all those people gathered in Jerusalem who did not know about Jesus. They were Jews through and through. They weren't apt to just check that because somebody said something nice, or even something amazing. It took a little something extra to convince them. Well, didn't Jesus, did signs and wonders to basically tell them all signs and wonders only can be done by God. So it points to Jesus as being God, and the apostles, when they did signs and wonders, it points to the unbeliever to Jesus. Yes, but remember this now. All those Jews that were gathered in Jerusalem, they weren't there to hear Jesus. They didn't see the miracles. They may not even have heard about it. They're scattered throughout the Roman Empire. Gathered. So they need a little extra. It didn't help the Pharisees. They just said no. So it didn't mean that it was an automatic that was going to be believed. It was provided. All that Jesus did, all of his miracles. His resurrection. But these people that have gathered, they're Jews that gathered from the whole empire, they don't know about the Resurrection, they don't know about Jesus, they may not even have heard of the guy. There wasn't an internet back then, they didn't have TV and satellite, you know what I'm saying? They might have had a whiff of it, some travelers. That's why the sign was important. The sign then was first of all something that confirmed Now we're really narrowing this thing down. Confirm the gospel to unbelieving Jews. And for this, we need to go back to Acts 2. But before we go back to Acts 2, let's take another look at Acts, at 1 Corinthians 14, what we were just looking at. Tongues are assigned not for those who believe, but to unbelievers. What unbelievers? Whatever this people is. Because verse 21 says, in the law it is written, with men of other tongues and other lips will I speak to this people. Which was a sign, tongues were a sign to this people who have to be unbelievers. And it says, yet they will not hear me. Who does that describe? The Jews. Now, thousands of Jews from across the empire came to Jesus when the apostles spoke in tongues and thousands ran to the church. They're just a little minority compared to the whole of the Jewish people and the Jewish nation and the leaders of the Jewish nation who've already rejected Jesus. Here's something else. That first part, that's a quote from Isaiah 28, verses 11 and 12. Now, when you go look at it, you're gonna get confused, because it quotes the first phrase in verse 11 and the last phrase in verse 12. It leaves out the sinner's section. But Isaiah 28, 11, and 12, Isaiah was talking about the Jewish people, the people of Israel, when he wrote and he used the term this, Same term, quoted by Paul. So who was the sign for? Unbelievers. What unbelievers? The Jewish nation. Now let's go back to what we were talking about, and I told you to just wait a minute. And wow, we didn't see this before when we read it, did we? How many of you noticed that? gathered there, and they were dwelling in Jerusalem. That means they were there staying for a while. They didn't live there, but they'd come for the feast. They were dwelling in Jerusalem, Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. And the sound occurred, and all three came together. They were confused because they hadn't heard them speak in their own language. They were all amazed and marveled, saying to one another, look, are not All these who speak Galileans, they already, they knew somehow these were Galileans and they were speaking in whatever dialect of Greek they spoke in where they came from or whatever dialect of Latin or whatever dialect of whatever nation that they were used to using for their language. Again, it wasn't to overcome a communication problem. It used communication miracle to make them believe what was happening was real. And then you come down a little further, and it says, look at all of these, we're doing them here in our language, so forth. And then it says, here's some places they were from, Parthians, Medes, and Elamites, Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pothos, Asia, all these people, all these other places. Egypt, and the parts of Libya adjoining them, Cyrene, visitors from Rome, Both Jews and proselytes. Doesn't say Jews and Gentiles. Gentiles that come to believe in the law of Moses were called proselytes, so they were Gentile Jews. Yeah, if I may add something to the term dialect. I can't speak for all of that area, but I can speak for especially where my family's from. When we talk about dialects, it's more than just a different language. The dialect was very different because people at that time were not going to school, so they didn't learn the proper language. So, we grew up speaking Sicilian, but it's actually, we speak, we speak Schott, there's a certain dialect that we speak. Now, to, for those of us who come from that area, or came from that area, the dialect is much more important, there's much stronger bond. So, if you're in America, or you're, you know, when I was, when we visited North Italy, somebody recognized my dialect, oh, you're, you're from Schott. bond there. That's what you were saying earlier. Yeah. OK. Yeah. And so it's a much stronger. So in my mind, as I'm reading and hearing you, is that if they heard them speaking that dialect, there was a much more affinity to be able to bond with that person and to hear what they're saying and say, hey. That's something I didn't totally understand. Yeah, there's much more trust there because they're from my hometown. They're like family. So it's like. It makes sense. When I moved to North Carolina, I had to learn to talk like North Carolinians. They weren't going to adapt to me. I learned to talk their way. A lot of phrases. And then after a while, they thought I was one of them. At first, they thought I was an outsider. Very good. Thank you for that. Great observation. But it wasn't Gentiles, pagans here. It was either Jews or proselytes. Proselyte David, former pagan Gentile, comes to believe in the God of Israel. It all lines up, it makes sense. What Paul says in verse three is what we see here. You see, how many times, I know I've done it, how many times have you read it and never noticed that? Just gotta go over it, don't we? Because we're thinking communication problem. It was more of a cultural, religious problem. And verse 12. which comes after verse 11 right here, I just want to emphasize it, verse 12. So they were all amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, what could this mean? They got their attention. They saw the sign. So what was it? It was a sign. Just like Paul says in 1 Corinthians 14. But not only was it a sign to unbelieving Jews, not only was it a sign confirming the gospel, the truth of what was being preached to unbelieving Jews in Acts 2, 4, 11, but we find two other cases in Acts that the sign is reversed. The flip side of the slammer, as you say. This confused me for a long time. Well, I finally realized, Acts 10, 44 to 46, and Acts 19, 6, you find, well, in Acts 10, you find a Gentile who'd come to believe Cornelius, the Roman centurion, who his and his family speak in tongues. Who here's Peter and the Jews that came with him from Joplin? In this case, who was the unbeliever? Peter and the Jews didn't really, they weren't really ready to accept those Gentiles, and now they get to sign back. Woo! Amazing. You see the same thing in Acts 19, six, when Paul confronts the disciples of John the Baptist that had never even heard of Jesus Christ, and he informs them of Christ and the gospel, because they've spoken back to him. Now, he said, well, what kind of tongues do they speak to Paul? I'm thinking maybe Cornelius might have spoken Hebrew. That would have got Paul's attention. Or at least he heard it in Hebrew, right? Who knows if they actually came back. So you might want to take a look at those this week. We'll come back and see if you have any questions. information and scriptural elucidation, the one I'm citing. We're going to go back to 1 Corinthians 13a to do it. Yeah, one more. C. What's that? But you've already got it on your sheet, yeah? Okay, so you've got a cheat sheet this week. So you guys can figure it out. But we'll talk about it more next week. Any questions? See, I intended to get further. The more wound up I get, I may say more than I think I'm gonna say. I don't wanna get too far into this, but when I was raised, I think why, when I thought of the, I got a little bit confused on the concept of tongues, probably goes back, at least in my translation, to Acts two, verse two, where they saw what seemed to be tongues of fire. That's confusing. It's language, but sometimes it's also used to refer to the instrument of language. And it's referred to the instrument of language, not really in the tongues of fire, but by way of a metaphor. Because it, fire came down, but it separated into various, like, what happens next, but it's so close in proximity, our minds just do that. It's like I go to the dentist and the dentist says, get your tongue out of the way, I know what you're talking about, you're not talking about my language, you're talking about the instrument. But my tongue has a shape, and that's what you do. Anybody else? That's some really great comments, great questions, great observations tonight, thank you.