There’s been a lot of confusion down through the years about the book of Acts. Is it just history or is there theology in there as well? Is it just an accurate description of what happened, or is this a prescription for the way things should still be?
We find it helpful, when we encounter something in the Bible that seems strange, to ask if there is anything else in the Bible that is strange in the same sort of way. For example, we read in Acts about this group of people who are together but not really doing anything. Then this wind blows through, fire lands on their heads and they begin speaking other languages. Think about it. People began speaking in languages they hadn’t studied, speaking spontaneously in languages they’d never spoken before.
Sound familiar?
Right after the Flood, a group of folks got together and said, “ ‘Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth.’ But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower that they were building. The Lord said … ‘Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other’” (Gen 11.4-5,7).
In Genesis, we find a group of people who had been told to go throughout the land, multiplying and advancing the borders of civilisation. This was how they would glorify God.
But they didn’t want to spread out. Instead, they wanted to stay together and figure out a way to get from earth to heaven on their own. They wanted to make a name for themselves. They wanted the fame and the glory that would come from having accomplished it. They didn’t want to glorify God before the people. They wanted to glorify themselves.
So God confused their language and scattered them. God turned order into chaos.
In Acts, we find a group of people who are told to go throughout the land, multiplying and advancing the borders of God’s kingdom. This was how they would glorify God.
So they went. They burst out of the upper room, celebrating the fact that God came from heaven to earth, offering them salvation apart from any works they could ever perform. They lifted up the name of Jesus. They had a zeal for spreading His glory.
To jumpstart their efforts, God made a common language so their message could spread more quickly. God turned confusion into order.
The curse was reversed. Where there was alienation, there is now reconciliation. Where chaos reigned, there is now harmony. What was upside down is now beginning, slowly but surely, to be turned right side up again.
Prayer
Lord of heaven and earth, Your love is boundless, Your plans are perfect and Your goodness extends to all who wish to receive it. Though Your ways are past finding out, nevertheless they are always trustworthy. The tale of human history seems to be a series of attempts to make a name for ourselves in our strength, in our timing and in our effort, and like the Tower of Babel, it ends in confusion and chaos. But when You are welcomed into lives and into communities, You turn our chaos into Your creative order. May I be far more concerned about pleasing You and seeking to honour Your Name than about making a name for myself. Treasure in heaven is incomparably greater than earthly treasure. Nothing on earth can begin to compare with Your accolade of “Well done, good and faithful servant.”
In Jesus’s name, Amen
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