Re:Verse passage – Acts 2:1-13, 36-47 (day three)
“And how is it that we each hear them in our own language to which we were born?”
“Tongues of fire” is right: the words the apostles spoke burned through the cultural, linguistic, idiomatic barriers that always plague societies as people try to find hope and safety and acceptance and wholeness but end up clashing each other and feeling more alone than ever. The voices of these disciples rose above all the noise of everyday living with the clarity that immediately grabbed the hearers’ attention. The audience was thunderstruck. It was if somebody actually knew how they used to talk at the old home place or around the campfire – the way they used to wonder about the world with their friends before drifting off to sleep. This was good news spoken like a native. God’s word had their attention.