The Speaking in Tongues Controversy: A Narrative-Critical Response, Part 2
19 Note that Fee believes that in the early church, “Glossolalia … has all the earmarks of being commonplace,” (“Toward a Pauline Theology of Glossolalia,” in Pentecostalism in Context: Essays in Honor of William W. Menzies 30), and concludes that “Precisely because it was ‘normal’ in this sense [i.e., expected and recurring], it was the presupposition of life in the Spirit for them; thus they felt no compulsion to talk about it at every turn,” Gospel and Spirit 102 (italics added); J. Rodman Williams notes that “If both the reception of the Spirit and tongues were common knowledge and experience to Luke’s readers (as I believe they were), he scarcely needs to say so each time. Incidentally, this same point may be made about belief in Christ and baptism in water. Often Luke specifically mentions water baptism in connection with faith in Jesus Christ … ; on other occasions he describes people coming to faith without reference to water baptism. … However, it is very likely that Luke would have the reader assume the occurrence of water baptism when it is not mentioned. Such baptism was doubtless common experience and practice in the early church,” (Renewal Theology: Salvation, the Holy Spirit, and Christian Living [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1990] 210, footnote 7, italics added); cf. Palma 157.
Although the conventional narrative style of Luke’s day deemed repetitious accounts unnecessary, there is yet an additional reason why Luke does not associate tongues with many of the occurrences of salvation in Acts (other than the quite plausible explanation that the subjects were saved but not immediately filled, per the Samaritan precedent). In many cases where Luke notes soteriological activity in Acts, it is with great brevity (as Williams notes, even repentance and water baptism are seldom mentioned). The brief soteriological conclusion comes about as a result of the narrative’s clear emphasis—pneumatological activity, e.g., 2:1-41, where only a couple of verses can be considered soteriological. But not all pneumatic activity is related to tongues; in fact, tongues may be a result of previous pneumatic activity just as salvation may come as a result of previous pneumatic activity. For Luke, then, the issue of disciples speaking in tongues when baptized in the Spirit is akin to the issue of salvation—both usually occur as a result of prior Spirit-inspired witness. Both are extremely important to Luke, but they are simply not his central focus, a focus which is, in fact, the efficient cause of the spreading of the gospel, i.e., the Spirit-inspired witness of each individual disciple. And, as I have said, this is just as we should expect since Luke has laid out the prophetic missionary program from chapter one: “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (v. 8).
20 Cf. Ronald Kydd, “I’m Still There! A Reaffirmation of Tongues as the Initial Evidence of the Baptism in the Holy Spirit,” (Toronto: The Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada, 1977), 13.
21 W. and R. Menzies approach the issue of tongues as evidence through a synthesis of biblical and systematic theology; through the contributions of each they conclude that “1. Paul affirms that the private manifestation of tongues is edifying, desirable, and universally available. … 2. Luke affirms that the Pentecostal gift is intimately connected to inspired speech, of which tongues-speech is a prominent form, possessing a uniquely evidential character. 3. Therefore, when one receives the Pentecostal gift, one should expect to manifest tongues, and this manifestation of tongues is a uniquely demonstrative sign (evidence) that one has received the gift” (Spirit 130). Using this methodology, the Menzies eschew Pentecostal hermeneutics based on “biblical analogy or historical precedent. … Rather, drawing from the full scope of Luke’s two-volume work, it [their argument] focuses on the nature of Luke’s pneumatology and, from this framework, seeks to understand the character of the Pentecostal gift. The judgment that the gift is distinct from conversion is rooted in the gift’s function: It provides power for witness, not justification before God or personal cleansing. The universal character of the gift established in Luke’s narrative rather than historical precedent is the basis for its normative character,” (Spirit 115). It is unfortunate that R. Menzies seems unaware of the Greco-Roman narrative rhetorical convention that Luke uses (cf. Empowered 237, 245-246), for it pushes the historical occurrences of Spirit-baptism and tongues beyond the “naïve historical precedent” argument. Of course, the two methodologies are not mutually exclusive but, rather, corroborative; they each answer questions that the other does not address. It will be interesting to watch their symbiotic development in the field of Pentecostal scholarship. Walston seems unaware of both methodologies, focusing only on the older argument based on the repetition of glossolalia in conjunction with Spirit-baptism (113-118).
22 “Beyond the traditional Pentecostal interpretation of Acts, two specific insights from narratology have proven helpful in more recent years in determining Luke [sic] intent: the idea of narrative as ‘narrative world’ and narrative analogy. Both of these aspects of narratological analysis are ways of looking at ‘patterns’ as evidence of an author’s intent in creating a narrative.
“(i) Regarding the notion of ‘narrative world’ in any historical narrative, the manner of retelling has a purpose: to inform a community about its heritage, identity, common experience, and essential qualities. The narrator at the same time is informing the community about the nature of its own world, how it ought to be structured, and in some instances how it ought not to be structured. Thus, in the case of biblical narrative, the accounts provide order to our ‘world’ and are intended to tell how to live our lives, how we experience the Spirit’s presence, etc. The author uses biblical ‘narrative world’ to shape the believing community’s world.
“(ii) The second useful perspective on authorial intent is provided by what Meir Sternberg calls ‘narrative analogy.’ This refers to a specific relationship among events in a narrative, inviting readers to read one story in terms of other similar stories. Thus one event provides ‘oblique commentary’ on another. The narrator accomplishes this particular phenomenon through carefully developed patterns or ‘echoes.’ His repetition of similar or contrasting events establishes the points of comparison for the reader. Repeating themes, details, phrases, behaviors, etc., call the reader’s attention to the analogy. The ‘echo effect’ thus serves to control interpretation, adding emphasis and specifying communication of central meanings.
“The composition of Luke-Acts was surely not a haphazard process. The analogies, or echo effects, in the narrative are evident because of the careful crafting of the narrative by the author. He included details because they were central to his agenda. In the case of tongues and Spirit-baptism in Acts, it seems improbable that Luke was unaware of the echo he was creating. Rather, he intentionally created the relationship between tongues and Spirit-baptism in his narrative, along with the specific function of tongues as evidence, in order to communicate that relationship to his readership as a prescribed paradigm [italics added].
“(iii) A redemptive-historical approach to the IPE [Initial Physical Evidence] doctrine is a third more recent development in Pentecostal hermeneutics. Simply stated, in the Old Testament when the Spirit came upon the prophets, prophetic speech always accompanied the Spirit’s anointing. Likewise in Acts, when the Spirit comes upon an individual for the first time, Spirit-prompted speech occurs, except that in Acts the utterance is in tongues. Another dimension of this redemptive-historical development pertains specifically to Acts 10:44-46, where tongues is more than evidence of an individual experience (although it is that). There glossolalia functions as evidence of the inclusion of Gentiles in the Spirit’s anointing. Stated in principle, it is evidence that the Spirit’s power is for all who come into the kingdom.” Douglas A. Oss, “A Pentecostal/Charismatic View,” in Are Miraculous Gifts for Today? Four Views, ed. Wayne A. Grudem (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996), 261-63.
Category: Spirit, Winter 2006
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