How does Father (God) speak to us? Does He speak in words or in complete thoughts that just seem to "come out of the blue"?
Today we have translators at our finger-tips, and Scripture itself has been translated and published into enough of Earth's languages and carried to every nation (by
the Two Witnesses). And that's before considering access to Scripture via the internet.
So is there still any
NEED today for someone to speak (or to be heard) in another Earth language?
Perhaps the most quoted passage about speaking in other tongues/languages is the one in Acts 2, and even that passage emphasizes the
NEED for the audience to be able to understand what was being shared with them (God's Word).
Acts 2:4-21
2:4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak with other languages, as the Spirit gave them utterance.
2:5 And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven.
2:6 Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, and were confounded,
because that every man HEARD them speak in his own language.
2:7 And they were all amazed and marvelled, saying one to another, Behold, are not all these which speak Galilaeans?
2:8
And how HEAR we every man in our own language, wherein we were born?
2:9 Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judaea, and Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia,
2:10 Phrygia, and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews and converts,
2:11 Cretes and Arabians,
we do HEAR them speak in our languages the wonderful works of God.
2:12 And they were all amazed, and were in doubt, saying one to another, What meaneth this?
2:13 Others mocking said, These men are full of new wine.
2:14 But Peter, standing up with the eleven, lifted up his voice, and said unto them, Ye men of Judaea, and all [ye] that dwell at Jerusalem, be this known unto you, and hearken to my words:
2:15 For these are not drunken, as ye suppose, seeing it is [but] the third hour of the day.
2:16 But this is that which was spoken by the Prophet Joel;
2:17 And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God,
I will pour out of My Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams:
2:18 And on My servants and on My handmaidens I will pour out in those days of My Spirit;
and they shall prophesy:
2:19 And I will show wonders in heaven above, and signs in the Earth beneath; blood, and fire, and vapour of smoke:
2:20 The "sun" (
Psalm 89:34-36) shall be turned into darkness, and the "moon" (which reflects the light of the sun -
Psalm 89:37;
Eph. 2:12) into blood, before that great and notable Day of the Lord come:
2:21 And it shall come to pass, [that] whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.
1
He's a great theologian.