And they were all filled with the Holy SpiritThis event marks the fulfillment of Jesus' promise in
Acts 1:8, where He assured the disciples that they would receive power when the Holy Spirit came upon them. The filling of the Holy Spirit signifies a new era in God's redemptive plan, where the Spirit empowers believers for ministry and witness. This moment is also a fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy, particularly
Joel 2:28-29, which speaks of God's Spirit being poured out on all people. The filling of the Holy Spirit is a transformative experience, equipping the apostles for the mission of spreading the Gospel.
and began to speak in other tongues
The speaking in tongues here refers to the miraculous ability to speak in languages previously unknown to the speakers. This phenomenon serves as a sign of the Holy Spirit's power and presence. It also symbolizes the breaking down of language barriers, reflecting the universal nature of the Gospel message. This event reverses the confusion of languages at the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1-9), demonstrating God's desire for unity among all peoples through the message of Christ.
as the Spirit enabled them
The phrase emphasizes that the ability to speak in other tongues was not a human achievement but a divine gift. The Holy Spirit is the source of this empowerment, highlighting the dependence of believers on God's Spirit for effective ministry. This divine enabling is consistent with the broader biblical theme that God equips those He calls, as seen in the lives of Old Testament figures like Moses and the prophets. The Spirit's enabling underscores the importance of reliance on God rather than human strength or wisdom in the work of the Kingdom.
Persons / Places / Events
1.
The DisciplesThe primary group present in the upper room, including the apostles and other followers of Jesus, who were waiting in Jerusalem as instructed by Jesus.
2.
The Holy SpiritThe third person of the Trinity, who fills the disciples, empowering them for the mission of spreading the Gospel.
3.
JerusalemThe city where this event takes place, significant as the center of Jewish worship and the location of the Temple.
4.
PentecostA Jewish feast occurring fifty days after Passover, marking the occasion when the Holy Spirit descended upon the disciples.
5.
Other TonguesThe various languages spoken by the disciples, enabling them to communicate the Gospel to people from different nations gathered in Jerusalem.
Teaching Points
The Fulfillment of PromiseThe event of Pentecost fulfills Jesus' promise of the Holy Spirit, demonstrating God's faithfulness.
Empowerment for MissionThe filling of the Holy Spirit empowers believers to witness and spread the Gospel, emphasizing the necessity of relying on the Spirit for effective ministry.
Unity in DiversityThe ability to speak in different tongues signifies the breaking of cultural and linguistic barriers, highlighting the universal nature of the Gospel.
The Role of the Holy SpiritThe Holy Spirit is essential for understanding and proclaiming God's truth, guiding believers into all truth and enabling them to live out their faith.
Openness to the Spirit's WorkBelievers are encouraged to be open to the Spirit's leading and gifting, recognizing that God equips each person uniquely for His purposes.
Bible Study Questions and Answers
1.What is the meaning of Acts 2:4?
2.How does Acts 2:4 demonstrate the power of the Holy Spirit today?
3.What role does speaking in tongues play in Acts 2:4 and our lives?
4.How can we be "filled with the Holy Spirit" as in Acts 2:4?
5.How does Acts 2:4 connect with Old Testament prophecies about the Spirit?
6.What steps can we take to be open to the Spirit's guidance?
7.What does Acts 2:4 reveal about the nature of the Holy Spirit's power?
8.How does speaking in tongues in Acts 2:4 relate to modern charismatic practices?
9.Why were tongues necessary for the apostles in Acts 2:4?
10.What are the top 10 Lessons from Acts 2?
11.Is there historical or linguistic evidence that the disciples could instantly speak real foreign languages (Acts 2:4, 6–8)?
12.Is speaking in tongues required for Christian salvation?
13.What is the United Pentecostal Church International?
14.What is the second blessing?What Does Acts 2:4 Mean
And they were all filled with the Holy SpiritActs 2:4 opens with a sudden, collective experience. Every disciple in the upper room—about 120 people (Acts 1:15)—receives the same gift at the same moment.
• This is the promised baptism with the Holy Spirit Jesus spoke of inActs 1:5 andJohn 14:16–17, signaling the dawn of the New Covenant age.
• The word “all” removes any hint of exclusivity; no one was overlooked. That echoesJoel 2:28–29—“I will pour out My Spirit on all people”.
• Luke stresses fullness. The Spirit does not merely touch or influence; He fills.Ephesians 5:18 urges believers today, “Be filled with the Spirit”, showing this was never meant to be a one-time event but the normal Christian experience.
And began to speak in other tonguesImmediately, the inward filling shows an outward sign.
• “Began” underlines that this was a new ability, not a learned language skill.
• “Other tongues” refers to real, recognizable languages. Verses 6–11 list Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and many more hearing “the wonders of God” in their own speech. That matches the missionary heartbeat ofMatthew 28:19—go and make disciples of all nations.
• God reverses Babel’s division (Genesis 11:7–9) by uniting diverse peoples through gospel proclamation.
• Later passages (Acts 10:44–46; 19:6) show tongues recurring as a visible testimony that Gentiles and others share in the same Spirit.
As the Spirit enabled themThe source of this miracle is crystal clear.
• Human surrender meets divine empowerment; the disciples supply mouths, the Spirit supplies words.Zechariah 4:6 nails the principle: “Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit, says the LORD of Hosts”.
• No one is manufacturing an ecstatic display. The Spirit “enabled,” literally gave utterance, ensuring the message honored Christ (John 16:14).
• This phrase safeguards humility. Gifts are received, not achieved (1 Corinthians 12:4–11). It also comforts believers today: whatever God calls us to do, He equips us to do (2 Corinthians 3:5–6).
summaryActs 2:4 shows the Spirit filling every believer, empowering immediate, intelligible proclamation, and supplying all ability. Pentecost launches a Spirit-filled, mission-driven church where God does the enabling and believers do the yielding—an enduring pattern for all who follow Christ.
(4)
And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost.--The outward portent was but the sign of a greater spiritual wonder. As yet, though they had been taught to pray for the gift of the Holy Spirit (
Luke 11:13), and, we must believe, had found the answer to their prayer in secret and sacred influences and gradual growth in wisdom, they had never been conscious of its power as "filling" them--pervading the inner depths of personality, stimulating every faculty and feeling to a new intensity of life. Now they felt, in St. Peter's words, as "borne onward" (
2Peter 1:21), thinking thoughts and speaking words which were not their own, and which they could hardly even control. They had passed into a state which was one of rapturous ecstasy and joy. We must not think of the gift as confined to the Apostles. The context shows that the writer speaks of all who were assembled, not excepting the women, as sharers in it. (Comp.
Acts 2:17-18.)
And began tospeak with other tongues.--Two facts have to be remembered as we enter upon the discussion of a question which is, beyond all doubt, difficult and mysterious. (1) If we receiveMark 16:9-20 as a true record of our Lord's words, the disciples had, a few days or weeks before the Day of Pentecost, heard the promise that they that believed should "speak with new tongues" (see Note onMark 16:17),i.e.,with new powers of utterance. (2) When St. Luke wrote his account of the Day of Pentecost, he must have had--partly through his companionship with St. Paul, partly from personal observation--a wide knowledge of the phenomena described as connected with the "tongues" in 1 Corinthians 14. He uses the term in the sense in which St. Paul had used it. We have to read the narrative of the Acts in the light thrown upon it by the treatment in that chapter of the phenomena described by the self-same words as the Pentecost wonder. What, then, are those phenomena? Does the narrative of this chapter bring before us any in addition? (1) The utterance of the "tongue" is presented to us as entirely unconnected with the work of teaching. It is not a means of instruction. It does not edify any beyond the man who speaks (1Corinthians 14:4). It is, in this respect, the very antithesis of "prophecy." Men do not, as a rule, understand it, though God does (1Corinthians 14:2). Here and there, some mind with a special gift of insight may be able to interpret with clear articulate speech what had been mysterious and dark (1Corinthians 14:13). St. Paul desires to subject the exercise of the gift to the condition of the presence of such an interpreter (1Corinthians 14:5;1Corinthians 14:27). (2) The free use of the gift makes him who uses it almost as a barbarian or foreigner to those who listen to him. He may utter prayers, or praises, or benedictions, but what he speaks is as the sound of a trumpet blown uncertainly, of flute or lyre played with unskilled hand, almost, we might say, in the words of our own poet, "like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh" (1Corinthians 14:7-9). (3) Those who speak with tongues do well, for the most part, to confine their utterance to the solitude of their own chamber, or to the presence of friends who can share their rapture When they make a more public display of it, it produces results that stand in singular contrast with each other. It is a "sign to them that believe not,"i.e.,it startles them, attracts their notice, impresses them with the thought that they stand face to face with a superhuman power. On the other hand, the outside world of listeners, common men, or unbelievers, are likely to look on it as indicating madness (1Corinthians 14:23). If it was not right or expedient to check the utterance of the tongues altogether, St. Paul at least thought it necessary to prescribe rules for its exercise which naturally tended to throw it into the background as compared with prophecy (1Corinthians 14:27-28). The conclusion from the whole chapter is, accordingly, that the "tongues" were not the power of speaking in a language which had not been learnt by the common ways of learning, but the ecstatic utterance of rapturous devotion. As regards the terms which are used to describe the gift, the English reader must be reminded that the word "unknown" is an interpolation which appears for the first time in the version of 1611. Wiclif, Tyndale, Cranmer, and the Rhemish give no adjective, and the Geneva inserts "strange." It may be noted further that the Greek word for "tongue" had come to be used by Greek writers on Rhetoric for bold, poetic, unusual terms, such as belonged to epic poetry (Aristot. Rhet. iii. 3), not for those which belonged to a foreign language. If they were, as Aristotle calls them, "unknown," it was because they were used in a startlingly figurative sense, so that men were sometimes puzzled by them (Aristot. Rhet. iii. 10). We have this sense of the old word (glossa) surviving in ourglossary, a collection of such terms. It is clear (1) that such an use of the word would be natural in writers trained as St. Paul and St. Luke had been in the language of Greek schools; and (2) that it exactly falls in with the conclusion to which the phenomena of the case leads us, apart from the word. . . .
Verse 4.- Spirit for
Ghost, A.V.
Other tongues (
1 Corinthians 14:21;
Isaiah 28:11); the same as the "new tongues" of
Mark 16:17. St. Paul speaks of them as "the tongues of men and of angels" (
1 Corinthians 13:1), and as "kinds of tongues" (
1 Corinthians 12:10). His habitual phrase is "speaking in [or
with]
a tongue [or
tongues]" (
1 Corinthians 14:2, 4-6, etc.), and the verb is always
λαλεῖν, as here. What these tongues were on this occasion we are explicitly informed in vers. 6, 8, and 11. They were the tongues of the various nationalities present at the feast - Parthians, Medes, Elamites, Mesopotamians, Egyptians, Phrygians, Arabians, etc. This is so clearly and so distinctly stated that it is astonishing that any one should deny it who accepts St. Luke's account as historical. The only room for doubt is whether the speakers spoke in these divers languages, or the hearers heard in them though the speakers spoke in only one tongue. But not to mention that this is far more difficult to imagine, and transfers the miracle from those who had the Holy Spirit to those who had it not, it is against the plain language of the text, which tells us that "they began to speak with other tongues," and that "every man heard them speaking in his own language." "Speaking," said they, "in our own tongues the mighty works of God." There
may, indeed, have been something ecstatic besides in these utterances, but there is no reference to such made either by St. Luke or by the audience whose words he reports. The narrative before us does not hint at any after use of the gift of tongues for missionary purposes. In
Acts 10:46;
Acts 11:15-17;
Acts 19:6, as well as in the passages above referred to in the First Epistle to the Corinthians, the speaking with tongues is always spoken of - often in connection with prophecy - simply as a gift and a manifestation (
1 Corinthians 12:7) of the power of the Holy Spirit. In this case and in
Acts 10:46 the subject-matter of the utterance is the greatness of God's works;
τὰμεγαλεῖα τοῦ Θεοῦ μεγαλυνόντων τὸν Θεὸν. In
1 Corinthians 14:2 it is" mysteries;" in ver. 15, "prayers and psalms;" in ver. 16 it is "blessing" and "thanksgiving" (
εὐλογία and
εὐχαριστία). But nowhere, either in Holy Scripture or in the Fathers of the three first centuries, is the gift of tongues spoken of in connection with preaching to foreign nations (see Alford's just remarks). Farrar ('Life of St. Paul,' vol. 1. pp. 98-101) takes the same view, but is much less distinct in his conception of what is meant here by speaking with tongues. He adheres to the view of Schneckenburger, that "the tongue was, from its own force and significance, intelligible equally to all who heard it;" he agrees with the dictum of Neander that "any foreign languages which were spoken on this occasion were only something accidental, and not the essential element of the language of the Spirit." He says, "The voice they uttered was awful in its range, in its tones, in its modulations, in its startling, penetrating, almost appalling power; the words they spoke were exalted, intense, passionate, full of mystic significance; the language they used was not their ordinary and familiar tongue, but was Hebrew, or Greek, or Latin, or Aramaic, or Persian, or Arabic, as some overpowering and unconscious impulse of the moment might direct... and among these strange sounds... there were some which none could interpret, which rang on the air like the voice of barbarous languages, and which ... conveyed no definite significance beyond the fact that they were reverberations of one and the same ecstasy." The writer seems to suggest that when any real language was spoken it was one more or less known previously by the speaker, and that in other cases it was no language at all, only thrilling emotional sounds. Renan's view of the day of Pentecost is a carious specimen of rationalistic interpretation. "One day when the brethren were come together there was a tempest. A violent wind burst open the windows, and the sky was one sheet of fire. In that climate tempests are often accompanied by an extraordinary amount of electric light. The atmosphere is on all sides furrowed with jets of flame. On this occasion, whether the electric fluid actually passed through the room, or whether the faces of all present were suddenly lit up by an extremely bright flash of lightning, all were convinced that the Holy Spirit had entered their assembly, and had sat upon the head of each in the shape of a tongue of fire... In these moments of ecstasy, the disciple possessed by the Spirit uttered sounds 'inarticulate and incoherent, which the hearers fancied were the words of a strange language, and in their simplicity tried to interpret They listened eagerly to the medley of sounds, and explained them by their own extemporaneous thoughts. Each of them had recourse to his own native
patois to supply some meaning to the unintelligible accents, and generally succeeded in affixing to them the thoughts that were uppermost in his own mind" ('Les Apotres,' pp. 66-68). Elsewhere (pp. 64, 65) he suggests that the whole conception of
speaking with tongues arose from the anticipation on the part of the apostles that great difficulty would arise in propagating the gospel from the impossibility of learning to speak the necessary languages. The solution with some was that, under the ecstasy caused by the Holy Spirit, the hearers would be able to translate what they heard into their own tongue; others rather thought that by the same power the apostles would be able to speak any dialect they pleased at the moment. Hence the conception of the day of Pentecost as described by St. Luke! Meyer, again, fully admits, as "beyond all doubt," that St. Luke intended to narrate that the persons possessed by the Spirit spoke in foreign languages previously unknown by them; but adds that "the sudden communication of a facility of speaking foreign languages is neither logically possible nor psychologically and morally conceivable" (a pretty bold assertion); and therefore he sets down St. Luke's account of what occurred as "a later legendary formation," based upon the existing
γλωσσολαλία. Zeller, traveling a little further on the same road, comes to the conclusion that "the narrative before us is not based on any definite fact" (p. 205). Leaving, however, these fanciful varieties of incredulous criticism, and interpreting the statements of this chapter by the later spiritual gifts as seen in the Church of Corinth, we conclude that the" tongues" were sometimes "tongues of men," foreign languages unknown to the speakers, and of course unintelligible to the hearers unless any were present, as was the case on the day of Pentecost, who knew the language; and sometimes languages not of earth but of heaven, "
tongues of angels." But there is no evidence whatever of their being mere gibberish as distinct from
language, or being language coined at the moment by the Holy Ghost. All that St. Paul says to the Corinthians is fully applicable to any language spoken when there were none present who understood it. The significance of the miracle seems to be that it points to the time when all shall be one in Christ, and shall all speak and understand the same speech; and not only all men, but men and angels, "
the whole family in heaven and earth," "
things in the heavens and things upon the earth" all gathered together in one in Christ. It may also not improbably have been used occasionally, as it was on the day of Pentecost, to convey doctrine, knowledge, or exhortation, to foreign people; but there is no distinct evidence that this was the case.
Parallel Commentaries ...
Greek
Andκαὶ(kai)Conjunction
Strong's 2532:And, even, also, namely.they {were} allπάντες(pantes)Adjective - Nominative Masculine Plural
Strong's 3956:All, the whole, every kind of. Including all the forms of declension; apparently a primary word; all, any, every, the whole.filled withἐπλήσθησαν(eplēsthēsan)Verb - Aorist Indicative Passive - 3rd Person Plural
Strong's 4130:To fill, fulfill, complete. A prolonged form of a primary pleo to 'fill' (imbue, influence, supply); specially, to fulfil.[the] HolyἉγίου(Hagiou)Adjective - Genitive Neuter Singular
Strong's 40:Set apart by (or for) God, holy, sacred. From hagos; sacred.SpiritΠνεύματος(Pneumatos)Noun - Genitive Neuter Singular
Strong's 4151:Wind, breath, spirit.andκαὶ(kai)Conjunction
Strong's 2532:And, even, also, namely.beganἤρξαντο(ērxanto)Verb - Aorist Indicative Middle - 3rd Person Plural
Strong's 756:To begin. Middle voice of archo; to commence.to speakλαλεῖν(lalein)Verb - Present Infinitive Active
Strong's 2980:A prolonged form of an otherwise obsolete verb; to talk, i.e. Utter words.in otherἑτέραις(heterais)Adjective - Dative Feminine Plural
Strong's 2087:(a) of two: another, a second, (b) other, different, (c) one's neighbor. Of uncertain affinity; other or different.tonguesγλώσσαις(glōssais)Noun - Dative Feminine Plural
Strong's 1100:The tongue; by implication, a language.asκαθὼς(kathōs)Adverb
Strong's 2531:According to the manner in which, in the degree that, just as, as. From kata and hos; just as, that.theτὸ(to)Article - Nominative Neuter Singular
Strong's 3588:The, the definite article. Including the feminine he, and the neuter to in all their inflections; the definite article; the.SpiritΠνεῦμα(Pneuma)Noun - Nominative Neuter Singular
Strong's 4151:Wind, breath, spirit.enabledἐδίδου(edidou)Verb - Imperfect Indicative Active - 3rd Person Singular
Strong's 1325:To offer, give; I put, place. A prolonged form of a primary verb; to give.them.αὐτοῖς(autois)Personal / Possessive Pronoun - Dative Masculine 3rd Person Plural
Strong's 846:He, she, it, they, them, same. From the particle au; the reflexive pronoun self, used of the third person, and of the other persons.
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NT Apostles: Acts 2:4 They were all filled with the Holy (Acts of the Apostles Ac) 
