All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them (Acts 2:4, NIV).
I grew up in a church and then attended a Bible college and seminary that taught speaking in tongues as a first-century experience.
As I matured in my thinking about speaking in tongues, I found it ironic that my former denomination emphasized the baptism part of Acts 2:38 but then relegated the gift of the Holy Spirit (and speaking in tongues) to the first century.
Their reading of Acts 2:38 looked like this…
Repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
After my early “lacking theology” about the Spirit, I began to study speaking in tongues. I then encountered believers who told me, “You must be baptized in the Spirit and speak in tongues.” They also informed me, “You aren’t a Christian if you don’t speak in tongues. And without tongues, you can’t walk in the full gospel.”
HHHHMMMHHM. I now think both too much or too little Spirit can be dangerous.
There are two opposite but equal errors in our dealings with the Spirit…
We can either quench: Do not quench the Spirit (1 Thessalonians 5:19).
Or grieve: Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God (Ephesians 4:30).
Quenching is telling God what the Spirit can’t do, and grieving is telling God what the Spirit must do.
Personally, I believe in the full power of the Spirit today. I believe the gift of speaking in tongues is still available and needed (but avoided) in most churches and that Christians have argued about speaking in tongues far more than they should.
In Acts 1, Jesus told the apostles…
You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth (v. 8).
In Acts 2, we see…
All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them (Acts 2:4).
And then Acts 1 becomes true in Acts 2…
How is it that each of us hears them in our native language? Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!” (Acts 2:8-11).
The declaration of Jesus about taking the gospel to the ends of the earth was literally fulfilled in the Acts 2 filling of the Spirit! There were Jews from at least 16 cities and nations who heard their own language.
Acts 2 has a “one-off” experience limited to the first century. But the power and baptism of the Spirit in Acts 1 should be sought by all believers today.
Our focus shouldn’t solely be on tongues but on taking the gospel to the ends of the earth.