Hello to all brothers in Christ.
Within the Orthodox tradition the Church Fathers used two approaches to deal with it "Gift of Tongues", namely:
1) A focused approach people who did not achieve sufficient levels of illumination to understand spiritual things, here they approached the subject so that people could absorb the "truths of faith";
And when it comes to the term "speaking in tongues" they always boiled down the issue to two hypotheses:
a - The Apostles spoke several languages and Diaspora Jews understood the apostolic message;
b - The Apostles spoke Hebrew (or Aramaic) and the Holy Spirit translated the message in the heart of every gift to his native dialect.
That is, either they [the Fathers] did work a miracle on the side of the Apostles (to emphasize the role of apostolic] or the side of the Jews who received the message delivered by the Apostles (thus emphasizing the unity of people with God through the Holy Spirit) .
However Tradition shows us that the language included in the day of Pentecost was only a miracle that happened in that place! So what is the gift of tongues or "speak with one language," according to the Holy Orthodox Church of Christ?
Before we enter the heart of the matter is to say that western translations of the scriptures facilitate the misinterpretation of terms related to the gift of tongues, for example:
1) The text of Acts 2:4 in the KJV is not perfectly translated, and needs an alternate translation is found in the YLT (the Apostolic Bible also translated correctly):
"and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak with other tongues, according as the Spirit was giving them to declare."
2) In the text of 1 Corinthians 14:2 and an accurate translation is orthodox:
"for he who is speaking in an [unknown] tongue -- to men he does not speak, but to God, for no one does listen [hear], and in spirit he does speak secrets [mysteries];"
These translations reflect the scriptures as the Fathers read and embody our traditions about the events related to Varieties of languages.
With this information it is easy to understand the tongues of the Church of Christ, let us see the text of Acts 2:4 and interpret according to the Enlightened Church Fathers:
"and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak with other tongues, according as the Spirit was giving them to declare."
The sentences underlined in the short mention:
# to speak with other tongues - is noetic prayer that occurs within [heart] the son of God who is baptized with the Holy Spirit (chrism), which is inaudible outside.
# to declare - This sentence is a reference to the gift of prophecy, the Greek word (αποφθέγγεσθαι) translated as "to declare" is synonymous of "prophesy", as reference to check the lexical BDAG, LEH, Liddel Scott and Moulton & Milligan.
So that the Jews called them crazy! They were prophesying (and the Prophets to the Jews ceased after the death of Malachi), and this attitude is natural in the Jewish perspective.
And according to 1 Corinthians 14:2 nobody listens to one who "speaks in tongues".
Basically it.
Big hug.
Cordially.
In Christ, our Savior.
