The Gospel was to go to all the nations. One the day of Pentecost those nations were represented. When represented, the God of Heaven made it easy for those who were to hear the Gospel for the first time to hear in their native dialect. Being citizens or servants of Rome, all those present had to have spoken in Greek as commanded by the late Alexander the Great of Macedon. As has already been proved, there was no “unknown” tongue mentioned in the New Testament. The word “unknown” was put in by the translators to help our understanding but in fact it has given rise to false teachers making a new religion. As the apostles seemed determined to stay in Jerusalem God sent them persecution forcing them to do as He commanded!! “Go into ALL the world” was the command and it was not being heeded. Until the church went into places not mostly populated by Jews, the use of tongues was never discussed. When Saul was converted and had come off his sabbatical in Arabia, the Gospel began to be heard in places the Aramaic language was not known, such as Corinth. Places like Corinth, a metropolis, attracted all peoples, therefore all languages. It would be contradictory to what was seen on Pentecost for the God of Heaven to make these peoples hear the gospel in a language with which they were not the most familiar (as He did in Jerusalem). That is why we will find ONLY the peoples to whom Paul preached would have EVER spoken in any tongue, language, or dialect that was different that spoken by all. One can be safe in saying that only the Apostles Paul would have spoken in different languages. Peter, James, Andrew, or any of the others had NO NEED for them. Rebellion at the tower of Babel had necessitated all these languages, the ONE Gospel of God’s Son stopped the confusion and delivered man the TRUTH that would set him free!!
The Church of Christ at Corinth had as its second preacher a man who (as far as is known) did not speak in languages, he was very eloquent in Greek, Acts 18:24. A very learned man in the Old Testament Scriptures, Apollos had a lot of shoe to fill following Paul. It is sad to note that Apollos was a very competitive man and may have had problems understanding that ALL the saints were now priest of God and there was no distinction as was the case in the Law of Moses. The Church had been harmed by many of his attempts to show them they had a “better” preacher in him than was Paul. It is and has been amazing to me that Apollos had even attempted to preach at Corinth having never had the apostles hands laid on him (there is no record that this was ever done).
Paul had to warn Apollos in a letter “not to go beyond that which was written and not to think of men above that which was written”. 1 Corinthians 4:6 It is embarrassing when your sins are pointed out to all the brethren, but when your name is called, it is doubly hard on prideful saints, yet many times damage has been done. This “look at me religion” and “I speak in tongues” idea has to be seen as more of a problem in Corinth than in Galatia, Ephesus, or Philippi: and many have never noticed why. I am not a head hunter for Apollos, but I can see his unscriptural teachings are, as would be expected, magnified in his converts. Paul had to correct the problem without destroying the saint.
Sometimes individual words seemed to be high-lighted in the language of some. The word “perfect” is such a word and forms the answer to most of the problems the saints at Corinth had. We have taken the discussion of the word in the Greek and shown it to mean mature, complete, and final. If, just if, Apollos had used this word to describe his preaching as superior to Paul’s, would not this word have taken on a different meaning?? Could Paul have been using a little more sarcasm?
