Acts 2:4-6 - Heard their own language

2:4

All the believers were filled with the Holy Spirit. The term baptism in the Holy Spirit is one which has caused some disagreement within the church and we should be careful how we use it. It is not used in the New Testament in the sense in which some churches use it. Here Luke, as often, uses the term filled with the Holy Spirit. The focus of the New Testament is upon the action of the Holy Spirit in believers lives. Here the effect was to enable the believers to “speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance”. We will see the nature of this as we look at later veres.

2:5,6

Jerusalem was filled with Jews from many parts of the world. They would either be residents of Jerusalem, or visitors for the Festival of Pentecost. Luke refers to them as devout men. Ie they took their religion seriously. Presumably the disciples had moved out into the open as the crowd heard them speaking in tongues. On this occasion they were speaking in human languages, the languages of the people gathered in Jerusalem. We should note that there is no reference to this being the nature of tongues in the other references to speaking in tongues in other parts of Acts or the New Testament. Indeed, in 1 Corinthians 14 Paul says clearly that for the most part no one will understand what is being said, which would seem to imply that it is more common for tongues to be a non-human language. However, there are still occasions when the Spirit does enable someone to speak in a human language that they do not know.