But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them...
“No, this is what was spoken through the prophet.”
Acts 2:14–16 (NRSV)These few lines from the Christian scriptures constitute the defi nitive
moment in the biblical revelation of the divine for pentecostals. Taking
a moment to read this text with care will allow us to uncover clues as to
how Heidegger is helpful in thinking about pentecostalism philosophi-
cally. As James K.A. Smith argues, in this biblical moment, there is an out-
line for the kind of epistemology that undergirds pentecostal experience. 16
By understanding what this passage is identifying, we can gain insight into
how pentecostal spirituality is a lived performance of the realization of
being that Heidegger seeks to explicate.
In the narrative of the beginning of Acts, the disciples await the arrival
of the promise, and when the promise arrives, it arrives suddenly, and in
the form of language. Smith argues that in that moment there is an episte-
mological shift in the apostle Peter who immediately recognizes the event
as the fulfi llment of an even older promise proclaimed by a long dead
prophet. 17 Peter’s response is to stand and speak. Peter names the ecstatic
eruption, recognizing it as the self-revelation of the divine in their midst,
that is, among and in their being. In this passage, there is an arrival in the
descending of the Spirit, and also a lack of listening by those who wit-
ness and fail to understand, and a kind of radical openness to language in
that the disciples are overcome by it: unconcealing and concealing. Each
of these aspects of the narrative could be explored using Heidegger, but
we will restrict ourselves to two. First, we will ask how the “move of the
Spirit” enacts a truthing of truth in the event of the outpouring. Second,
we will think through glossolalia as a work of language that is defi ned by
a resistance to possession by we who speak. There is a revealing that hap-
pens in the narrative of Acts that extends beyond the physical arrival of the
Spirit as evidenced through the speaking of other and unknown tongues.
The question we ought to ask is, what is being revealed in the arrival of
the Spirit, and what is the signifi cance that the revelation is, at least in part,
evidenced by speaking?
Heidegger writes that, for example, the essence of a jug can be known
by its function, it pours; its thingness is revealed in the outpouring of
itself. In this manner, I read the narrative of Acts that is so central to
pentecostal spirituality. It is in the pouring out of the Spirit that something
56 J. VAZQUEZ