Pentecost is Babel turned right side up: all speech is unified because it is God, no longer people, who is building toward the heavens.

The story of Pentecost goes further than its historical reality. It is also a parable that urges us into the knowledge that the gospel is comfortable in any culture and its message finds easy residence in the languages, cultural ways and thought styles (but not thought systems) of countless societies. In other words, whoever seeks to move a culture towards transformation by Christ must join it, participating in the transformation from within.

from Music Through the Eyes of Faith