Acts 2:1-21They were just ordinary individuals from ordinary parts of the Roman empire-- "Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia,10Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs" (2:9-10).They were there for Pentecost, the Feast of the First-Fruits. Pentecost was celebrated every year, an important feast, but celebrated as if each year was extraordinary.
But this year, Pentecost would take on a truly extraordinary life of its own.
Jesus told his followers-- wait in Jerusalem and pray-- until the power from on high comes upon you. Some of them must have been skeptical.What power? Will this come through the power of prayer? We've prayed before. So often our prayers have gone unanswered.
Then came the wind and the flame and these ordinary disciples, these Jesus-followers from Galilee overcame their cowardly ways and ran out into the streets like drunken and courageous men shouting about the mighty works of God in Jesus Christ.
Indeed, there were Jews there that day from every nation under heaven hearing the mighty works of God proclaimed. Some charged that they were filled with the new wine of fermented grapes, but those in the know knew they were filled with the new wine of God's Spirit.
Simon Peter, the one who denied Jesus three times the night before Jesus' crucifixion stands up as one who now gets it. "People of Jerusalem, these men are not drunk. It's only nine o'clock in the morning. The bars haven't opened. Nope. The Prophet Joel spoke about this long ago. In the last days I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and, yes, your daughters will preach. Your old men, will see visions and your young men will dream dreams."
The extraordinary work of God will now be revealed among his ordinary people.
And all who call upon the name of the Lord will be saved.
The adventure continues....
1 comment:
There's a great hermeneutic tool within this passage. These people were from all over "the inhabited earth".
In several areas of the NT(Colossians 1:20 for example), we're told "this Gospel has been preached all over the inhabited earth".
Being a former fundy, I assumed that "had" to mean what it would if I wrote it, but, clearly it doesn't according to this passage.
Luke explains here what they meant by statements like this. These Jews were from all over the Roman empire and to a man in 60 AD in the empire, that was the inhabited earth.
Some theologians believe this list is a rough = to the list of the nations dispersed at Babel in Genesis 10-11.
That would make a neat wrap of the narrative where the peoples rejected Yahweh and He them at Babel, but, He always planned to inherit them back and these 3000 believing Jews began that process when they returned home(to the Jew first and then to the Gentiles).
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