E4 Living in The Holy Spirit Age
Chapter Four
Living in the Holy Spirit Age
Acts 2:1-47
1 ¶ When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place.
2 And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.
3 And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them.
4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.
As we noted previously, Jesus, after His resurrection from the dead, has been appearing to His followers at various times and ‘dwelling’ with them. He taught them over a period of 40 days.
The word Pentecost means “fiftieth”. To the Jewish community this marked a special harvest festival which was to be held seven weeks plus one day from the previous passover festival. The fact that the event about which we will read ‘happened’ on this particular holiday is either totally coincidental, or God picked it for a very special reason.
I don't find any scripture that leans one way or the other, so I will just make a couple of comments and move on.
Pentecost for the Jews was a harvest festival. When I think of Thanksgiving day, I think about harvest. Pumpkins, squash and a myriad of other vegetables and fruits get put on display to remind us to be thankful for God’s provision. But when I think of Pentecost for the church, I see a different emphasis. It is the day of the empowering of the church … to go out and get the harvest. Jesus said, Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, then comes the harvest’? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest. John 4:35
And He also said, "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. Lu 10:2
So is Pentecost about harvest? In a way, I think so. The church was sent by Jesus to go into all the world and make disciples. That is harvesting. On this particular day of Pentecost we will read about a significant harvest. Ever day since that day, the church, with the empowerment of the Holy Spirit, has been involved in harvesting souls for Jesus. Here is a statement from Jesus that underscores this.
“I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. John 15:5.
Jesus ‘abides’ in us via the Holy Spirit which was given on this particular day of Pentecost. Jesus says that without His indwelling us, we can do NOTHING. Why is this important to note? Simply this … there are many Bible teachers who state that the church will be raptured BEFORE the seven year tribulation period. The basis for this (partially) comes from a verse of scripture that states that the Holy Spirit will be removed at that time. And by the word ‘removed’ they mean … a reversal of Pentecost.
This cannot be true. Jesus said that apart from the empowerment of the Holy Spirit that we, the church, can do NOTHING. And yet we read about a multitude of believers existing, preaching and even dying for Jesus during that seven year period. So how do they function for Jesus when He has said without the empowerment of the Holy Spirit we can do nothing?
The simple truth is, there is no scripture which clearly teaches a rapture before the seven year tribulation. Then why do so many teach and believe that the rapture comes before the tribulation?
Other than a few rather simplistic reasons, such as … Jesus loves us, His church, His bride and would never let us go through something like that. The problem with a statement like this is that it is saying that Jesus does not love His tribulation saints, and He will let them suffer.
There is a bigger ‘belief’ founded on a somewhat stronger basis that is most often used by the supporters of this ‘pre-trib’ theory. And this is the use of the phrase, ‘removal of the church’.
We are examining the Day of Pentecost as it relates to the church. For many bible teachers, the church was BORN on Pentecost. They say that the Day of Pentecost marks the beginning of the church age. By the term ‘church age’ it is meant the years in between the birth of the church and the rapture. Another term commonly used in place of ‘church age’ is the word ‘dispensation’. It is important that we grasp this. These believers of ‘dispensationalism’ believe that the four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, all relate to the previous dispensation … the dispensation of Law. The only reason that they steadfastly hold to this belief has to do with, according to them, the church did not exist before Pentecost.
So we need to decide this one way or another. If the church did not exist until Pentecost … then possibly the church age could end just before the tribulation and we would all be raptured up to heaven. But if the church DID exist BEFORE Pentecost … the church may indeed be present in the Tribulation Period. And that might mean taking some spiritual inventory and expecting difficult times. Jesus wrote some powerful letters to the seven churches of Asia in the book of Revelation. He addresses them one at a time. In each case he clearly stated, “I have something against you. Unless you repent and …” But He also said, “To him who overcomes I will ….”
So we need to know whether the church was ‘born’ on the day of Pentecost, or not.
First of all, the bible does not use the term ‘born’ when it comes to describing the origin of the church. Some teachers, using the term ‘born’ with reference to the church, have admitted that the church existed as an ‘embryo’ prior to Pentecost. Well, at least that is consistent thinking. But never has the origin of the church been described as a ‘birth’ in all of scripture.
Let’s get right to the root of it. By using a ‘Greek Lexicon’ to get the actual definition of the word church we discover that it is actually a compound … a two-part word. The word looks like this. Ekklesia … or Ek Klesia. The first part means ‘out’, and the second means ‘to call’. Like many foreign languages, the ‘order’ is often reversed from English. So the word ekklesia literally means, ‘called out’ or ‘called out assembly’.
So, first of all, there is no way that the 120 in the upper room became a called out assembly on the day of Pentecost. They were already a group of 120 for the previous ten days.
Let me ask you this, if you were to hear of a group of people that had a preacher who preached the good news … the gospel, required repentance and faith in his sermons, baptized those who responded …, how would you describe that group? You might be inclined to say, “That sounds like a church to me.” And that would almost be right.
In the gospels this describes the ministry of John the Baptist. He was preparing the way for Jesus. He had quite a large following … just waiting for Jesus to come.
You know the story, Jesus eventually came to John and requested to be baptized by him. Jesus then went into a wilderness area for 40 days without food and was tested ultimately by Satan himself. Following that, He immediately goes to where John the Baptist and his group happened to be and He does something very significant. He begins to do what the definition of church really means. He began to call out individuals from John’s group to follow Him. He, Jesus, had his own ‘called-out-assembly’ (ekklesia).
Some of John’s followers wondered about that. They asked John, “Rabbi, He who was with you beyond the Jordan, to whom you have testified — behold, He is baptizing, and all are coming to Him!”
And John’s answer, “He must increase, but I must decrease.
So Jesus called out people from John’s group to follow him. These were people who believed in the Messiah, Christ, repented of their sins, were baptized in water … and now were followers of Jesus. That is a church.
The church experienced a time of learning during Jesus' three year teaching ministry. Then, before Pentecost, gave them a commission to go into all the world.
Matthew 28:18 And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.
19 “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
20 “teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen.
There is another scripture that is more directly a ‘dispensational’ scripture. Here it is from Jesus own mouth,
Luke 16:16 “The law and the prophets were until John. Since that time the kingdom of God has been preached ...
Very clearly Jesus gives us the ‘dispensational’ divide. The Jewish age of the Law was up until John. The gospel age of the kingdom started then. The church age started then. This means everything that Jesus said about the coming tribulation was NOT spoken to the Jews of the Law age … These words were given to His church.
There are many other references that not only teach that the church was founded by Jesus Himself during His personal ministry on earth, but also show us the eternal purpose of God in doing it that way. But I will leave you with just one more reference.
Hebrews 2:12 Saying, I will declare thy name unto my brethren, in the midst of the church will I sing praise unto thee.
This verse refers to Jesus. Are you familiar with the occasion when Jesus sang in church? Here it is, And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives. Mt 26:30
A final thought concerning the founding of the church ... Jesus gave the disciples instructions about dealing with offenses. He described a three step process that ends with His saying (in my words), “If the person will not respond to step two, then approach the whole church with the problem”
So I will move from the founding of the church to the empowering of the church.
The church has been given two kinds of power. We have been given
Power = ability
Power = authority
With reference to the second definition of above I refer you to this statement of Jesus, John 20:21 So Jesus said to them again, “Peace to you! As the Father has sent Me, I also send you.”
22 And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.
This passage tells about one of the occasions when Jesus appeared to the disciples after He had risen from the dead. Two things stand out here. One is the authority that Jesus claims to have received from the Father. And the fact that He ‘sends’, authorizes the disciples … the early church to go into the world on a mission.
The second thing that stands out is the giving of the Holy spirit. Notice, this is not the empowerment of the church … It is the authorizing of the church. Perhaps this is where the ‘indwelling’ of the Spirit began. On the day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit gave them the ability, the power to go into all the world.
The harvest is about to begin. The Holy Spirit has just descended upon them. Luke describes it as visible tongues of fire coming down onto them.
3 Then there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them.
And what happens next is absolutely incredible! When the believer spoke, their words came out in a language other than what they spoke normally.
4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.
Many teachers of our day and time describe this as a time of ‘ecstatic utterance’. That is, sounds and syllables never heard by normal mankind. A heavenly language.
The context does NOT bear this out. Any hint at ‘ecstatic’ is not in scripture. There is no mention of excitement, even though they would be thoroughly amazed by what was happening.
So let’s try to imagine the context. There were a hundred and twenty believers in this room when the Holy Spirit came upon them. The noise level included the sound of a mighty rushing wind. And it included the voices of many people speaking all at once.
Can this ‘noise’ be heard down in the street? Possibly. Did the disciples leave the building, go out into the street, speaking in foreign languages? Possibly, or a little of both.
So who heard them?
5 ¶ And there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men, from every nation under heaven.
Why? Why were these devout people here, out in the street … or in the temple courts, on this particular day?
Remember this day is a Jewish festival. On this day Jews from all over the known and nearby world travelled to Jerusalem to celebrate. These ‘devout’ persons were believers in Jehovah as the one true God. These persons lived out their belief, their faith. Were they believers in Jesus? No. They had not had the opportunity to hear about Him. They lived too far away.
But God has a harvest day in mind. He picked a day when He knew ‘believers’ from all over the world would be here. God wanted them to make the transition from believing in One God, to believing that Jesus Christ, also God, had come and has provided salvation for all - provided salvation for all past believers from Adam and into the future as well. These believers from the various nations needed to see the fulfillment of what they had been hoping for all these years.
So Luke tells us they were from every nation under heaven. That is quite a statement. We will get to read the list of a number of these nations in an upcoming verse.
Luke now tells us, 6 And when this sound occurred, the multitude came together, and were confused, because everyone heard them speak in his own language.
I am picturing this happening on the temple grounds somewhere.
So what was the confusion? Everyone in the crowd likely understood Greek because it had been the common trade language of the nations for years. The Romans have been rulers of the world for a number of years at this point, but the official language had not changed to Latin, it was still Greek. The crowd, being ‘devout’ and of the Jewish religion would also be able to speak Hebrew. If the 120 from the upper room were speaking in either Hebrew or Greek there would have been no confusion. The thing that amazed this crowd was that each was hearing these people speak in a language corresponding to the part of the world from which they had just travelled.
And what really amazed them is that they recognized the 120 by characteristics commonly seen in people from Northern Israel.
7 Then they were all amazed and marveled, saying to one another, “Look, are not all these who speak Galileans?
So Galileans, (usually not known for their education of linguistic abilities) were speaking in the birth languages of a diverse crowd.
8 “And how is it that we hear, each in our own language in which we were born?
So here comes the list of nations describing this crowd.
9 “Parthians and Medes and Elamites, those dwelling in Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia,
10 “Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya adjoining Cyrene, visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes,
11 “Cretans and Arabs —
I count about 15 language groups here. Luke says from every nation under heaven. That would suggest many more.
And what is it that they are hearing? Luke says, — “we hear them speaking in our own tongues the wonderful works of God.”
It looks like all of the `120, or most of them at least, are walking around evangelizing. They are talking about the wonderful works of God. We need to do far more of that. God is so good, so powerful, so loving, so holy … we know it. We need to speak it. The 120 were ‘empowered’ to do it. They are sent into all the world … there would be language barriers … but God just broke the barrier for them. That is power. Today we send missionaries to language schools. That seems to be the only way that we can break the language barrier these days. I could speak much more on this aspect, but that is for a study of the book of First Corinthians.
Most of the crowd 12 were all amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “Whatever could this mean?”
They are about to find out. But before we move too far ahead we need to address another portion of the crowd.
13 Others mocking said, “They are full of new wine.”
So what is this comment all about? Two things stand out. One, they cannot understand the words. Two, they are mockers. This reveals something about their hearts. They are not part of the ‘devout believer’ group. They are locals. They are not sincerely looking for the coming Messiah. They have heard about him and they were part of the crucifixion crowd. They are hearing syllables that don’t make any sense to them. To them it is mindless babble. So they accuse them of having had too much wine.
So this is interesting. God wants all people to come to faith, and yet He arranged it so that this ‘mocking’ crowd would not be able to understand a word. Why? There will be more about that in upcoming verses of Acts.
What God seems to be doing here on this day is to create a transition for those who were believers in the only faith regarding God and salvation that had been available to them up to that point. And this is God’s way to bring them up to date with the fulfillment of scripture and introduce them to the church.
Peter is about to step up and speak to this crowd of mockers … the crowd of unbelievers. This will be the very first evangelistic crusade. The results will be tremendous so stay tuned for the next episode.
2 And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.
3 And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them.
4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.
As we noted previously, Jesus, after His resurrection from the dead, has been appearing to His followers at various times and ‘dwelling’ with them. He taught them over a period of 40 days.
The word Pentecost means “fiftieth”. To the Jewish community this marked a special harvest festival which was to be held seven weeks plus one day from the previous passover festival. The fact that the event about which we will read ‘happened’ on this particular holiday is either totally coincidental, or God picked it for a very special reason.
I don't find any scripture that leans one way or the other, so I will just make a couple of comments and move on.
Pentecost for the Jews was a harvest festival. When I think of Thanksgiving day, I think about harvest. Pumpkins, squash and a myriad of other vegetables and fruits get put on display to remind us to be thankful for God’s provision. But when I think of Pentecost for the church, I see a different emphasis. It is the day of the empowering of the church … to go out and get the harvest. Jesus said, Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, then comes the harvest’? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest. John 4:35
And He also said, "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. Lu 10:2
So is Pentecost about harvest? In a way, I think so. The church was sent by Jesus to go into all the world and make disciples. That is harvesting. On this particular day of Pentecost we will read about a significant harvest. Ever day since that day, the church, with the empowerment of the Holy Spirit, has been involved in harvesting souls for Jesus. Here is a statement from Jesus that underscores this.
“I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. John 15:5.
Jesus ‘abides’ in us via the Holy Spirit which was given on this particular day of Pentecost. Jesus says that without His indwelling us, we can do NOTHING. Why is this important to note? Simply this … there are many Bible teachers who state that the church will be raptured BEFORE the seven year tribulation period. The basis for this (partially) comes from a verse of scripture that states that the Holy Spirit will be removed at that time. And by the word ‘removed’ they mean … a reversal of Pentecost.
This cannot be true. Jesus said that apart from the empowerment of the Holy Spirit that we, the church, can do NOTHING. And yet we read about a multitude of believers existing, preaching and even dying for Jesus during that seven year period. So how do they function for Jesus when He has said without the empowerment of the Holy Spirit we can do nothing?
The simple truth is, there is no scripture which clearly teaches a rapture before the seven year tribulation. Then why do so many teach and believe that the rapture comes before the tribulation?
Other than a few rather simplistic reasons, such as … Jesus loves us, His church, His bride and would never let us go through something like that. The problem with a statement like this is that it is saying that Jesus does not love His tribulation saints, and He will let them suffer.
There is a bigger ‘belief’ founded on a somewhat stronger basis that is most often used by the supporters of this ‘pre-trib’ theory. And this is the use of the phrase, ‘removal of the church’.
We are examining the Day of Pentecost as it relates to the church. For many bible teachers, the church was BORN on Pentecost. They say that the Day of Pentecost marks the beginning of the church age. By the term ‘church age’ it is meant the years in between the birth of the church and the rapture. Another term commonly used in place of ‘church age’ is the word ‘dispensation’. It is important that we grasp this. These believers of ‘dispensationalism’ believe that the four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, all relate to the previous dispensation … the dispensation of Law. The only reason that they steadfastly hold to this belief has to do with, according to them, the church did not exist before Pentecost.
So we need to decide this one way or another. If the church did not exist until Pentecost … then possibly the church age could end just before the tribulation and we would all be raptured up to heaven. But if the church DID exist BEFORE Pentecost … the church may indeed be present in the Tribulation Period. And that might mean taking some spiritual inventory and expecting difficult times. Jesus wrote some powerful letters to the seven churches of Asia in the book of Revelation. He addresses them one at a time. In each case he clearly stated, “I have something against you. Unless you repent and …” But He also said, “To him who overcomes I will ….”
So we need to know whether the church was ‘born’ on the day of Pentecost, or not.
First of all, the bible does not use the term ‘born’ when it comes to describing the origin of the church. Some teachers, using the term ‘born’ with reference to the church, have admitted that the church existed as an ‘embryo’ prior to Pentecost. Well, at least that is consistent thinking. But never has the origin of the church been described as a ‘birth’ in all of scripture.
Let’s get right to the root of it. By using a ‘Greek Lexicon’ to get the actual definition of the word church we discover that it is actually a compound … a two-part word. The word looks like this. Ekklesia … or Ek Klesia. The first part means ‘out’, and the second means ‘to call’. Like many foreign languages, the ‘order’ is often reversed from English. So the word ekklesia literally means, ‘called out’ or ‘called out assembly’.
So, first of all, there is no way that the 120 in the upper room became a called out assembly on the day of Pentecost. They were already a group of 120 for the previous ten days.
Let me ask you this, if you were to hear of a group of people that had a preacher who preached the good news … the gospel, required repentance and faith in his sermons, baptized those who responded …, how would you describe that group? You might be inclined to say, “That sounds like a church to me.” And that would almost be right.
In the gospels this describes the ministry of John the Baptist. He was preparing the way for Jesus. He had quite a large following … just waiting for Jesus to come.
You know the story, Jesus eventually came to John and requested to be baptized by him. Jesus then went into a wilderness area for 40 days without food and was tested ultimately by Satan himself. Following that, He immediately goes to where John the Baptist and his group happened to be and He does something very significant. He begins to do what the definition of church really means. He began to call out individuals from John’s group to follow Him. He, Jesus, had his own ‘called-out-assembly’ (ekklesia).
Some of John’s followers wondered about that. They asked John, “Rabbi, He who was with you beyond the Jordan, to whom you have testified — behold, He is baptizing, and all are coming to Him!”
And John’s answer, “He must increase, but I must decrease.
So Jesus called out people from John’s group to follow him. These were people who believed in the Messiah, Christ, repented of their sins, were baptized in water … and now were followers of Jesus. That is a church.
The church experienced a time of learning during Jesus' three year teaching ministry. Then, before Pentecost, gave them a commission to go into all the world.
Matthew 28:18 And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.
19 “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
20 “teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen.
There is another scripture that is more directly a ‘dispensational’ scripture. Here it is from Jesus own mouth,
Luke 16:16 “The law and the prophets were until John. Since that time the kingdom of God has been preached ...
Very clearly Jesus gives us the ‘dispensational’ divide. The Jewish age of the Law was up until John. The gospel age of the kingdom started then. The church age started then. This means everything that Jesus said about the coming tribulation was NOT spoken to the Jews of the Law age … These words were given to His church.
There are many other references that not only teach that the church was founded by Jesus Himself during His personal ministry on earth, but also show us the eternal purpose of God in doing it that way. But I will leave you with just one more reference.
Hebrews 2:12 Saying, I will declare thy name unto my brethren, in the midst of the church will I sing praise unto thee.
This verse refers to Jesus. Are you familiar with the occasion when Jesus sang in church? Here it is, And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives. Mt 26:30
A final thought concerning the founding of the church ... Jesus gave the disciples instructions about dealing with offenses. He described a three step process that ends with His saying (in my words), “If the person will not respond to step two, then approach the whole church with the problem”
So I will move from the founding of the church to the empowering of the church.
The church has been given two kinds of power. We have been given
Power = ability
Power = authority
With reference to the second definition of above I refer you to this statement of Jesus, John 20:21 So Jesus said to them again, “Peace to you! As the Father has sent Me, I also send you.”
22 And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.
This passage tells about one of the occasions when Jesus appeared to the disciples after He had risen from the dead. Two things stand out here. One is the authority that Jesus claims to have received from the Father. And the fact that He ‘sends’, authorizes the disciples … the early church to go into the world on a mission.
The second thing that stands out is the giving of the Holy spirit. Notice, this is not the empowerment of the church … It is the authorizing of the church. Perhaps this is where the ‘indwelling’ of the Spirit began. On the day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit gave them the ability, the power to go into all the world.
The harvest is about to begin. The Holy Spirit has just descended upon them. Luke describes it as visible tongues of fire coming down onto them.
3 Then there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them.
And what happens next is absolutely incredible! When the believer spoke, their words came out in a language other than what they spoke normally.
4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.
Many teachers of our day and time describe this as a time of ‘ecstatic utterance’. That is, sounds and syllables never heard by normal mankind. A heavenly language.
The context does NOT bear this out. Any hint at ‘ecstatic’ is not in scripture. There is no mention of excitement, even though they would be thoroughly amazed by what was happening.
So let’s try to imagine the context. There were a hundred and twenty believers in this room when the Holy Spirit came upon them. The noise level included the sound of a mighty rushing wind. And it included the voices of many people speaking all at once.
Can this ‘noise’ be heard down in the street? Possibly. Did the disciples leave the building, go out into the street, speaking in foreign languages? Possibly, or a little of both.
So who heard them?
5 ¶ And there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men, from every nation under heaven.
Why? Why were these devout people here, out in the street … or in the temple courts, on this particular day?
Remember this day is a Jewish festival. On this day Jews from all over the known and nearby world travelled to Jerusalem to celebrate. These ‘devout’ persons were believers in Jehovah as the one true God. These persons lived out their belief, their faith. Were they believers in Jesus? No. They had not had the opportunity to hear about Him. They lived too far away.
But God has a harvest day in mind. He picked a day when He knew ‘believers’ from all over the world would be here. God wanted them to make the transition from believing in One God, to believing that Jesus Christ, also God, had come and has provided salvation for all - provided salvation for all past believers from Adam and into the future as well. These believers from the various nations needed to see the fulfillment of what they had been hoping for all these years.
So Luke tells us they were from every nation under heaven. That is quite a statement. We will get to read the list of a number of these nations in an upcoming verse.
Luke now tells us, 6 And when this sound occurred, the multitude came together, and were confused, because everyone heard them speak in his own language.
I am picturing this happening on the temple grounds somewhere.
So what was the confusion? Everyone in the crowd likely understood Greek because it had been the common trade language of the nations for years. The Romans have been rulers of the world for a number of years at this point, but the official language had not changed to Latin, it was still Greek. The crowd, being ‘devout’ and of the Jewish religion would also be able to speak Hebrew. If the 120 from the upper room were speaking in either Hebrew or Greek there would have been no confusion. The thing that amazed this crowd was that each was hearing these people speak in a language corresponding to the part of the world from which they had just travelled.
And what really amazed them is that they recognized the 120 by characteristics commonly seen in people from Northern Israel.
7 Then they were all amazed and marveled, saying to one another, “Look, are not all these who speak Galileans?
So Galileans, (usually not known for their education of linguistic abilities) were speaking in the birth languages of a diverse crowd.
8 “And how is it that we hear, each in our own language in which we were born?
So here comes the list of nations describing this crowd.
9 “Parthians and Medes and Elamites, those dwelling in Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia,
10 “Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya adjoining Cyrene, visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes,
11 “Cretans and Arabs —
I count about 15 language groups here. Luke says from every nation under heaven. That would suggest many more.
And what is it that they are hearing? Luke says, — “we hear them speaking in our own tongues the wonderful works of God.”
It looks like all of the `120, or most of them at least, are walking around evangelizing. They are talking about the wonderful works of God. We need to do far more of that. God is so good, so powerful, so loving, so holy … we know it. We need to speak it. The 120 were ‘empowered’ to do it. They are sent into all the world … there would be language barriers … but God just broke the barrier for them. That is power. Today we send missionaries to language schools. That seems to be the only way that we can break the language barrier these days. I could speak much more on this aspect, but that is for a study of the book of First Corinthians.
Most of the crowd 12 were all amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “Whatever could this mean?”
They are about to find out. But before we move too far ahead we need to address another portion of the crowd.
13 Others mocking said, “They are full of new wine.”
So what is this comment all about? Two things stand out. One, they cannot understand the words. Two, they are mockers. This reveals something about their hearts. They are not part of the ‘devout believer’ group. They are locals. They are not sincerely looking for the coming Messiah. They have heard about him and they were part of the crucifixion crowd. They are hearing syllables that don’t make any sense to them. To them it is mindless babble. So they accuse them of having had too much wine.
So this is interesting. God wants all people to come to faith, and yet He arranged it so that this ‘mocking’ crowd would not be able to understand a word. Why? There will be more about that in upcoming verses of Acts.
What God seems to be doing here on this day is to create a transition for those who were believers in the only faith regarding God and salvation that had been available to them up to that point. And this is God’s way to bring them up to date with the fulfillment of scripture and introduce them to the church.
Peter is about to step up and speak to this crowd of mockers … the crowd of unbelievers. This will be the very first evangelistic crusade. The results will be tremendous so stay tuned for the next episode.