AM May 13th Acts 2

May 13th  

Acts,  2

The day of Pentecost

1: And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. 2: And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. 3: And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. 4: And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. 5: And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven. 6: Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language. 7: And they were all amazed and marvelled, saying one to another, Behold, are not all these which speak Galilaeans? 8: And how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born? 9: Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judaea, and Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia, 10: Phrygia, and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes, 11: Cretes and Arabians, we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God. 12: And they were all amazed, and were in doubt, saying one to another, What meaneth this? 13: Others mocking said, These men are full of new wine.

The disciples (All Jews) were gathered together with one heart and mind, to observe the feast of Pentecost. The feast of Pentecost was the yearly memorial of the entrance into the Old Covenant. Jews from all over the world gathered in Jerusalem to make offerings in the Temple and to glory in the Covenant they were in. With them came Jews who actually had no knowledge of the Judean language. They were steeped in Gentile culture and life. The disciples without any prayer or request for it, suddenly find themselves baptised in the Holy Spirit. They hear a sound from heaven which is like the sound of a tornado and there appeared what looked like flames of fire resting on the heads of each one of them where they sat. This was a one off experience in the life of the Church. It has never been repeated and any Christian today at conversion immediately comes into the Christian community that has already been baptised into the Holy Spirit. This was the same for the Jews they also only ever entered into the Old Covenant once and all succeeding generations automatically were brought into the Old Covenant by Circumscision. When the Apostles went out into the streets and passageways of Jerusalem they were all filled with the Holy Spirit to enable them to speak to the multitudes that had swelled the population of Jerusalem. The crowds were from twelve specific nations and they heard the twelve apostles preaching in their native languages. This event caused a great stir throughout Jerusalem the multitudes gathered together and were completely unable to explain it because they heard the Apostles speaking in their own native languages. They said, how are they doing this? Aren’t they all from Galilee. How can they speak these languages? The Apostles preached in the language of the 1. Parthians, 2. Medes, 3. Elamites, 4. Mesopotamian, Judaea, 5. Cappadocia, 6. Pontus, 7. Phrygia, 8. Pamphylia, 9. Libya, 10. Rome, 11. Cretes and 12. Arabians. In each language they heard them speak the wonderful works of God. The people were amazed and they were confused as to the meaning of this phenomenon. Some cynics said, they are drunk with new wine. We see from this passage that the Spirit enabling the Apostles to speak 11. foreign languages. (The apostles needed no supernatural gift to speak to the men of Judea) What they preached was the Gospel of the Kingdom and it was preached to Jews from far countries. This is the first of only three examples of this gift being used in the Acts of the Apostles. Each time it was used it was evangelistic and a sign to the Jews from God that the Apostles were ordained of God.