Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.
Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard their own language being spoken. Utterly amazed, they asked: “Aren’t all these who are speaking Galileans? Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language? Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!” Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, “What does this mean?”
Some, however, made fun of them and said, “They have had too much wine.”
Then Peter stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice and addressed the crowd: “Fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you; listen carefully to what I say. These people are not drunk, as you suppose. It’s only nine in the morning! No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel:
“‘In the last days, God says,
    I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
    your young men will see visions,
    your old men will dream dreams.
Even on my servants, both men and women,
    I will pour out my Spirit in those days,
    and they will prophesy.
I will show wonders in the heavens above
    and signs on the earth below,
    blood and fire and billows of smoke.
The sun will be turned to darkness
    and the moon to blood
    before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord.
And everyone who calls
    on the name of the Lord will be saved.’
“Fellow Israelites, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know. This man was handed over to you by God’s deliberate plan and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross. But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him. David said about him:
“‘I saw the Lord always before me.
    Because he is at my right hand,
    I will not be shaken.
Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices;
    my body also will rest in hope,
because you will not abandon me to the realm of the dead,
    you will not let your holy one see decay.
You have made known to me the paths of life;
    you will fill me with joy in your presence.’
“Fellow Israelites, I can tell you confidently that the patriarch David died and was buried, and his tomb is here to this day. But he was a prophet and knew that God had promised him on oath that he would place one of his descendants on his throne. Seeing what was to come, he spoke of the resurrection of the Messiah, that he was not abandoned to the realm of the dead, nor did his body see decay. God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of it. Exalted to the right hand of God, he has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear. For David did not ascend to heaven, and yet he said,
“‘The Lord said to my Lord:
    “Sit at my right hand
until I make your enemies
    a footstool for your feet.”’
“Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah.”
When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?”
Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.”
With many other words he warned them; and he pleaded with them, “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.” Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day.
They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

• Acts 2:1-47

Noted Biblical Scholars, Teachers, and Preachers Comments

Acts 2:1 ‘God is doing this’: “Every encounter with God has been such that man went flat down and went blind. Paul went blind on the Damascus road (see Acts 9). What was the light that blinded him? Was it a cosmic ray coming down from some exploding body or from two colliding galaxies? No! It was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God that dwelt in the bush, the God that dwelt in the Shekinah between the wings of the seraphim.
“When they were all together in one place and suddenly there came a sound from heaven as the rushing of a mighty wind and fire appeared and sat as a tongue of flame upon each one of them (see Acts 2:1-3)—what was it? What could it mean but that God was branding them on their foreheads with His fiery holiness to say. ‘You’re mine now‘?”

• A. W. Tozer, The Attributes of God I

Acts 2:2 ‘The Holy Spirit is the same yesterday, today, and forever’: “From the descent of the Holy Spirit at the beginning, we may learn something concerning his operations at the present time. Whatever the Holy Spirit was at the first, he is now; for as God, he remains forever the same. Whatever he did then, he is able to do still; for his power is by no means diminished. We would greatly grieve the Holy Spirit if we supposed that his might was less today than in the beginning. Although we may not expect and need not desire the miracles that came with the gift of the Holy Spirit, so far as they were physical, yet we may both desire and expect what was intended and symbolized by them. And we may reckon to see the same spiritual wonders performed among us at this day.”

• Charles H. Spurgeon, from sermon notes

Acts 2:4 ‘The fire’: “That visible fire on the day of Pentecost had for the Church a deep and tender significance, for it told to all ages that they upon whose heads it sat were men and women apart; they were ‘creatures out of the fire’ (see Ezekiel 1:13) as surely as were they whom Ezekiel in his vision saw by the river Chebar. The mark of the fire was the sign of divinity; they who received it were forever a peculiar people, sons and daughters of the Flame.
“One of the most telling blows which the enemy ever struck at the life of the Church was to create in her a fear of the Holy Spirit. No one who mingles with Christians in these times will deny that such a fear exists. Few there are who without restraint will open their whole heart to the blessed Comforter. He has been and is so widely misunderstood that the very mention of His name in some circles is enough to frighten many people into resistance. The source of this unreasoning fear may easily by traced, but it would be fruitless labor to do it here. Sufficient to say that the fear is groundless.”

• A. W. Tozer, God’s Pursuit of Man

Acts 2:6 ‘this sound’: “The noise like gusty wind (v. 2), not the sound of the various languages. speak in his own language. As the believers were speaking, each pilgrim in the crowd recognized the language or dialect from his own country.”

• John MacArthur, John MacArthur Commentary (quoted Scripture without bold/italics)

Acts 2:7 ‘Galileans’: “Inhabitants of the mostly rural area of northern Israel around the Sea of Galilee. Galilean Jews spoke with a distinct regional accent and were considered to be unsophisticated and uneducated by the southern Judean Jews. When Galileans were seen to be speaking so many different languages, the Judean Jews were astonished.”

• John MacArthur, John MacArthur Commentary (quoted Scripture without bold/italics

Acts 2:11 ‘speaking in tongues’: “Babel’s curse was now removed—not by a reversing of God’s curse, for God’s curses and blessings are both like the laws of the Medes and Persians which can never be altered. Men still spoke the tongues of contusion, but the apostles were able to speak to them all after receiving that miraculous gift of tongues. Thus was fulfilled that promise of Jesus, ‘The one who believes in me will also do the works that I do. And he will do even greater works than these, because I am going to the Father’ (Jn 14:12). Christ never spoke with many tongues, nor did he enable his disciples to do so during his life on earth. But when he had gone back to heaven to his Father and had received gifts for people, they were enabled to do greater works than he had accomplished by his personal ministry here below.”

• Charles H. Spurgeon, from sermon notes

Acts 2:14-21 ‘The Prophecy of Joel 2’: “Few passages in the New Testament engender such controversy as Petet’s quote of Joel 2:28-32 as recorded in Acts 2:17-21. Long ago, Joel had prophesied that the Holy Spirit would be poured out ‘on all mankind’ at the end of the Tribulation, when the kingdom of Israel is reestablished in Jerusalem. The Tribulation is described as ‘the great and awesome day of the Lord’ (verse 31). At the end of the Tribulation there will be ‘survivors’ (Joel 2:32) who call upon the name of the Lord (Joel 2: 32).
“At the Feast of Pentecost, the disciples ‘were all filled with the Holy Spirit’ and began speaking in foreign languages (Acts 2:4-11), proclaiming what had happened to Christ some weeks earlier. Thousands of Jews and proselytes had made the pilgrimage to Jerusalem for Passover and Pentecost. These people from other areas spoke other languages, and they heard the disciples speaking the gospel message in their own languages. Thus, they heard scriptural truth they would otherwise have not known.”

• Tim LaHaye and Ed Hindson, Exploring Bible Prophecy

Acts 2:17 ‘last days’: “This phrase refers to the present era of redemptive history, i.e., from the First Coming of Christ (Heb. 1:2; 1 Pet. 1:20; 1 John 2:18) to His return. My Spirit. See 1:2, 5, 8. all flesh. This indicates all people (cf. v. 18) will receive the Holy Spirit, because everyone who enters the millennial kingdom will be redeemed (cf. Matt. 24:29-25:46; Rev. 20:4-6). visions … dreams. Dreams (Gen. 20:3; Dan. 7:1) and visions (Gen. 15:1; Rev. 9:17) were some of God’s most memorable means of revelation since they were pictorial in nature. While they were not limited to believers (e.g., Abimelech, Gen. 20:3 and Pharaoh, Gen. 41:1-8), they were primarily reserved for prophets and apostles (cf. Num. 12:6). While frequent in the OT, they were rare in the NT. In Acts, most of God’s visions were associated with either Peter (chs. 10; 11) or Paul (chs. 9; 18; cf. 2 Cor. 12:1). Most frequently they were used to reveal apocalyptic imagery (cf. Ezek., Dan., Zech., Rev.). They were not considered normal in biblical times, nor should they be so now. The time will come, however, when God will use visions and dreams during the Tribulation period as predicted by Joel 2:28-32.”

• John MacArthur, John MacArthur Commentary (quoted Scripture without bold/italics)

Acts 2:19 ‘wonders … signs’: “Cf. 4:30; 5:12; 14:3; 15:12. ‘Wonders’ is the amazement people experience when witnessing supernatural works (miracles). ‘Signs’ point to the power of God behind miracles. Marvels have no value unless they point to God and His truth. Such works were often done by the Holy Spirit through the apostles (5:12-16) and their associates (6:8) to authenticate them as the messengers of God’s truth. Cf. 2 Corinthians 12:12; Hebrews 2:3,4. Blood . . . fire . . . vapor of smoke. These phenomena are all connected with events surrounding Christ’s Second Coming and signal the establishment of the earthly kingdom: blood (Rev. 6:8; 8:7, 8; 9:15; 14:20; 16:3); fire (Rev. 8:5, 7, 8, 10); and smoke (Rev. 9:2, 3, 17, 18; 18:9, 18).”

• John MacArthur, John MacArthur Commentary (quoted Scripture without bold/italics)

Acts 2:22-36 ‘The Prophecy of Messiah’s Resurrection’: “As Peter continued his message to the crowds gathered at Pentecost, he focused on the issue of ‘Jesus the Nazarene’ (verse 22), who was ‘attested by God’ by ‘miracles and wonders and signs.’ God was working through Him by a predetermined plan to send Him to the cross, where He was slain by godless men (verse 23). The Lord, in raising Him, ended ‘the agony of death’ since the power of death could not hold Him (verse 24). Peter added that David the prophet gave this prediction in Psalm 16:8-11. MacArthur states that by using the phrase ‘the Nazarene,’ Peter ‘identified Him with His hometown of Nazareth; in fact, the phrase is sometimes translated ‘Jesus of Nazareth,’ which was the name on the inscription on His cross (John 19:19)’ (MacArthur, Acts 1-12, p. 59).
“In prophetic words, the Messiah said through David, ‘Thou wilt not abandon My soul to Hades,’ or to the grave in permanency. The reason is that God would not ‘allow Your Holy One to undergo decay’ (verse 27). Being the Son of God, the Lord Jesus is forever holy and sinless—He ‘knew no sin’ (2 Corinthians 5:21). Before His physical birth, the angel told Mary, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; and for that reason the holy Child shall be called the Son of God’ (Luke 1:35).”

• Tim LaHaye and Ed Hindson, Exploring Bible Prophecy

Acts 2:22 ‘Jesus of Nazareth’: “The humble name that often identified the Lord during His earthly ministry (Matt. 21:11; Mark 10:47; Luke 24:19; John 18:5). attested … by miracles, wonders, and signs. By a variety of supernatural means and works, God validated Jesus as the Messiah (cf. Matt. 11:1-6; Luke 7:20-23; John 3:2; 5:17-20; 8:28; Phil. 2:9; see … 1:3; 2:19).”

• John MacArthur, John MacArthur Commentary (quoted Scripture without bold/italics)

Acts 2:23 ‘responsibility is ours alone’: “This was bold talking, for Peter was doubtless addressing many of the same people who had put the Lord to death, and he charges them with it. He declares that Christ’s death was in accordance with ‘God’s determined plan and foreknowledge,’ yet he expressly says that ‘lawless people’ had crucified and slain him. It never occurred to Peter that God’s determined plan and foreknowledge deprived people of the responsibility and guilt of their actions. If anyone should ask us, ‘When anything is according to God’s determined plan and foreknowledge, how can God blame the doer of it?’ We may ask the inquirer to say what the difficulty is. The inspired apostle Peter could see none, but when he was most vehement in charging these hearers with guilt, yet at the same time he said it was by God’s determined plan and foreknowledge. Surely Peter would have been a bad pleader to introduce into his argument anything that could be readily construed into an excuse for those he was accusing. But there is no real excuse in it; the free agency of humans is as true as the predestination of God. The two truths stand fast forever. It is the folly of people to imagine that these two disagree. If we do wrong, we are accountable for the wrong. And that there is a providence who ordains everything does not take away from any person the full responsibility for anything he or she does.”

• Charles H. Spurgeon, from sermon notes

Acts 2:24 ‘not possible’: “Because of His divine power (John 11:25; Heb. 2:14) and God’s promise and purpose (Luke 24:46; John 2:18-22; 1 Cor. 15:16-26), death could not keep Iesus in the grave.”

• John MacArthur, John MacArthur Commentary (quoted Scripture without bold/italics)

Acts 2:29 ‘his tomb is with us’: “A reminder to the Jews that David’s body had never been raised, so he could not be the fulfillment of the prophecy of Psalm 16.”

• John MacArthur, John MacArthur Commentary (quoted Scripture without bold/italics)

Acts 2:32 ‘Not to be forgotten’: “We don’t know where the disciples went when they fled the garden, but we do know what they took: a memory. They took a heart-stopping memory of a man who called himself no less than God in the flesh. And they couldn’t get him out of their minds. Try as they might to lose him in the crowd, they couldn’t forget him.
“If they saw a leper, they thought of his compassion.
“If they heard a storm, they would remember the day he silenced one.
“If they saw a child, they would think of the day he held one.
“And if they saw a lamb being carried to the temple, they would remember his face streaked with blood and his eyes flooded with love.
“No, they couldn’t forget him. As a result, they came back. And, as a result, the church of our Lord began with a group of frightened men in an upper room.“

• Max Lucado, Six Hours One Friday

Acts 2:34 ‘The Lord said to my Lord’: “Peter quoted another psalm (Ps. 110:1) concerning the exaltation of Messiah by ascension to the right hand of God, and reminds the reader that it was not fulfilled by David (as bodily Resurrection had not yet been; see note on v. 29), but by Jesus Christ (v. 36). Peter had been an eyewitness to that Ascension (1:9-11).”

• John MacArthur, John MacArthur Commentary (quoted Scripture without bold/italics)

Acts 2:38 ‘Repent’: “This refers to a change of mind and purpose that turns an individual from sin to God (1 Thess. 1:9). Such change involves more than fearing the consequences of God’s judgment. Genuine repentance knows that the evil of sin must be forsaken and the person and work of Christ totally and singularly embraced. Peter exhorted his hearers to repent, otherwise they would not experience true conversion (see note on Matt. 3:2; cf. 3:19; 5:31; 8:22; 11:18; 17:30; 20:21; 26:20; Matt. 4:17). be baptized. This Greek word lit. means ‘be dipped or immersed’ in water. Peter was obeying Christ’s command from Matthew 28:19 and urging the people who repented and turned to the Lord Christ for salvation to identify, through the waters of baptism, with His death, burial, and Resurrection (cf. 19:5; Rom. 6:3, 4; 1 Cor. 12:13; Gal. 3:27; see … Matt. 3:2). This is the first time the apostles publicly enjoined people to obey that ceremony. Prior to this, many Jews had experienced the baptism of John the Baptist, (see … Matt. 3:1-3) and were also familiar with the baptism of Gentile converts to Judaism (proselytes). In the name of Iesus Christ. For the new believer, it was a crucial but costly identification to accept. for the remission of sins. This might better be translated ‘because of the remission of sins.’ Baptism does not produce forgiveness and cleansing from sin. See … 1 Peter 3:20, 21. The reality of forgiveness precedes the rite of baptism (v. 41). Genuine repentance brings from God the forgiveness (remission) of sins (cf. Eph. 1:7) and, because of that, the new believer was to be baptized. Baptism, however, was to be the ever-present act of obedience, so that it became synonymous with salvation. Thus, to say one was baptized for forgiveness was the same as saying one was saved. See … Ephesians 4:5. Every believer enjoys the complete remission of sins (Matt. 26:28; Luke 24:47; Eph. 1:7; Col. 2:13; 1 John 2:12). the gift of the Holy Spirit. See … 1:5, 8.”

• John MacArthur, John MacArthur Commentary (quoted Scripture without bold/italics)

Acts 2 ‘Challenge’: “I do not believe in a repetition of Pentecost, but I do believe in a perpetuation of Pentecost—and there is a vast difference between the two.
“I want to try to discover with you the abiding elements of Pentecost as described in the book of Acts. What came and stayed? What came and went?
“Now, as I said, I do not believe that Pentecost is to be repeated, but I do believe it is to be perpetuated. I believe that Pentecost did not come and go, but that Pentecost came and stayed.”

• A. W. Tozer, The Counselor

 

My Thoughts

Acts 2 starts with all of them in Jerusalem because it is Pentecost, but Jesus had told them to stay in Pentecost until they received the Holy Spirit.  This “all of them” is referring to the crowd that they spoke to in the temple courts.  While the 120 mentioned in Acts 1, rather than the 12, were in the upper room, they were packed into the room in prayer.  They had been praying for ten days, not knowing what Jesus meant about staying there until the Advocate, the Counselor, the Holy Spirit came to them.  They knew nothing about what to expect.

I am also convinced that Peter was not using those ten days to prepare his sermon.  When the time came, the Holy Spirit gave him the right words to say.  He probably did not have the verses from Joel 2, Psalm 16, and Psalm 110 memorized, but he had read them.  And the Holy Spirit led Peter in what to say.

But before we get to Peter’s sermon, we see tongues of fire that seem to descend unto the people in the upper room.

The people in the upper room were in hiding most of the time after Jesus was crucified, fearing they might be crucified also, but with the Holy Spirit in their hearts, they were led by the Holy Spirit to be bold and go to the temple and tell everyone the good news.

Now, there are many ways to interpret what happened at the temple.

What we know is that people were astonished that these people were Galilean Jews who were talking as if they were scholars in the Scripture.  They knew where they came from due to their accents.  The people of Jerusalem looked down on the Galileans as not being well educated.  Thus, it was a surprise that they were teaching with authority.

But that sets the table.  Then the narration says that at least fifteen different ethnicities, each with their own language, heard these people speak in their own tongue.  This almost contradicts the previous paragraph.  If the Apostles were speaking in tongues, then the Jerusalem residents might have detected a slight accent, but they would not make the connection that they were uneducated bumpkins from Galilee.  And if there were more than fifteen countries represented, each with its own language, the Apostles, numbering only twelve, would be understaffed to speak in all the languages simultaneously.  This presents a math problem that can easily be accounted for with the idea of 120 people speaking in tongues.

And note: This speaking in tongues is for the edification of all those who needed to hear the Good News in their own language.  It was not a parlor trick.  It was not a “sign” that they had the Holy Spirit in them.  It was done out of necessity, and the interpretation was done by the hearers hearing it in their own language.

Of course, the Apostles could have had a short message that they repeated many times in a variety of languages.  Inefficient, but it would work.

But I think about what happens when we go to Heaven.  My wife, in her vision (or dream), spoke to her guardian angel by thought, neither of them moving their mouths.  I have heard many other people with the same type of dream or vision, thought transfer instead of speech.  There goes the idea of keeping a secret, in that as soon as you think it, everybody knows.  But what language did they have on earth prior to the Tower of Babel?  I am thinking that it was something we might call “Heaven’s Language.”  That language is stored in our brains for the moment when God wishes to speak to us.  We hear it in whatever language we have been taught.  I am not trying to present heresy here.  I am proposing a concept that overcomes the Tower of Babel curse in one fell swoop (or is it swell foop?).  The Apostles, and the others, could have spoken in their own Galilean dialect (thus the derision from the locals of Jerusalem) and those of various nations heard it in their own language.  That transcends the need for speaking in tongues, having uneducated Galileans speaking a variety of foreign languages, having everyone hear the same words being spoken from over twelve people speaking (thus avoiding a cacophony of other language background noise that might distort the message), and while Peter is preaching his sermon, everyone else could be quiet while only Peter spoke.  Then, the rest, now scattered throughout the crowd, could speak to each foreigner in their own language to answer questions and expand on what Peter said.  There is only one phrase that makes me think this is a possible interpretation of this “they each heard in their own language’ never saying a word of it being spoken in their own language.

Peter’s quote from Joel hits me hard since I have watched the Star of Bethlehem video from Rick Larson.  The last portion of the video takes you to the date of crucifixion.  If Mr. Larson is correct, Jupiter is at the feet of Virgo (the Virgin) and the moon rises before sunset, a blood moon caused by a lunar eclipse.  As described, the moon turns to blood.  In those days, they did not know that a blood moon was simply a lunar eclipse so that the only light from the sun that reaches the moon’s surface passed through earth’s atmosphere and was refracted so that only the red light is reflected back to earth.  When you tell the crowd the reason, or the prophecy, that matches what they saw roughly at the time of Jesus’ death, no wonder 3,000 came to Christ that day.

In quoting two psalms, Peter’s sermon ties Jesus to David, David having someone who descended from him being on the throne, during the millennial reign.  But it also allows Peter to explain that while the bones of David are still in his grave, Jesus never decayed.  Jesus rose from the dead.  It is highly possible that if those people celebrating Pentecost had not seen Jesus, the resurrected man, they had heard the stories from people who had seen Him.  Again, Peter was linking eyewitness accounts to Scripture.

In a way, Peter is almost being politically correct.  He does accuse the crowd of putting Jesus to death, but they were under the influence of wicked men.

And while we have no eyewitness accounts today of Jesus walking and talking after He had been crucified, we have the little statement that three thousand were added to the number of followers that day and for every day afterwards, more were added.  If there were no eyewitnesses or people who heard the eyewitness accounts and the Holy Spirit was not at work, how could that many people be converted by a single sermon?

Today, evangelists can have that many accept Jesus from the crowd that fills a huge stadium, but that is the work of the Holy Spirit, possibly working many years within the hearts of those who come forward.

And then, still being guided by the Holy Spirit, Peter tells them to repent and be baptized so that they could be saved from a corrupt generation.

The result is that all these new believers subjected themselves to the teaching of the apostles, to fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer.

Compare that to a church today, and the only one of those things most professing Christians might do most Sundays (absolutely not every day) would be the fellowship.  Even then, the fellowship in the first century was at a much deeper spiritual level rather than the fellowship, often gossip, that is done at a trivial level today, not that the present fellowship is “wrong.”  It just pales in comparison.  But teaching?  Does your church have more than 10% of the membership either teaching or attending Sunday school?  And I have written a lot about the pathetic prayer lives of most Christians today, not counting out those prayer warriors that gladly spend hours in prayer each day.

We fall drastically short of the model given in Acts 2 of how a church should respond as people attend the church and people become believers.  And I could speak further about how the new believers sold what they had to share with the church.

Some Serendipitous Reflections

Acts 2:1-41 The Holy Spirit Comes at Pentecost 1. To repent and be baptized in Jesus‘ name meant to turn away from all other loyalties and affirm allegiance to Jesus. In what ways does that call still present a challenge to you? How have you experienced the reality of God’s promises to those who answer that call?
“2. From Peter’s sermon, what facts about Jesus would be key for non-believers to understand?
“3. When did you make your initial commitment to Christ? Who was influential in that process? What convinced you of your need for him?
“4. What difference does it make to you that Jesus truly is the reigning King over all? How does that truth affect your daily life?
“5. In chapter 2, what roles do the apostles and God have in witnessing? How does that encourage you in your witness for Christ?
“6. When was the last time you seized an opportunity to witness for Jesus? What happened’? Who stood with you at that time? How are you like Peter? Unlike him? What encourages you as you watch Peter? Why?
Acts 2:42-47 The Fellowship of the Believers How is your church fellowship like and unlike the fellowship here? How does this make you feel? What could you do to help your church be more like this? How will this example affect the way you pray for your church?”

• Lyman Coleman, et al, The NIV Serendipity Bible for Study Groups

Acts 2 is divided into two sets of questions as noted above.

Substitute whatever group for any reference to a small group or ask who could come to your aid.

If you like these Thursday morning Bible studies, but you think you missed a few, you can use this LINK. I have set up a page off the home page for links to these Thursday morning posts. I will continue to modify the page as I add more.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.