You pick up your Bible and wonder, is there more here than meets the eye?
Is there anything here for me? I mean, it's just words printed on paper, right? Well, it may look like just print on a page, but it's more than ink. Join us for the next half hour as we explore God's Word together, as we learn how to explore it on our own, as we ask God to meet us there in its pages.
Welcome to More Than Ink. Okay, so Jesus has gone off to heaven, and he told his apostles not to leave Jerusalem until something happened. Oh, he said until the coming of the Holy Spirit. Yeah, so what do you think they were expecting was going to happen? You know, I don't know, and I don't think they knew either.
I don't think so either, so they're going to be surprised today on More Than Ink. Well, a wonderful good morning to you. I'm Jim.
And I'm Dorothy. And you've reached us at More Than Ink, and we do a very simple thing here. We read the Bible together and show you that you can do that too, right? And it's best done actually with somebody to kind of bounce your ideas off of and read the Scripture together.
Maybe not best done, but that is an excellent thing to do, and we enjoy doing it a lot. Yeah, it's engaging. So where we are, we started into Acts a couple weeks ago, and we're now in Chapter 2. We're in one of the most famous sections of Acts, in fact. And one of the most exciting, I think. One of the most exciting, yeah. It becomes really clear that, oh, there's something really special happening here.
That's right. This is a really big deal, and many people call it the birth of the Christian church, and it's Pentecost that we come to. Well, so maybe we should say something about Pentecost. Oh, what it is. Because when we're reading a narrative, you want to make sure that you observe really carefully who, what, when, where, how, because the author's going to give you lots of details, but he's telling a story. He's recounting something that actually happened. So we want to know, why is it important that this is the day of Pentecost? Right, and what is it? I mean, it says that we're at Chapter 2, Verse 1, when the day of Pentecost arrived. Okay.
Okay. What is that? So, Pentecost, that's the Greek word, is 50 days after the Passover. And it's kind of, you know, other names are Feast of Weeks or a couple of other things it's called in the Old Testament. You can look up Pentecost in your Bible dictionary and read.
You can. And you can find where it is, but Leviticus 23, 16 is what tells us, you know, count off 50 days after the Passover and then, and gives a description of the offerings. So, but it's one of the major feasts of Israel, one of the ones that they were commanded to go to Jerusalem for. One of the big three, they had to show up. So there's lots of people in town and it's been seven weeks and a day since Passover. Yep. And many, many commentators on this will state that this was actually probably the largest attendant of the three during the year, largely because of the weather.
Oh, that would make sense. Yeah, so this is a time that you can guarantee that Jerusalem would be the most packed with people. So this is a good time for what's going to happen to happen right here. Well, and we'll see from this passage when they list people from all the nations that are there, you realize people had come from all over the known world.
Yeah, it's really quite an amazing thing. This is also, I don't know if you know, this started out originally as the wheat harvest. This is the beginning of the wheat harvest. The barley harvest happens actually about two months earlier. Well, it happens actually at Passover, so you celebrate the barley harvest. This is the wheat harvest, so it's a first fruit for the wheat harvest. And also, just a little tip, it's 50 days, but it's called the Feast of Weeks because it's a week of weeks.
Right. And when you say the word week, it means the number seven. So it's seven weeks, it's a week of weeks, and seven weeks is 49 and the day after that is 50. And the day after that is the beginning of a whole new thing. And that's Pentecost, so that's where we are today. And that actually kind of touches on first fruits, right? The idea of the first fruit being the first fruit represents the whole crop that's still coming.
Right, the first of a gigantic crop. Right, so when the day of Pentecost arrived, so where are we in the narrative? If you remember, Jesus had just left them.
Right, right. And the two men had appeared and said, you know, why are you standing here looking up into heaven? He's coming back exactly the way you saw him go, right? And then there's this little breath in the narrative and then suddenly we're at the day of Pentecost. Yep, well we just elected a new apostle.
That's right. So that's where we are. And Jesus told them to stay in the city until the Spirit comes.
So technically Jesus has been making appearances for 40 days and here we are at the 50th day. And presumably for 10 days it's been silent. So they're just waiting. They're waiting to see what happens. And so that's where we are.
The city is packed with people for another holiday. And the apostles are waiting, secluded, waiting for this coming of the thing. And they're not exactly sure what's going to happen. But they know it's going to be big and we've got to wait until it happens. Well that big thing happens today. Well and when it says here that they were all together in one place, we are told just a little bit before this that at this point there was about 120 people, right? So you had the original guys plus Mary, the mother of Jesus and some other people are named. But 120 people is a, you know, that's a significant... Yeah, so as you imagine this in your mind, this is not just the 12. This is 120 people in a large room. So let's see what happens.
Okay, let's read. When the day of Pentecost arrived they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind. And it filled the entire house where they were sitting. And divided tongues as a fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them.
And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. Whoa. Shall we stop there for a second?
I think we should. That's crazy. That's absolutely crazy. So they're together in one place. Suddenly, this is how he describes it, just what it was like to be in the middle of it. There came a heaven from heaven, a sound like a mighty rushing wind.
I always equated this like a jet engine. Yeah, so they hear something happening. They hear something. It's not an actual wind, but it's the hearing of the sound of a wind. They hear the sound. And the fact that it sounds like wind is not an accident.
No. Because it turns out that the Spirit, as it's transcribed into Greek and Hebrew, both mean wind. Right. Or breath. Or breath.
They're dual purpose. So this is a big clue if you're waiting for the Holy Spirit and you've always read it in Hebrew as being the wind or breath. And then you hear wind, you know it's there. And if you remember back to when we did John, in John 3, Jesus had said, so those who are filled with the Spirit or moved by the Spirit, it's like when the wind blows, you see the effect of it. You see the effect. You don't see the wind. Yeah, it's invisible, but you sure see the effects. But they hear it, and then they see something. Yeah, yeah.
So three. And divided tongues it talks about. It's kind of a confusing thing, and we're not exactly sure what that means. But divided tongues as a fire appeared on them and rested on them. Well, we still speak about tongues of fire, right?
We do. Because fire kind of grows up and divides and licks out in little disparate sections. Yeah. So it looks like some kind of fire is happening. And it appears, and it actually, it doesn't just, you know, it's not just in the center of the room like a campfire. It seems to actually rest on each one of them. Each one.
A mini campfire on each one of them, yeah. So this is a very individualized, visibly individualized kind of coming of the Holy Spirit to each person that's in the room. Now, that's going to be important if you remember that we said there were both men and women there. Right, right, right. Because Peter's going to pick that up later when he gives his speech. So just pointing that out.
I think sometimes we overlook the fact that women were an active part in this event. Right, right. Well, and it was mentioned several centuries before by Joel. Right. We're going to get to that.
So we're going to get to that, yeah. So it says that the Holy Spirit come in a very dramatic way, but dramatic. And all of a sudden, all of a sudden they began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them an utterance.
So they're just in this room together, and they're starting to speak. And when they speak, it's other languages. Other tongues, other languages, known languages. Every time this word, tongues, in this form is used in the New Testament, it's always speaking about known languages. Known languages, yeah. Languages that people speak in other places. But they were speaking in languages that were not native to them.
So they didn't actually learn the language, but they're speaking it. Right. Yeah, yeah. Well, and he attests to that fact right there in 5, he says, now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. Every nation under heaven is a big area. That's all in the world. This is Shavuot, so you'd expect that. And at this sound, so they hear the sound, these guys are still inside. Right, right. They hear this sound, the multitude came together, and they were bewildered because each one was hearing them speak in his own language. So stop and think about this.
Yeah. They're in a large room, there's 120 people inside, there's a racket going on that starts with the sound of this rushing wind. And then they hear all this, 120 people speaking like simultaneously. And as that leaks out, I don't know, into the public area outside, they say, I hear my own language being spoken, but I've traveled a thousand miles to get here. How can anyone here speak my language? Okay, so let me just offer you something that attracted my attention. I was recently in Asia, and actually the country I was in was Myanmar, and there's no Westerners in Myanmar right now.
Not right now. But in the hotel where I was staying, I came down into the lobby and I heard two men speaking English when everyone else in the place was speaking the local language. And that caught my attention immediately. I'm like, wait, what? I understand what these guys are saying. When it was my custom while I was there to not know what anybody was saying.
And you can pick out someone speaking your language in that kind of cacophony pretty easily. It attracted my attention. So that was kind of a fresh insight here. That I was just drawn to look for these men.
Who are they and what are they doing here? Right, right. Well, it gets even more amazing, they say, in verse seven. They were amazed and astonished saying, are not all these who are speaking Galileans? Right. Country hicks.
And so how is it that we hear each of us in his own native language? Yeah, because that's the whole idea. Galileans are really hicks. They were considered lowlifes.
Definitely not the elite, highly trained academics of the country. These are fishermen after all. So then they go on and make a list. We're talking languages such as from the Parthians, the Medes, the Elamites, residents of Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene and visitors from Rome.
Both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians, we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God. Well, that's quite a list. You should look at it on a map.
I know, it's amazing. Because we're going from Rome up in Italy, clear down to the top of Africa. Top of Africa. Clear over to Mesopotamia in the east that is a massive.
Just modern day Iraq, Iran today. Massive map. Yeah, they even go to the top of Libya, which is the top of Africa, as well as the bottom of Africa.
Not the bottom bottom, but pieces of Africa. So it's a gigantic area. Okay, and what were they hearing? Yeah, and that's key here.
That's very important. The mighty works of God. So all these people in this room are individually recounting the works of God.
They're praising God. And you know what struck me here is that it tells us three times in a couple of verses that people were hearing in their own language. That tells us that this was not an unintelligible thing that was happening. No, no, no. They understood it was being said.
This is a known language and people were understanding what they were hearing. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, exactly.
That's exactly right. And so they go on, if we just finish this tiny section, they said they were all amazed and perplexed saying to one another, what does this mean? Because clearly this means something. Right. A big thing just happened.
Never seen anything like this before. We can attest to the validity of it because they're all speaking languages. I mean, this is not hearsay. We were experiencing this. But others were mocking saying, oh, they're just filled with new wine. Well, who would say that?
It's kind of a silly thing to say. Well, I think it's people who were hearing languages that they didn't understand and had no understanding. So it sounds like gibberish. It sounds like gibberish. Yeah, yeah, sounds like gibberish. Yeah, I mean, what if they're all in there speaking foreign languages and they're not speaking Greek or Aramaic? Right.
Then it would all sound like gibberish to them. Right. Yeah, but no, clearly this is not the case right here. So they're talking about it. So you need to be clear because many times we get lazy and when we read this, when we read the whole Pentecost account, we think that this is them addressing the crowds outside. And they're not. This is like a private indoor worship meeting and in there they're proclaiming the mighty works of God. It's a worship thing in all these different languages. So many times we think they went outside and they did these proclamations to the crowd.
It doesn't seem to be the case here. But it's overheard and people outside are wondering, what is this? And then Peter goes out and speaks. And then that happens. Right. Yeah, so that comes up next. So I just want to say before we move on to the next passage that this is the first mention of tongues in Acts.
But it's going to recur. And because this is kind of a hot topic among the Christian body, I would encourage you since we're talking about Bible study, get your concordance and look up tongues. Yeah. And simply scan for the passages in the New Testament where we are instructed about the gift of tongues. And then read throughout the Old Testament how are tongues, not this phenomenon, but how is a tongue used? Right, right, right. It's to communicate something.
It is a language. Right, right. So that's just your little Bible study tip here. Yeah, and we'll just warn you, this is a very controversial passage. It's misinterpreted in a lot of ways.
So what you need to do when you're doing Bible study like this is just look at what's objectively there. Right. Take notice of some obvious things. Like for instance, they're speaking known languages that men understood, for one thing. And they're not out of control.
I mean, they're not drunk. So this seems to be really quite straightforward. So anyway, just keep in mind of the obvious things. So anyway, that grabs the attention of the crowds that are in town. And then working on top of that attention, Peter gets up and decides to actually address them. And interestingly enough, he addresses them about answering the question they just had in their minds. You know, what does this mean?
Right. So he gets up in verse 14. So why don't you read that. So Peter, standing with the 11, lifted up his voice and addressed them. Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem. So his audience is Jews. Let this be known to you and give ear to my words.
Remember, these people are not drunk, as you suppose, since it's only the third hour of the day. But this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel. And here's the quotation from Joel 2. And in the last days, it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. Even on my male and female servants in those days, I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy. Okay, let's stop there for a second. There's another part to the prophecy.
But this pouring out, pouring out, it comes out twice. I'll pour out my Spirit, God had promised way back in the days of Joel. Right, right.
On both men and women, young and old. Right, right. And there's going to be some effects. This is a well-known prophecy. And so Peter is tying this together. He's tying this together right here and saying, this is it.
What we've been waiting for, this is it. So again, there's a little concordance moment, look up, pours out. Pours out, yeah. Or pour out. Right, and when you look at the Old Testament in contrast, the Holy Spirit is there. Oh, He is. Definitely there, but not in a pour out context.
I mean, not in this broad kind of way. I mean, this is, so you really have to look at the fact that when it says pour out, that's the emphasis on this, not just the fact that the Holy Spirit is here, but how widely spread the Holy Spirit is. Right. That's what's different.
It's like rushing out, like spilling over lavishly this pour out. There are two things that are poured out in the Old Testament, I found, doing my own concordance study. The Spirit and God's wrath. So that's interesting in itself. But here we have the Spirit being poured out lavishly.
Right. And so when we say pour out, we can see it here in this room with 120 people in there, because it says on all of them, all of them. So we're not just talking like the Old Testament. Every now and then you get some kind of incredible exception to the rule, and the Holy Spirit would be on somebody. But here, the Holy Spirit was poured into the whole room, the whole room.
And it begs the question from this point on, is that going to continue from this point on in the book of Acts? Yeah, well, actually. That's what you're trying to say. And so that's what he's saying.
This is Joel happening. He pours out his Spirit on all flesh. Well, that all flesh is a really big deal.
Yes. Because that strongly implies not just Jews and not just men. And it implies all flesh.
And, in fact, he says it straight up. He says, your sons and your daughters will prophesy. And it makes me think of those five daughters later in Acts. Oh, yeah. Well, we're going to see lots of women doing stuff in Acts. Yeah, yeah. They were well known for their – they called them prophetesses. Right. The daughters of – I forget who it is now. We'll get there.
Yeah. Oh, Philip. Philip. The non-apostle Philip. We're way ahead of ourselves.
We're way ahead. But, I mean, this actually happens. And as the story goes on, what he's saying right here – it's prophesied by Joel – actually does happen, starting here and throughout the rest of the book.
Well, and I want to jump in here out of my concordance study on pouring out. I came to Proverbs 123, which says, if you turn to my reproof, behold, I will pour out my Spirit on you. I'll make my words known to you. So, you know, Peter's going to preach from a different passage in the Old Testament, but this idea of responding to the pouring out of God with a turned life, a changed life, is actually right there in Proverbs.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. And this is a gigantic deal from a couple other reasons, too, because we talk about the Holy Spirit as though this is not God. This is God. This is God's Spirit.
Okay, that's important. That's a really important thing, because in the Old Testament, the vision when you look at the tabernacle of the temple is that God sort of dwells in the innermost Holy of Holies, and you cannot approach him. But the whole idea, not that we can approach him, but the fact that he approaches us and he fills us, rather than us going into his place, that's a remarkable shift.
And we're talking about the nearness of God in our lives that was completely unparalleled in the Old Testament. And something we need to be aware of is that in the New Testament, the Holy Spirit is always referred to as a he, not an it. And he is sent by Jesus himself. Now, you can settle that if you go to John 16, 7, where Jesus says, I will send him.
So this is the promise of the Father, but it is the Jesus they knew who is sending this personal Holy Spirit to indwell them. Right, right. And he talked about this in the Upper Room Discourse. In John 14, he talks about it.
14, 15, 16. Yeah. In fact, I pulled one section, because it's a funny thing what he says. He says, you know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you. And he says, I will not leave you as orphans.
I will come to you. Right. I, Jesus, or I, the Holy Spirit? Well, yes. Yes, is the answer. See, that's what's fascinating about this. Or at the end of Matthew says, I'll be with you always to the end of the age.
Right, right. Which would presume you'd see Jesus sightings all through Acts. You don't see Jesus sightings, but the Holy Spirit is there.
Everywhere. In fact, the Holy Spirit is the center of Acts, we find out from this point on. So it's a fascinating thing. So we need to press on in Peter's sermon here, because he goes on quoting Joel in verse 19. He says, and I, this is God, I will show wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and vapor of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon to blood before the Lord comes, the great and magnificent day. And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
Now, that's a little bit of a puzzling quotation, because it is that part of Joel where God talks about pouring out His Spirit. And some of those things happened at the cross, right? The sun did turn dark.
There was an earthquake. There were signs in the heavens. Right, right. But this looks far beyond that. It's partially true right now, but partially not true yet. So, in fact, this is what you see in prophecies all the time, is the fact that the timeline, the historical timeline, gets kind of merged together here. So he could be simultaneously talking about something that happens now and something that happened maybe a thousand years from now. But what's common to it is the fact that it's the coming of the Holy Spirit that changes everything and then large changes in the universe, in a sense, start to happen.
And you'll see that as it goes on as well. That's a really common theme, is that the prophecies themselves are kind of timeless and they smear together their now and present things in the same statement. So, you know, he's saying when God pours out His Spirit on all flesh, there will be evidence that that's what's happening. And that set me thinking of what Jesus said at the end of the Gospel of Mark when He's talking to the disciples after the resurrection.
He says in Mark 16, 17, and these signs will accompany those who have believed in My name. They will cast out demons. They will speak with new tongues. They'll pick up serpents if they drink any deadly poison.
He goes on and lay hands on the sick and they'll recover by that. Speaking with new tongues caught my attention because that's exactly what happened here. I wonder if that wasn't in Peter's mind also. Oh, it could be.
Yeah, it very well could be. Because Jesus had just said it. Yeah, yeah. And I'll mention with this Joel quote, as we're kind of wrapping up here, that last line he quotes out of Joel 21, you know, everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. That's a very famous verse. But it also is exactly what these guys need to hear because in a second, next time when we look at it, they're going to hear the message from Peter and they're going to say, so what do we do? To be saved. To be saved. And so actually they're following up on this verse.
Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. And the name of the Lord is the important thing here. It's a very big deal. So in just this one passage in Joel, not only the pouring out of the Holy Spirit, but cataclysmic signs in the heavens to signify something just gigantic just happened. Something's going on.
And by the way, it could be so terrifying, you're going to have to say how we'll be saved, anyone who calls on the name of the Lord. It's a big deal. It's a really big deal. I was just going to mention a little bit in passing, too, the fact that it's fascinating that Jesus at one point in John 20, he breathes on the apostles and says, receive the Holy Spirit. Now it doesn't say in that passage that it happens there. Right. But he does link together this breathing, the breath and the wind and says, so it's a way of him kind of preconditioning them to go, you know, when you feel the breath, when you feel the wind, here it comes. So it's a fascinating thing. And then he also told them it's better for me to leave, because if I don't leave, then you won't have the Holy Spirit. So what's happening?
That might be worth a comment, right? Why? Why is it better for us? Because when Jesus was here in bodily form, he's the one they look to in bodily form. But he, in his body, had to sleep, he had to eat, he had to do all those things that prevented him from being with them 24-7.
As a man, he could only deal with so many people at a moment. Right. But now his Spirit is in every single one of us. It'll be so much better for you when the Spirit comes.
So much better, so much better. So next time, you know, we're cutting halfway through Peter's sermon right here. This part of the sermon, he just explains what just happened. Right. You know, this is the Holy Spirit.
This is Joel 2 happening. I think that gets their attention. Gets them thinking. And next time, as we come back to it, we're going to pick up in verse 22, and what he's going to do is he's going to say, okay, I'm standing here in front of you with the authority of the Holy Spirit, now listen to this.
Right. And he says something that just shakes them to their boots. And it's something that I would never expect Peter, of all people, Peter, the guy who cowered in front of the servant girls as Jesus is being tried, Peter. Just a few weeks ago.
Just a few weeks ago. And Peter suddenly stands in front and says, not only doesn't have stage fright, but he says the most astonishing, condemning things to this assembled bunch of Jews. So we're going to see that next week as he gets in front and says astonishing things. So read ahead, and you can see it on verse 22, and see what exactly is the message he wants to deliver, because it is just about who is Jesus.
That's what he's going to do. So I'm Jim. And I'm Dorothy. And we're glad you're joining us. We always encourage you to read ahead with us and to find out what's going on. And then we'll sit down, and the three of us will look at it together. So we'll see you next time on More Than Ink. It's been a production of Main Street Church of Brigham City.
