Acts, 2:1-36

We're in Acts chapter 2, and what we laid out this last week is here are the apostles with some of the other disciples gathered around on the day of Pentecost, a day in Jerusalem with all sorts of centuries of Mosaic law as well as tradition, lots and lots of things that have gone on. And then the other backdrop to this thing, and we'll need to keep it in mind for today as we look at the passage we've got, there is just a massive transition in mindset and understanding taking place within a couple of months up to this time. So here's Peter and he's talking to these guys who are all gathered, and we kind of use the comparison of an earthquake or a tornado. Think about this.

How many people became believers that day? About 3,000. Okay. How much noise would it take in your neighborhood to gather 3,000 people? More than the two-year-old next door, right? A lot of noise to gather that many people. This is not some small disturbance This isn't just cranking up the stereo a little bit This is a major ruckus to gather that many people and have them come running up and saying what is going on?

Okay, so this is this is a major event now Think also You've had Jesus crucified What happened the day he was crucified? In the middle of the day? Ah, the sky turned dark. That didn't happen all the time. That was only less than two months before this. Then, Jesus is put in the tomb. They put several Roman soldiers in front of the stone and say, guard it. Pile a seal on it. Guard it with your life. Doesn't work. That's not supposed to happen, okay?

You've got a lot of ruckus that's taken place just recently on top of the usual, you know, spring feasts and festivals. And now, after a bunch of extraordinary events, now you've got this day when there's so much racket and noise that 3,000 are drawn to this event.

And then when they arrive there, A bunch of people from different areas say, hey, that's my language. And they're hearing these Galileans. By the way, a little piece of backdrop I forgot to mention last week. The Galileans and the Jewish mindset would have been kind of the equivalent of Jewish hicks. Okay? Jewish hicks. They're from the backwaters, the backwoods. They're off kind of the other side of Samaria. Are they Jewish? Yeah, but they're hicks.

That's kind of the mindset. Now you've got these guys speaking international dialects all at once. That just doesn't happen. And it happened right after you heard this horrific noise that gathered hundreds and hundreds of people to see what is going on. Now, that's the backdrop for this.

So here, one of the things we left you with is some questions. Let's take a look at those questions. Alright, on page 5, and this is Acts 2, 1-36, last week's handout. By the way, if you're missing that, we've got that underneath there, so feel free.

Alright, now, number 1 there, the question we had on page 5, after listing several different scripture references, Why is there such variety in the description of what took place involving the Holy Spirit in the Acts 2 account? Why didn't they just pick one phrase and go with it? Why didn't they just consistently call it, it's when the Holy Spirit came, or something? Why did they describe it in different ways in different passages? Why not just one? Come up with a good answer for that one? Totally baffling, right?

Look at the prior page. What do you see on page 6 there? It's Acts 2, 1-36. What do you see on the prior page? Yeah, you notice what we did there is we had this chart, and the chart's got all these different ministries of the Holy Spirit, the ones that were pretty evident and I might have missed a few, but the ones that were pretty evident that were displayed there in Acts chapter 2 are highlighted in blue on this chart. And I'm probably not exhaustive either. I might have missed some.

The point being, there are a great many ministries that are carried out by the Holy Spirit on that day, on the one day. So it's reasonable, because of that then, to describe it using different terms. And so in one place you'll see it described this way, another place that way. It's because he's doing a whole bunch of things all at once. All at one time.

And so as you see it described in this passage, in that one, Jesus says, when the Holy Spirit will come upon you, you're baptized by the Holy Spirit. With the different terms that you will hear, are expressions of the variety of ministry that the Holy Spirit has.

Okay? Make sense? Yeah, it's just a matter of, boy, how do you describe with one word or one term the variety of things that you see spelled out there with the blue highlight? It's tough to do. So that's why you see a variety of descriptions of the same event in different passages. Okay. How about question number two then?

Since what we see in Acts chapter 2 is the beginning of the church, should what we see there be typical of the church throughout the centuries? Or not? Should it be the norm, that is? What parts of Acts chapter 2 should be the same throughout the centuries, and what should be different?

And how can we tell? What did you come up with? Every time we meet there should be this horrific noise that gathers 3,000 people, right? Is that the norm? Should that be what happens all the time? No, I see heads shaking. How come not? Why not? That's what we saw. I mean, that's in scripture, right? This is the word of God. That's Acts chapter 2. Shouldn't that be what happens? A horrific noise. Osha would be very upset. It's way beyond any decibel level that's allowed. We'd have all sorts of zoning problems. every time we met.

How do we tell whether something is the norm or not? Pardon? That might be one test. You look through it. Is that what happens consistently? Good. What else? Scripture. What do you mean, scripture? The word. So far, so good. But tell me, what do you mean? But this is scripture. But I mean, you've got to know the whole book of Acts. The whole book, okay. And that kind of compares with what Dave said. What else do you see described? Good. What else do you think ought to be used as a criteria here? Yeah? What's the context of what's happening, what's really happening at that time? Ah, okay, yeah. Let's look at the context. Good. Alright, good. What else?

One of the things to look at is what's God's purpose for a particular time? Is God continuing to reveal Scripture? The indication from Scripture, we don't have time to go into it now, but the indication from Scripture is that there was a time when that revelation ended. And so there is something typical of that time that isn't typical of now. We don't continue to have apostles, for example. What else? How else can we tell what's standard, what's to be continued, and what isn't? We don't. Well, maybe that's a problem.

One of the things to examine here is when we see history described in scripture, and we will make a point of it here in the next set of questions, when we see history described in scripture, we need to distinguish what is descriptive, just telling you what happened, and what is prescriptive, telling you what ought to happen. See the distinction there? And one of the things that we have that is a key and principle thing to look at, and that is, what do the epistles say? Because it is difficult in the midst of just writing history, it is difficult to tell what ought to be. versus just what happened. Many things will be described, but that doesn't necessarily mean that's what's supposed to take place.

If we look at the epistles, the epistles will give us statements of, you know, this is the case, this is not the case. Paul asks in 1 Corinthians 13, do all speak in tongues? And by the way, the Greek has It has the ability to ask a question and answer it within the question. This is the assumption, and the Greek indicates no. So this is a key principle.

We get from the epistles perspective on history that we wouldn't have. You see, we can see in reading history what happened. But what the epistles help us do is, what does it mean? What does it mean? And in the context, we're going to find some verses that will be helpful, but ultimately we need to use the epistles to give us perspective on it. Let's shift to another book.

You read through the book of Genesis. Was everything that Abraham did a good thing for Abraham to do? He did some good things, right? But there were some other things that he wasn't really supposed to do. It doesn't necessarily tell you in the context.

How do you know it? You look at other writings of scripture that make explicit statements. One of the reasons it's valuable to look at this is because there are a number of groups who will look at the book of Acts and draw all kinds of conclusions. Why? is because they're not looking at it from the perspective of what do the epistles say? What do the epistles say? You could, for example, conclude from reading Acts chapter 2, Oh, I know our problem.

We're not in Jerusalem. That's it. We're not in Jerusalem. That'll fix it. Let's all go there. Then we'll be fine. Or, we've got to make a horrific noise every time we gather. And then people will be saved. And the reason people aren't being saved is because we're not making a lot of noise. Maybe that's the conclusion. Right? Or we have to make sure that we all speak at the same time in different dialects. You ready? You see, if you start looking at this and just trying to draw conclusions from the history as if that were the standard, you're going to run into trouble quick. You're going to have a tough time deciding what's what.

That's why we look As others mentioned, what does the rest of the book say? What's the context? And principally, what do the epistles say that tell us what it means? What's true? What's not? What is the ought? Not just what's the is. Now, how about question three there?

Acts 2.36 tells of Peter speaking to the Jews gathered there And after some discourse, he says, Therefore let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified. The question that we presented there last week, here's Peter, he comes to the Jews, and by the way, is Peter a Jew? Yeah. Here's Peter, he's coming to the Jews, and what does he say? This Jesus whom you crucified. He points the finger right at him. And they break into hilarious laughter, right?

No. They're cut to the heart. They're saying, hey, we stood around. No, we didn't drive the nails in. The Romans did that. But we stood around. Some of us may have even said, crucify him. While Jesus was crucified. And we were around here when the sky turned dark. And we knew something was going on. And we heard stories of grave being empty. And now when Peter recounts the story just weeks later, they're stung to the heart. They're just absolutely blown away.

What can we do? Now, what does this conclude? Some have concluded, well then we should really get down on those Jews, because they're the Christ killers. And some even do that today. How should we respond? What's Peter's appeal? Ah, it's interesting. He doesn't come at him and say, you naughty, nasty Jews, you ought to be condemned forever and go around feeling guilty and beat yourself up. What does he tell them? Because they're asking, what do we do? Repent. repent.

It isn't an opportunity to go condemning the Jews, because after all, if you look at it, this passage here gives the Jews some guilt in it. If you look at the gospel accounts, the Romans were the ones who gave out the legal order, put the sign over the cross and put the nails in, carried it out. And the truth is, You and I. We weren't there, but he was up there because of us, right? So this isn't a blame game, but the guys asked the right question.

The Jews asked the right question. What do we do? And Peter gave the right answer. And we'll look at it here in a minute. He said, repent. I'm going to drink a water here. I'm drying up. One of the things I think is important not to miss is what is going on here in this chapter is profoundly dramatic. And it's okay for us to observe the drama in scripture. The drama. Here is Peter, who less than two months before was ripped to shreds over his guilt for standing there right in Caiaphas' courtyard and telling All the people there three times, I don't even know him.

And how does he respond? Weeks go by and is he still in the same mindset? No. He's grabbed. He's grabbed. He says, God is doing something eternally momentous here. He says, I'm still soaking it in. But this is what I know. And I'll tell you what I know.

When when he is this is an academic this isn't Peter giving a lecture Okay, Christianity 101 he he is grabbed at the heart as he's telling these people and as he talks to him He says you put him on the cross and they're stung This is a dramatic moment What happens after that's no less dramatic. Let's turn over to the next page there. This is Acts 2 37 through 47 page 1 and And so now he's presented it to them, tells them, repent, be baptized for the forgiveness of sins. And a few things to note there.

We've got another picture of this room that is, I'd say, traditionally the upper room. Historians and archaeologists have investigated it and basically they can't come up with anything that is substantially contrary, but they can't, neither can they absolutely confirm it. So that's why we put there that if the location of the traditional upper room where Jesus held the last supper is also the room in which the disciples were meeting in Acts chapter 2, then the crowd would have heard Peter just right outside this room. About 3,000 gathered there. So this is a place called the Cynical. By the way, what you see in the way of the lights and the columns and all that, that's been kind of modified since the original time. But the floor would be the original floor.

One of the words that you see being used, and you'll see it throughout the New Testament, is baptize. And the key thing to remember, because this is one of these words that's got spiritual or religious significance, that might skew our understanding. And the key thing to remember is the Greek word baptizo that gets transliterated baptize and the variations on that. The basic idea is not one of taking you and dunking you in water. The basic idea in the culture is to place something into something.

So that's why a couple of examples that I use here is when they were making the swords for the Roman soldiers. They would heat up the sword really, really hot and then they'd plunge it quickly into water to heat treat the surface. So you'd get a much harder surface on the outside of the sword. That plunging it into the water would be described as baptizo. And so you ask the Roman sword maker, are you baptizing it?

Yeah. But he has no idea that this is some religious thing. He's just making it hard. Another way it was used is, one of the ancient authors describes a ship sinking. That it went down into the water and that it was baptized. Nothing spiritual or significant about it. So what's happened is they've adopted the word, and we need to understand that the primary meaning is to place into something, and it only means to put into water where the context makes it clear. As you see here where they are baptized once they are saved. Okay. Now, next page there.

Some people have said, well, heaven sakes, you've got 3,000 people. There's no big lake or river right there in Jerusalem. How are you going to baptize 3,000 people in one day? Well, what you see there is a mikvah bath. You'll see that spelled V-A or V-A-H, both ways. Basically, it was a purification bath. They had different kinds of rituals. And near the temple site, and this is one of them, they would have a series of them. And so you'd get a bunch of people and get the apostles all working at it. Yeah, they could baptize 3,000 in one day in the baths like you see there. The other picture off to the right side on page two, this is the model of the temple.

And one of the things you'll see on the far side there, and it's actually all around the perimeter, they had covered porches with columns, you know, on the courtyard side. The term that was used is porticoes, architecturally porticoes. And what would happen is, as long as you were some kind of a Jewish group, they would let you gather as a group in these porticos. And every time people would go in there, you'd find different teachers and whatnot gathering in these porches. And so that's where the Christians met. They gathered there in these porch areas around the temple. And I'm sure what would happen is they'd say, hey, we always meet at the center one here over on the west side, or whatever the custom was, because then it would be easier to gather together. Because there was always different groups.

Remember, you not only have the Pharisees and the Sadducees, but you've got a bunch of other different groups coming in because you have believers, Jewish believers, coming in from all sorts of different cultures. And so they'd say, okay, we've got this guy over here, and he has this particular thing, he's a specialist on that, and this other guy over here teaches this thing.

And as long as it's generally Jewish, you could meet there in those porticos. Just don't do anything that's not Jewish and don't do anything that's against the Mosaic Law and you'll probably be alright. So the Christians initially could gather there because they were talking about the Messiah. And they were reading the Old Testament and talking about it. So it seemed like a Jewish enough thing to do. So they could do that.

And the temple area was large. Remember also that the temple during this time was being upgraded Herod's had started in 20 BC to upgrade the temple. So it was still constantly in process during most of the New Testament time. Upgrading parts of the temple.

Okay. Then right below there's a chart that we drew from a couple months back and teaching through Colossians. And that is this. There are a series of words or terms in the New Testament that are connected And it's important to see how they're connected. And so we have it in a chart there with the idea of forgiveness of sins. There's a red block there, and then redemption, circling that, and forgiveness. Here's the idea.

If you were captured in a military capture, or possibly even by pirates, because they have thugs, you know, if you're going along a road and there's thugs that come out and capture you and haul you off, and they say, We're going to get ransom money for this guy. If you were captured, what they would do in those days is they would say, okay, we'll let you go. Somebody can come up with this whatever amount of money they said had to be paid so that you could be let go. And sometimes we have instances where kings of countries would buy back whole cities. They'd make some deal, okay? But here's the way it worked. They'd say, okay, we've got this guy captured, and if this amount of money is paid, he's let free. Otherwise, he's stuck here. We've got him, and we're holding him. Okay?

So the paying of that ransom price was redemption. And the forgiveness of the debt, because when they said you owed this money, that was the forgiveness, the forgiveness of the debt, was the releasing from the obligation. And that's how it was pictured as the forgiveness of sins, the ransom price being the price demanded.

For what scripture is describing, the Jews always have looked upon, and conscientious Jews still look upon, sins are debts. Yom Kippur, is the day when they focus on that. Sins are debts. And so the way they would have looked at it is I have these sins and these sins have an obligation for payment and I won't be released from those until the payment is made.

So that payment is the redemption. The forgiveness of sins is paid for But if I, as a captive, don't believe it, I'm not walking out. How about that? It is believing that the debt is paid that lets you out the door. If the guard comes up, opens up the door and says, your debt's been paid, you can go. You say, no, I don't believe it. You're stuck. You're staying there.

And that's the picture that was given. When people read Forgiveness of sins, redemption, those words, that's what they understood it. That's how they saw it. That's what was in their mind. Next is justification. A person that's justified is declared righteous. Declared free. And you were not declared free unless you were redeemed. The redemption price was paid. And forgiven of the obligation. Then you were declared freed and declared righteous.

And finally, adoption of sons was a Roman custom in which someone who was adopted... We think of adoption as adopting kids, right? Not in the Roman culture. You'd adopt adults. And it was particularly so that you'd have an heir, an heir to a throne, an heir to your estate, and you'd adopt an adult who you knew was going to take things on. But if that adult had debts, of any kind, those debts were forgiven. So that also is included. Now, I'm not going to go through the next several pages. I'll leave that to you. But it answers the question, must one be water baptized to be saved? You'll run into some Christians who claim that that certainly has to be the case. You've got to get wet or else you're not saved.

The point that I would draw your attention to though is In the middle of page three right under the bolded italic and quoted repent He explained something and that's this word repent is metanail. It means to change the mind when you think of repenting in our culture, what do we often think of? Huh be real. Sorry what's that? Asking forgiveness, okay Confessing yeah, we frequently think of it in terms of you know feeling feeling sorry asking forgiveness confessing Maybe even a lot of emotional display. You know oh Terrible you know the the point here that he makes and it's key if the focal point of repenting May involve some of these other things But the focal point is a change of mind.

Peter had just told these people, you were the ones who crucified the Lord of Glory. You crucified the Messiah that God has promised for centuries. And they're just blown away. And so they say, what can we do? Now that we're in this position, what on earth can we do?

It got their attention. repent, and he didn't mean to all of a sudden fall down on the floor and start bawling and crying. He didn't mean that they should start tearing their clothes. He meant that they should change their mind about Jesus Christ. That one whom you rejected and said, I don't care if they nail him up.

You need to change your mind about that. You need to have a different understanding and perspective. That's what you do. It is the Jewish statement, if you will, of believing. You need to believe, and that means to have a change of mind from what you have had, where you were either nonchalant, ambivalent, apathetic, or negative about Jesus Christ, and you need to understand that He is your Lord and Savior. That's what you need to do, see? Explaining repent there, I think, is important. Okay, now, let's slide ahead. Again, I'll let you read the rest of it. We have but two questions, sort of. What I did is build several questions into each one. Question number one on page seven.

Acts 2, 37 and 38 records, Now, when they heard this, they were pierced to the heart and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, Brethren, what shall we do? Peter said to them, Repent, Metanoia, change the mind, each one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Now, why did Peter say repent instead of believe? I'll let you read the write up on that and see if you can come up with some good answers.

Are those the same as being saved? If these guys repent or believe, are they going to be saved? Does receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit, because remember that's what he said was going to happen, right? Does receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit mean that those who would repent would speak in tongues just as the apostles had just done before Peter spoke, minutes ago? Is that what Peter means? So anyway, take a look at that. That's your assignment here.

And then question number two. How much of what is described in Acts 2, 37-47 is intended by God to be typical of the church? Now see, here we get specific. Before I asked, how do you tell the difference? Now I'm asking you to tell the difference. Not just how do you, but do it. What's to continue? from what you see in Acts chapter 2, and what isn't, and why.

See that? And that's a bit of a tough one, because you've got to sort out. Think about this here. Maybe, I know what the deal is. We've messed this up for years. What we've got to do is, you only tell the gospel to Jews. That's it. You only tell it to Jews. Right? No, no. We've got to move to Jerusalem. That's the deal. We've got to move to Jerusalem. That'll fix it. You do it right. And let's see, this is written in Greek. You've got to speak in Greek. It doesn't matter what language anybody else speaks. Speak in Greek.

That's what it takes, right? Or, wait a minute, you've got to wait until the right day. This isn't Pentecost. I've got to shut up for months. You see? If you're not careful, you've got to look at the context, but also say, okay, how do I tell What's supposed to continue and what isn't?

What has happened is we've had different groups within Christendom, and I'll put that big umbrella on it, we've had different groups go and grab on to parts of this passage and say, ah, this is it. We've just got to, now you've got to start making this noise and make sure you practice. And get a bunch of other people around so you make sure you get the noise going. And if you get that, you're just on easy street from there on out. So you'll have different groups that will start glomming on to different parts of this and saying you're lacking something until you have this. And they'll take you to this passage even.

Nancy and I, if I can get the time right, about eight years ago, I'd been an elder at a church and we actually had to come to a point of leaving the church. As I said, what was described in here was proof of drunkenness in the spirit. We were being rebellious for not going along with that. Well, that's what some of the people said, right?

How can you tell if that's supposed to happen or not supposed to happen? So anyway, that's your job. Figure out what's supposed to happen, what's not supposed to happen, and how do you tell? Are we having fun yet? Okay. Yes? Ah, yeah. Do you hear what Ben said? If we learn the skill that we're seeing here, it's going to be beneficial for the rest of Axe. So you're correct. It's a pivotal thing to learn. And why is it going to be beneficial for the rest of Acts? How come? Lots of change keeps taking place, doesn't it?

We saw here that they're in Jerusalem and there's the twelve apostles when this tongues experience takes place. Acts chapter 10, we're going to see it again. And only one apostle is going to be present, Peter. And it's going to be Gentiles. Well then, what do we conclude? It keeps changing. Later on, Paul, Acts 19. It's going to be the third and final tongues description there in the book of Acts. And then, he's not in Israel anymore. See, the first two were we're in Israel, then he's not even in Israel anymore. Now he's way off in Ephesus and this thing happens again and it's not Peter. And the other apostles aren't there and it's just Paul.

So what's the pattern? If we don't know how to discern from scripture what's intended to be permanent and what's just a part of the transition, because all of AX is a transition. We'll have a tough time looking at this thing other than, boy, it's sure curious history. We have to be able to determine as we go through it, what is intended to be continued and what not. What not continued. And how do we tell? Ben brings up a good point.

It's an exceedingly important exercise for us Otherwise, we're going to be going through 28 chapters of constantly thinking, oh, well, we've got to do this different, and we've got to do that different, and that different. And trying to find a pattern in the history by itself is going to be a tough chore. A real tough chore.

I think, Ben, you and I were emailing on some of this question not too many weeks ago. And so you start looking at the experiences there, like Acts chapter 2, Acts 10, Acts 19, where the Holy Spirit is given and you have tongues expressed. And I said, well, obviously, if you want to receive the Holy Spirit, you've got to go to the Eastern Mediterranean.

You know, that's it. It's all in common. Nothing else much in common, but that's in common. So, that's why on February 13th, anyway, Good point. Good point. Yeah, Mary. It's real interesting. The three cases we have in Acts, there's none of this interpretation going on. It's also a beginning of a group coming into the church.

And the only description that we have in the epistles is in 1 Corinthians. And in that instance, it's in a church situation, and it's the singular passage, 1 Corinthians 12-14. where you have any description at all of the gift of tongues. So, yeah, it's a tough one. Just looking at the history, because if you look at the instances where it's described, there is no interpreter, and yet when you go to 1 Corinthians 12-14, Paul says you must have one.

Anyway, we'll look at that in a little more detail. Yeah, if you simply looked at the history, you'd reach one conclusion. But when you see the epistles, you reach some other conclusions. We'll take a look at that in more detail. Good point. Other questions? You either understand it very, very well, or I just...

Back on the question of the Jews that had come at Pentecost, on the day of Pentecost, we see in the chart there, in the clear up of what we know as Hebron, that there were apparently Jews that came. Two questions. Those Jews had been the first to come that far, and also, why did they only go to Hebron if not to Actually, we have some indications that there were Jews in some of those places. The listing in Acts 2 is just, you know, here are some of the ones that were represented that day.

And one of the things you'll notice is that there's about as many languages as there are apostles. There may have been others from other places, but the languages weren't represented. The Lord, for whatever reason, seems to have picked out those particular areas. What what what they called English in those days was it would be pretty foreign to us. I think but the Pardon yeah Yeah The the interesting thing is you're just stepping through acts to Commonly it's called the gift of tongues, but the truth is it's known languages known languages you'll hear people talk about it's you know some kind of a angel talk or something, but it's known languages. And the test case in Acts 2 is that the apostles spoke and people understood it in their known language in every case.

So, real interesting. There are questions about why this location instead of that one that it doesn't really explain. I don't know that we have a full answer for why other languages weren't spoken, but these are the ones that were, and recognized and listed. Let's see.

By this time, the Romans were early in establishing a presence in Britain, but by the By the end of the Book of Acts, they'd gone in and gotten pretty well established in Britain. It would be later when Hadrian would go and have Hadrian's Wall built up there. The Romans were pretty early in establishing a presence in Britain at this point in time. I don't know if that answers your question. It may be, in fact, that we don't have all the information to answer that question.

Other thoughts, questions, ponderings? Alright, let's pray. Lord, as we look at this passage, you indeed work mightily and dramatically in the hearts and lives of these people. And Lord, we see it as but the beginning of the work that you would bring about that would continue on to eternity, that would include us, that would be a part of your eternal purpose. We give you thanks for that. We thank you for the insights that we are beginning to see here and also for seeing that Peter and the rest of the apostles were just beginning to have some of those insights themselves. Thank you for your word and the understanding that it brings us to. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.