Free Bible Commentary
“Acts 2:1-13”
Categories: Acts“When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a noise like a violent rushing wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them tongues as of fire distributing themselves, and they rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit was giving them utterance. Now there were Jews living in Jerusalem, devout men from every nation under heaven. And when this sound occurred, the crowd came together, and were bewildered because each one of them was hearing them speak in his own language. They were amazed and astonished, saying, ‘Why, are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we each hear them in our own language to which we were born? Parthians and Medes and Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the districts of Libya around Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs—we hear them in our own tongues speaking of the mighty deeds of God.’ And they all continued in amazement and great perplexity, saying to one another, ‘What does this mean?’ But others were mocking and saying, ‘They are full of sweet wine.’”
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The events of this momentous day occurred on the day of Pentecost (verse 1). This was one of the three mandatory feast days that all male Jews were required to come to Jerusalem to observe. That explains the large gathering in the city that day. Jesus was killed during another one of the mandatory feasts: the Passover. It is only fitting that the sacrifice of our Savior and the establishment of His kingdom would correspond with two of the Jewish high holy days. Pentecost was calculated to occur 50 days from the Passover Sabbath (Leviticus 23:15). This means that the day of Pentecost always fell on the first day of the week. Again, it was only appropriate that the Lord’s church was established on the same day of the week that Jesus arose from the grave and the day that its members would assemble to worship Him and partake in the Lord’s Supper (Acts 20:7).
When the arisen Jesus was in Bethany with His apostles, He told them to go to Jerusalem and wait for the Holy Spirit to come to them as He had promised (Acts 1:4-5). In Acts chapter two we see the fulfillment of that pledge. Notice now that Jesus only promised this Holy Spirit baptism, and the miraculous power that would accompany it, to the apostles. That’s just who we see receiving this power and inspiration in the second chapter of Acts. The 120 people mentioned in chapter 1 verse 15 were not given this promise by the Lord, and they were not the subjects of the Holy Spirit baptism in chapter 2. Only the apostles were (1:24). Notice also that only the apostles were preaching by miraculous inspiration and in various languages (verses 14 and 37), and the people were astonished that all the men who were speaking were Galileans (verse 7). The promise of the Holy Spirit’s baptism and the endowment of miraculous powers associated with that was not universal in nature. It was given to certain people for particular purposes and only lasted for a limited duration.
Please read Acts 2:14-36 for tomorrow. Praying your day is a blessed one!
- Louie Taylor
