Explore the Bible: Acts 2:1-12

One of the questions raised as you read Acts 2 is just where the followers of Jesus were when the Holy Spirit descended. Traditionally, most scholars have held that they were in a room together, most likely the same room mentioned in Acts 1:13. Such a room must have been large (it held 120 people) and located in Jerusalem somewhere not far from the Temple area. It has been speculated that it would have been in the poorer part of town, since most of the followers of Jesus were from the working class and were visitors who had been in the city for almost two months.

A few scholars, however, argue that the coming of the Holy Spirit happened in the Temple itself. They point out that the word “house” is sometimes applied to the Temple, and that there was certainly room in the Temple courts for 120 people to gather. The time given in verse 15, 9:00 AM, suggests that the disciples would have already have gone to the Temple to observe the festival. If this is the case, then the coming of the Spirit would have been heard and seen by a huge throng at the Temple and in its vicinity, which could explain the amazement of the crowd and the powerful response to Peter’s preaching.

As attractive as this idea is, I think there are two facts in the text that make it unlikely. The first is that the group is described as “sitting” in the house where they were. Worshippers would not have been sitting in the Temple on a feast day; they would have been standing amidst a mass of people gathered for the feast. The Greek word translated “sitting” does have a secondary meaning of “staying” or “dwelling,” but the more common translation seems to be appropriate here.

The second factor that tells against the Temple theory is that we do not read that the crowd was amazed by the visible and audible phenomena that surrounded the descent of the Holy Spirit. Rather, they were amazed by the fact that the followers of Jesus, although distinctly Galilean, were speaking in their own native languages, and this all at the same time. Those who derided them as drunk may have been natives who, of course, only heard them speaking Aramaic or Hebrew, the common languages of Israel. It was this phenomenon that drew the crowd and attracted their attention.

I think the most likely scenario goes like this: The followers of Jesus were gathered in an upper room not far from the Temple. Sometime before 9:00 AM, perhaps as they were preparing to leave to go to the Temple, the Holy Spirit came with audible and visible signs, and as they began to talk about what was happening they were intelligible to all people in their native languages. (This is often seen as a reversal of Babel.) As they went out in the street and moved toward the Temple, they began to attract a crowd of amazed onlookers, Jews from all over the Roman and Parthian empires. Peter rose to the occasion, and the Spirit moved the crowd through Peter’s preaching so that 3000 people responded and were saved.

Whatever the facts are, we can see that the power of the Holy Spirit, coming at Pentecost, brought about conviction of sin and conversion of hearts. The same Spirit is still at work today, and we should not be surprised when, in any place and at any time, we see Him working in power today to draw people to Jesus and to bring salvation to any who yield to Him.

Who heals?

My church is going to have a service of prayer for healing in a couple of weeks. This isn't a "healing service" as popularly imagined, where we expect to see immediate, miraculous cures during the service (although I wouldn't rule it out, since the Holy Spirit works as He wills). Rather, we are attempting to put into practice the passage in James 5:13-16 on prayers for the sick.

We have many people in our church who are going through difficult physical challenges right now, and they ask us to pray for them. We certainly believe that every Christian can and ought to pray for those who are sick, and that you don't need an elder praying over you to get better. Still, there is a reason this passage was written by James and became part of our Bible.

 If you were part of the Wednesday night James study, we went over this is a little more detail, and I posted the notes in the Library on the Pastor Steve's Study web site. Here I just want to go over what we plan to do and how it fits together with what we studied in James.

In the service, we will have the pastoral staff (who are the elders in our particular church setting) praying, with the deacons assisting. While this isn't a direct application of James' injunction to "call for the elders," it does reflect the underlying idea that the elders of the church ought to be pastorally concerned for the needs of the church members. It does also require the one seeking prayer to let the elders know he or she needs prayer.

We will be using oil to anoint the sick. While some scholars argue that this was more for medicinal purposes, as oil was often used as a curative, I think in James it also has a symbolic significance. With the anointing done "in the name of the Lord," I think the oil, as often in the NT, symbolizes the Holy Spirit. Notice that this anointing mentioned in James isn't done as the person is dying; it is done with the expectation that the sick person will be made well.

James does not say that the anointing, the oil, or the elders are what makes the person well. It is the "prayer of faith," the prayer offered in  a full understanding of who God is and what He can do, that is answered by God and brings healing. This prayer is not a magic formula that forces God to do something He doesn't want to do. Rather, it is a prayer offered in full submission to God, and one which recognizes that physical healing isn't always the answer God wants to give us. Healing is accomplished by the work of the Spirit whom the oil represents, not by the oil, the words, or the people involved.

There is also a connection with sin and forgiveness in James. Not all sickness is the result of sin, but some is. Sometimes it is because of the consequences of sinful actions, but it may also be God's way of getting our attention. We should never focus so much on the health of the body that we forget the health of the soul. Healing involves getting the whole person right, and you can be perfectly healthy in body but terribly sick in your soul. You can also be struggling with a number of illnesses, yet be in good spiritual health if you continue to rely on the Lord in your struggles.

When you read all of James, it becomes apparent that he doesn't believe that Christians are delivered from all suffering. In fact, James tells us trials should be welcomed because of what God accomplishes through them. We don't have to like suffering, but we do need to recognize that it is often through our trials that grow more like Jesus.

So we will pray for the sick and suffering, but depend on the Lord to bring about the healing. We will pray for the body and the soul, we will use oil to symbolize the source of healing rather than as a healing agent itself, and we will pray in the knowledge that "the intense prayer of the righteous is very powerful."

Growing fruit

My pastor just started a study on the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23) on Wednesday nights. As part of our study last night, we had table discussions covering several questions he posed. In our discussion, we wrestled with the questions of which fruit of the Spirit do each of us find the hardest to "cultivate," and how can we better grow that fruit in our lives.

My thoughts went out of the book of Galatians to the gospel of John. While seeing the fruit of the Spirit in our lives is a sign of growth as a Christian, we need to know where the fruit comes from. It obviously can't come from ourselves; Paul spends the verses just prior to verses 22-23 examining the fruit of our human nature. Our natural inclination is to grow fruit that is self-serving and self-pleasing, so what the Spirit does to grow His fruit on our lives is not the result of our own strength or effort.

I think that this passage ties into John 15. That is where Jesus speaks of Himself as the vine, and His followers as the branches. We cannot bear the fruit of the Spirit unless we are connected to Jesus and remaining in Him. All of the power needed to see these fruits blossom and grow comes from Him, through the Holy Spirit.

So how do we see the fruit of the Spirit grow in our lives? Remain in Christ. Those are simple words, but often hard to put into practice. To spend the time studying and meditating on the Word and in prayer is often hard for us. Yet when we drift away from our time with the Lord, we often find ourselves missing the love, joy, peace, and other "fruit" we want for our lives. It really comes down to a matter of making our time with Jesus our priority each day.

This is why the world fails to find love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness and self-control. You can read every self-help book ever written, go to a parade of therapists, make all the resolutions you can, or even try pharmaceutical means, but none of them have the power to bring that fruit into your life. Only Jesus can give us these, and only by remaining in Him will we find them growing in our lives.

Want to see more of the fruit of the Spirit in your life? Spend time with Jesus, and you'll see it start to grow.

Sunday sermon: "You Belong to Me"

If you are doing an annual "Read Through the Bible" program, you have probably been reading through the books of the Pentateuch. As we read through all the laws that God gave to Israel, we are overwhelmed with all the details that had to be followed in order to keep the Law. I recently had someone ask me the reason for all the sacrifices and offerings in Leviticus. There were many aspects to keeping the Law, and the various sacrifices each filled a different niche in maintaining a person's relationship with God.

Keeping the Law became quite a monumental task for the observant Jew. I'm sure even the most devout found themselves wishing for a way to be free from the bondage of the Law. Surely God could come up with a better way to enable us to be right with Him!

Paul picks up that idea in Romans 7, and equates the rule of the Law over humanity to the law of marriage. As long as I am bound to my wife, I am not free to go bind myself to someone else. In order to be free from the marriage vow, one of the spouses has to die. (My wife informed me that if I tried to get "bound" to someone else while she was alive, the death of one spouse could easily be arranged!) Once one of the parties is dead, the law no longer binds the other.

In order for us to be free from bondage to the requirements of the Law, we have to die to it. In Jesus Christ, we have indeed been put to death in relation to the Law, and now we are bound to Him. Our old relationship is gone, and we have a new life in Christ.

What difference does this make in our life? It changes the effect the Law has on us. Where once we were condemned under the Law, and bound to keep every little part of it, now the Law simply shows us what God expects of us. We aren't left on our own trying to obey God, as we were when we were "under Law," but are now empowered by the Holy Spirit. 

Paul stresses this in verse 6, where he tells us that now "we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old letter of the law." (HCSB) The paragons of Jewish piety in Paul's time were the Pharisees (Paul, of course, having been one himself). They kept the Law, the interpretations of the Law, and the side details of the interpretations of the Law. They were "letter" people, who saw righteousness as an external reality, based on how well you could follow the rules. They looked good, but they had not had a change in their heart or in their relationship to God.

In Christ, we are set free from that kind of observance. The Holy Spirit enables us to obey God not to make ourselves righteous, but as a result of being made righteous in Christ. Our relationship to God is not based on what we do, but on what Jesus did for us. We are released from the power of sin through the cross of Jesus, and now given the power of the Spirit as children of God. 

As those set free from the tyranny of the Law, now belonging to Jesus Christ, we have the ability in the Spirit to bear fruit for God. We no longer serve ourselves, but Him. Our lives now show the reality of Jesus as we live to honor Him. This change not only impacts us, but those we meet every day. As we live out our new life, our new relationship, and our new power, we will show the way Christ can change lives, and be a witness to a world that needs to hear that such a change is possible.