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Acts 2:1-13

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Tongue of FireActs 2:1-13

1 When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. 2 And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. 3 And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. 4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. 5 Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. 6 And at this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one was hearing them speak in his own language. 7 And they were amazed and astonished, saying, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? 8 And how is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language? 9 Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, 11 both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians—we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God.” 12 And all were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” 13 But others mocking said, “They are filled with new wine.”

Have you ever heard of xenoglossy?  Xenoglossy is the phenomenon in which a person wakes up from a coma or emerges from some traumatic experience speaking a foreign language.  It is somewhat akin to Foreign Accent Syndrome, or FAS, accept that FAS involves a person suddenly having a thick foreign accent that they somehow cannot turn off.  (Think, for instance, of Madonna and the strange British accent she developed upon moving to England.  I jest.)

Xenoglossy is apparently a disputed phenomenon, with many doctors questioning if it is even real.  Even so, for those who claim to be suffering from it, it appears to be real enough.  It would indeed be a strange phenomenon, would it not, to wake up speaking a foreign language?

Interestingly, the Wikipedia article on xenoglossy lists our text as an early example.[1]  Of course, the New Testament sees what happened at Pentecost as something else entirely.  In the scriptures, this is not a freak occurrence resulting from trauma or other mysterious causes.  Rather, it is the deliberate act of God, granted at just the right moment and for very specific reasons.  This miraculous and astounding visitation of the Spirit was foretold by Jesus and had the worldwide proclamation of the gospel of Christ as its aim.  As such, it has distinctly theological, not neurological, overtones.

To get at the events described by Luke in Acts 2:1-13, let us construct a sentence.  Our sentence will have three parts, each highlighting an aspect of this miraculous display.

The Church is a God-empowered body…

We will begin our sentence like this:  “The Church is a God-empowered body…”  Whatever else is happening here, it is clear that God is visiting His people in power.  This is more than evident in the vivid imagery of our passage.

1 When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. 2 And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. 3 And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. 4a And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit

First of all, note carefully the way in which Luke describes what happened here.  John Polhill explains.

Luke was well aware that he was using metaphorical language in these verses by carefully employing adverbs of comparison:  “like the blowing of a violent wind”…”what seemed to be tongues” (literally “tongues as of fire,” v.3).  He was dealing with the transcendent, that which is beyond the ordinary human experience and can only be expressed in earthly analogies.[2]

Yes, Luke was trying to describe something that required descriptive powers that no language possesses:  a movement of God.  What is most telling is that he speaks of this movement in elemental terms of “wind” and “fire.”  These are images that are pregnant with theological meaning.

First, Luke says that there came “a sound like a mighty rushing wind.”  The word for “wind” here is pnoe, which is a form of pneuma, also the word for Spirit.  Luke uses pneuma in verse 4, undoubtedly intending to create a link between the wind that fills the house and the Spirit that fills the disciples’ lives.

The Hebrew word for wind or spirit is ruach.  Tellingly, we find this word at the beginning of the Bible.  In Genesis 1, we read:

1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

Fascinating!  At creation, the Spirit of God hovered “over the face of the waters” or “the deep,” bringing creation out of the void as God spoke.  The Spirit, then, is the divine breath or divine wind that brings something from nothing, the Spirit of the living God that creates everything from nothing and that can make a dead heart live!

We see the same image in Ezekiel 37, when Ezekiel prophecies over the dry bones.

7 So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I prophesied, there was a sound, and behold, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. 8 And I looked, and behold, there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them. But there was no breath in them. 9 Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may live.” 10 So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived and stood on their feet, an exceedingly great army.

Here again we see the animating, empowering, enlivening Spirit of God bringing energy and vitality and life to that which previously had been still and dormant and inactive and dead.  This is what the Spirit does to the unregenerate heart:  it resurrects it, bringing life into its otherwise dead chambers.  The wind that fills the house is the Spirit that fills the heart!

Then we see tongues as of flame descending.  This image of divine fire is likewise filled with provocative theological imagery.  You will recall that the Lord appeared before His people in the wilderness as a pillar of fire in Exodus 13.

17 When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them by way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near. For God said, “Lest the people change their minds when they see war and return to Egypt.” 18 But God led the people around by the way of the wilderness toward the Red Sea. And the people of Israel went up out of the land of Egypt equipped for battle. 19 Moses took the bones of Joseph with him, for Joseph had made the sons of Israel solemnly swear, saying, “God will surely visit you, and you shall carry up my bones with you from here.” 20 And they moved on from Succoth and encamped at Etham, on the edge of the wilderness. 21 And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead them along the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, that they might travel by day and by night. 22 The pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night did not depart from before the people.

God goes as fire before His people.  Furthermore, at the baptism of Jesus, John the Baptist foretold that Christ would one day baptize His followers with fire.  Interestingly, John says this in Luke’s gospel in Luke 3.

15 As the people were in expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Christ, 16 John answered them all, saying, “I baptize you with water, but he who is mightier than I is coming, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.

Here the two images are combined:  wind and fire.  Both bespeak the mighty movement of a holy God in and among His people.  A Christian prayer from the 9th century says this:

Come, Holy Ghost, Creator blest,

Vouchsafe within our souls to rest.

Come with thy power and heavenly aid,

And fill the hearts which thou hast made.[3]

The Church is a God-empowered body!  He has come to His people!

…of worldwide Jesus proclaimers…

The Church is a God-empowered body of worldwide Jesus proclaimers.  The holy fire of God falls upon the Church and it falls for a particular purpose.

4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. 5 Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. 6 And at this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one was hearing them speak in his own language.

Fire falls, and, significantly, it falls in the shape of tongues…and the tongues of the gathered Church are loosed with bold proclamation about the greatness of God in Christ.  Fire falls, and the Church speaks!

Throughout human history, one of the most shocking, brutal, and violent acts that a person or group of people would commit against another person whose words they found offensive or dangerous was the act of violence against that person’s actual tongue.  Consider Giordano Bruno, who was accused of writing heretical tracts at the close of the 17th century.  On February 17, 1600, Giordano Bruno was executed after being condemned to death by the Inquisitor Robert Bellarmine.  As an act of mercy a pouch of gunpowder was tied around his neck before the flames were lit.  His tongue was also nailed to his jaw.

Or consider Denise Stephenson.  Her parents were slaves in Halifax County, Virginia.  She relates the following story:  “The master wouldn’t even allow the people to pray.  They had to have their prayer meeting in secret.  Once they saw a man praying and they nailed his tongue to a tree…Had to be careful in those times.”

Or consider Pope Leo III.  Pope Leo III had his tongue cut out by an officer named Pascal.

Or what about a monk named Erluin?  In 910 AD, after Erluin “suggested that his monastery return to strict observance of the Rule of St. Benedict, his fellow monks ripped out his tongue and blinded him.”[4]

What is interesting about this disturbing trend is that it is the exact tactic the devil takes when he wants to derail the Church:  he seeks to remove our tongues.  He does not do so, normally, by actual physical violence, but rather by tempting us to employ our tongues in the service of every topic but Christ, by silencing us on the most important issues.  How unbelievable it is that the Church seems so often to remove its own tongue when it comes to proclaiming the truth of Christ!

The tragedy is further compounded by the fact that those who deny the truth are in no way silent or shy about their errors.  It seems at times that the only people who will not bear witness are those who know the truth.  This should not be!  Commenting on our text, the 7th/8th century English Christian, the Venerable Bede, put it beautifully when he wrote:

Now the Holy Spirit appeared in fire and in tongues because all those whom he fills he makes simultaneously to burn and to speak – to burn because of him and to speak about him.   And at the same time he indicated that the holy church, when it had spread to the ends of the earth, was to speak in the languages of all nations.[5]

“To burn because of him and to speak about him.”  Friends, how can we be silent about our King?  When the Spirit fell upon the Church at Pentecost, it fell to enable them to speak!  The Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz wrote, “What is pronounced strengthens itself. What is not pronounced tends to non-existence.”[6]  Would that we understood that fact:  “What is not pronounced tends to non-existence.”

If Christ is real to you, you will proclaim His Kingdom!  If Christ is your King, you will not be shy to speak of Him!  If Christ has raised you from death to life, you will not be timid about this amazing miracle!

And to whom does the Church proclaim?  To the nations!  They speak in the tongues of the nations present.  While the New Testament does speak of “speaking in tongues” as we traditionally think of it, that is, of speaking in unearthly languages, that does not actually appear to be what is happening here.  Will Willimon explains.

            It is doubtful that Luke is describing ecstatic speech here, the glossolalia of 1 Corinthians 14, because that sort of speech needed translation for anyone to understand.  Judging from the discussion of glossolalia in 1 Corinthians 14, the Spirit manifested its presence in a variety of ways in Paul’s churches.  Luke’s concern is with the description of a Spirit-empowered intelligible proclamation in foreign languages (2:6,8).[7]

At Pentecost, then, when the Spirit fell, He fell upon the assembled Church to empower and enable them to speak the gospel in the languages of the gathered nations.  Jesus had already told them that they would be His witness “to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8).  Now it begins.  And as it began so it should continue.  We should, we must continue the worldwide proclamation of the gospel!

…whose message inevitably causes people to be amazed, perplexed, or angered.

The Church is a God-empowered body of worldwide Jesus proclaimers whose message inevitably causes people to be amazed, perplexed, or angered.  These are the reactions the disciples received as a result of their bold and surprising proclamation.

7 And they were amazed and astonished, saying, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? 8 And how is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language? 9 Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, 11 both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians—we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God.” 12 And all were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” 13 But others mocking said, “They are filled with new wine.”

Let us be clear:  wherever the gospel is truly proclaimed, people will respond by being amazed, by being perplexed, or by being angered.  The reactions of the crowd were not all of one type then and they are not all of one type now.  Then, as now, the reactions are diverse.  Some believe.  Some are confused.  Some mock, accusing the disciples of being drunk.

What is significant is the fact that the early Church was too struck by the beauty of the message and the privilege of being able to proclaim it to worry about the divers responses of the crowd upon hearing it.  Their task was to speak, not to worry about the reactions of those to whom they spoke.  They clearly wanted all to believe, but the fact that many would not believe did not dissuade them.  They were a people on fire, a people on fire with holy fire.  Tongues of flame had taken up residence in and among them.  The incendiary message of the gospel was their message because it was God’s message, and they were God’s!

Church, when we read of this amazing miracle and hold it up against our current practice and our current witness, how stark is the contrast?  The God of 1st century Pentecost is the God of 21st century Central Baptist Church.  If you have come to Christ, He has poured His Spirit out upon you.  If the Spirit caused the early Church to speak with passion and boldness of Christ, how can He, who does not change, not cause us to do the same?

Brothers, if we do not speak, we achieve our silence only by fighting against the Spirit’s desire to be heard!  If we are quiet in the face of the watching world, it is to our shame.  The Spirit is a proclaiming, revealing Spirit.  He bears witness to Christ.  This means that if this Spirit takes up residence in the repentant, believing hearts of Christ’s Church, the Church must do what the Spirit does….and He has!  He has taken up residence within us!

Church:  speak!

Church:  speak!!


[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenoglossy

[2] John B. Polhill, Acts. The New American Commentary. Vol.26. David Dockery, gen. ed. (Nashville, TN: Broadman Press, 1992), p.98.

[3] Jaroslav Pelikan, Acts. Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible. (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2005), p.50.

[4] https://www.biographybase.com/biography /Bruno_Giordano.html / https://books.google.com/books?id=4CSCw1gc_XcC&pg= PA51&lpg =PA51&dq= %22nailed+his+tongue%22&source=web&ots=2OdB7722Dv&sig= L4av RRhkeh LN8KQCwsVqtosbCsk#PPA51,M1 / https://books.google.com/books?id=xgJHI0B4oVMC&pg=RA11-PR7&lpg=RA11-PR7&dq=%22 cut+out+ his+tongue%22&source=web&ots=mP0JzYuN9V&sig=PBQ6vA5tlg9w1tSHZg-5TPwAo5k#PRA11-PR7,M1 / https://www.latinmassmagazine.com/articles/articles_2001_FA_Woods.html

[5] Francis Martin, ed. Acts. Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture. New Testament, vol.V. Thomas C. Oden, gen. ed. (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2006), p.22.

[6] “The Church’s Way of Speaking”, https://www.firstthings.com/article.php3? id_article= 224&var_recherche=tongue

[7] William H. Willimon, Acts. Interpretation. (Louisville, KY: John Knox Press, 1988), p.32.

Acts 1:1-5

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Acts 1:1-5

1 In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach, 2 until the day when he was taken up, after he had given commands through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. 3 He presented himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God. 4 And while staying with them he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, he said, “you heard from me; 5 for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”

Once upon a time, many years ago, into the dark and pagan world of the first century, a world of violence, tyranny, slavery, and ignorance, a new people emerged.  Their presence was, at best, tolerated with bemused irritation or, at worst, despised and plotted against.  They were a strange people and they had strange ways.  The faithful members of this new group sounded like madmen.  They refused to offer incense to the Emporer as a god, claiming instead that they could only offer praise and offerings to the one true God of Heaven and earth.  They practiced a strange kind of classless society:  the poor and the wealthy were treated the same and were seen to be of equal value.  They valued those elements of society that society at large saw as irksome reminders of human weakness:  the sick, the infirm, the impoverished, the outcast, the undesirable.  When respectable Roman women had babies they did not want and followed the custom of putting the baby in the wild to be consumed by wild animals or the elements, these odd people would go, gather them up, and raise them.  They acted as if people had intrinsic value, not value conferred by status or earned by accomplishment.  They called for peace and the end of violence.  They suffered bravely when persecuted and did not complain.  The conferred the title of “brother” and “sister” to those who were not of their biological family, thereby redefining the very nature of family.

Their beliefs strained credulity.  They claimed that God had become a man and had been born in Palestine, of all places, to a virgin girl.  They claimed He worked miracles and healed the sick.  They claimed He announced the coming of a new Kingdom, a Kingdom of which He was King and a Kingdom populated by all who would come to Him in repentance and faith.  When this God-Man was nailed to a cross and killed, they claimed He allowed it to happen so that, in so doing, He could pay the price for the sins of the world.  When He was buried they claimed the grave could not hold Him and that He rose again.  They claimed He lived still, reigning at the right hand of the one true God, but reigning also in the hearts of His people through the Holy Spirit Who He sent to seal, keep, instruct, and guide His people.  They claimed He is coming again.

It is fascinating to see what this strange group of people did say two thousand years ago.  It is also fascinating to note what they did not say.  We never find them involved in sustained complaint against the fallenness of the world.  We never find them protesting the secular businesses of the Roman Empire.  We never find them protesting this or that movement in the world.  We never find them appealing to the secular powers to aid and assist them in the advancement of their cause.  We never find them angry at the world for being the world.  We never find them hating the world for being the world.  We never find them expecting Rome to be anything other than Rome.  We never find them expecting Rome to legislate in their favor.  There were no “culture warriors” among these people.  They were concerned only with proclaiming their peculiar message to the lost culture and calling fallen men and women to come to their King in obedience and faith.

As I say, it was a strange group indeed!

This group of people were first called “Christians” in the city of Antioch but were also known as “The Way.”  They were also called “the Church”:  that body of people comprised of Jesus-followers who recognized Him as Lord, King, and God.

It is interesting to hear the Church spoken of in this way in our day.  In our day, the Church, in many quarters of America anyway, has become a somewhat domesticated puppet of the state:  held on a leash of false promises, manipulated and cajoled into thinking that the Church still matters, is still valued by society at large.  For our parts, we want desperately to believe this nonsense, though the increasing secularization of our society is making this mythology harder and harder to believe.  Born on this side of Constantine as we are, we have been raised in a context where government support or, at least, appreciation is a given.  It is debatable if this has ever really been the case, of course, or if the Church in America simply received the thankful nod of the state insofar as it was politically expedient for the state to do so.

Regardless, it is time for us to come to terms with the death of the Bible Belt and the coming death of nominal Christianity in America. Why?  Because as our society becomes increasingly secularized and thereby more belligerent to the Church, it will ostensibly cost more and more to follow Jesus in this society.  Thus, there will be a kind of pruning of the fringe.  We will experience what the believers of the first centuries experienced and what the persecuted Church experiences today:  the need for genuine commitment if we are going to identify as Christ-followers in the world.

Which is simply to say that the Church needs the book of Acts now more than ever.  This is because the dominant culture ethos in which we reside is coming increasingly to mirror the ethos of the society in which the first Christians first lived.  The world of Acts is now our world, and we would do well to listen.

I say none of this in an effort to complain.  Far from it.  The stripping away of the nominal Christian veneer from society will force the Church to be the Church.  This is a good thing.  It is so because it means we now reside in an arena in which the scandal and prophetic challenge of the gospel can be clearly seen and clearly felt by society insofar as it is clearly proclaimed by the Church.  And this means that the light may now shine in the darkness since we can no longer deceive ourselves that the darkness is really light after all.  It is not.  It is darkness.  Christ is light.  The sides are now clear and the lines are more easily discernible.

This means that we are now free to receive both the outrage and admiration of the watching world since the watching world, in our country anyway, no longer feels the need to pretend to be Christian.  Make no mistake, the watching world of the first century felt both:  outrage and admiration, the desire to kill or the desire to join.  There were very few responses in between.

The coming of Christ and, then, of His Church was a threat to the dominant world system.  Christ turned everything on its head.  In For the Time Being, W.H. Auden imagines Herod’s reaction to the news that “God has been born.”  Though a fictional imagining, of course, this is likely an accurate depiction of what despots then and now feel when they see Christ and His gospel taking root in the populace:

Reason will be replaced by Revelation. Instead of Rational Law, objective truths perceptible to any who will undergo the necessary intellectual discipline, and the same for all. Knowledge will degenerate into a riot of subjective visions…Idealism will be replaced by Materialism . . . Life after death will be an eternal dinner where all the guests are twenty years old. . . . Justice will be replaced by Pity as the cardinal human virtue, and all fear of retribution will vanish. . . . The New Aristocracy will consist exclusively of hermits, bums, and permanent invalids. The Rough Diamond, the Consumptive Whore, the bandit who is good to his mother, the epileptic girl who has a way with animals will be the heroes and heroines of the New Tragedy when the general, the statesman, and the philosopher have become the butt of every farce and satire.[1]

Yes!  This is the threat of Christ and His Church to a society lost in darkness.  It inverts the assumed verities and shows them for the farces they are.  Christ changes everything!

More positively, Boris Pasternak got at the revolutionary implications of the coming of Christ in Doctor Zhivago, when he had Nikolai Nikolaievich record the following in his diary:

            Rome was a flea market of borrowed gods and conquered peoples, a bargain basement on two floors, earth and heaven, a mass of filth convoluted in a triple knot as in an intestinal obstruction.  Dacians, Herulians, Scythians, Sarmatians, Gyperboreans, heavy wheels without spokes, eyes sunk in fat, sodomy, double chins, illiterate emperors, fish fed on the flesh of learned slaves.  There were more people in the world than there have ever been since, all crammed into the passages of the Coliseum, and all wretched.

            And then, into this tasteless heap of gold and marble, He came, light and clothed in an aura, emphatically human, deliberately provincial, Galilean, and at that moment gods and nations ceased to be and man came into being – man the carpenter, man the plowman, man the shepherd with his flock of sheep at sunset, man who does not sound in the least proud, man thankfully celebrated in all the cradle songs of mothers and in all the picture galleries the world over.[2]

The revolutionary impact of Christ on civilization simply cannot be overstated.  The book of Acts tells the beginning of His impact on and in the world through the life of His people, the church.  Again, we desperately need to reacquaint ourselves with the story of Acts, if for no other reason than to see again what Jesus did through a group of people living in a predominately hostile environment and what He can do in and through us in a similar environment today.

Acts is presenting evidence that the work of Jesus continues in and through the Church.

Acts is the second volume written by Luke, the physician and historian, as he notes in the beginning of Acts.

1 In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach

This Theophilus is either an individual who bears that name, or he is an individual to whom Luke has given a pseudonym, possibly for his protection, or this is a general reference to those who are “loved by God,” as the word suggests.  Regardless, Luke sends this letter as a follow-up to his “first book.”[3]

The first book was Luke, the gospel of Luke.  It tells the story of Jesus:  His birth, His life, His teachings, His miracles, His death, His burial, and His resurrection.  That is telling because of how it pours meaning and significance into one word in Acts 1:1.  That word is began.  “I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach…”

Why is that significant?  Think it through.  It is as if Luke is saying this:

Theophilus, do you remember the first book I wrote and sent to you?  The book of Luke?  Do you remember how in that book I told you all about Jesus?  And do you remember how in that book I told you about what Jesus began doing?  Well, in this second book I want to tell you the rest of the story.  I want to tell you what Jesus is still doing.  You see, Theophilus, He is still at work.  He has not stopped.  You might wonder how He is still working, since He has ascended to Heaven.  I’ll tell you.  He is working through His church.  That’s right.  Think of it like this:   Volume 1 – What Jesus started doing.  Volume 2 – What He is still doing.  Volume 1 – Jesus’ incarnate life.  Volume 2 – Jesus’ life continuing through His church.

T.C. Smith notes that many commentators see the phrase “began to do” in “Jesus began to do” as being “poor form” grammatically, or grammatically “clumsy.”  Against these critics, Smith argues that Luke “has a purpose in using this so-called clumsy expression.”  The purpose in using this wording is to show that “the earthly ministry of Jesus is but the beginning of an action which is without termination.”[4]

This is why Acts needs to be studied and studied carefully:  it is a chronicle of how Jesus continued His life in and through the life of His people after He ascended.

Do you see?  If we do not grasp the reality of the current reign of Christ in and through His people we will be forever limited to discussing our Christian life in terms of our conversions and not in terms of what Christ is doing in and through us today, here and now.

Acts is presenting evidence that the Church continues the work of Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit (v.2,4-5)

But how does the life of Christ continue in and through His church?  It cannot be through mere imitation of Christ.  Left to our own devices, our best-intended efforts to do what Jesus did inevitably end with futility and an increased awareness of the disconnect between who He is and who we are.

Left to our own devices, that is.

But what if we aren’t left to our own devices?  Based on Luke’s introduction to his second volume, the early church was certainly not left to its own devices.  This is abundantly clear in verse 2 as well as in verses 4-5.

2 until the day when he was taken up, after he had given commands through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen.

Luke says first that Jesus instructed his disciples during the forty days between his resurrection and ascension “through the Holy Spirit.”  His instructions, in other words, leading up to His bodily removal from them through the resurrection were bathed in the Holy Spirit.  True, the Spirit of God would fall upon the disciples in a unique and powerful way at Pentecost, but here, in this season of preparation, Christ speaks to them “through the Holy Spirit” about what is going to happen when He ascends.

In verses 4 and 5, Jesus foretells this powerful coming of the Spirit.

4 And while staying with them he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, he said, “you heard from me; 5 for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”

“You will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.”  Jesus tells them to wait and get ready because something amazing, something cataclysmic was about to happen to them.  That amazing cataclysmic “something” was, in fact, Someone:  the Holy Spirit.

What role did the Holy Spirit play in the life of the early church?  Simply this:  the Spirit enabled the church to live the life of Christ.  He is the animating Spirit.  He is the presence of Christ in us.  He is our seal and our deposit.  He is the indwelling, enabling, empowering Spirit of God.  St. Augustine said, “What the soul is in our body, the Holy Spirit is in the body of Christ, which is the church.”[5]

That is very true!  Without the Spirit’s indwelling power and presence the church has no power and is no presence.  This is why it is so tragic that so many churches corporately and so many Christians individually do not depend on the Spirit who has been given to them.  Francis Chan put it like this:

If I were Satan and my ultimate goal was to thwart God’s kingdom and purposes, one of my main strategies would be to get churchgoers to ignore the Holy Spirit. The degree to which this has happened (and I would argue that it is a prolific disease in the body of Christ) is directly connected to the dissatisfaction most of us feel with and in the church. We understand something very important is missing. The feeling is so strong that some have run away from the church and God’s Word completely.

I believe that this missing something is actually a missing Someone-namely, the Holy Spirit. Without Him, people operate in their own strength and only accomplish human-size results. The world is not moved by love or actions that are of human creation.  And the church is not empowered to live differently from any other gathering of people without the Holy Spirit. But when believers live in the power of the Spirit, the evidence in their lives is supernatural.  The church cannot help but be different, and the world cannot help but notice.[6]

The early church was Spirit-led.  The early church was Spirit-empowered.  The early church was Spirit-filled.  The early church was Spirit-driven.

Jesus told them that what they were about to do they would only be able to do through the power of the Spirit.  The Spirit fell and the church moved and the church lived and the church worked and changed…the…world.

Want to know the difference between a club and the church?  The Holy Spirit.

Want to know the difference between an institution and a movement?  The Holy Spirit.

Want to know the difference between church as a product and church as a life?  The Holy Spirit.

Without the Holy Spirit, we will read the story of Acts as a story alien to us, for the presence of the Spirit of the living God can be the only connection point between us.  We are separated from the church of the first century by two thousand years, by wildly different customs and cultures, by language, by ethnicity, by political context…in short, by a thousand different things.  But the one thing we have in common is the presence of the Spirit of the living God Who has been sent by the divine and resurrected second person of the Trinity to indwell and to empower us.

Acts is our story only insofar as we are truly the people of God.

Acts is demonstrating how the Church advances the breaking-in of the Kingdom of God in the world. (v.3)

The church continues the life of Christ, and it does so through the power of the Spirit.  But to what end?  Why?  Note what Jesus said in verse 3.

3 He presented himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God.

What did Jesus speak about in the forty days leading up to His ascension to Heaven?  The Kingdom of God.  Why?  Because the Church is ultimately serving the Kingdom’s advancement.  How?  By calling men and women into it through repentance and faith, by modeling Kingdom lives before the watching world, and by salting this current decaying order by being salt and light through their Kingdom lives.

What this means is that the Church in the world is to be a subversive movement, but a movement that subverts with love, the love of Christ.  The Church represents the door through which the Spirit of God breaks into the world.

How revolutionary this is!  How it shatters our petty church consumerism and our church shopping.  When we return the church to its rightful status as a revolutionary movement, we are freed from the tyranny of having always to make the church about us.  We are thereby enabled to see the Church as about God:  His plan for humanity, His design, His priorities, His Son.

And when we do this, the story of Acts really does become our story.  We are now able to read it as a story that is continuing, here and now, in our own lives as Christians.  Acts, then, really is for us.  It is our model but it is also our prequel.

The great poet John Donne put it well when he wrote:

Now the Acts of the Apostles were to convey that name of Christ Jesus and to propagate his gospel throughout the whole world.  Beloved, you too are actors on this same stage.  The end of the earth is your scene.  Act out the Acts of the Apostles!  Be a light to the Gentiles who sit in darkness!  Be content to carry over these seas him who dried up one red sea for his first people and who has poured out another red sea – his own blood – for them and for us.[7]

Yes!  May we “act out the Acts of the Apostles.”  We have the same King, Jesus.  We are empowered by the same Spirit.  We are commissioned by the same Father.  We have the same goal:  the salvation of every man, woman, and child on this plant.

Be the Church.

Be the Church!


[2] Boris Pasternak.  Doctor Zhivago.  (New York, N.Y.:  Pantheon Books, Inc., 1958), p. 43.

[3] F.F. Bruce rejects the idea that this was a reference to Christians in general, pointing out that “Theophilus was a perfectly ordinary personal name, attested from the third century B.C. onward.”  He goes on to surmise, “It is quite probable that Theophilus was a representative member of the intelligent middle-class public at Rome whom Luke wished to win over to a less prejudiced and more favorable opinion of Christianity than that which was current among them.”  F.F. Bruce, The Book of Acts (Revised). The New International Commentary on the New Testament. Gordon D. Fee, gen. ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1988), p.29.

[4] T.C. Smith, “Acts.” The Broadman Bible Commentary. Vol.10. Clifton J. Allen, gen. ed. (Nashville, TN: Broadman Press, 1970), p.17.

[5] Francis Chan, Forgotten God: Reversing Our Tragic Neglect of the Holy Spirit.  Kindle Loc. 964.

[6] Francis Chan, Forgotten God: Reversing Our Tragic Neglect of the Holy Spirit.  Kindle Loc. 42-58.

[7] Esther Chung-Kim and Todd R. Hains, eds. Acts. Reformation Commentary on Scripture. New Testament, vol.VI. Timothy George, gen. ed. (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2014), p.2.