What happened at Pentecost? We really do not know. We do know that the disciples did have an experience of power of the spirit flooding their very beings that they had never had before.  Luke was not an eyewitness to this. We find a very good account of what happened that day in Acts chapter 2:1 – 31 now to use a term that I have become rather fond of there are a lot of rabbit trails here when we start talking about how many people were in that room and who were they and where were they from. The best count that I can get in studying different commentaries and theological writings are there were 120 people in that upper room in Jerusalem, so it was pretty well crowded. Only 11 of those people were the apostles. The rest were disciples of Christ. The way Luke tells the story, the disciples had suddenly acquired the gift of speaking in foreign languages, but there are two reasons why and that is not likely one of the them that I found reasonable enough to to share with you today. It is that probably it was only necessary to speak a couple of languages. The crowd was made up of of Jews and converts, Gentiles that had accepted the Jewish religion and the Jewish way of life. But the hard part of the thing that makes the most sense is  almost all Jews spoke Arabic, and even if they were Jews of this version from a foreign land, they would speak the language which almost everyone of the world spoke at that time… Greek. There are a lot of different roads and explanations that we could go into here, but the basic and very simple fact was that the power of the Spirit was so great that It had given the disciples a message that could reach every heart. Without getting too deep into this, everybody has an opinion, of course, and many writers differ in what they believed happened in that room. There was in the early church a phenomenon which has never completely disappeared, and it was called speaking with tongues you can read it in Acts 10:46 and 19:6. Also Read 1Corinthians 14. What happened was that someone in a moment of extreme ecstasy begin to pour out a flood of unintelligible sounds in no really known language and many people believe that to be inspired by God. In later writing, we find that the apostle Paul was not a big fan of such. He believed if someone were to walk into the church at that particular time they would think that everybody was crazy. The only reason I shared this with you is it is interesting to note that when you really look at this or at least when I look at it very closely, there were only two languages that needed to be spoken and that was Arabic or Greek because most of the people in the world spoke those two languages.  William Barclay in his Daily Bible Study series puts forth the opinion that perhaps Luke became confused when writing about all of this and he confused speaking with tongues to speaking in foreign languages, but as we said earlier, what happened here was this mixed crowd was hearing the word of God in a way that struck straight home they understood what was being said because the power of the spirit was such that the disciples were able to deliver that message and reach every heart. 

It is at this point that we get out of the room and hit the road. You see the people in the streets heard  all this commotion and they begin to gather are a large crowd.They accused these people of being drunk and Peter of course set the crowd straight by telling them exactly what was happening. His message was so powerful that it is said over 3000 people became Christians on that day. There is so much material available to share with you, but it turns a blog into a thesis and that’s not what we’re going to do. After Pentecost, the apostles empowered by the Holy Spirit, begin their missionary journeys, spreading the gospel and performing miracles they went out to establish communities, guided by the spirit and continue to share their faith building the early church. So this is a very important day and an important time in the early church. It’s the birth of the church. It’s our birthday some people say.This marks the beginning of the churches growth and spread among believers, they were  devoted to the apostles, teaching fellowship and prayer. Let us take a moment to look at six important parts in summation.

-we have the missionary journeys the apostles, including Saint James and Saint Peter embarked on these missionary trips traveling throughout Judea, Gaza, and other regions. They preached  the Gospel, healed the sick, and converted many people.

-this period of time was a time of great growth for the early church. The spirit empowered the apostles to establish and nurture the early church which quickly grew from 120 believers to thousands.

-it is here we see the importance of the guidance of the Holy Spirit. The spirit continued to guide the apostles and other believers in influencing their decisions and their actions.

-there are a couple of traits that we would like to share with you. These believers devoted themselves to the apostles, teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread, which we have come to know today as Holy Communion.

-they shared their possessions and resources to help those in need demonstrating their commitment to each other and to the Gospel.

-after this initial going forth following Pentecost, the church entered into what we can sometimes refer to as ordinary time. It’s the time of season focused on the life and teachings of Jesus and celebrating various feats and Saints throughout the year.

When we consider the fact that this was over 2000 years ago, when the church first began to form in some sort of order it will expose us to a wealth of information. Next week the Pew is going to take a look at the early church. The early church also known as early Christianity refers to the period of Christianity from its origins to the first council of the Nicaea, 325 AD. This is the period of time that the church began to spread out from the mideastern Mediterranean through the Roman Empire and to most of the known world. This Sunday, Pentecost Sunday for many churches is so very important because it was brought about through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, followed by  the infilling of the Holy Spirit just as Jesus had promised  and it’s spread to going forth, preaching and organizing the believers  throughout the known world at that time.

Life Is Good

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