Acts of the Apostles, Acts 2:1-13
Image credit: Courtesy of the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
This is a second introductory post in consideration of Acts 2, following after When Facts are Crowned with Meaning.
Peter’s first recorded sermon, read in Acts 2, takes account of what is seen and heard by a large gathering of Jews and proselytes that are visiting Jerusalem for the festival of Pentecost. A variety of strange phenomena are witnessed on the day, but, importantly, we note Peter’s very normal reaction in the face of them: He relates that day’s events to his audience in their proper association of past, present, and future. Accordingly, when the puzzled crowd seeks an explanation for what they see and hear around them (Acts 2:12), Peter answers them by reference to scripture. He recalls the prophecy of Joel (Acts 2:16), and also a psalm of David (Acts 2:25-28)—connections that require a separate post; and yet, we need to confirm that Peter’s sermon interprets for us the strange scene in light of Old Testament scriptures and all what they predicted.
But we also note that these events in Acts 2 occur on the occasion of Pentecost. This fact also causes the reader to return to the Old Testament, seeking explanation and meaning in this additional and unavoidable association. The phenomena observed, therefore, cannot be interpreted in isolation from history, nor can they be considered on the arbitrary ground of personal experience, for Peter’s audience is not some arbitrary assortment of people: The crowd is gathered in Jerusalem for Pentecost, but only because meaning was already assigned to that people, this place, and this time.
This crowd was a gathering of God’s covenant people, generally referred to as Israel, assembled in obedience to the Old Testament scripture. As such, Acts chapter two begins by reminding the reader of the expected, that a mixture of ethnic Jews and Gentile proselytes were in Jerusalem for the yearly feast (Acts 2:1 and 2:4, cf. Deuteronomy 16:16); but just the same, we also need say that this was not an ordinary Pentecost, for that year’s Pentecost celebration (always beginning 50 days after Passover) was the first such feast after the death, burial, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus. This is the second fact that warrants our attention. The Pentecost feast found its expected celebration in the usual sequence of Jewish festival days that became part of the Jewish calendar in connection with the Exodus.1When I write “usual,” I mean what was prescribed by the Law. The scripture, of course, records that there were large gaps of years where Israel forsook the celebration of the festivals. For instance, Passover’s observance was occasionally delayed (2 Chronicles 30:1-4). Later, after the temple was destroyed, Passover observances were impossible until the temple’s restoration, as described in the book of Ezra. Pentecost was, accordingly, an annual Jewish festival; but this particular Pentecost found a unique situation and expression because it succeeded Jesus’ recent resurrection. The former fact explains why thousands of Jews and proselytes were gathered in Jerusalem to observe Pentecost that year; the latter explains why the same gathering saw and heard something surprising and unique to this one instance of the annual feast.
* * *
Pentecost, readers will know, was one of three major feasts that were prescribed and ordered for Israel under the stipulations of the Mosaic Law.2The same festival is referred to as the feast of weeks. Cf. Ex 34:21-23, Deuteronomy 16:9-13, etc. But what shall we say of the consideration of the feasts in the New Testament? There is a much that could be mentioned; but here, we at least acknowledge that the Jewish feasts had been prescribed in the Old Testament for Israel’s observance.3Strictly speaking, we mean covenant Israel, which was never a purely ethnic designation. From the beginning, Israel consisted of Hebrews, but also some Gentile observers who submitted themselves to the stipulations of the Sinai covenant. This is evident form the very beginning of Israel’s history, when a “mixed multitude” departed Egypt (Exodus 12:38). The feasts always fell in the same sequence as part and parcel of Israel’s history. This fact becomes the background for the later, New Testament references to them, for the gospels and Acts eventually highlight a variety of new historical events that found explicit connection to the ancient Jewish feast days.4As such, we read about an incident early in the public ministry of Jesus, wherein he entered the temple and dispersed the money changers there, driving them out. John 2:13 reads that this occurred in close proximity to the Passover feast. Later, the same gospel records the healing of a man at the pool of Bethesda, and also associates it with one of the feast, though John doesn’t tell us which one (John 5:1). The gospels highlight a large variety of such events, connecting them to the feasts. Here, we only need note the fact of this common connection.
What we must eventually understand, then, is that the feasts and the history that they recall became the situation for a New Testament sequence, connected to the death, burial, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Pentecost events that are described in Acts chapter 2 do not exist in isolation to the previous celebrations of the feasts; they are, now, considered together in scripture. The different feasts certainly possess independent character and significance, but their annual celebration and inclusion together gave definition to the larger story of God’s redemption. As such, in their manifest concurrence with the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the places and events of the original deliverance from Egypt become the introductory symbols of the kingdom of God. The mutual association of Old and New Testament references to these feasts becomes the form of a single narrative that discloses meaning. We know this association, quite simply, as revelation.
* * *
And yet, it is in sometimes debated whether Luke has the former feasts in mind when he writes his history. The question becomes whether the events of Acts 2—at least as Luke describes them—bear any intended relation to the Jewish feasts. In other words, can we consider Acts 2 in light of the Exodus narrative, at which time the feasts were first enshrined in Jewish law and practice? There are reasons to think so; however, Darrel Bock surveys a variety of opinions before concluding that, for Luke, the Jewish feasts are not a significant part of his presentation. The events of Acts 2, he writes, do “not stand in contrast to Jewish feasts.”5Darrell L. Bock, Acts, ed. Robert W. Yarbrough & Robert H. Stein, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2007), 96. See also page 98.
This assessment is well-intended. It seems to stand upon the quite natural and necessary question, what is Luke trying to tell his readers? Readers may, of course, disagree about this question’s answer, but another point should be made in this consideration: There are occasions where unavoidable scriptural connections remain, even when we cannot prove that the author, himself, intended to highlight them. This is not to say that we should imagine or invent connections, but we must still somehow account for them on the basis that the Bible is a unified revelation.
In other words, even if Luke did not intend to draw explicit correlation between his account of Pentecost day and the Old Testament feasts, this does not necessarily deny real connection. It seems that the Apostle Peter has this possibility in mind when he writes how the Holy Spirit prophesied of Jesus Christ in the Old Testament writings in ways that were not always obvious to its authors. The prophets, Peter tells us, read the scriptures, searching for the scriptural testimony of the grace and salvation of Jesus Christ (1 Peter 1:10-11). This Old Testament testimony, we thus learn, was persistent and original to the Spirit’s will, even when some instances and meaning remained hidden from the prophets themselves.
We see something similar working out even during the years when the disciples accompanied their Lord on his journeys throughout Judah and Galilee. Jesus would reference Old Testament scripture in connection to his own work and identity, and the disciples would remain oblivious to what he, thereby, showed them. John 12:14-16 recalls such an occasion. There, we read how the Lord Jesus and his disciples walk toward Jerusalem and, somewhere along the way, Jesus sits upon a young ass to finish his journey into city, not because he was tired and needed the rest, but because he thereby announced that he was a king, in answer to the Old Testament prophecy (cf. Zechariah 9:9). John 12:16 confirms the disciples’ misunderstanding. The scriptures were clear in their predictions, and Jesus was clearly making himself the fulfillment of their promise; and yet, the disciples misapprehended the entire scene. In this way, too, we are reminded how facts, though filled with meaning, may remain mysterious to us all.
Accordingly, we are taught to read and to read differently, in wide-eyed acknowledgement of the manner and purpose for which scripture was given to us. After his resurrection, the Lord Jesus instructs the disciples to search and account for him in all the Old Testament scriptures (Luke 24:25-27, cf. John 5:39). The Lord thereby confirmed that the Old Testament’s wide variety of writings possess a unifying character as God’s revelation of himself through the Son. In this sense, Christians are to take up the preoccupation of the prophets, seeking to understand in what ways the Spirit has manifest Jesus Christ in the pages of scripture. Just as the Holy Spirit once taught the prophets to search for the coming Savior and the character of his revelation (1 Peter 1:10-11), so Christians are taught to hope in the guidance of the Spirit in reading about the resurrected Lord (John 16:13-15).
Note: A future post will attempt to deal with some of the specific connections between Exodus and Luke’s account of Pentecost.
Notes & References
| ↑1 | When I write “usual,” I mean what was prescribed by the Law. The scripture, of course, records that there were large gaps of years where Israel forsook the celebration of the festivals. For instance, Passover’s observance was occasionally delayed (2 Chronicles 30:1-4). Later, after the temple was destroyed, Passover observances were impossible until the temple’s restoration, as described in the book of Ezra. |
|---|---|
| ↑2 | The same festival is referred to as the feast of weeks. Cf. Ex 34:21-23, Deuteronomy 16:9-13, etc. |
| ↑3 | Strictly speaking, we mean covenant Israel, which was never a purely ethnic designation. From the beginning, Israel consisted of Hebrews, but also some Gentile observers who submitted themselves to the stipulations of the Sinai covenant. This is evident form the very beginning of Israel’s history, when a “mixed multitude” departed Egypt (Exodus 12:38). |
| ↑4 | As such, we read about an incident early in the public ministry of Jesus, wherein he entered the temple and dispersed the money changers there, driving them out. John 2:13 reads that this occurred in close proximity to the Passover feast. Later, the same gospel records the healing of a man at the pool of Bethesda, and also associates it with one of the feast, though John doesn’t tell us which one (John 5:1). The gospels highlight a large variety of such events, connecting them to the feasts. Here, we only need note the fact of this common connection. |
| ↑5 | Darrell L. Bock, Acts, ed. Robert W. Yarbrough & Robert H. Stein, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2007), 96. See also page 98. |
