From my book Acts.
Acts 2:1-13: The Spirit of the Mission
2:1 When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. 2 Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3 They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. 4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.
2:5 Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. 6 When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard their own language being spoken. 7 Utterly amazed, they asked: “Aren’t all these who are speaking Galileans? 8 Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language? 9 Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome 11 (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!” 12 Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, “What does this mean?”
2:13 Some, however, made fun of them and said, “They have had too much wine.”
The entire Old Testament reveals but one missionary, Jonah, and he was a total flop. He just didn’t like the calling. The implications of Genesis 12’s exhortation for Abraham’s descendants to be a blessing to the nations didn’t happen. History past and future proved that a, if not the, distinctive mark of the earliest Christian movement was its expansion of the people of God to include gentiles. The Pauline mission, which forms the second half of the Book of Acts, unfolded one new gentile mission church after another – across Turkey, across Greece, and all the way to Rome.
What happens in Acts 2 alters the course of history (cf. Luke 24:47-49; Acts 1:4-8). Fifty days after Passover, or in church language, Holy Week, God’s Spirit creates a radically reshaped community. We call this the Day of Pentecost, while Jews named it the Feast of Weeks, named for the firstfruits of the harvest (cf. Leviticus 23:15-21). Acts 2 reveals to us the first Pentecostals.
SIDEBAR: We are called by God to participate in God’s mission in the world to redeem it through Jesus Christ, the world’s true Savior, Lord and King. Each of us participates in that mission according to the gifts given to us by God.
Let us remember this Day as the Day God came among us in a new and fresh way. As Eugene Peterson once said it, “Pentecost means that God is not a spectator, in turn amused and alarmed at world history; rather, he is a participant” (On Living Well, 168). Yes, and this chapter in Acts reminds us that God is among us still.
Pentecost Christians exist together
Acts 2 tells us that Pentecost Christians (like Jesus himself in Luke 4:18-19) welcome the fresh arrival of the Spirit, they welcome the empowering of all Christians, they welcome the good news about Jesus’ resurrection and ascension, and they welcome the gift of the Spirit personally. Remember that the Book of Acts is about the mission of Jesus in the world from Jerusalem to Rome. The great day of Pentecost’s gift of the Spirit empowers the church to carry out that mission.
In our rush to get to the magical moment of this passage we may miss the opening: “they were all together in one place” (2:1). It would work to say “they were together” or they were “all in one place” but Luke triples it: “all” and “together” and “in one place.” One should not underestimate the potential of believers gathering in unity to wait on God. How many were the “all”? In the previous chapter we get two clues: (1) either Twelve apostles, “the women,” Mary, mother of Jesus, and Jesus’ brothers (1:13-14), or (2) the larger group of 120 believers (1:15). Think of these believers as a marginalized minority judged by some to be fanatics and schismatics. Regardless they were utterly unified: all of them, together, in one place. Praying. Fellowshipping. Instructed. Encouraged. Emboldened. Inexperienced. Fearful, too. Not knowing what to do or what might happen next. Waiting. Wondering too if it might not be time to return to Galilee.
Pentecost Christians experience the Spirit
All at once, out of the blue, like a massive semi-truck’s down-shifting rattling windows, they heard a “violent wind” and it filled their house and they observed “tongues of fire,” or flames, that split and sat on “each of them.” That cloven-tongued fire filled them with the Holy Spirit to empower them for what God was about to do, which was that they began to speak “in other tongues” (2:4). Luke elsewhere informs us of the fillings of the Spirit (4:8, 31; 9:17; 13:9; Luke 1:41, 67; Ephesians 5:18). There were three, and perhaps a fourth, kind of tongues in the early church (see Keener, Acts, 125-129):
(1) the spiritual gift of tongues used in an assembly of Christians for mutual encouragement (1 Corinthians 12:10),
(2) praying in tongues (14:14; see 14:1-18),
(3) perhaps singing in tongues (Colossians 3:16),
and (4) the Pentecost tongue of speaking God’s redemption in languages not otherwise known (Acts 2).
God anointed this small body of believers at a specific time: when the whole city was filled with foreign languages (2:5-11). Somehow their tongues-speaking is heard and understood – through a Divine Translator – by those outside the house. How that happened is unclear but Beverly Gaventa winks at the dissolving of the walls and doors! (Acts, 74-75). These verses make it clear that the miracle of Pentecost was the ability to speak in an unknown foreign language (Dunn, Beginning, 159; Keener, Acts, 124) or, less likely, that the believers spoke in Aramaic but their words were heard by others in their own languages (2:8). Regardless, the miracle embodied the desire of God to spread the gospel (here: “the wonders of God”; 2:11) to all nations. Many have suggested Pentecost begins to unravel the curse of Babel (Genesis 11:1-9; Volf, 213-216) but it should be noticed that Acts 2 does not, like the pre-Babel days, return to one language. Rather God blesses the multiplicity of languages.
Pentecost Christians expand the vision
All of this to draw our attention to the big idea: Pentecost launches the Abrahamic promise to bless all nations. Pentecost Christians don’t restrict mission by ethnicity, by language, by economic, by nation, by race, by gender, by education, by location, by geography … add your own … the gospel from the Day of Pentecost is for every human being. The more filled with the Spirit one is the wider the mission will be. As William Shiell says it, “Pentecost … is not a feel good, cozy, warm-and-fuzzy prayer meeting in a historic chapel … It is a noisy shakeup of our world that changes our lives” (Shiell, Acts, 21).
The truth of the gospel that Jesus is Lord of all, however, has been damaged by Christian colonialism and exploitation, by moral failures at home and abroad, and by paternalistic attitudes toward the Majority World. Missionary work continues in chastened forms. What encourages me are the efforts of local Christians who embody and express the gospel in native languages and forms. That is where the Spirit of Pentecost works.
Eugene Peterson, On Living Well (Colorado Springs: WaterBrook, 2021).
Miroslav Volf, Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation (2d ed.; Nashville: Abingdon, 2019).
With all due respect, Jonah was not a total flop as a missionary. Quite the opposite, though not due to his own efforts. We are told that Jonah is to go through the entire city of Nineveh, which should take him three days. Crapping out about halfway through, Jonah's proclamation still has tremendous effect - everyone from the King down to the donkeys repents them in dust and ashes. I'd say that's am impressive result for someone who half-assed their way through the job.
Of course, your larger point is still very well taken, I just wanted to stand up a bit for Jonah because his story gives me hope as an imperfect preacher that God can bring to perfection what God sets me to do, if I will only show up as I am and as I can.
And to be clear, this is a source of hope, not a justification for lack of commitment, preparation or prayer.
Thanks for listening.
God's Peace,
- Dawg