Acts2chapter 2

Acts 2:1-4

the day of Pentecost: The day of Pentecost was fully come: fifty days from the firstfruits sheaf, the feast of the wheat harvest, and in the synagogue's own reckoning the anniversary of Sinai, so that the bench old and new reads the scene's echoes deliberately, wind and fire on the mount, now wind and fire on the house. The sound as of a rushing mighty wind and the cloven tongues like as of fire are both similes, as of, like as, the text careful that these are signs of the Spirit's coming, not the Spirit himself. They were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance: the promise of 1:5 and 1:8 lands, and the speaking is the Spirit's gift working through their mouths, the first act of the empowered church being praise in languages it never learned.

Acts 2:5-8

Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven were dwelling at Jerusalem, the diaspora gathered for the feast, and the noised-abroad sound draws the multitude that every sign in this book exists to draw. Every man heard them speak in his own language: the miracle is speech, not merely hearing, since the speakers are known Galileans and the tongues are named real languages in the next verses. The commentators old and new hear Babel reversing, the scattering of tongues answered by a gathering, and the exposition names the echo as the church has long read it while keeping the scene's own emphasis, the wonderful works of God made native to every ear.

Acts 2:9-11

Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites open a fifteen-name catalogue running east to west, Mesopotamia through Asia Minor to Egypt, Cyrene, Rome, Crete and Arabia, the old Assyrian and Babylonian exile lands standing first. The bench reads the list as Luke's map of the harvest to come, the nations of 1:8 already present in their firstfruits, Jews and proselytes together. What they hear is the wonderful works of God, doxology, not yet preaching; the sermon that interprets the sign is Peter's work, and the exposition keeps the order, sign, question, word.

Acts 2:12-15

What meaneth this, the amazed ask, and others mocking said, These men are full of new wine: the sign divides its hearers exactly as the parables did, wonder and contempt from the same evidence. Peter, standing up with the eleven, answers the mockery first with the homely argument of the third hour, nine in the morning, before the devout had breakfasted on a feast day. The commentators mark the transformation in the man himself: the denier of the courtyard now lifts up his voice over the city, the first evidence of the Spirit's filling being courage, and the sermon that follows is the church's first, built entirely of Scripture and eyewitness.

Acts 2:16-18

spoken by the prophet Joel: This is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel: Peter's first word of interpretation claims fulfillment outright, and the citation of Joel 2:28-32 runs longer than any other Old Testament quotation in Acts. In the last days, Peter renders Joel's afterward, the apostolic reading that the last days began at Pentecost, and the pouring is upon all flesh, sons and daughters prophesying, young men seeing visions, old men dreaming dreams, servants and handmaidens included, every wall of age, sex, and station down. The exposition presents the promise at the strength the text gives it: the last days Peter announces are the church's own days, and the poured-out Spirit, with the prophesying, visions, and dreams Joel names, is the church's living endowment, received today as it was received that morning.

Acts 2:19-21

Wonders in heaven above and signs in the earth beneath, blood and fire and vapour of smoke, the darkened sun and blood moon before that great and notable day of the Lord: Peter includes Joel's cosmic clauses, and the bench divides honestly over their reach, some reading AD 70's fires as near fulfillment, some the darkness of the crucifixion afternoon, some holding the signs for the day still future, and the parking order governs, positions named, no date set, no modern mapping. What is not disputed is where the quotation lands: whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved, the widest door in the prophets, which Paul cites at Romans 10:13 to the same purpose. Peter ends the citation there and begins his argument, and the exposition notes the art of it, the whosoever left ringing while he turns to name the Lord on whom they must call.

Acts 2:22-24

Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, as ye yourselves also know: Peter's case opens on public evidence his hearers cannot deny, works done in the midst of them. The next sentence holds the cross's two causes in one grammar, delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, and taken and crucified by wicked hands: sovereignty and guilt affirmed together, neither canceling the other, and the bench across every era declines to resolve what Peter left joined. Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that he should be holden of it: the impossibility is the sermon's hinge, and the exposition gives the reason the psalm will supply, death had no rightful hold on the Holy One.

Acts 2:25-28

For David speaketh concerning him: Peter quotes Psalm 16 whole, I foresaw the Lord always before my face, my flesh shall rest in hope, thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption. The psalm's I is David's voice, and the sermon's whole argument will turn on whose flesh the promise could actually keep from corruption. Hell here is hades, sheol, the place of the dead, not the place of punishment, and the bench states the philology plainly since much confusion has hung on the English word. The quotation ends on the path of life and fulness of joy, resurrection stated as gladness, and Peter now has his text on the table before his hearers see where it must land.

Acts 2:29-32

the patriarch David: The patriarch David, Peter argues, is both dead and buried, and his sepulchre is with us unto this day, a tomb every hearer could walk to; therefore the psalm's uncorrupted Holy One cannot be its author. Being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn the oath of 2 Samuel 7, David spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell, neither his flesh did see corruption: the exegesis is the sermon's engine, promise plus empty tomb equals identification. This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses: the argument closes on testimony, one hundred and twenty witnesses standing behind the speaker, and the resurrection witness formula sounds here for the first of its many times in this book.

Acts 2:33-36

Being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear: Peter explains the morning's sign as the ascended Christ's own act, the tongues traced up to the throne, and the bench notes the trinitarian shape of the sentence, the Father's promise, the Son's shedding forth, the Spirit poured. Psalm 110:1 seals the case, David again unable to be his own subject since he is not ascended into the heavens, the LORD said unto my Lord fitting only One. The sermon's verdict falls in one sentence: God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ, the two titles answering the two proofs, Lord from Psalm 110, Christ from Psalm 16, and the whom-ye-crucified aimed at the hearers present, not at a people for all time.

Acts 2:37-40

They were pricked in their heart, katanysso, stabbed through, the word's only New Testament use, and the crowd that mocked at the third hour now asks the book's great question, Men and brethren, what shall we do? Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost: the answer joins what the church has often divided, and the traditions on baptism's relation to remission are named with their holders where they part, no verdict stamped. The promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call: three widening circles, the hearers, their generations, and the distant nations, the afar off that Ephesians 2:13 will name as the Gentiles. Save yourselves from this untoward generation, Peter presses, the sermon ending in appeal, not analysis.

Acts 2:41-42

They that gladly received his word were baptized, and the same day there were added about three thousand souls: the harvest feast yields its firstfruits, and the bench notes the quiet arithmetic of grace, the Spirit's first sermon gathering thousands where Sinai's first day, on the old reckoning of the feast, saw three thousand fall. The new community's shape is given in one verse, and they continued stedfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers: four continuings, teaching, koinonia, the table, and prayer, the church's marks stated before any structure is described. The exposition holds 2:42 as the pattern verse the whole book keeps returning to.

Acts 2:43-47

Fear came upon every soul, wonders and signs were done by the apostles, and all that believed were together, and had all things common, selling possessions as every man had need: the community of goods is described, not commanded, voluntary and need-driven, as Peter's own words to Ananias later confirm (5:4), and the bench across the eras declines to turn the description into law while honoring the love it describes. Daily temple worship and bread broken from house to house, gladness and singleness of heart, praising God and having favour with all the people: the church's first portrait is joy in public. And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved: the chapter's last word gives the growth to its true agent, the Lord adding, the church receiving, the first of the growth notices that will punctuate the whole book.