Acts 2:14-21 (NIV)
Then Peter stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice and addressed the crowd: “Fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you; listen carefully to what I say. These men are not drunk, as you suppose. It’s only nine in the morning! No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel:
“‘In the last days, God says,
“I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
your young men will see visions,
your old men will dream dreams.
Even on my servants, both men and women,
I will pour out my Spirit in those days,
and they will prophesy.
I will show wonders in the heaven above
and signs on the earth below,
blood and fire and billows of smoke.
The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood
before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord.
And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’
Peter and the other eleven apostles moved forward as the acknowledged leaders of the group. But Peter was the one the Spirit moved to address the crowd in the universally understood Greek.
He began by addressing those who were loudly dismissing what was going on as the ramblings of drunkards. His argument was very logical and very simple: there was no way that more than a hundred people would be stumbling drunk by only nine in the morning! The crowd chuckled appreciatively.
But Peter wasn’t done yet. What was going on was an amazing fulfillment of prophecy in the wake of the messianic prophecies that Jesus had already recently fulfilled. He pointed the people to Joel 2:28-32, which followed prophecies about the restoration of God’s people after a devastating locust infestation and the need for the people to repent from their hearts.
Then Joel was enabled to look even further forward, to the time when God promised to pour out His Spirit, not just on prophets and priests, but on all His people, young and old, male and female. This outpouring would result in people prophesying (not just foretelling the future, but “forth-telling,” speaking God’s truth to the people on His behalf, just as Peter was currently doing), having visions, and performing miracles.
Many of the signs that would precede this outpouring had taken place when Jesus had been crucified, including the darkening of the sun and the consequent darkening and reddening of the then full moon for three hours (Matthew 27:45). And all those fulfilled prophesies pointed to the promise at the end, that an unprecedented opportunity had opened for salvation: everyone who called on the name of the Lord would be saved – old and young, male and female, Jew and gentile. (The word “everyone” is very inclusive!)
Many if not most of the people attending the Pentecost feast that day had also been in Jerusalem for the Passover. They had heard about and even seen Jesus’ crucifixion, they had seen the inexplicable darkness at midday, and they had felt the earthquake that had taken place at the moment of Jesus’ death (Matthew 27:50-51). But at the time they had no context from which to recognize these as prophesied signs, not of doom and judgment, but of the opportunity for blessing and restoration.
Father, even the disciples, as close as they were to Jesus, had not seen the signs in context until afterwards. So much of those kinds of things in the Scriptures are dim and indistinct to us until Your Spirit gives us the light to see them clearly and in their proper context. Thank You for Your Holy Spirit, still present in us today. I praise You, Lord! Amen.
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