Clergy/Leaders’ Mail-list No. 3-109 Whitsunday 08 Jun 2003

Reading: Acts 2:1-11 – CROSSING ALL BOUNDARIES

Come, Holy Spirit. We give you permission to have your way with us today.

The Spirit comes ‘suddenly … from heaven’ in the context of the community gathered in prayer (1:14) expecting the fulfilment of Jesus’ prophecies (1:4,5,8). There are lessons here for us if we wish to experience the Spirit’s outpouring. The sound like a violent tornado, and the tongues resembling fire, common symbols of God’s appearing (Exod 19:18; 1 Kings 19:11,l2; Luke 3:16), speak of God’s awesome intervention in the regularities of life. Something of tremendous significance is happening here!

Luke stresses two points in his narrative. The first is that each hears the disciples speaking ‘in his own language’ (vs 6,8,11). God respects cultural individuality, and communicates in each person’s heart-language. The second is the nature of the crowd, symbolically representing ‘every nation under heaven’ (v 5). As in the list of nations in Genesis 10, descendants of Shem, Ham and Japheth are included, stressing the universality of God’s salvation.

The gift of tongues represents God’s enabling of the disciples to communicate the gospel across linguistic, geographic and cultural barriers. They are not only called to a worldwide mission (1:8), but enabled by God to fulfil it. All too often we see those of other ethnic groups as too different for us seriously to consider sharing the gospel with them. Pentecost challenges such an attitude.

The residents in Jerusalem were especially amazed that those speaking to them were provincial Galileans (v 7), well known for having difficulty in pronouncing gutturals and who tended to swallow their syllables. Today the fact that people hear God speaking clearly to them through those they would not normally expect to understand will still cause amazement and openness to hear the gospel message.

‘True, the wind renewed, revived, refreshed. But it also blew away the cobwebs and broke down the barriers’ (Donald Coggan}. Pray for such an outpouring of the Spirit.

– Roger Pooley

Copyright Scripture Union, 2003, Encounter with God

To order your quarterly edition of ‘Encounter with God’ or to enquire about other SU publications, contact the office nearest your region:

Australia – East Asia – Pacific – USA – or http://www.scriptureunion.org Canada – UK & International Office –