Upgrade or commentaries

Mark Barnes said:

But if genuinely all you want are commentaries, then Tyndale+BST is better than NAC+Holman NT (the latter is what you get from Silver).

Just a quick comparison: The Holman excerpt posted above is about 6,500 words, the BKC 2,500 - Stott in BST is about 12,100, so I will give only the beginning (Acts 2:1-13) and the end (Acts 2:40-47) of the passage. If you read it, you'll see the pastoral focus:

2. The Day of Pentecost

2:1–47

Without the Holy Spirit, Christian discipleship would be inconceivable, even impossible. There can be no life without the life-giver, no understanding without the Spirit of truth, no fellowship without the unity of the Spirit, no Christlikeness of character apart from his fruit, and no effective witness without his power. As a body without breath is a corpse, so the church without the Spirit is dead.
Luke is well aware of this. Of the four evangelists it is he who lays the heaviest emphasis on the Spirit. Near the beginning of each part of his two-volume work he demonstrates the indispensability of the Holy Spirit’s enabling. Just as the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus when John baptized him, so that he entered his public ministry ‘full of the Holy Spirit’, ‘led by the Spirit’. ‘in the power of the Spirit’ and ‘anointed’ by the Spirit (Lk. 3:21–22; 4:1, 14, 18), so now the same Spirit came upon the disciples of Jesus to equip them for their mission in the world (Acts 1:5, 8; 2:33). In the early chapters of the Acts Luke refers to the promise, the gift, the baptism, the power and the fullness of the Spirit in the experience of God’s people. The terms are many and interchangeable; the reality is one, and there is no substitute for it.
Yet this reality is multi-faceted, and there are at least four ways in which we may think of the Day of Pentecost. First, it was the final act of the saving ministry of Jesus before the Parousia. He who was born into our humanity, lived our life, died for our sins, rose from the dead and ascended into heaven, now sent his Spirit to his people to constitute them his body and to work out in them what he had won for them. In this sense the Day of Pentecost is unrepeatable. Christmas Day, Good Friday, Easter Day, Ascension Day and Whit Sunday are annual celebrations, but the birth, death, resurrection, ascension and Spirit-gift they commemorate happened once and for all. Secondly, Pentecost brought to the apostles the equipment they needed for their special role. Christ had appointed them to be his primary and authoritative witnesses, and had promised p 61 them the reminding and teaching ministry of the Holy Spirit (John 14–16). Pentecost was the fulfilment of that promise. Thirdly, Pentecost was the inauguration of the new era of the Spirit. Although his coming was a unique and unrepeatable historical event, all the people of God can now always and everywhere benefit from his ministry. Although he equipped the apostles to be the primary witnesses, he also equips us to be secondary witnesses. Although the inspiration of the Spirit was given to the apostles alone, the fullness of the Spirit is for us all. Fourthly, Pentecost has been called—and rightly—the first ‘revival’, using this word to denote one of those altogether unusual visitations of God, in which a whole community becomes vividly aware of his immediate, overpowering presence. It may be, therefore, that not only the physical phenomena (2ff.), but the deep conviction of sin (37), the 3,000 conversions (41) and the widespread sense of awe (43) were signs of ‘revival’. We must be careful, however, not to use this possibility as an excuse to lower our expectations, or to relegate to the category of the exceptional what God may intend to be the church’s normal experience. The wind and the fire were abnormal, and probably the languages too; the new life and joy, fellowship and worship, freedom, boldness and power were not.1
Acts 2 has three sections. It begins with Luke’s description of the Pentecost event itself (1–13), continues with the explanation of the event which Peter gives in his sermon (14–41), and ends with its effects in the life of the Jerusalem church (42–47).

1. Luke’s narrative: the event of Pentecost (2:1–13)

Luke’s narrative opens with a brief, matter-of-fact reference to the time and place of the Spirit’s coming. They were all together in one place, he writes, and is evidently not concerned to enlarge on this. We do not know, therefore, if the ‘house’ of verse 2 is still the upper room (Acts 1:13; 2:46b) or one of the many rooms or halls of the temple (Lk. 24:53; Acts 2:46a). The time is precise, however; it was when the day of Pentecost came (1). This feast had two meanings, one agricultural and the other historical. Originally, it was the middle of the three annual Jewish harvest festivals,2 and p 62 was called either the Feast of Harvest,3 because it celebrated the completion of the grain harvest, or the Feast of Weeks or Pentecost, because it took place seven weeks or fifty days (pentēkostos means ‘fiftieth’) after the Passover, which was when the grain harvesting began.4 Towards the end of the inter-testamental period, however, it began also to be observed as the anniversary of the giving of the law at Mount Sinai, because this was reckoned as having happened fifty days after the Exodus.
It is tempting, therefore, to find the double symbolism of harvesting and law-giving in the Day of Pentecost. Certainly there was a great harvest of 3,000 souls that day, the first-fruits of the Christian mission. As Chrysostom put it, ‘the time was come to put in the sickle of the word; for here, as the sickle, keen-edged, came the Spirit down’.5 Certainly too the prophets regarded as almost identical Yahweh’s two New Covenant promises, ‘I will put my Spirit in you’6 and ‘I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts’,7 since what the Spirit does when he enters our hearts is to write God’s law there, as Paul clearly taught. Nevertheless, Luke does not draw out this double symbolism. So we cannot be sure whether it was important to him, even though Jewish tradition associated wind, fire and voices with Mount Sinai,8 the three phenomena which he is about to describe.

a. The three phenomena

Suddenly, Luke says, the great event took place. The Spirit of God came upon them. And his coming was accompanied by three supernatural signs—a sound, a sight and strange speech. First, there came from heaven a sound like the blowing of a violent wind, and it (i.e. the noise) filled the whole house where they were sitting (2). Secondly, there appeared to them visibly what seemed to be tongues of fire, which separated and came to rest on each of them (3), becoming for each an individual possession. Thirdly, all of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues (i.e. languages of some kind) as the Spirit enabled them (4).
These three experiences seemed like natural phenomena (wind, fire and speech); yet they were supernatural both in origin and in character. The noise was not wind, but sounded like it; the sight was not fire but resembled it; and the speech was in languages which were not ordinary but in some way ‘other’. Again, three of their higher senses were affected, in that they heard the wind-like sound, saw the fire-like apparition and spoke the ‘other’ languages. Yet what they experienced was more than sensory; it was significant. p 63 So they sought to understand it. ‘What does this mean?’ the people later asked (12). If we allow other parts of Scripture to guide our interpretation, it seems that these three signs at least represented the new era of the Spirit which had begun (John the Baptist had bracketed wind and fire9) and the new work which he had come to do. If so, the noise like wind may have symbolized power (such as Jesus had promised them for witness, Lk. 24:49; Acts 1:8), the sight like fire purity (like the live coal which cleansed Isaiah, 6:6–7) and the speech in other languages the universality of the Christian church. In what follows nothing more is said about the phenomena like wind and fire; Luke concentrates on the third, the languages.

5Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven, 6When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard them speaking in his own language. 7Utterly amazed, they asked: ‘Are not all these men who are speaking Galileans? 8Then how is it that each of us hears them in his own native language?’

Luke’s emphasis is on the international nature of the crowd which collected. They were all God-fearing Jews, and they were all staying (that is, residing) in Jerusalem (5). Yet they had not been born there; they came from the dispersion, from every nation under heaven (5). That we must not press Luke’s ‘every nation’ literally to include, for example, American Indians, Australian aboriginals and New Zealand Maoris, is plain from what follows. He was speaking, as the biblical writers normally did, from his own horizon not ours, and was referring to the Graeco-Roman world situated round the Mediterranean basin, indeed to every nation in which there were Jews.
Luke’s list comprises five groupings, as he moves with his mind’s eye approximately from East to West. First, he mentions Parthians, Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia (9a), that is, peoples from the Caspian Sea westwards, many of whom will have been descended from the Jewish exiles who had been transported there in the eighth and sixth centuries BC. Secondly, in verses 9b–10a, Luke refers to five areas of what we call Asia Minor or Turkey, namely Cappadocia (east), Pontus (north), and Asia (west), Phrygia and Pamphylia (south). Because Judea (9) comes oddly between Mesopotamia and Cappadocia, some commentators think Luke is using the word to refer to a wider area like the whole of Palestine and Syria, even including Armenia, while others follow an Old Latin version which reads Joudaioi (‘Jews’) instead of Joudaian (‘Judea’), and so translate ‘the Jews inhabiting Mesopotamia and p 64 Cappadocia etc.’. The third group (10b) is North African, namely Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene (its chief city), the fourth (10c–11a) is visitors from Rome across the Mediterranean (both Jews and converts to Judaism), and the fifth, which looks like an afterthought, is Cretans and Arabs (11b).10

The Near East in the first century AD

This was the international, multi-lingual crowd which gathered round the 120 believers. We hear them declaring the wonders of God, they said, in our own tongues (11c), that is, each … in his own native language (8). Yet the speakers were known to be Galileans (7), who had a reputation for being uncultured.11 They also ‘had difficulty pronouncing gutturals and had the habit of swallowing syllables when speaking; so they were looked down upon by the people of Jerusalem as being provincial’.12 It is not surprising, therefore, that the crowd’s reaction was one of bewilderment (6). Indeed, amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, ‘What does this mean?’ (12). Some, however, a minority who for some reason understood none of the languages, made fun of them and said, ‘They have had too much wine’ (13).

b. Glossolalia

What exactly was this third phenomenon which Luke stresses, and as a result of which people heard God’s wonders in their vernacular? How does Luke understand glossolalia? We begin our answer negatively.
First, it was not the result of intoxication, of drinking too much gleukos, ‘sweet new wine’ (13, BAGD). Peter is emphatic on this point: ‘These men are not drunk, as you suppose. It’s only nine in the morning!’ (15). As early in the day as that, Haenchen comments, ‘even drunkards and wassailers have not yet begun to imbibe’.13 Besides, the Jews fasted during festivals until the morning services were over. Nor, we must add, did the believers’ experience of the Spirit’s fullness seem to them or look to others like intoxication, because they had lost control of their normal mental and physical functions. No, the fruit of the Spirit is ‘self-control’,14 not the loss of it. Besides, only ‘some’ (13) made this remark, and though they said it, they do not seem to have meant it. For, Luke p 66 says, they ‘made fun of them’. It was more a jest than a serious comment.
Secondly, it was not a mistake or a miracle of hearing, in contrast to speaking, so that the audience supposed that the believers spoke in other languages when they did not.15 Some of Luke’s statements seem to support this theory: ‘each one heard them speaking in his own language’ (6); ‘how is it that each of us hears them in his own native language?’ (8); and ‘we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!’ (11). When, however, Luke writes his own descriptive narrative, he puts the matter beyond dispute: they ‘began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them’, (4). Glossolalia was indeed a phenomenon of hearing, but only because it was first a phenomenon of speech.
Thirdly, it was not a case of incoherent utterance. Liberal commentators, who begin with a prejudice against miracles, suggest that the 120 believers broke into unintelligible, ecstatic speech, and that Luke (who had visited Corinth with Paul) mistakenly supposed that it was literal languages. Thus Luke got in a muddle and confused two quite different things. What he thought was languages was in reality ‘inarticulate ecstatic babbling’16 or ‘a flood of unintelligible sounds in no known language’.17 Those of us who have confidence in Luke as a reliable historian, however, let alone as an inspired contributor to the New Testament, conclude that it is not he who is mistaken, but rather his rationalistic interpreters.
Fourthly, and positively, the glossolalia on the Day of Pentecost was a supernatural ability to speak in recognizable languages. Some think that these were Aramaic, Greek and Latin, which would all have been spoken in multi-lingual Galilee; that ‘other languages’ means ‘languages other than Hebrew’ (the sacred biblical language which would have seemed appropriate to the occasion); and that the crowd’s astonishment was aroused by God’s wonders not the languages, by the content not the medium of the communication. This is plausible, and could be said to do justice to Luke’s account. On the other hand, his emphasis is more on the linguistic media (4, 6, 8, 11) than on the message (12); it is natural to translate ‘other languages’ as ‘other than their mother tongue’ rather than ‘other than Hebrew’; the list of fifteen regions in verses 9–11 leads one to expect a wider range of languages than Aramaic, Greek and Latin; and the crowd’s astonishment seems due to the fact that the languages, which to the speakers were ‘other’ (4), i.e. foreign, were yet to the hearers their ‘own’ (6, 11), indeed their ‘own native language’ (8), in which they were born (see AV). I conclude, therefore, p 67 that the miracle of Pentecost, although it may have included the substance of what the one hundred and twenty spoke (the wonders of God), was primarily the medium of their speech (foreign languages they had never learned).
So far I have concentrated on Luke’s own understanding of glossolalia on the Day of Pentecost, which can be discovered only by the exegesis of Acts 2. Presumably, the glossolalia to which he refers in Acts 10:46 and 19:6 was the same speaking of foreign languages, since he uses the same vocabulary (though most manuscripts omit the adjective ‘other’). What, then, about the references to tongue-speaking in 1 Corinthians 12 and 14? Are the phenomena mentioned in Acts and 1 Corinthians the same or different? We must try to reach our answer with reference to the biblical text rather than to contemporary claims.
Some think the phenomena were in several ways different. First, they were different in direction, glossolalia in Acts being in some sense the public ‘declaring’ (11) of God’s wonders, sharing them with others, while in 1 Corinthians the tongue-speaker ‘does not speak to men but to God’.18 Secondly, they were different in character, glossolalia in Acts being languages which were understood by groups of listeners, while in 1 Corinthians 14 the speech was unintelligible and an interpreter was necessary. Thirdly, they were different in purpose. In Acts glossolalia seems to be evidential, an initial ‘sign’ given to all, bearing witness to their reception of the Spirit, while in 1 Corinthians it is edificatory, a continuing ‘gift’ bestowed on some for the building up of the church.
Others, however, point out that the Greek words and expressions are the same throughout the New Testament. Glōssa (‘tongue’) has only two meanings (the organ in the mouth and a language) and hermēneuō (‘interpret’) usually means to translate a language. They therefore conclude that the Acts and 1 Corinthians passages refer to the same thing, namely languages. Even some who think the purpose is different, go on to affirm that the character is the same. For example, the Assemblies of God commentator Stanley M. Horton writes that ‘the tongues here (sc. in Acts 2) and the tongues in 1 Corinthians chapters 12–14 are the same’.19 As the official Statement of the Assemblies of God puts it (para. 8), they are ‘the same in essence’, but ‘different in purpose and use’. To sum up, rejecting the liberal approach, which is to declare Corinthian glossolalia to be unintelligible utterance and to assimilate the Acts phenomenon to it, it is better to make the opposite proposal, namely that the Acts phenomenon was intelligible languages and that the 1 Corinthians experience must be assimilated to it. The p 68 main argument for this is that, although glossolalia is mentioned without explanation in several New Testament passages, Acts 2 is the only passage in which it is described and explained; it seems more reasonable to interpret the unexplained in the light of the explained than vice versa.20
Discussion about the nature of glossolalia must not distract our attention from Luke’s understanding of its significance on the Day of Pentecost. It symbolized a new unity in the Spirit transcending racial, national and linguistic barriers. So Luke is at pains to emphasize the cosmopolitan character of the crowd, not least by the expression ‘from every nation under heaven’ (5). Although all the nations of the world were not present literally, they were representatively. For Luke includes in his list descendants of Shem, Ham and Japheth, and gives us in Acts 2 a ‘Table of the Nations’ comparable to the one in Genesis 10. Bishop Stephen Neill has made this point: ‘Most of the peoples mentioned by Luke fall under the heading of the Semites, Elam being the first of the Semitic nations mentioned in Genesis 10; but Luke is careful also to add Egypt and Libya which come under the heading of the Hamites, and Cretans (Kittim) and dwellers in Rome who belong to the section under Japheth.… Luke does not draw attention to what he is doing; but in his own subtle way he is saying to us that on that Day of Pentecost the whole world was there in the representatives of the various nations.’21
Nothing could have demonstrated more clearly than this the multi-racial, multi-national, multi-lingual nature of the kingdom of Christ. Ever since the early church fathers, commentators have seen the blessing of Pentecost as a deliberate and dramatic reversal of the curse of Babel. At Babel human languages were confused and the nations were scattered; in Jerusalem the language barrier was supernaturally overcome as a sign that the nations would now be gathered together in Christ, prefiguring the great day when the redeemed company will be drawn ‘from every nation, tribe, people and language’.22 Besides, at Babel earth proudly tried to ascend to heaven, whereas in Jerusalem heaven humbly descended to earth.

John R. W. Stott, The Message of Acts: The Spirit, the Church & the World, The Bible Speaks Today (Leicester, England; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1994), 60–68.

(vi) His new community (2:40–41)
Luke adds that this was not the end of Peter’s sermon, for with many other words he both warned them and pleaded with them. And the essence of his warnings and pleadings was the appeal: ‘Save yourselves from this corrupt generation’ (40). That is, Peter was not asking for private and individual conversions only, but for p 79 a public identification with other believers. Commitment to the Messiah implied commitment to the Messianic community, that is, the church. Indeed, they would have to change communities, transferring their membership from one that was old and corrupt to one that was new and being saved (47).
The amazing response to Peter’s appeal is now recorded. Large numbers of people accepted his message (i.e. repented and believed), and in consequence were baptised. In fact, about three thousand were added to their number that day (41). The body of Christ in Jerusalem multiplied twenty-six times, from 120 to 3,120. They must also, according to Peter’s promise, have received forgiveness and the Spirit, although this time apparently with no supernatural signs. At least Luke makes no mention of phenomena like wind or fire, or of languages.

d. The gospel for today

We have seen that Peter focused on Christ and told his story in six stages. (i) He was a man, though divinely attested by miracles; (ii) he was put to death by wicked hands, though according to God’s purpose; (iii) he was raised from the dead, as the prophets had foretold and the apostles had witnessed; (iv) he was exalted to God’s right hand, and from there poured out the Spirit; (v) he now gives forgiveness and the Spirit to all who repent, believe and are baptized; and (vi) he thus adds them to his new community.
Numerous reconstructions of this material have been attempted. Special mention must be made of C. H. Dodd’s famous lectures at King’s College, London, on the kerygma of Peter and Paul, and their coincidence, which were published under the title The Apostolic Preaching and its Developments.53 He summarized the sermons of Peter as follows: (i) the age of fulfilment, the Messianic age, has dawned; (ii) this has happened through the ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus, as testified by the Scriptures; (iii) Jesus has been exalted to God’s right hand as Lord, and as head of the New Israel; (iv) the Holy Spirit’s activity in the church is the sign of Christ’s present power and glory; (v) the Messianic age will shortly reach its consummation in the return of Christ; and (vi) forgiveness and the Spirit are offered to those who repent.54
Our struggle today is how to be faithful to this apostolic gospel, while at the same time presenting it in a way which resonates with modern men and women. What is immediately clear is that, like the apostles, we must focus on Jesus Christ. Peter’s beginning p 80 ‘listen to this: Jesus …’ (22) must be our beginning too. It is impossible to preach the gospel without proclaiming Christ. But how? I have myself found it an aid to faithfulness to express the apostles’ message in the following framework:
First, the gospel events, namely the death and resurrection of Jesus. It is true that Peter referred to Jesus’ life and ministry (22) and went on to his exaltation (33), and elsewhere to his return as judge. The apostles felt free to rehearse his whole saving career. Yet they concentrated on the cross and the resurrection (23–24), both as historical happenings and as significant saving events. Although a full doctrine of the atonement is not yet developed, it is already implied by the references to God’s purpose (23), to the suffering servant passages (3:13, 18), and to the ‘tree’, the place of the divine curse (5:30; 10:39; 13:29).55 The resurrection had saving significance too, since by it God reversed the human verdict on Jesus, snatched him from the place of a curse and exalted him to the place of honour.
Secondly, the gospel witnesses. The apostles did not proclaim the death and resurrection of Jesus in a vacuum, but in the context of Scripture and history. They appealed to a twofold evidence to authenticate Jesus, so that in the mouth of two witnesses the truth might be established. The first was the Old Testament Scriptures, which he fulfilled. In Acts 2 Peter appeals to Psalm 16, Psalm 110 and Joel 2 in order to illuminate his teaching about Jesus’ resurrection, exaltation and gift of the Spirit. The second was the testimony of the apostles. ‘We are witnesses’, Peter kept repeating (e.g. 2:32; 3:15; 5:32; 10:39ff.), and this eyewitness experience was indispensable to the apostolate. Thus the one Christ has a double attestation. We have no liberty to preach a Christ of our own fantasy, or even to focus on our own experience, since we were not eyewitnesses of the historical Jesus. Our responsibility is to preach the authentic Christ of the Old and New Testament Scriptures. The primary witnesses to him are the prophets and apostles; ours is always secondary to theirs.
Thirdly, the gospel promises. The gospel is good news not only of what Jesus did (he died for our sins and was raised, according to the Scriptures) but also of what he offers as a result. He promises to those who respond to him both the forgiveness of sins (to wipe out the past) and the gift of the Spirit (to make us new people). Together these constitute the freedom for which many are searching, freedom from guilt, defilement, judgment and self-centredness, and freedom to be the persons God made and meant us to be. Forgiveness and the Spirit comprise ‘salvation’, and both are publicly p 81 signified in baptism, namely the washing away of sin and the outpouring of the Spirit.
Fourthly, the gospel conditions. Jesus Christ does not impose his gifts upon us unconditionally. What the gospel demands is a radical turn from sin to Christ, which takes the form inwardly of repentance and faith, and outwardly of baptism. For submission to baptism in the name of the Christ we have formerly repudiated gives public evidence of penitent faith in him. Additionally, by this same repentance, faith and baptism we change allegiance, as we are transferred into the new community of Jesus.
Here, then is a fourfold message—two events (Christ’s death and resurrection), as attested by two witnesses (prophets and apostles), on the basis of which God makes two promises (forgiveness and the Spirit), on two conditions (repentance and faith, with baptism). We have no liberty to amputate this apostolic gospel, by proclaiming the cross without the resurrection, or referring to the New Testament but not the Old, or offering forgiveness without the Spirit, or demanding faith without repentance. There is a wholeness about the biblical gospel.
It is not enough to ‘proclaim Jesus’. For there are many different Jesuses being presented today. According to the New Testament gospel, however, he is historical (he really lived, died rose and ascended in the arena of history), theological (his life, death, resurrection and ascension all have saving significance) and contemporary (he lives and reigns to bestow salvation on those who respond to him). Thus the apostles told the same story of Jesus at three levels—as historical event (witnessed by their own eyes), as having theological significance (interpreted by the Scriptures), and as contemporary message (confronting men and women with the necessity of decision). We have the same responsibility today to tell the story of Jesus as fact, doctrine and gospel.

3. The church’s life: the effect of Pentecost (2:42–47)

Having first described in his own narrative what happened on the day of Pentecost, and then supplied an explanation of it through Peter’s Christ-centred sermon, Luke goes on to show us the effects of Pentecost by giving us a beautiful little cameo of the Spirit-filled church. Of course the church did not begin that day, and it is incorrect to call the Day of Pentecost ‘the birthday of the church’. For the church as the people of God goes back at least 4,000 years to Abraham. What happened at Pentecost was that the remnant of God’s people became the Spirit-filled body of Christ. What evidence did it give of the presence and power of the Holy Spirit? Luke tells us.

p 82 a. It was a learning church

The very first evidence Luke mentions of the Spirit’s presence in the church is that they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching. One might perhaps say that the Holy Spirit opened a school in Jerusalem that day; its teachers were the apostles whom Jesus had appointed; and there were 3,000 pupils in the kindergarten! We note that those new converts were not enjoying a mystical experience which led them to despise their mind or disdain theology. Anti-intellectualism and the fullness of the Spirit are mutually incompatible, because the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth. Nor did those early disciples imagine that, because they had received the Spirit, he was the only teacher they needed and they could dispense with human teachers. On the contrary, they sat at the apostles’ feet, hungry to receive instruction, and they persevered in it. Moreover, the teaching authority of the apostles, to which they submitted, was authenticated by miracles: many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles (43). The two references to the apostles, in verse 42 (their teaching) and in verse 43 (their miracles), can hardly be an accident.56 Since the teaching of the apostles has come down to us in its definitive form in the New Testament, contemporary devotion to the apostles’ teaching will mean submission to the authority of the New Testament. A Spirit-filled church is a New Testament church, in the sense that it studies and submits to New Testament instruction. The Spirit of God leads the people of God to submit to the Word of God.

b. It was a loving church

They devoted themselves … to the fellowship (koinōnia). Koinōnia (from koinos, ‘common’) bears witness to the common life of the church in two sense. First, it expresses what we share in together. This is God himself, for ‘our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ’,57 and there is ‘the fellowship of the p 83 Holy Spirit’.58 Thus koinōnia is a Trinitarian experience; it is our common share in God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. But secondly, koinōnia also expresses what we share out together, what we give as well as what we receive. Koinōnia is the word Paul used for the collection he was organizing among the Greek churches,59 and koinonikos is the Greek word for ‘generous’. It is to this that Luke is particularly referring here, because he goes on at once to describe the way in which these first Christians shared their possessions with one another: all the believers were together and had everything in common (koina). Selling their possessions and goods (probably meaning their real estate and their valuables respectively), they gave to anyone as he had need (44–45). These are disturbing verses. Do they mean that every Spirit-filled believer and community will follow their example literally?
A few miles east of Jerusalem the Essene leaders of the Qumran community were committed to the common ownership of property. According to its Damascus Rule all members of ‘the covenant’, wherever they lived, were obliged to ‘succour the poor, the needy, and the stranger’,60 but the candidate for initiation into membership of the monastic community accepted a stricter discipline: ‘his property and earnings shall be handed over to the Bursar of the Congregation …; his property shall be merged …’.61 This arrangement, comments Geza Vermes, ‘bears a close resemblance to the custom adopted by the primitive Church of Jerusalem’.62
So did the early Christians imitate them, and should we do so today? At different times in church history some have thought so and done so. And I do not doubt that Jesus still calls some of his disciples, as he did the rich young ruler, to a life of total, voluntary poverty. Yet neither Jesus nor his apostles forbade private property to all Christians. Even the sixteenth-century Anabaptists in the so-called ‘radical reformation’, who wanted fellowship and brotherly love to be added to the Reformers’ definition of the church (in terms of word, sacraments and discipline), and who talked much about Acts 2 and 4 and ‘the community of goods’, recognized that this was not compulsory. The Hutterite Brethren in Moravia seem to have been the only exception, for they did make complete common ownership a condition of membership. But Menno Simons, the most influential leader of the movement, pointed out that Jerusalem experiment was neither universal nor permanent, and wrote ‘we … have never taught nor practised community of goods’.63
p 84 It is important to note that even in Jerusalem the sharing of property and possessions was voluntary. According to verse 46, they broke bread in their homes. So evidently many still had homes; not all had sold them. It is also noteworthy that the tense of both verbs in verse 45 is imperfect, which indicates that the selling and the giving were occasional, in response to particular needs, not once and for all. Further, the sin of Ananias and Sapphira, to which we shall come in Acts 5, was not greed or materialism but deceit; it was not that they had retained part of the proceeds of their sale, but that they had done so while pretending to give it all. Peter made this plain when he said to them: ‘Didn’t it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn’t the money at your disposal?’ (5:4).
At the same time, although the selling and the sharing were and are voluntary, and every Christian has to make conscientious decisions before God in this matter, we are all called to generosity, especially towards the poor and needy. Already in the Old Testament there was a strong tradition of care for the poor, and the Israelites were to give a tenth of their produce to ‘the Levite, the alien, the fatherless and the widow’.64 How can Spirit-filled believers possibly give less? The principle is stated twice in the Acts: they gave to anyone as he had need (45), and ‘there were no needy persons among them … the money … was distributed to anyone as he had need’ (4:34–35). As John was to write later, if we have material possessions and see a brother or sister in need, but do not share what we have with him or her, how can we claim that God’s love dwells in us?65 Christian fellowship is Christian caring, and Christian caring is Christian sharing. Chrysostom gave a beautiful description of it: ‘This was an angelic commonwealth, not to call anything of theirs their own. Forthwith the root of evils was cut out.… None reproached, none envied, none grudged; no pride, no contempt was there.… The poor man knew no shame, the rich no haughtiness.’66 So we must not evade the challenge of these verses. That we have hundreds of thousands of destitute brothers and sisters is a standing rebuke to us who are more affluent. It is part of the responsibility of Spirit-filled believers to alleviate need and abolish destitution in the new community of Jesus.

c. It was a worshipping church

They devoted themselves … to the breaking of bread and to prayer (42). That is, their fellowship was expressed not only in caring for each other, but in corporate worship too. Moreover, the definite article in both expressions (literally, ‘the breaking of the bread and p 85 the prayers’) suggests a reference to the Lord’s Supper on the one hand (although almost certainly at that early stage as part of a larger meal) and prayer services or meetings (rather than Private prayer) on the other. There are two aspects of the early church’s worship which exemplify its balance.
First, it was both formal and informal, for it took place both in the temple courts and in their homes (46), which is an interesting combination. It is perhaps surprising that they continued for a while in the temple, but they did. They did not immediately abandon what might be called the institutional church. I do not believe they still participated in the sacrifices of the temple, for already they had begun to grasp that these had been fulfilled in the sacrifice of Christ, but they do seem to have attended the prayer services of the temple (cf. 3:1), unless, as has been suggested, they went up to the temple to preach, rather than to pray. At the same time, they supplemented the temple services with more informal and spontaneous meetings (including the breaking of bread) in their homes. Perhaps we, who get understandably impatient with the inherited structures of the church, can learn a lesson from them. For myself, I believe that the Holy Spirit’s way with the institutional church, which we long to see reformed according to the gospel, is more the way of patient reform than of impatient rejection. And certainly it is always healthy when the more formal and dignified services of the local church are complemented with the informality and exuberance of home meetings. There is no need to polarize between the structured and the unstructured, the traditional and the spontaneous. The church needs both.
The second example of the balance of the early church’s worship is that it was both joyful and reverent. There can be no doubt of their joy, for they are described as having glad and sincere hearts (46), which literally means ‘in exultation [agalliasis] and sincerity of heart’. The NEB unites the two words by translating ‘with unaffected joy’. Since God had sent his son into the world, and had now sent them his Spirit, they had plenty of reason to be joyful. Besides, ‘the fruit of the Spirit is … joy’,67 and sometimes a more uninhibited joy than is customary (or even acceptable) within the staid traditions of the historic churches. Yet every worship service should be a joyful celebration of the mighty acts of God through Jesus Christ. It is right in public worship to be dignified; it is unforgivable to be dull. At the same time, their joy was never irreverent. If joy in God is an authentic work of the Spirit, so is the fear of God. Everyone was filled with awe (43), which seems to include the Christians as well as the non-Christians. God had p 86 visited their city. He was in their midst, and they knew it. They bowed down before him in humility and wonder. It is a mistake, therefore, to imagine that in public worship reverence and rejoicing are mutually exclusive. The combination of joy and awe, as of formality and informality, is a healthy balance in worship.

d. It was an evangelistic church

So far we have considered the study, the fellowship and the worship of the Jerusalem church, for it is to these three things that Luke says the first believers devoted themselves. Yet these are aspects of the interior life of the church; they tell us nothing about its compassionate outreach to the world. Tens of thousands of sermons have been preached on Acts 2:42, which well illustrates the danger of isolating a text from its context. On its own, verse 42 presents a very lopsided picture of the church’s life. Verse 47b needs to be added: And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved. Those first Jerusalem Christians were not so preoccupied with learning, sharing and worshipping, that they forgot about witnessing. For the Holy Spirit is a missionary Spirit who created a missionary church. As Harry Boer expressed it in his challenging book Pentecost and Missions,68 the Acts ‘is governed by one dominant, overriding and all-controlling motif. This motif is the expansion of the faith through missionary witness in the power of the Spirit.… Restlessly the Spirit drives the church to witness, and continually churches rise out of the witness. The church is a missionary church’.69
From these earliest believers in Jerusalem, we can learn three vital lessons about local church evangelism. First, the Lord himself (that is, Jesus) did it: the Lord added to their number. Doubtless he did it through the preaching of the apostles, the witness of church members, the impressive love of their common life, and their example as they were praising God and enjoying the favour of all the people (47a). Yet he did it. For he is the head of the church. He alone has the prerogative to admit people into its membership and to bestow salvation from his throne. This is a much needed emphasis, for many people talk about evangelism today with reprehensible self-confidence and even triumphalism, as if they think the evangelization of the world will be the ultimate triumph of human technology. We should harness to the evangelistic task all the technology God has give us, but only in humble dependence on him as the principal evangelist.
Secondly, what Jesus did was two things together: he added to p 87 their number … those who were being saved (the present participle sōzomenous either being timeless or emphasizing that salvation is a progressive experience culminating in final glorification). He did not add them to the church without saving them (no nominal Christianity at the beginning), nor did he save them without adding them to the church (no solitary Christianity either). Salvation and church membership belonged together; they still do. Thirdly, the Lord added people daily. The verb is an imperfect (‘kept adding’), and the adverb (‘daily’) puts the matter beyond question. The early church’s evangelism was not an occasional or sporadic activity. They did not organize quinquennial or decennial missions (missions are fine so long as they are only episodes in an ongoing programme). No, just as their worship was daily (46a), so was their witness. Praise and proclamation were both the natural overflow of hearts full of the Holy spirit. And as their outreach was continuous, so continuously converts were being added. We need to recover this expectation of steady and uninterrupted church growth.
Looking back over these marks of the first Spirit-filled community, it is evident that they all concerned the church’s relationships. First, they were related to the apostles (in submission). They were eager to receive the apostles’ instruction. A Spirit-filled church is an apostolic church, a New Testament church, anxious to believe and obey what Jesus and his apostles taught. Secondly, they were related to each other (in love). They persevered in the fellowship, supporting each other and relieving the needs of the poor. A Spirit-filled church is a loving, caring, sharing church. Thirdly, they were related to God (in worship). They worshipped him in the temple and in the home, in the Lord’s Supper and in the prayers, with joy and with reverence. A Spirit-filled church is a worshipping church. Fourthly, they were related to the world (in outreach). They were engaged in continuous evangelism. No self-centred, self-contained church (absorbed in its own parochial affairs) can claim to be filled with the Spirit. The Holy Spirit is a missionary Spirit. So a Spirit-filled church is a missionary church.
There is no need for us to wait, as the hundred and twenty had to wait, for the Spirit to come. For the Holy Spirit did come on the Day of Pentecost, and has never left his church. Our responsibility is to humble ourselves before his sovereign authority, to determiner not to quench him, but to allow him his freedom. For then our churches will again manifest those marks of the Spirit’s presence, which many young people are specially looking for, namely biblical teaching, loving fellowship, living worship, and an ongoing, outgoing evangelism.

John R. W. Stott, The Message of Acts: The Spirit, the Church & the World, The Bible Speaks Today (Leicester, England; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1994), 78–87.