Passage of the Day - October 13, 2010

Acts 2:1-11

 ¹When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place.

 ²And suddenly there came from heaven a noise like a violent rushing wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting.

 ³And there appeared to them tongues as of fire distributing themselves, and they rested on each one of them.

 ⁴And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit was giving them utterance.

 ⁵Now there were Jews living in Jerusalem, devout men from every nation under heaven.

 ⁶And when this sound occurred, the crowd came together, and were bewildered because each one of them was hearing them speak in his own language.

 ⁷They were amazed and astonished, saying, "Why, are not all these who are speaking Galileans?

 ⁸"And how is it that we each hear them in our own language to which we were born?

 ⁹"Parthians and Medes and Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia,

 ¹⁰Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the districts of Libya around Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes,

 ¹¹Cretans and Arabs--we hear them in our own tongues speaking of the mighty deeds of God."

 ¹²And they all continued in amazement and great perplexity, saying to one another, "What does this mean?"

 ¹³But others were mocking and saying, "They are full of sweet wine."

Ah, this is interesting.  I have not noticed the word “devout” in verse five.  God knows the hearts of men and God knew that the devout Jews were ready to hear the gospel.  God did not give the disciples the ability to speak in tongues because Jews from many nations were in Jerusalem for the Pentecost; He gave the disciples the ability to speak in tongues because DEVOUT Jews from many nations were Jerusalem for the Pentecost (festival commemorating God giving Israel the Ten Commandments).  You will notice the words “each one” in verse 6 and “all” in verse 12.  It appears all of the “devout” responded, but the non-devout mocked.

Sometimes we stress about the responses of those we are close to that are not ready for the gospel and neglect those we don’t know as well who are.  Part of the problem is that if God does not deem them ready for the gospel, the Holy Spirit may not be the one doing the talking, but rather us.  The Holy Spirit will ALWAYS speak when the servant is yielding and the recipient is ready to hear the gospel.