When God Speaks Your Language
5 Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven.
6 And at this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one was hearing them speak in his own language.
7 And they were amazed and astonished, saying, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans?
8 And how is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language?
9 Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia,
10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome,
11 both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians—we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God.”
12 And all were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?”
13 But others mocking said, “They are filled with new wine.”
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Acts 2:5-13 ESV Read More
God knew what He was doing. Train these 100 or so disciples in worship and prayer. Let them spend 10 days after being encouraged in-person by Jesus, and telling them that the Holy Spirit would come soon.
Put them up on an upper patio roof room of a house in downtown Jerusalem during a pilgrimage feast, when the streets would be filled with people camping in tents just to be in Jerusalem for the holiday. The city swells to three times its usual size, like Speedway, Indiana on Memorial Day Weekend.
Jews and Jewish converts from all over the known world are there to celebrate the giving of the Torah after the deliverance from Egyptian slavery. They are celebrating the anniversary of when God, through Moses, gave them a way to live.
The Anniversary
Of God giving
A way of life.
You are supposed to give paper for the 1 year anniversary, cardboard for the second, but God knows you give your very own spirit for the 1300ishth.
There are two great things that we can see here become a pattern for the move of the Holy Spirit
When the Holy Spirit Moves, He Shows Off to All Kinds of People
There were all kinds of different sects of Jews here, from all over the world. There was about as much variety in religion as you would ever get during one of these feasts. There were devout believers and tourists along for the ride. There were people that came 3 times a year, people that saved up for their whole lives, and people that had just come because boy-gollly was Passover exciting with the possible uprising of a Messiah and the other hoopla.
God wants to gather in all kinds of different people (as we’ll see further in Acts) and will do whatever it takes to reach out to them.
When the Holy Spirit Moves, People Wonder
It might be the wonder of excitement or the wonder of skepticism, but either way, people are asking questions. They have to reconcile and figure out what exactly is going on here. These uneducated country bumpkins that probably never went further than 10 miles from home (except when traveling with Jesus) are speaking all different languages. They are proclaiming truths about YHWH that most of these folks only heard in Hebrew or Greek, not in their mother languages.
Could the God of Israel also speak the language of my homeland? If that’s true, maybe He is God there as well as here in Jerusalem?! Maybe He is the God of all nations, and I need to go back and tell every one back home.