Today’s Passage: Acts 2:14–41
Yesterday Luke left a city asking, “What does this mean?” Today somebody answers. Peter stands up in that street and preaches. What he says, and what he never says, is today’s point.
As you read, hold this: The sign was never the point. The sermon was.
Context Who was standing in that street
Yesterday’s list named where those travelers came from. They were Jews and converts to Judaism, in the city for the festival. They already knew the Scriptures. So Peter can quote an old prophet, and the crowd follows.
Acts 2:14–16 (BSB)
¹⁴ Then Peter stood up with the Eleven, lifted up his voice, and addressed the crowd: “Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen carefully to my words. ¹⁵ These men are not drunk, as you suppose. It is only the third hour of the day! ¹⁶ No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel:
Peter answers the mocking in one line: it is nine in the morning.
Then watch what he does next. He never explains the fire. He never mentions the wind. He opens the Scriptures instead. A prophet is a man God gave His own words to say, and Joel had been dead for centuries.
Word study "Language": dialektos (Acts 2:6)
Greek: διάλεκτος (dialektos), pronounced dee-AL-ek-toss. Strong’s G1258.
It means a person’s home language, the one used around their own table. Our English word dialect comes from it. Luke uses it again at verse 8, and four more times elsewhere in Acts. Every time, a real language somebody actually spoke.
That is why verses 9 through 11 are a list of places. The wonders of God went out that morning in languages people already knew. The gift carried a message, and the message could be understood.
Acts 2:17 (BSB)
¹⁷ ‘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.
Peter reaches back hundreds of years and reads Joel aloud. Listen to the first line. I will pour out My Spirit. God said this long before anyone watched Him do it. And look at what Peter calls it in verse 16. This is what Joel spoke of. Not something like it. This.
His first move is not “look what is happening.” It is “God said.” Then he moves to Jesus.
Acts 2:22–24 (BSB)
²² Men of Israel, listen to this message: Jesus of Nazareth was a man certified by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs, which God did among you through Him, as you yourselves know. ²³ He was delivered up by God’s set plan and foreknowledge, and you, by the hands of the lawless, put Him to death by nailing Him to the cross. ²⁴ But God raised Him from the dead, releasing Him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep Him in its grip.
Here is the turn, and it is the whole sermon. Look at verse 22. The signs were how God certified Jesus, which means marked Him out as the real thing. They were not the message. They pointed at the messenger and said, listen to Him.
Verse 23 softens nothing. Lawless men drove the nails, and none of it caught God out. Then verse 24: death took Him and could not keep Him.
Acts 2:33 (BSB)
³³ Exalted, then, to the right hand of God, He has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear.
Exalted means lifted to the highest place.
So the wind, the fire, and the languages all came from Him. They are a signpost pointing at Jesus.
Acts 2:36 (BSB)
³⁶ Therefore let all Israel know with certainty that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ!”
Earlier in this series we learned that Christ means Anointed One. That is where Peter ends. Not with the fire. With a name.
Study notes What the Spirit came to do
Jesus told His friends ahead of time what the Spirit would do.
"He will glorify Me by taking from what is Mine and disclosing it to you." John 16:14 (BSB)
Read that slowly. The Spirit does not talk about Himself. He talks about Jesus. That is exactly what we just watched.
There is comfort in that. God has said what He wants us to know. He said it fully in His Son, and had it written in a book we can hold. We are not waiting for more to arrive.
Acts 2:37–38 (BSB)
³⁷ When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and asked Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” ³⁸ Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Cut to the heart means the words went in and hurt, the way true things do. At last the crowd asks a better question: not “what does this mean,” but “what shall we do?”
He does not send them looking for more of what they just saw. He says repent, which means turn around and go the other way about your sin. And be baptized, which means going under water in front of others to show you belong to Jesus.
Acts 2:41 (BSB)
⁴¹ Those who embraced his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to the believers that day.
Three thousand in one morning. Now count what did that. Not the wind. Not the fire. A man read the Old Testament aloud and told the truth about Jesus.
Personal Application
-
What is one thing you believe about God that you have never looked up for yourself?
-
What has God already told you that you have not done yet?
Pray to Close
The central truth: The sign was never the point. The sermon was. The Spirit came, and Jesus was preached.
Praise: praise Jesus, whom God has made both Lord and Christ.
Give thanks: thank God that He wrote down what He wants you to know.
Ask: ask the Holy Spirit to make Jesus look larger to you today than He did yesterday.
Decision of the day
Today’s decision: I will take one thing I believe about God, find it in the Bible myself, and read it out loud.
Worship for Today
Christ Be Magnified · Cody Carnes
This song does what Peter did: it spends every word on Jesus. Play it after you talk, and let the last thing in the room be His name.
Listen: