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Peter's Sermon
Today is the first of several sermons that we'll see in the book of Acts. It's relatively lengthy, so I'm going to do some summarizing for us here. A lot of commentators see this chapter of Acts as the reversal of the tower of Babel: there men sought to make a name for themselves and God confused their language; here men seek to make the name of Jesus great and language is united to make that possible. Peter begins by dealing with that strange phenomenon that the crowd is experiencing (hearing the preaching each in their own language). Here's a rough outline of Peter's sermon:
I. Explaining the Phenomena (2:14–21)
II. The Miracles and Death of Christ (2:22–23)
III. The Resurrection (2:24–32)
IV. The Exaltation (2:33–35)
V. Lord and Christ (2:36)
VI. A Summons to Repent and Receive Forgiveness (2:37–40) [1]
Peter quotes an extended section of the Old Testament from Joel 2:28–32, which clearly references events in what we've called the Last Days (the end of time). So, what do you think? Is Peter saying:
1. What they are experiencing then, 2000 years ago, are the last days?
2. That the events of Pentecost initiate that last period of history that will climax with the signs from the Joel passage?
3. Peter is making no statement about the passage other than the signs they are seeing at Pentecost are the same mentioned in the Joel passage.
What do you think and how would you back it up Biblically?
Peter's Sermon
Today is the first of several sermons that we'll see in the book of Acts. It's relatively lengthy, so I'm going to do some summarizing for us here. A lot of commentators see this chapter of Acts as the reversal of the tower of Babel: there men sought to make a name for themselves and God confused their language; here men seek to make the name of Jesus great and language is united to make that possible. Peter begins by dealing with that strange phenomenon that the crowd is experiencing (hearing the preaching each in their own language). Here's a rough outline of Peter's sermon:
I. Explaining the Phenomena (2:14–21)
II. The Miracles and Death of Christ (2:22–23)
III. The Resurrection (2:24–32)
IV. The Exaltation (2:33–35)
V. Lord and Christ (2:36)
VI. A Summons to Repent and Receive Forgiveness (2:37–40) [1]
Peter quotes an extended section of the Old Testament from Joel 2:28–32, which clearly references events in what we've called the Last Days (the end of time). So, what do you think? Is Peter saying:
1. What they are experiencing then, 2000 years ago, are the last days?
2. That the events of Pentecost initiate that last period of history that will climax with the signs from the Joel passage?
3. Peter is making no statement about the passage other than the signs they are seeing at Pentecost are the same mentioned in the Joel passage.
What do you think and how would you back it up Biblically?
[1] Ajith Fernando, The NIV Application Commentary: Acts (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1998), 101-106.
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