Thursday, January 20, 2011

Acts 2:2 (NLT)
Suddenly, there was a sound from heaven like the roaring of a mighty windstorm, and it filled the house where they were sitting.

- In keeping with the analogy of God's Holy Spirit as our Breath of Life, He appears as wind. This alludes back to the creation account where YHWH God breathes the breath of life into Adam who then becomes a living soul. And it fulfills Jesus' prophetic actions when he first appeared to the disciples after his resurrection, in the upper room, and breathed on them, saying: "Receive the breath of life."

And as The Light of the world He appears as "tongues of fire." This analogy appears in many other places as well, such as Moses' face glowing after spending time in God's presence, and Jesus on the mount of transfiguration, where Peter, James and John get a glimpse of Jesus' glorified state.

Acts 2:8 (NLT)
and yet we hear them speaking in our own native languages!

- Pentecost, being one of the major Holy Days for the Jews, is a time when Jerusalem was filled with pilgrims from all over the known world.

Acts 2:40-41 (NLT)
Then Peter continued preaching for a long time, strongly urging all his listeners, "Save yourselves from this crooked generation!" [41] Those who believed what Peter said were baptized and added to the church that day-about 3,000 in all.

- The "turn or burn!" style of Save Yourself From Imminent Destruction message! As time goes on and we see that Christ's return may not be quite as Peter first imagined it, how has our Christian meapssage developed and grown? Or has it? Is this really all The Good News is about? Save your backside!

1 comment:

DeAnn said...

Pentecost ... the gift of understanding the "message" and hopefully reaching towards God as opposed to when languages were split (Babel) so that mankind would slow down their(our) walk away from God.

I think it is super cool that the story is told over so much time and yet the analogies continue to build on one another. As with the physical world one can see the common threads or the creator's "voice".

wind/breath of life is just great ... I wondered if you'd go back to Adam on that.

"Safe ur behind" is an attention getter ... and I know people of faith have differing opinions on how that all happens. As I've thought about the idea of a sacrifice and why was that the route given to restoration, I have concluded that we see our own life as so valuable ... even faiths that embrace matyrdom seem to be betting on the come so to speak ... He didn't save his life, rather offered it as an atonement and then (the best part) He was uniquely entitled to offered the breath of life to those who would choose it ... and called us to be children of the light that wants to shine within to without. Ummm ...save your back side equals "Life" and we are invited to that ... and to Life more abundantly (I'm figuring out that abundantly may mean something differnt to God : ) That's the Good News ... Grace.

... sorry to rattle on! This is pretty exciting stuff. ~D