This is Day 3 of our 31 Days in Acts Series for this month and if you would like to read the previous posts please click here first and then come back again.
Years ago as a teenager I had to take a group of young girls at a camp for morning and evening devotions.
This was the first time I had ever had to look at passages of scripture and make decisions as to what I should help to focus someone else's mind on.
The thing I have always remembered out of those weekly devotions was one from Acts ch. 2 which I based around
All together, all in one accord.
But the all in one accord didn't start there at the start of chapter 2, it was already mentioned in v 14 of chapter 1.
Not only did this refer to the 12 disciples being in one accord which would be a great feat in itself but it also included the brothers of Jesus and His mother Mary and other women.
Right so women and men all in one accord?
This is not something we see all the time!
What were they in agreement over?
We read that it was agreement in prayer and supplication, so yes maybe we have seen groups of people able to come together to prayer in total agreement about certain things but would their agreement then continue into other aspects?
In Acts ch.1 v.15-26 we already see that the number of people together were now 120 which is 10 times the number of the disciples.
Could this size of group stay in agreement?
Yes they were definitely in agreement in following the scriptures because they took instruction and acted upon Psalm 109 v 8 to choose someone to take the place of Judas.
Looking at the first 4 verses of Acts ch. 2 we see some more things to do with them all being in agreement.
verse 1 all with one accord in one place
verse 2 sound of a rushing mighty wind filled the whole house
verse 3 sight of a tongue of fire resting on each person
verse 4 all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke in other languages
After reading these last two sections I do have two things that I am pondering:
If they had voted for a replacement for Judas would some disagreement have entered the group?
If they had not been all in one accord would the Holy Spirit have filled them all?
So far it's all been about agreement or in one accord and involving all the group but there was another group of people affected by this situation but things were not the same for them.
Acts ch.2 verses 5 - 15 show us the Crowd's Response to what had happened that day.
Here there were two sides
- Some were amazed and marvelled at how they could hear about the wonderful works of God.
- The others mocked and blamed it on drunkenness.
The first side ended up wanting to know more, the second dismissed it.
No agreement here!
But Peter now had the attention of many people.
And he used that to proclaim Jesus.
Verses 14 - 39 show the wise use of time and attention and a clear presentation of the Gospel in a way that the crowd were focused now on Jesus and not on the mystery of what was going on around them.
Peter called them to repentance, water baptism and to receive the Holy Spirit - he left nothing out!
But that wasn't the end of it.
See you tomorrow for the continuation.