Book of Common Prayer
The first Pentecost for the young Church
2 1-4 Then when the actual day of Pentecost came they were all assembled together. Suddenly there was a sound from heaven like the rushing of a violent wind, and it filled the whole house where they were seated. Before their eyes appeared tongues like flames which separated off and settled above the head of each one of them. They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in different languages as the Spirit gave them power to proclaim his message.
The Church’s first impact on devout Jews
5-11 Now there were staying in Jerusalem Jews of deep faith from every nation of the world. When they heard this sound a crowd quickly collected and were completely bewildered because each one of them heard these men speaking in his own language. They were absolutely amazed and said in their astonishment, “Listen, surely all these speakers are Galileans? Then how does it happen that every single one of us can hear the particular language he has known from a child? There are Parthians, Medes and Elamites; there are men whose homes are in Mesopotamia, in Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus, Asia, Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt, and the parts of Africa near Cyrene, as well as visitors from Rome! There are Jews and proselytes, men from Crete and men from Arabia, yet we can all hear these men speaking of the magnificence of God in our native language.”
12 Everyone was utterly amazed and did not know what to make of it, Indeed they kept saying to each other, “What on earth can this mean?”
13 But there were others who laughed mockingly and said, “These fellows have drunk too much new wine!”
Peter explains the fulfilment of God’s promise
14-21 Then Peter, with the eleven standing by him, raised his voice and addressed them: “Fellow Jews, and all who are living in Jerusalem, listen carefully to what I say while I explain to you what has happened! These men are not drunk as you suppose—it is after all only nine o’clock in the morning of this great feast day. No, this is something which was predicted by the prophet Joel, ‘And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your young men shall see visions, your old men shall dream dreams. And on my menservants and on my maidservants I will pour out my Spirit in those days and they shall prophesy. I will show wonders in heaven above and signs in the earth beneath: blood and fire and vapour of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood, before the coming of the great and notable day of the Lord. And it shall come to pass that whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’
Jesus exposes the ignorance of the Sadducees
27-33 Then up came some of the Sadducees (who deny that there is any resurrection) and they asked him, “Master, Moses told us in the scripture, ‘If a man’s brother should die without any children, he should marry the widow and raise up a family for his brother.’ Now, there were once seven brothers. The first got married and died childless, and the second and the third married the woman, and in fact all the seven married her and died without leaving any children. Lastly, the woman herself died. Now in the ‘resurrection’ whose wife is she of these seven men, for she belonged to all of them?”
34-38 “People in this world,” Jesus replied, “marry and are given in marriage. But those who are considered worthy of reaching that world, which means rising from the dead, neither marry nor are they given in marriage. They cannot die any more but live like the angels; for being children of the resurrection, they are the sons of God. But that the dead are raised, even Moses showed to be true in the story of the bush, when he calls the Lord ‘the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’. For God is not God of the dead, but of the living. For all men are alive to him.”
39 To this some of the scribes replied, “Master, that was a good answer.”
40 And indeed nobody had the courage to ask him any more questions.
The New Testament in Modern English by J.B Phillips copyright © 1960, 1972 J. B. Phillips. Administered by The Archbishops’ Council of the Church of England. Used by Permission.