Background on Pentecost
Potential avenues for discussion:
What it means for us to have had the Holy Spirit come.
The Holy Spirit is described in a wide variety of ways throughout the biblical text, but there are a handful of definitions that would be good to discuss with kids. John refers to the Holy Spirit as “the Advocate” and goes on to say that the Spirit will be a teacher and a reminder of everything that Jesus taught. Luke shares that the Spirit will “empower” the disciples to spread the Gospel, emphasizing a strength and uplifting that comes from the Spirit’s presence. And, finally, you have Paul’s famous list of the fruits of the Spirit in Galatians – best known from our Fruits of the Spirit song from chapel! The fruits are: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control – all things that should bear out in our lives if we have the Spirit with us. Taken together, the New Testament speaks to the Holy Spirit’s presence in our lives as helping us follow and emulate Jesus today – and so we are grateful for that gift today!
Thinking about how the early church grew.
As best we can figure from the early chapters of the Book of Acts, the total number of people following Jesus was somewhere in the neighborhood of 120 people. We often think of the 12 disciples only, but Jesus certainly had other followers who were part of the earliest days of the church. Compare that 120 number, though, to the estimated total of over 1 billion Christians today… that’s quite an astonishing increase!! But the reason why Pentecost is looked to as the birth of the Church is that you have people from all over the world hearing the Gospel and receiving the Spirit – this was the start of the church growing outside of Jerusalem to truly become a church for all people.
Pentecost as a sort of “reverse Babel”, bringing people together.
To that final point about Pentecost representing the church / Jesus being for all people… although the text never explicitly states it, many believe that the Day of Pentecost is serving as a sort of reversal to the story of the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11. For those who don’t remember: in the “prehistory” section of Genesis, humanity becomes a bit too aspirational and builds a giant tower (in the ancient world, the closer something was to the sky, the closer it was to heaven/divine – same goes for mountains). As punishment, God scatters the people and gives them different languages so they aren’t able to collaborate like that again. On the Day of Pentecost, though, we see all peoples being tied back together once more despite varying languages and countries of origin. God, through the Holy Spirit, could be seen as reversing the split made after the Tower of Babel.
Digging Deeper:
Pentecost as a fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy and Jesus’ final words.
The Pentecost passage is deep and rich, with allusions to both Old and New Testament passages throughout. I’ve already noted the implicit reversal of the Tower of Babel / scattering of languages passage from Genesis 11, but here are a few other connections being made:
Joel 2:28-32 - Peter directly quotes the prophet Joel in his explainer following the Pentecost event, but makes a handful of tweaks to Joel’s words to emphasize that the fulfillment of this prophecy is taking place right now in their midst. Joel’s original context is unknown, but the wider message of the book was focused on a coming “Day of the Lord”.
Isaiah / Psalms – I’ve cheated a bit and lumped both Isaiah (specifically “Third Isaiah”, Isaiah 56-66) and the Psalms together here… Peter’s speech also lifts up several verses that are, at minimum, reminiscent of language used in both texts. This is noteworthy, particularly in the case of Isaiah, because Isaiah was lifted up a coming day when God’s kingdom would see its fulfillment.
Acts 1:8 / John 14 – Although Luke probably wasn’t aware of the specific language that John uses in his gospel, Jesus’ final words in both Luke-Acts and John point to the arrival of the Holy Spirit as God empowering the disciples to undertake the work of spreading the Gospel out to the ends of the earth.
What it means for us to have had the Holy Spirit come.
The Holy Spirit is described in a wide variety of ways throughout the biblical text, but there are a handful of definitions that would be good to discuss with kids. John refers to the Holy Spirit as “the Advocate” and goes on to say that the Spirit will be a teacher and a reminder of everything that Jesus taught. Luke shares that the Spirit will “empower” the disciples to spread the Gospel, emphasizing a strength and uplifting that comes from the Spirit’s presence. And, finally, you have Paul’s famous list of the fruits of the Spirit in Galatians – best known from our Fruits of the Spirit song from chapel! The fruits are: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control – all things that should bear out in our lives if we have the Spirit with us. Taken together, the New Testament speaks to the Holy Spirit’s presence in our lives as helping us follow and emulate Jesus today – and so we are grateful for that gift today!
Thinking about how the early church grew.
As best we can figure from the early chapters of the Book of Acts, the total number of people following Jesus was somewhere in the neighborhood of 120 people. We often think of the 12 disciples only, but Jesus certainly had other followers who were part of the earliest days of the church. Compare that 120 number, though, to the estimated total of over 1 billion Christians today… that’s quite an astonishing increase!! But the reason why Pentecost is looked to as the birth of the Church is that you have people from all over the world hearing the Gospel and receiving the Spirit – this was the start of the church growing outside of Jerusalem to truly become a church for all people.
Pentecost as a sort of “reverse Babel”, bringing people together.
To that final point about Pentecost representing the church / Jesus being for all people… although the text never explicitly states it, many believe that the Day of Pentecost is serving as a sort of reversal to the story of the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11. For those who don’t remember: in the “prehistory” section of Genesis, humanity becomes a bit too aspirational and builds a giant tower (in the ancient world, the closer something was to the sky, the closer it was to heaven/divine – same goes for mountains). As punishment, God scatters the people and gives them different languages so they aren’t able to collaborate like that again. On the Day of Pentecost, though, we see all peoples being tied back together once more despite varying languages and countries of origin. God, through the Holy Spirit, could be seen as reversing the split made after the Tower of Babel.
Digging Deeper:
Pentecost as a fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy and Jesus’ final words.
The Pentecost passage is deep and rich, with allusions to both Old and New Testament passages throughout. I’ve already noted the implicit reversal of the Tower of Babel / scattering of languages passage from Genesis 11, but here are a few other connections being made:
Joel 2:28-32 - Peter directly quotes the prophet Joel in his explainer following the Pentecost event, but makes a handful of tweaks to Joel’s words to emphasize that the fulfillment of this prophecy is taking place right now in their midst. Joel’s original context is unknown, but the wider message of the book was focused on a coming “Day of the Lord”.
Isaiah / Psalms – I’ve cheated a bit and lumped both Isaiah (specifically “Third Isaiah”, Isaiah 56-66) and the Psalms together here… Peter’s speech also lifts up several verses that are, at minimum, reminiscent of language used in both texts. This is noteworthy, particularly in the case of Isaiah, because Isaiah was lifted up a coming day when God’s kingdom would see its fulfillment.
Acts 1:8 / John 14 – Although Luke probably wasn’t aware of the specific language that John uses in his gospel, Jesus’ final words in both Luke-Acts and John point to the arrival of the Holy Spirit as God empowering the disciples to undertake the work of spreading the Gospel out to the ends of the earth.