Daily Bible Reading Acts 1 and 2
Read Acts 1 & 2 for yourself
Jesus ascends into heaven and leaves his disciples to wait and pray, promising them that the Holy Spirit will come to them and bring them His presence and power. God was purposing them to go into the world and share the good news of Jesus, but He knew this would be overwhelming and was going to send them the Holy Spirit to lead them and guide them.
The disciple do something very interesting here, they replace one of the apostles. They don’t do it through a mystical experience with God, but instead use logic and reason and trust in God’s providence. They chose two men who were with Jesus and the other apostles in His ministry. I am not sure why they “had” to replace Judas, but Jesus had started with 12 and perhaps He had told them to keep an even number so they could go out two by two. But in this moment Matthias’ life and Barsabbas’ life changed with the draw from a hat… 
All told there ended up being 14 Apostles (the 11, plus Judas, Matthias andPaul) and 15 if you count Barnabus.
Acts 2
The Holy Spirit comes in power when the believers from around the world are gathering. After spending days in prayer the apostles receive a powerful and wonderful gift. It says that tongues of fire came down. There are lots of different interpretations of what these were like, but I think the passage itself says that miraculously the Spirit was able to have everyone hear the message in their own native tongue. It was such a crazy experience that people thought they were drunk!
Peter preaches to the crowd and explains that the scripture has been fulfilled in their midst. The power promised in the Old Testament has been delivered through Jesus and the Holy Spirit. The centerpiece of Peter’s message was the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. That people might repent, be baptized so that they might be saved, forgiven and receive the Holy Spirit.
One of the verse protestants appreciate in here is that this promise is not just for us, but for our children. For anyone whom the Lord would call. As Presbyterians we baptize our infants into this promise.
The end result thousands of people came to salvation. As you read this sermon it really isn’t all that entertaining, just straight to the point.
Acts 2:42-47 is an incredible look at how the early believers understood their common calling and life as God’s people. At CPC we are going to spend the next few weeks unpacking this life.
Jim Cymbala put it this way: The more the disciples prayed, the more God did in and through them. They PRAYED for 10 days straight, then Peter preached for 10 minutes, and 3000 people were saved.
