Week #4 – The Promise Fulfilled
Throughout the Bible, the Holy Spirit plays a significant role, bringing about amazing and miraculous events. He was present at Creation, hovering over the surface of the waters. He anointed Israel’s kings, empowered its judges, inspired its prophets, and gifted its artisans. His powerful presence caused Mary to conceive Jesus while a virgin. He appeared as a dove at the Lord’s baptism, and he was promised by the Father, as stated by Jesus himself.
The Hebrew (Old Testament) and Greek (New Testament) words for ‘spirit’ are the same as the words for ‘wind’ or ‘breath.’ The Greek word is pneuma. If you think about it, we still use this word in a similar sense today. Someone has pneumonia when the person’s pneuma fail to function properly. An infection hinders the ability to breathe—to take in and expel out the wind. Pneumatic tools utilize air pressure (strong wind, if you will) to drastically increase power and effectiveness, whether torquing a nut or driving a fastener.
The passage for this week, Acts 2:1-15, tells of the coming of the Holy Spirit. He (the Third Person of the Trinity, not a thing or a force) comes to God’s people with God-given power at Pentecost. He fills the followers of Jesus, directing and empowering their actions. Christ has commanded his followers to be his witnesses. Still, they are woefully ill-equipped if left to their own devices and if operating from their own strength. They need to become ‘pneumatic’ people—those whose soul or spirit functions rightly, so that they would proclaim the good news of the Gospel with supernatural power.
Go through the discussion questions below with your group. May God make you an increasingly ‘pneumatic’ person, filling you with the power of his Holy Spirit.
In Christ,
Pastor Ken
Week #4 – Questions
- How do you think the disciples felt during this ten-day waiting period (Ascension to Pentecost)
- Since God kept his promise to send the Spirit, how does that give you confidence to trust God’s promises in your own life today? What should we do when God feels absent or distant?
- Read Genesis 2:7 and Ezekiel 37:1-10. Wind in Scripture often represents God’s Spirit or breath. How does that symbolism help us grasp what God is doing at Pentecost?
- Read Deuteronomy 4:24. In that verse and throughout Scripture, fire often represents God’s presence, holiness, or purifying power. Why do you think God chose fire as a visible sign of the Spirit at Pentecost?
- Wind or breath can refresh or recreate, and fire can purify. In what ways do you need the Holy Spirit to refresh, recreate, or purify areas of your life right now?
- Why do you think God gave the apostles the ability to speak in many languages at Pentecost? How does this moment foreshadow and enable the global spread of the Gospel?
- In Genesis 11, God scattered the nations by confusing their languages at Babel; however, at Pentecost, people from many nations understood the apostles in their native languages. How does this event show God’s redemptive plan to unite the nations in Christ?
- The hearing of the Gospel in different native languages shows us that it is for all people. Do we really believe that? Why do we tend to think there are some people the Gospel cannot reach?
- The coming of the Holy Spirit enabled the apostles to communicate across language barriers. What “barriers” (cultural, relational, personal, etc.) might the Spirit want to help you cross so others can hear the Gospel?
- In v12-13, some in the crowd responded with amazement, having been drawn in, while others mocked and dismissed it. What does this reveal about different heart responses to God’s work? How should this prepare us for when we witness to others?
- If the Spirit’s coming was wind and fire that ignited a worldwide mission, what might it look like for the Spirit to ignite something fresh in your own life or in our church today?