What part of “all” do we not understand?

Acts 2:1
On the day of Pentecost all the believers were meeting together in one place.

That’s something right there. Those 120 were it. “All the believers.” After three years of work, Jesus was gone, and there were 120 believers. But in about 300 years, those 120 had spread until half the people in the Roman Empire were following Jesus. For an excellent report of how this happened, please see Rodney Stark’s book The Rise of Christianity. Among the things you will see is that in one way or another all the believers were engaged in following Jesus and spreading the message.

Acts 2:3-4
Then, what looked like flames or tongues of fire appeared and settled on each of them. And everyone present was filled with the Holy Spirit and began speaking in other languages, as the Holy Spirit gave them this ability.

But the Holy Spirit came “on each of them.” “Everyone present” was filled with the Holy Spirit…

Acts 2:7-8
They were completely amazed. “How can this be?” they exclaimed. “These people are all from Galilee, and yet we hear them speaking in our own native languages!

All are speaking, and all are participating in the miracle.

Acts 2:17-18
‘In the last days,’ God says,
‘I will pour out my Spirit upon all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy.
Your young men will see visions,
and your old men will dream dreams.
In those days I will pour out my Spirit
even on my servants—men and women alike—
and they will prophesy.

How clear can God be? It was prophesied that the Spirit would come upon all people. That sons and daughters would prophesy that young men would see visions and old men will dream dreams. It’s for all. Men and women, old and young, servants, too.

Somehow in our day, we’ve replaced “all” with professional clergy or commissioned missionaries. But for those of us in “Christian work”—I think everyone is in Christian work, but that’s another subject—our job is equipping everyone else. Ephesians 4.11 – 13:

And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ,…

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