• v.1 One day Peter and John were going up to the temple at the time of prayer—at three in the afternoon.

These couple tidbits come from the teachings of Bob Utley. Interesting stuff.
- the early believers worshipped:
        1) in the temple
        2) in the local synagogues
        3) with believers on Sunday
    - the early Xians saw no division between their faith in Jesus as the promised Messiah and Judaism. They chose the name ekklesia because they saw themselves as the 'people or congregation of Israel'.
    - the Jews took official action after the fall of Jerusalem and instituted an oath formula (rejecting Jesus as Messiah) to restrict membership in the local synagogues.

Jenny and I are studying the book of Acts this summer at HH, and I’d like to share some of the more interesting insights we are learning with you. We are heavily indebted to NT Wright, William Barclay, and Bob Utley for their direction and would be rather lost without them.

·         regarding Pentecost (v1)

Pentecost fell at the beginning of June so lots of people could travel to Jerusalem in the good weather. It was also a holiday and no work was to be done on that day (Lev23:21; Num28:26), so even more people would’ve been around. It was a great day for Holy Spirit to be unleashed!

·         miracle of hearing? (v6,8,11)

Luke does not record the apostles ‘speaking’ in other languages, but records people ‘hearing’ their languages being spoken. Bob Utley makes a point that this could have been a miracle of hearing rather than speaking, which would make sense because if all the apostles were talking in all those different languages it would have been pretty chaotic, but if they were all speaking in ‘tongues’, and the people simply ‘heard’ their own language being spoken, it seems much more plausible? To me it does anyway.

·         the 4 marks of the Church (v42)

NT Wright notes the 4 marks of the Church: 1) the apostles teaching, 2) the common life of those who believed, 3) the breaking of bread, 4) the prayers

And then an awesome quote from him: Where no attention is given to teaching, and to constant, lifelong Christian learning, people quickly revert to the worldview or mindset of the surrounding culture, and end up with their minds shaped by whichever social pressures are most persuasive, with Jesus somewhere around as a pale influence or memory.

·         in the temple (v46)

Bob Utley says that the early church attended the temple and probably the local synagogues until the rabbis instituted a curse formula (early AD 70), which forced synagogue members to curse Jesus.