New People, New Questions

Acts 2:5 Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. 6 And at this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one was hearing them speak in his own language. 7 And they were amazed and astonished, saying, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? 8 And how is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language? 9 Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, 11 both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians—we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God.” 12 And all were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?”

We have seen at the end of  the Gospels and the beginning of Acts that all of the questions the followers of Christ had were answered.  Things had changed drastically from the crucifixion with it's big questions: "Is that the end? What do we do now?" to having the resulting questions about their future answered both one by one and in big bunches.  The days after the ascension included the answer to the question: "Who will replace Judas?", but were by and large a quiet time of preparation for the day of Pentecost. On that day, these followers saw how the Holy Spirit would come and God would begin to use them to take the good news of the Gospel to every tongue and nation. They began too see how Christ would keep His promise to build His Church.  That day also brought a lot of new people who questioned what was going on. After Peter answered a lot of their questions in His sermon, they came to one big question of the day: "What shall we do?" They didn't have to wait for the answer:  38 And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. So many of them did. The answers to the questions of what they should do became obvious as they began to spend time in worship, fellowship, study, and prayer.  Once we have the big question of life answered, the others begin to fall into place.