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Fifty days after the Passover, all Israel celebrated a holiday called Shavuot. It was a celebration of the
presentation of the Torah (Commandments) on Mount Sinai. The holiday calls for a renewal of
acceptance of God’s gift of the Torah. It was a celebration of a wedding between God and the Jewish
people. The word, Shavuot means “oaths” and it is a validation of God’s unconditional devotion to
Abraham’s seed and a call for the Jewish people to everlasting devotion and loyalty to God.
Shavuot is also a celebration of the grain harvest for the summer. In biblical times, Shavuot was one of
three pilgrimage festivals in which all the Jewish men would go to Jerusalem and bring their first fruits as
offerings to God.

Shavuot is also called the Feast of Weeks. According to the Old Testament, they would go to the day of
the celebration of Firstfruits, and beginning with that day, and then count forward 50 days. The fiftieth
day would be the day of Shavuot or the Feast of Pentecost. So Firstfruits is the beginning of the barley
th
harvest and Shavuot the celebration of the beginning of the wheat harvest. Since on the 50 day it was
honored, it was seven (7 days) weeks or 49 days or a week of weeks. That’s how it got its name. The
Jews celebrated God’s gift of the Ten Commandments to Moses on Mount Sinai, the Old Covenant of
God to His people. But Christ fulfilled the law or Old Covenant and brought to us a New Covenant under
grace.

On the same day as the Shavuot began, Jesus Christ’s promise of the coming of the Holy Spirit to indwell
believers was fulfilled. Pentecost was a call to believers to an everlasting devotion and loyalty to Christ,
just as Shavuot was to the Jewish people. The Holy Spirit was to come as a validation of the New
Covenant to seal every believer in Christ. Pentecost was a rehearsal of the coming of a New Covenant.
And on that EXACT DAY, the Holy Spirit baptized believers by indwelling those who trusted in Him by
faith. Let’s read about it.

Acts 2:1-4 When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. 2Suddenly
a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house
where they were sitting. 3They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and
came to rest on each of them. 4All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak
in other languages the Spirit enabled them.

This is the birth of the Church. It is the day that the Holy Spirit came to permanently indwell every
believer in Christ, just as He promised. And with the Holy Spirit’s coming, God introduced the world to a
new age and a new covenant --- the age of the Church with a promise that even “the gates of hell shall
not prevail against it.” (Matthew 16:18). God established something totally NEW and unique. He
“called out” all believers from the world to come under his dominion, and to represent Christ to the
world, and He equipped them with the power of the Holy Spirit to be faithful in their service to Him.
And with this new power, the church was launched into a lost world to obey Christ’s last words:

Matthew 28:18-20 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been
given to me. 19Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father
and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.
And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

As you read about the birth of the church in Jerusalem, you will note that there was only one church
there. In Acts 1:15, there were 120 members of the church. In Acts 2:41, the church added 3,000, and
again added 5,000 more (4:4). Daily, people were responding to the Gospel of Grace, and daily people

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