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JUNE 17
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only the third hour of the day. But this is
what was spoken by the prophet Joel:
17 ‘And it shall come to pass in the last
2:7 Galileans. Inhabitants of the mostly rural days, says God,
area of northern Israel around the Sea of That I will pour out of My Spirit on
Galilee. Galilean Jews spoke with a distinct all flesh;
regional accent and were considered to be
unsophisticated and uneducated by the Your sons and your daughters shall
southern Judean Jews. When Galileans were prophesy,
seen to be speaking so many different lan- Your young men shall see visions,
guages, the Judean Jews were astonished. Your old men shall dream dreams.
18 And on My menservants and on My
maidservants
adjoining Cyrene, visitors from Rome, both I will pour out My Spirit in those days;
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Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs—we And they shall prophesy.
hear them speaking in our own tongues the 19 I will show wonders in heaven above
wonderful works of God.” So they were all And signs in the earth beneath:
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amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, Blood and fire and vapor of smoke.
“Whatever could this mean?” 20 The sun shall be turned into darkness,
Others mocking said, “They are full of new
13 And the moon into blood,
wine.” Before the coming of the great and
14 But Peter, standing up with the eleven, awesome day of the LORD.
raised his voice and said to them, “Men of 21 And it shall come to pass
Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this That whoever calls on the name of
be known to you, and heed my words. For the LORD
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these are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is Shall be saved.’
DAY 16:What can we learn about the Holy Spirit’s special role from the Book of Acts?
One of the cautions we must exercise in studying and teaching from the Book of Acts has to do
with the difference between description and prescription.The difference plays an important role in
interpreting the historical biblical books.The Bible’s description of an event does not imply that the
event or action can,should,or will be repeated.
The role of the Holy Spirit in His arrival as the promised Helper (John 14:17),which Acts describes
as a startling audiovisual event (2:1–13),had some partial and selected repetitions (8:14–19;10:44–48;
19:1–7).These were special cases in which believers are reported to have received or been filled with
the Holy Spirit.In each of these cases, the sound of a rushing mighty wind and the tongues as of fire
that were present in the original event (2:1–13) were absent, but the people spoke in tongues they
did not know (but others recognized).These events should not be taken as the basis for teaching that
believers today should expect the same tongue-evidence to accompany the filling of the Holy Spirit.
Even in Acts itself, genuine conversions did not necessarily lead to extraordinary filling by the Holy
Spirit. For example, a crowd of three thousand people believed and were baptized on the same Day
of Pentecost (2:41) that started so dramatically, yet there is no mention of tongues. So, why in some
cases did tongues accompany the confirmation of faith? That this actually occurred likely demon-
strated that believers were being drawn from very different groups into the church.Each new group
received a special welcome from the Holy Spirit.Thus, Samaritans (8:14–19), Gentiles (10:44–48), and
believers from the old covenant (19:1–7) were added to the church, and the unity of the church was
established.To demonstrate that unity,it was imperative to have some replication in each instance of
what had occurred at Pentecost with the believing Jews,such as the presence of the apostles and the
coming of the Spirit,manifestly indicated through speaking in the languages of Pentecost.

JUNE 17 years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was
Jedidah the daughter of Adaiah of Bozkath.
2
And he did what was right in the sight of the
LORD, and walked in all the ways of his father
2 Kings 22:1–24:20
David; he did not turn aside to the right hand
Josiah was eight years old when he or to the left.
22 became king, and he reigned thirty-one 3 Now it came to pass, in the eighteenth year
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