BibleWorm

This week we’re reading the texts for Pentecost with Acts 2:1-21 and Philippians 4:4-7. We ponder the connections between Christian Pentecost and Jewish Shavuot, both commemorating the establishment of a new relationship with God following an act of dramatic liberation. We notice the democratization of the Holy Spirit in this text, which pours out on all people, so that everyone—young and old, male and female, rich and poor, of all languages and cultures—become prophets and visionaries of the kingdom of God. And we linger over the idea that the Spirit brings not only cataclysmic change to the world but also a deep peace that passes understanding, inviting us to engage the world with gentleness even as God’s kingdom is breaking into the world.