Biblical history · Acts & Early Church
Pentecost and the Birth of the Church
c. AD 30 Traditional dating
The Holy Spirit falls on the gathered disciples in Jerusalem, Peter preaches the first Christian sermon, and the church is born.
The event
Fifty days after Passover, on the Jewish feast of Pentecost, the promise Jesus made to His disciples before His ascension came to fulfillment. Gathered together in Jerusalem, the apostles and roughly 120 believers experienced the sound of a rushing wind, tongues of fire resting on each of them, and were filled with the Holy Spirit, immediately declaring the wonders of God in languages they had not learned (Acts 2:1-4). Jerusalem was packed with Jewish pilgrims from across the Mediterranean and Mesopotamian world for the festival, and the diversity of nations represented in the crowd (Acts 2:9-11) meant the miracle of speech had an audience perfectly suited to carry the message home.
Peter, so recently marked by his fearful denial of Jesus, stood and preached the first Christian sermon, tying the events of that morning to the prophet Joel's promise of the Spirit poured out on all flesh and to the resurrection of Jesus as the vindication of everything the apostles had witnessed. Three thousand people were baptized that day (Acts 2:41), and the church - not a new religion invented from nothing, but the promised fulfillment of Israel's story - was born.
Most evangelical scholars place this Pentecost in AD 30; a minority prefer AD 33. Either way, the church has always regarded this day as the hinge between the earthly ministry of Jesus and the age of the Spirit-empowered church, and it remains the reason Christians still celebrate Pentecost as the birthday of the church.
Dating
Pentecost falls fifty days after the crucifixion Passover, so its date tracks the crucifixion date. Astronomical data allow only two serious candidates for a Friday crucifixion under Pilate: AD 30 and AD 33. AD 30 remains the majority view among scholars, but AD 33 is a substantial, well-defended evangelical position (Hoehner, the ESV Study Bible, Köstenberger and Taylor), turning mainly on when Jesus's ministry began (Luke 3:1) and how long it lasted. Either date fits comfortably within a traditional chronology.
Scripture references
- Acts 2:1-41
Further reading
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