STRANGE UNITY: How Can We Be One Church In Troubled and Divided Times?
The Power of Pentecost For Today
This post is a shortened version of my recent lecture at Abilene Christian University (Oct 9, 2025). I was invited to talk about how we can encounter God through the Spirit anew today.
STRANGE UNITY: How Can We Be One Church In Troubled and Divided Times?
The Power of Pentecost For Today
Dr. Nijay K. Gupta
Scripture Text:
Acts 2:1-21 When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. 2 Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3 They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. 4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.
Acts 2:5 Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. 6 When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard their own language being spoken. 7 Utterly amazed, they asked: “Aren’t all these who are speaking Galileans? 8 Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language? 9 Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome 11 (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!” 12 Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, “What does this mean?”
Acts 2:13 Some, however, made fun of them and said, “They have had too much wine.”
Acts 2:14 Then Peter stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice and addressed the crowd: “Fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you; listen carefully to what I say. 15 These people are not drunk, as you suppose. It’s only nine in the morning! 16 No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel:
Acts 2:17 “ ‘In the last days, God says,
I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
your young men will see visions,
your old men will dream dreams.
18 Even on my servants, both men and women,
I will pour out my Spirit in those days,
and they will prophesy.
19 I will show wonders in the heavens above
and signs on the earth below,
blood and fire and billows of smoke.
20 The sun will be turned to darkness
and the moon to blood
before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord.
21 And everyone who calls
on the name of the Lord will be saved.’
They were all together in one place.
Luke tells us, they were not in the Jerusalem temple,1 they were in a house, someone’s house, an ordinary house. That’s interesting. We don’t even know who’s house it was. Isn’t that fascinating? One of the most important events in all of history, and we have no clear location. If it were my house, I’d make some cash off of selling— “come check out the Pentecost house!” tickets. (Memorabilia museum to come!)
But no: we don’t know, and that’s on purpose. The Spirit matters, not a famous location.
Then…
A great wind came—that is symbolic of the powerful presence of God, not resting on the temple (as Solomon prayed), but rushing through a home. The Spirit is on the move!
And then tongues of fire, above each person.
In the ancient world, spiritual power was just about everywhere, but there was a sense that special people could receive more power than others; it was often a have or have-not scenario. Prophets, for example, had an extra dose of the Spirit. Good kings, for example, could “inquire of the Lord” through spiritual insight, but this was not for ordinary folks.
But here in the room of Pentecost, the same measure of fire-Spirit is divvied out to each and every one—regardless of status, gender, ethnicity, geographic origin, occupation, height, slave-status, wealth, or class. And the Spirit loosed each of their tongues and they spoke in foreign languages at will. This isn’t Ray-Ban META AI-assisted language translation technology, this is HOLY SPIRIT technology! Even better—AND FREE.
Greeks and Romans often saw prayer as learning to speak the foreign language of the gods—Jesus says “when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words.” (Matt 6:7). And these Spirit-filled believers at Pentecost weren’t babbling! They were communicating. God’s Spirit enables us to grow together in knowledge, truth, and understanding. The Spirit is a unifier. Those who were outside and nearby came into the house to see what the commotion was: people from Parthia, Elam, Mesopotamia, Judea, Asia, Egypt, Rome, Crete, Arabia, and beyond. And what did they hear: the wonders of God in their own tongues, they were hearing the GOSPEL OF JESUS CHRIST in their own native languages. The Spirit transcends culture and language.
Peter preaches to the gathered visitors, trying to explain the strange phenomena they were witnessing. Peter quotes from parts of the OT to explain that God was using these wonders to reveal his new work of redeeming the world. At one point, Peter says:
“The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord.”
In this case, the sun didn’t disappear, and the moon was not red, but in that moment it did feel like God was turning the whole world upside down. The Spirit has the power to change things on a cosmic level.
And perhaps what feels to us like turning everything upside down is the Spirit’s way of turning the upside-down world we have become all too comfortable with—RIGHT SIDE UP.
We live now, about 2000 years after the cosmically up-ending events of Pentecost. 2000 years after Christ commissioned, empowered, and sent the apostles out into a dangerous world of ghosts, spirits, and demons. Beyond Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, and the ends of the earth.
And yet, in 2025, our world feels incredibly scary. It hardly seems like a dark sun and a blood moon would phase me at all. I wish I were as bewildered as the crowd witnessing Pentecost, but to be honest...I am just tired. Too much bad news, too many distractions, too many emails to read or send, too much paperwork, too many bills. And sometimes it feels like I am too distracted to really encounter God. Do you feel it?
But here’s the good news:
The same Spirit of the Living God that was active in Moses, is here empowering us today.
The same Spirit that made David sing psalms of lament and praise is still empowering us today.
The same Spirit that filled the temple with God’s glory, is still here empowering us today.
The same Spirit that propelled Jesus into his ministry, is still here empowering us today.
The same Spirit that re-actived Jesus’ dead body in that tomb, is still here empowering us today.
The same Spirit that filled someone’s house with wind and fire on the day of Pentecost—is still here empowering us today.
So—What do we do?
I propose we follow the Spirit of Pentecost. But first: a caveat.
Pentecost reminds us: God came to us first. No matter where we are, or who we are, God chose to come to each and every one of us. He closed the gap, He took the first and most important step.
So, all we offer is our loving response:
Now: 5 “musts” of our response in this moment a
We MUST GATHER.
Not primarily on Facebook, IG, Threads, Bluesky, Substack, Truth Social—but in one room. There’s power in proximity, like we are right now. Sometimes we can’t gather, I get that, but we conduct more Spirit power by being together. Remember Pentecost:
Acts 2:1 When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place.
WE MUST PRAY.
Acts 1:14: “They all joined together constantly in prayer.”
We seek the Lord together. We put our hearts and souls together as one to cry uttered to the loving Father in Jesus’ Name, by the Power of the Spirit. Empowerment, growth, new life, rejuvination—it happens through united and believing prayer. We must imitate our spiritual forebars and be “joined together constantly in prayer.”
WE MUST LEARN TO SPEAK EACH OTHER’S LANGUAGE.
At Pentecost, it was an instantaneous miracle, but in our time, we are called to the extra hard work of listening and learning to speak not only languages, but understanding cultures and experiences. Our ONENESS requires understanding. We must learn to listen before we speak. There must be shared understanding and truth before we can completely unify. It begins with turning towards one another with love.
The “foreigners” at Pentecost were not forced to learn the Galilean tongue, the Spirit-filled Galileans spoke in the world’s tongues.
WE MUST LET EVERY PERSON CONTRIBUTE.
No one was left out at Pentecost. The work wasn’t done by priests only, or prophets, apostles or pastors: each and every individual received a full measure of the Spirit to be equipped for ministry. Liberate the individual. Everyone has something to contribute.
There was no stage at Pentecost. No microphones. No green room. No platform.
Only Spirit and people—maybe donut holes. (That’s in the Apocrypha.)
WE MUST PROCLAIM THE ONE WHOM WE WORSHIP: Jesus the Crucified Messiah.
That was Peter’s ultimate message. Everything was building up to that moment. That is the point of Pentecost, the purpose of the church, we take Jesus public, and the Spirit amplifies our worship.
Halloween is coming. It’s the time we acknowledge, often in a humorous way, what the ancients already knew: there are lots of spooky and scary things out there that go bump in the night. But God says: Be not afraid. Christ says: I have overcome the world and the evil it can offer. Evil will fail. And the Spirit says: Receive power.
As a benediction, I want to share from an old Methodist hymn called O Spirit of the Living God. Listen (read) and be filled with the Spirit.
O Spirit of the living God,
thou light and fire divine,
descend upon thy church once more,
and make it truly thine.Fill it with love and joy and power,
with righteousness and peace;
till Christ shall dwell in human hearts,
and sin and sorrow cease.2 Blow, wind of God! With wisdom blow
until our minds are free
from mists of error, clouds of doubt,
which blind our eyes to thee.Burn, winged fire! Inspire our lips
with flaming love and zeal,
to preach to all thy great good news,
God’s glorious commonweal.3 Teach us to utter living words
of truth which all may hear,
the language all may understand
when love speaks loud and clear;till every age and race and clime
shall blend their creeds in one,
and earth shall form one family
by whom thy will is done.4 So shall we know the power of Christ
who came this world to save;
so shall we rise with him to life
which soars beyond the grave;and earth shall win true holiness,
which makes thy children whole;
till, perfected by thee, we reach
creation’s glorious goal!
*United Methodist Hymnal, 1989
If you found this insight or encouraging, would you consider sharing it?
*A smaller contingency of scholarship entertains the possibility that Pentecost happened within the courts of the temple. It’s possible, but I think it is far more likely that when Luke (the author of Acts) refers to a “house” (2:3), he means a family or personal dwelling.
Thank you Nijay, so good this message/reminder.
Excellent