John Kilgallen, «‘With many other words’ (Acts 2,40): Theological Assumptions in Peter’s Pentecost Speech», Vol. 83 (2002) 71-87

The complete effectiveness of Peter’s Pentecost speech implies that the Lucan audience, if not that of Peter, knows at least three assumptions that are needed to make the speech as logically convincing as possible. These three assumptions are: (1) that Jesus is physically Son of David; (2) that the kyrios of Ps 110,1 is the Messiah; (3) that only the titles ‘Son’ and ‘Father’ should be used when describing that it is Jesus who poured out the Spirit. As for Peter’s audience, the fact that Peter supported his speech with ‘many other words (arguments)’ might argue that his audience were introduced to these three assumptions. As for Luke’s audience, Luke 1,35 and its context play a major role in justifying the logic of this Pentecost speech.

        There is, then, in Luke (Luke 1 and 2) and in his sources (Luke 10) related to Matthew material which would make Theophilus an intelligent reader of what Peter proposes in Acts 2,33. But, in accord with the particular slant of Acts 2,33 (and Luke 24) — that Jesus pours out the Spirit from his Father — we turn to John’s Gospel.

        John’s Gospel offers still further witness to the terms which must be used when speaking of this relationship among Father, Son and Spirit. In John 14, Jesus twice makes reference to the giving or sending of the Spirit. At v. 14, Jesus promises: ‘I will ask the Father and he will give you another Paraclete...the Spirit of truth’. At vv. 25-26, Jesus notes: ‘the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name...’. In John 15,26, however, Jesus remarks: ‘When the Paraclete comes, the Spirit of truth who comes from the Father — and whom I myself will send from the Father...’. John’s citations of Jesus’ words are in close accord with Peter’s double expression: on the one hand, ‘God has poured out his Spirit’, and on the other ‘Jesus Messiah, having received the Spirit, poured out what you see and hear’. Jesus’ sending of the Spirit is soon confirmed: at John 16,7, Jesus again says that ‘the Paraclete ... I will send him to you...’. Finally, Jesus at John 16,14-15 notes, ‘...he (the Spirit) will have received from me what he will announce to you. All that the Father has belongs to me; that is why I said that what he will announce to you he will have from me’³⁶.

        The similarities between John and Luke³⁷, centered in the above statements, suggest once again that there is an assumption in the Petrine discourse at Pentecost: that the reader will be able to understand the sudden, unexplained and abruptly terminated preference for the terminology, Father, Son, Spirit, when Peter introduces the report that Jesus Messiah poured out ‘what you see and hear’.

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        The goal of Peter’s Pentecost discourse is to present to his audience a right understanding of the phenomena it has just