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.

experienced. This right understanding is that God gave His Spirit to Jesus of Nazareth, who has poured out the Spirit of God to cause prophecy. The significance, i.e., the purpose of this outpouring of the Spirit is that anyone who now calls on the name of the Lord Jesus will be saved³⁸. The Petrine discourse is powerful in its use of Scripture and tradition, but it assumes, probably because Luke wanted it to be brief, that Jesus is son of David (and thus qualified to be identified as Messiah), that the Messiah is that Lord to whom YHWH said, ‘Sit at my right hand’, and that, when one speaks about the giving of the Spirit, one should talk of Father and Son, not simply of God and Jesus of Nazareth. Peter’s audience, Luke’s reader — these groups are expected to understand these assumptions from what Luke has presented in his first volume. In particular, one cannot overestimate the importance of Luke 1,35 for a full understanding of this opening speech of Acts. Certainly, the Petrine discourse is, for this dependence, best understood to be a ‘literary’ speech, that is a speech which depends for its full power on a reading of Luke’s entire work and an acquaintance, probably through earlier teaching, with the traditions Luke (and perhaps the already instructed Theophilus) had at hand.