Therefore I exhort you, be imitators of me

Good morning. And they all continued in amazement and great perplexity, saying to one another, what does this mean? But others were mocking and saying, they are full of sweet wine. But Peter, taking his stand with the 11, raised his voice and declared to them: men of Judea and all you who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you and give heed to my words. Notice that it only talks about the 12 apostles; it does not mention the rest of the 120. That does not mean that the rest of the 120 were not in the house when the baptism of the Holy Spirit came. It may be that they were still in the house, and only the apostles went outside where the people were. It is an indication that it could’ve been just the apostles in the room when the Holy Spirit fell. What would speak against it is that there were more than 12 languages mentioned just prior to this that were being heard. So unless the apostles were speaking in more than one language, then that would mean that there was more than 12 people speaking. It neither confirms nor refutes that only the apostles were in the upper room; it just raises the possibility. For these men are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only the third hour of the day. There were two different ways of counting time in those days –Roman and Jewish. The accepted view is that this meant 9 o’clock in the morning. In fact that is the title of a book decades ago about the baptism in the Holy Spirit – 9 o’clock in the morning. It would’ve been unusual on a holy day – Pentecost – for a Jew to break his fast until around 10 o’clock. It would seem to me to be unusual for a group of men on any day to be drunk that early in the morning. Next time we will see what Peter’s response was. Father thank You for 9 o’clock in the morning that came into our own lives. Help us to manifest Your presence wherever we go!