Firstly, we need to correct a common misconception of this account, which is that the saints were gathered together in an upper room in someone’s house in the city when they were filled with the Holy Spirit. That is not correct however, because the saints were actually gathered together in the temple when this event happened. In verse two of the above account, the scripture describes the sound of the wind filling the whole “house” where they were sitting. The word translated house in this passage is the same word that is also translated as temple or sanctuary (Luke 11:51). And so, it would also be correct for the passage to say that the sound filled the whole “temple” where they were sitting. But notice that the verse does not say that the sound filled the whole temple per se, but rather the “whole temple where they were sitting”. The temple area of the book of Acts was a vast complex that covered thirty six acres, and so the disciples would have been seated in a very small section of the temple area, and it was only in that area where the sound of the rushing mighty wind occurred and not in the whole temple complex. We know that the disciples were in the temple on this occasion, because this was the Feast of Weeks (Pentecost), and the Lord required all Jewish males to present themselves before Him at this feast, which was a one day event. And so, because the early disciples were all Jews and were zealous for the law (Acts 21:20), they would definitely have been in the temple, especially at nine in the morning (referring to Peter’s comment above), at the exact time that the priests were offering the sacrifice on the altar. The disciples were more than likely in the section of the temple called Solomon’s Porch, which was located outside the main temple area, because the scripture tells us that they were all together, both men and women in one accord, whereas if they had been inside the inner court of the temple, the men and women would have been in separate sections. Also, the disciples knew Solomon’s Porch very well because Jesus often taught there (John 10:23), and we see that from this point onwards that the church would meet in Solomon’s Porch daily (Acts 5:12). The fact that the disciples were in the temple on this occasion, also explains how it was possible that so many Jews could gather to hear Peter and the other apostles preach, for over three thousand were saved on that day, indicating that there must have been at least four times that number who heard them preach, i.e. those who were in close proximity to where the disciples were sitting. All the Jews in Jerusalem and from around the world, would have been at the temple at that time, which some historians estimate would have been well in excess of one hundred thousand people, for the temple mount area could easily accommodate that size crowd of worshippers. And so, no house in the city of Jerusalem other than the temple, could have accounted for such a large crowd gathering around the disciples on that day. Also, because all the Jews (including the disciples) would have been in the temple on that morning, the disciples present on that occasion, would also have been at least five hundred in number (1 Corinthians 15:6), and not only the one hundred and twenty that were in the upper room when they chose Matthias to replace Judas, which had occurred a few days before Pentecost (Acts 1:15).
Michael E.B. Maher
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