New Testament Stories

Jesus goes to the father

These with one mind were continually devoting themselves to prayer, along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers. Acts 1:14

                              It was the Pentecost, a holiday in Israel. Pentecost came about fifty days after Jesus rose from the dead. Jesus' friends and disciples met together in a room in Jerusalem.

     Peter, James and John and the other disciples were there. So were Mary, Jesus' mother, and the other men and women. Jesus had said that they should wait in Jerusalem for the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

     Suddenly, as the sat together, they heard a sound like a great wind. It was rushing and roaring through the house, filling the room where they sat. Then small flames appeared like tongues of fire. These flames seemed to rest over each person there.

     They began to talk in other languages that the Holy Spirit made they able to speak.

    They ran into the streets, still speaking in these languages.

     Now there were many people from other countries who were in Jerusalem for the Pentecost Holiday. They came from Iran and Iraq and Greece and Turkey and Egypt and Libya and Rome.  But as the Christians spoke in the languages the Holy Spirit gave them, all the visitors heard the story of God in their own language.

     The people asked each other, "What does this mean?"

     Some of them said, "These people must be drunk to talk and act so strangely."

     But Peter spoke up, "We are not drunk at nine o'clock in the morning," he told them. "We are filled with the Holy Spirit." Then he told them the story of Jesus Christ.

     Three thousand of the people who listened were baptized that day. And they stayed faithful to what Jesus' disciples taught them. They went everyday to visit the others, to pray, to hear the apostles teach, and to have Communion. And everyday more and more people became Christians.