Yesterday I presented some questions about Acts 2. I’ll confess that I’ve been thinking about these some because this passage has become a major proof text for those promoting an expanded role for women in Christian ministry. The more I’ve looked at this passage, the more questions I have.
The first question I presented had to do with “the great and glorious day of the Lord” that Peter refers to. He’s using prophecy from Joel 2 to talk about the outpouring of the Spirit and salvation being offered to all that call on the name of the Lord. But he quotes a (relatively) long section from Joel 2, and Luke saw it as important enough to include in the book of Acts.
In context, Joel is writing after a terrible plague of locust had struck the Promised Land. In chapter 2, he calls the people to repentance, then talks about a time of restoration when God will bless the people with great abundance. He concludes that section by saying “never again will my people be shamed.”
The prophecy that Peter quotes begins “And afterward…” Peter quotes this as “In the last days…” I’m not sure if that comes from the Septuagint or from a different rendering of the Hebrew. Joel’s prophecy would speak of a time of restoration before the Day of the Lord, which certainly isn’t what Israel experienced in the first century. The way Peter quotes the passage, however, creates a disconnect with what comes before. All of that to say that Joel’s “Day of the Lord” and Peter’s “Day of the Lord” may not be the same.
I’m leaning toward seeing Peter’s day of the Lord as the destruction of Jerusalem and not the final judgment. That doesn’t mean that salvation is only about saving yourself from that terrible siege; I think we’re correct in giving that term a spiritual sense as well. But Peter knew that Jesus had spoken of a terrible judgment that was coming on Jerusalem; he would certainly have wanted to warn people about that. My hypothesis is that he saw the signs that accompanied the outpouring of the Spirit as a warning to the Jews of God’s impending judgment on their physical nation.
How do you see it?