House or Temple

[rramlow]

A little over the top.

Yeah, I'm working on it, but that's me sometimes. Thank you for sharing your feelings; I value the input.

Redacted the post a bit. Not looking to come across that hot. This issue rubs up against a sore spot and I need to watch my fervor.

Regarding the "house" of Acts 2:2, if that is the verse in question, I'm not quite sure how we can assume it to be the Temple, unless it is defined that way somewhere else in the text.

Can I take this post to mean that you would accept that it is the Temple, if you saw where else in the text it was clarified? I admire your attitude and hope to someday be so responsive. I will attempt to address your implied request and you can do what you like with it. I hope I may be forgiven for thinking the text itself is very clear.

I look at it this way: in the story the way Luke is telling it, from the end of his Gospel to the beginning of Acts the Temple is an integral part of the context. Take it out of the equation and our envisioning of the scenario contradicts Scripture... From Luke 24:53 (And they stayed continually at the temple, praising God) to Acts 2:46a (Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts), notice how Luke emphasizes their attendance with "continually" and "every day". So, their daily meeting spot is the Temple, as the Omer Counting of the Feast of Weeks winds up and beyond. Pentecost is somehow specially excluded? No. They are at the Temple every day, according to Scripture. If they meet there "continually" and "every day", even on non-Sabbath days, how much more for Sabbaths and Pentecost? I'm not saying they never took a pit stop, etc. - that would be absurd. In fact, I believe that Acts 2:46b (They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts) gives a clear example of why they might leave the Temple: physical needs were still pressing. So, just going from the text, in my view the Scripture tells us that, aside from food and lodging, the Temple was their default spot to assemble (all together in one place?). So now check out Acts 2:1. When the narrative mentions that the day of Pentecost comes, and mentions that we find them "all together in one place" without specifying what place that is, we are not assuming to say it is the Temple. We are simply remembering what the narrator has taken the trouble to clearly record in multiple places. Pentecost, like the other Feasts of God, had special observances and I believe it was a Pilgrimage Feast. Why is this significant? Pilgrimage Feasts are for worshiping the Lord in the place He shall choose. In those days it was the Temple - hence Acts 2:5 (Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven). If people would come from far-off lands to worship at the Temple at this special time, to say that the Apostles would not also attend seems an extraordinary claim.

So, I see no sprint down from an "upper room" to baptize 3000 in the street (never mind what kind of liquids you would find there)...

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/133558

As to the term "House", it absolutely doesn't exclude the Temple. The Lord himself uses it repeatedly to mean exactly that.

Due to the abundant evidence of the setting, I find no agreement with the position that the Pentecost account can only mean Temple if a word special to that denotation is used in Acts 2:2.