These gave themselves all with one accord to continual prayer, with [several] women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren.
After the ascension, a small group went back to Jerusalem and stayed together in an upper room to wait for what Jesus had promised. What they did while they waited, and who was in the room, is the weight of this verse.
These disciples kept praying day after day. One writer sets out what they had already seen, and what they were still waiting for.
So these saints spent their time in continual dependence on God. They had been the chosen witnesses of the Word of life, as He had shown Himself here below. In Himself the Son had shown them the Father. And now they were waiting for that divine person, who was to be in them as well as with them. The Lord had prepared them for it: "I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper." So now they all give themselves up with one mind to persevering prayer.
Seen from the outside, their cause looked hopeless. One writer puts the questions they faced.
Robbed of the Master's company, what could they do? Was the movement begun during His life now going to collapse?… Could they, a little band and feeble in themselves, hold their ground against the ruling authorities and hostile crowds?… To the natural man their cause was not a promising one. But they had a hope the Jews knew nothing of. They were sure that the God of their fathers had not abandoned them. So they kept praying while they waited for their hope to come true. They knew work lay ahead of them, when the time came to begin it.
They already had the Lord's word that the Spirit would come. That certainty is exactly why they prayed.
They were waiting, according to our Lord's instructions, for the promise of the Father — the gift of the Holy Spirit. They had the sure word of promise. The Helper would certainly come. That promise did not make prayer unnecessary. It was the very ground on which they prayed, and prayed with blessing. They prayed; they prayed in one place; they prayed with one accord. They were completely agreed. They all, without exception, had one definite object before their hearts.
That agreement is held up as a measure for prayer meetings ever since.
Why are our meetings for prayer often so poor, cold, dead, and powerless? Is it not often because believers fail to come together with one accord and with definite agreement in prayer for certain things?
The chapter closes on a company that understood much but could not yet act in power.
The disciples return to Jerusalem, and live there together in an upper room… But the effect of the promise of the Father is only found in chapter 2… They did not have the power of the Spirit, but they had understanding of the word. Their standing was in relation to Christ raised from the dead, so the divine light given to them after His resurrection had enlightened them.
Women were part of this praying group. One writer sets their place here against the place given them elsewhere.
Believing women were with them. How different their place is from the place Jews, or later Muslims, gave them! It is just as different from the flattery or superstition of the Middle Ages, even when nominal Christianity spread across the West… And one of them is named here: the very one to whom sinful folly would later bow down in worship — worship claimed to be lower than that given to the Son or the Father, yet in practice more absorbing than either.
Scripture speaks of Mary here for the last time. It puts her among the others, not above them.
Only one history of what followed our Lord's departure to heaven is sure and God-inspired. This is its first mention of Mary. She had been highly favoured, blessed among women, and all generations from then on call her blessed. Yet she was there in all lowliness of mind with the other women, as the apostles were with them all, waiting on God for the gift of the Holy Spirit… And it is the last mention of Mary.
The Lord's brothers were praying in that room too. One writer names them and marks the change in them.
James and Jude were two of the Lord's brothers. Simon and Joses were two others… They were unconverted the whole time the Lord was on earth. But it is clear they were converted after the Lord died and rose. So there they were with Mary their mother, and the eleven, all living together, given up to prayer, and waiting for the promise of the Father… And it is very beautiful to see that God broke them down by the very thing that might have stumbled them for ever. The crucifying of the Lord might have stopped them altogether. Instead God used it, and the Lord's resurrection, to wake their souls and bring them in.
- Waiting — They obeyed the Lord's instructions and waited, filling the days with prayer. The work would come when the power came.
- Certainty — A guaranteed promise did not remove prayer; it gave prayer its object.
- Agreement — One accord meant one definite object, held by every person in the room, without exception.
- Company — Apostles, women, Mary and the Lord's brothers pray side by side. Mary appears here for the last time, among the rest, not above them.
- Change — The cross and resurrection broke down brothers who had not believed. Now they wait for the same gift as the apostles.
And in those days Peter, standing up in the midst of the brethren, said, (the crowd of names [who were] together [was] about a hundred and twenty,)
The Spirit has not yet come, and ten days of waiting must pass first. In that gap Peter stands up to speak, and Luke stops to count the room: about 120 people. Who were they, and what were they waiting for?
The verse opens with "in those days." What did the disciples do with them?
Ten days had to pass before the Spirit came, and the rest of the chapter tells us how the disciples spent that time of waiting. About one hundred and twenty in Jerusalem openly followed the Lord, and prayer and pleading with God filled their time. They could bear no witness until God gave the Spirit, but they could take the safe place of complete dependence on God, and stay there.
Peter is the one who stands up. About six weeks earlier he had failed his Lord badly.
It is striking that Peter was the one to take the lead here, when he himself had sinned so badly only about six weeks before. Still, it shows that the Lord had fully restored him.
Peter speaks with confidence about Scripture, though the Spirit had not yet come on him. That order is worth noticing.
Peter speaks to them with decision, but in the light and authority of Scripture. Power from on high had not yet come on him, but he clearly had an understanding he never had before the Lord died and rose. The two may go together now; or spiritual understanding may be present where special power is not given.
Peter stands "among the brothers" — older versions read "disciples." Does that mean the eleven apostles only?
Someone may ask: could the word "disciples" mean only the eleven? No, it could not. Look at Luke's account of the same event. "And they rose up the same hour and returned to Jerusalem and found the eleven and those who were with them gathered together" (Luke 24:33)… So it is a serious mistake to limit this to the apostles. It was the whole gathered body of disciples, men and women: about one hundred and twenty, brought together by the news that the Lord had risen.
The same plain words run through the rest of the book. They also say something about rank among Christians.
There are no "favoured ones" in Christianity… The Christianity of the Bible allows for spiritual gifts and for office, but it knows nothing of such ranks. The early Christians were all of them believers, saints, disciples (see Acts 1:15; 6:1; 9:38; 19:9; 20:7). Even the greatest of the apostles was simply a believer, a saint, a disciple along with the rest — though God had gifted him from heaven and given him an authority no one could question.
The ESV reads "the company of persons"; older versions render it "the number of the names." One writer keeps to that older sense.
The first instance is Acts 1:15, where the words in brackets tell us there was a crowd of names "together," about a hundred and twenty. Nothing here stops us from supposing that the 120 were gathered into the same room… But the true meaning of the words is a count of names "together," not their being "gathered," as some translations put it.
The hundred and twenty are often called the first church. But how many believers were there in all, and were these 120 already the church?
We know that, before they entered the church in this way, there were at least a hundred and twenty names listed in Acts 1… And I have no doubt that many more were really believers. In 1 Corinthians 15:6 we hear of "more than five hundred brothers" who saw the Lord after His resurrection… The "hundred and twenty" were the ones who lived in Jerusalem at the time of the crucifixion or after it. But whatever the number… there was no such thing as "the church," the assembly of God, until God sent down the Holy Spirit to give them unity.
- Waiting. They spent the ten days before Pentecost in prayer. They could bear no witness until the Spirit came, so they took the safe place of dependence on God.
- Restored. The man who takes the lead had sinned badly six weeks before. His standing up shows the Lord had fully restored him.
- Light. Peter understood Scripture as never before, though power from on high had not yet come. The two are distinct.
- All of them. The hundred and twenty were disciples, men and women, not the apostles alone. The early Christians had no favoured class.
- Not yet the church. The number counts believers in Jerusalem, not all the faithful; over five hundred had seen the risen Lord. None of them formed the assembly until the Spirit came down.