The Purpose Of Pentecost
To Love God With All Your Heart
The Power Of Pentecost
This is the second post in the series about the annual festival of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit was manifested with great power and signs to the first century church. (Acts 2:1-13) It was also on this festival, in about 1,500BC, that the Law of God was given from Mount Sinai, with great power and thunder and lightning, and the voice of God! (Exo 19:16-20)
God certainly knows how to get people’s attention !
The link between these two great miracles is the fact that in order to truly understand the purpose and intent of the Law of God, and to thus obey God, you need God’s Holy Spirit to guide you and open your eyes to understand the Law:
For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace
because the carnal mind is enmity against God,
for it is not subject to the Law of God, neither indeed can it be.
So then they who are in the flesh cannot please God.
But you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if the Spirit of God dwells in you.
But if anyone has not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His.
(Rom 8:6-9 KJV)
If we obey the promptings of the Spirit of God, so that we are spiritually minded, then we will not be focused on the flesh- and that means we will be granted the gift of eternal life:
Do you not know that to whom you yield yourselves as slaves for obedience, you are slaves to him whom you obey; whether it is of sin to death, or of obedience to righteousness?…
…For the end (outcome) of those things (sin) is death.
But now, being made free from sin, and having become slaves to God, you have your fruit to holiness (righteousness in keeping the law), and the end (outcome is) everlasting life.
(Rom 6:16-22)
It is by our faith in God, and through having the Spirit of God, that we are made able to uphold the Law of God:
Do we then overthrow the law by this faith?
By no means! On the contrary, we uphold (establish) the law.
(Rom 3:31)
The Law of God and the Spirit of God work to the same purpose, that we may be spiritually minded when we obey the law, so that we may be holy and do righteousness and thus be granted the gift of eternal life.
Pentecost Is The First Harvest Festival
What have the Spirit of God and the Law of God got to do with a harvest festival? Keeping this festival in the Spirit and intent of the Law will develop in us the Love of God, and Love for our neighbour. That is the purpose of Pentecost, yet it is very easy to miss this spiritual purpose if we focus our attention on the physical process of “counting” days and weeks.
As explained in the previous post, Pentecost has three other names- the Feast of Harvest, the Feast of Weeks and the day of firstfruits. (Exo 23:14-17, Exodus 34:22, Deut 16:10, Num 28:26) However, in Leviticus 23:15-17 this feast has no name, except the day after the seventh sabbath, from which we are told to count these sabbaths:
Even unto the morrow after the seventh sabbath shall you number (count) fifty days;
(Lev 23:16)
There are seven weekly Sabbath days of rest from the Wave Sheaf to Pentecost. During these Sabbaths no harvesting, or work of any kind, was to be undertaken:
Six days you shall work, but on the seventh day you shall rest.
In ploughing time and in harvest you shall rest.
(Exo 34:21)
Most farmers today would expect to work seven days a week during harvest, and many even work at night with huge lights on their massive harvesting machines. Yet in Israel, under God’s direction, every seventh day everyone was commanded to rest:
“Six days you shall do your work, but on the seventh day you shall rest;
that your ox and your donkey may have rest,
and the son of your servant woman, and the alien, may be refreshed.
(Exo 23:12)
The purpose of resting was that the work animals and the poor in the land would not be oppressed, but that they may be refreshed. God wanted people to learn to love their neighbour, and to have compassion on them, not to work them till they dropped dead!
Not working during harvest could be seen as a great test of faith for farmers, for to get the ripe grain in is critical as it could be damaged by rain or be so ripe it could fall off. Farmers could lose a lot of money by taking a day off work during harvest, yet the command was very clear, and the purpose was also very clear- to give the poor a time of refreshment.
The Spiritual Intent Of Pentecost
The Word Pentecost means “fiftieth”. This is why in Acts we are told “And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. (Acts 2:1)
They had “counted” fifty days, and had come to the day after the seventh weekly Sabbath. They were therefore certain that they were keeping the annual festival of Pentecost.
Given therefore the focus on the beginning of the harvest, getting the harvest in, and counting the number of Sabbaths to Pentecost, it is not surprising that the purpose of the Spirit and intent of the Law of God for Pentecost may be easily missed, which is to look after the poor. At the end of the detailed explanation of Pentecost comes the clear directive:
“And when you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field right up to its edge, nor shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest. You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner: I am the LORD your God.” (Lev 23:22)
The edges and corners and the gleanings (left over grain) that were forgotten or dropped were all to be left for the poor of the land. This command is repeated from an earlier statement in Leviticus:
When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field right up to its edge, neither shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest. And you shall not strip your vineyard bare, neither shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard. You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner: I am the LORD your God. (Lev19:9-10)
This entire section of Leviticus 19: 9-18, elaborates on how to respect other people in the land: that they were not to steal, lie, oppress others, curse the deaf, put a stumbling block before the blind, not to slander, not to hate your brother, not to take vengeance, not to even bear a grudge… but you shall love your neighbour as yourself: I am the LORD.
All through scripture God tells people to look after the poor and the stranger, and that God would bless you for doing so. But this is emphasised during the grain harvest, even if you accidently left an entire sheaf of wheat during harvest you were to not go and get it:
When you reap your harvest in your field and forget a sheaf in the field, you shall not go back to get it. It shall be for the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow,
that the LORD your God may bless you in all the work of your hands.
(Deut 24:19)
Love Your Neighbour
To love your neighbour as yourself is the great purpose of the Law of God, for it is one of the two great laws that all the other laws depend on:
And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him.
“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?”
And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.
And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbour as yourself.
On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
(Matt 22:35-40)
This law to love your neighbour is however not a separate law from loving God, for we are told that how we show our love for God is that we show our love for our neighbour:
If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar;
for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him:
whoever loves God must also love his brother.
(1John 4:20-21)
The purpose of all of the Laws of God, including counting Pentecost, is to learn how to love your neighbour:
For the whole law is fulfilled in one word:
“You shall love your neighbour as yourself.”
(Gal 5:14)
How To Keep Pentecost
God made Pentecost to be the only feast which has no fixed date and tells you to count to find the date each year. Nor surprisingly then, if you ask anyone about how to keep Pentecost, you will be told about counting seven sabbaths, about it being in the harvest season, and about the fact that the Jews keep it on a different day to Christians, and that not all Jews or all Christians keep it on the same day.
Counting, and harvesting, and feasting are the focus of the entire discussion. Yet the purpose of Pentecost is to learn to love your neighbour. That is why you leave the gleanings, and the corners of your field. Yet that is missed out in all the counting and harvesting. Why? Because they are focused on the things of the flesh, not on the Spirit:
For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.
For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot.
Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. (Rom 8:5-9, ESV)
Pentecost is the grain harvest. At this time those who are rich are able to make a lot of money. Those who are poor are able to work in the harvest for wages. If they are very poor and unable to work all day, due to being sick, old, or weak, then the law says they must be left the grain from the gleanings, and that which grows in the corners of the field.
Who Sinned?
Yet we need to step back and ask, “Why were there poor people living in the land of Israel at the time of the grain harvest?”
This is similar to another question “Why were there poor and very sick people at the time of Christ?”
Was it because the poor or sick were being cursed by God? This is what the disciples thought:
As he (Jesus) passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.
We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”
Having said these things, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva. Then he anointed the man's eyes with the mud and said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). So he went and washed and came back seeing. (John 9:1-7)
God allows people to be poor, or to be rich, for his purpose that the works of God might be displayed in him. We display God’s works by imitating Christ and thus becoming enlightened:
Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” (John 8:12)
Yet this enlightenment is not for our benefit alone, but God expects us to imitate Christ for the amazing purpose of our actually being lights to the world ourselves!:
“You are the light of the world.
A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house.
In the same way, let your light shine before others,
so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.
(Matt 5:14-16)
God has lit the light of our lives for a purpose, it is for us to now bring light to the world by our actions, and this will cause those who see it to give thanks and praise, and glorify God!
The Purpose Of Illness
Certainly, this man’s healing after over 40 years of blindness glorified God and showed his great power, but what about the 40 years that he endured? What was the purpose of that?
Similarly, the healing of the woman who was bent over for 18 years (Luke 13:10-17), and the healing of the woman who had an issue of blood for 12 years (Luke 8:43-48) were great displays of the power and works of God, but what was the purpose for their suffering for the many years before their healing?
These years of suffering were also for displaying the mighty works of God, by motivating those who had plenty to demonstrate their compassion and love toward those who did not have sufficient- And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.
That is the purpose of the blessing of the harvest festival- to learn to give to the poor from your abundance, and in so doing you will learn to love them and love God, and to thus become like God, as Children of God, being lights to the world of the glory of God!
Distractions Of Wealth
The counting, the confusion about the name of the feast, and when the feast actually should start and finish, the abundance of food and wealth from the harvest, the command to rest on the seven weekly Sabbaths during the harvest even if it means losing some of your crop to rain, - all of this is a distraction so that you will be tested to see if you will actually focus on the flesh, or focus on the spirit of the law.
Will you try to get rich by oppressing your servants, or will you trust God for your needs and show love to your servants?
Will your focus be on loving your neighbour by giving him rest on the seven Sabbaths during the harvest, or will you worry about not getting your crop in and thus not having enough food for the rest of the year?
To love your neighbour is to be spiritually minded, to worry about the physical things is to be physically minded:
“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on.
Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?
Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns,
and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.
Are you not of more value than they?
(Matt 6:25-26)
To learn to trust in God for our needs, and to help others with their needs, is the purpose of the harvest festival of Pentecost.
In the next post in this series we will examine the cause of the confusion about Pentecost, while hopefully not getting too confused ourselves in the process!