The Upper Room

The upper room has been described as “the birthplace of the church.” Certainly it was there that power was loosed which changed the world. Some commentators believe that the upper room was part of someone’s home—someone sympathetic to Jesus and His ministry. Why did the Holy Spirit come upon the disciples in a home and not in a sacred place such as the temple? If the Holy Spirit had come upon them in the temple, then His coming would have been associated with a sacred place, sacred services, or sacred occasions. The Holy Spirit came in the most common of all places—a home—as if He was saying, “I am here not just for’sacred’ occasions, but for all occasions, for all of life.”

One writer said in commenting on the ordinariness of the upper room, “The Holy Spirit is not a spiritual luxury to be imported into the unusual, but a spiritual necessity for the usual.” He is to be the pulse-beat of all we do—the usual as well as the unusual, the ordinary as well as the extraordinary. In the coming of the Holy Spirit, the ordinary and seemingly insignificant things of life are touched with divine significance: every bush is aflame with the glory of God, every moment is packed with eternity, and every contact we make is part of His perfect purposes.

Further Study

Jl 2:18-32; Isa 32:15; 59:21

What did God say would follow the coming of the Spirit?

What is the Lord exhorting the Israelites to do?