17 February 2026
Peter's Pentecost sermon leaves his hearers "cut to the heart," and their question — "Brothers, what shall we do?" — sets the agenda for the rest of the chapter. Picking up where the previous week's session left off, this class returned to Peter's threefold answer: repent, be baptised in the name of Jesus Christ, and receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Having established last week why every believer should be baptised, Harry pressed further into what that answer actually means — why baptism is done in Jesus' name, whether the rite itself saves, and how repentance, forgiveness, and the Spirit's filling fit together — before landing on the promise that this gift is for "you and your children and for all who are far off."
Editor's note: This article is a written summary based on the substance of Harry's Bible study on this passage. It is not a verbatim transcript, and while it aims to reflect the heart of the teaching faithfully, it cannot fully convey the warmth, care, and encouragement of the class itself.
Opening Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank you for the gift of your word and for the privilege of gathering together in the Name of your Son, Jesus Christ. As we open the Scriptures today, we ask that your Holy Spirit would illuminate our minds and soften our hearts, that we might hear your voice, grow in the knowledge of you, and be equipped to live and speak for Christ. We commit this time of study into your hands, in Jesus' Name, Amen.
Harry opened by reading the whole of Acts 2:37–47 again, then invited anyone in the class who had been baptised in water to share what they remembered of that day, before recapping the three reasons given the previous week for why every believer should be baptised.
The first was the command of Jesus himself, given in the Great Commission: "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age" (Matthew 28:18–20). The second was the example of Jesus, drawing on 1 Peter 1:19's description of him as "a lamb without blemish or defect." Harry pointed out that the Old Covenant Law required a lamb without defect to be offered for the remission of sins — a pointer forward to Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
The third reason was the practice of the early church, and here Harry worked through a run of examples across Acts showing baptism woven into the very process of becoming a Christian: Philip's converts in Samaria, of whom it is said "they believed Philip as he proclaimed the good news of the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptised, both men and women" (Acts 8:12); Paul himself, baptised by Ananias after meeting Jesus on the Damascus road (Acts 9:10–19; 22:12–16); Cornelius and his household, baptised by Peter after receiving the Spirit, prompting Peter's remark, "Surely no one can stand in the way of their being baptised with water. They have received the Holy Spirit just as we have" (Acts 10:47); Lydia the dealer in purple goods, of whom it is said "the Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul's message," after which she and her household were baptised (Acts 16:14–15); the Philippian jailer, who asked "what must I do to be saved?" and that same night "he and all his household were baptised" (Acts 16:30–34); Crispus and many of the Corinthians (Acts 18:8); and the Ephesian disciples of John the Baptist, whom Paul later baptised once they understood who Jesus was (Acts 19:1–7). Harry noted that Paul could write to the Corinthians, "We were all baptised" (1 Corinthians 12:13), and observed that in New Testament times there was, in effect, no such thing as an unbaptised Christian — the thief on the cross being the recognised exception.
Moving into new ground, Harry addressed a controversy some raise: whether belief and baptism together are what is required to be saved. He was clear that this misunderstands where the power lies — not in the rite of baptism itself but in a person's response to God. Repentance, and the cleansing effect it brings, is what baptism signifies; it is the attitude behind the act, not the act itself, that carries the efficacy of yielding forgiveness.
He described baptism as a public act testifying that we have died with Christ, been buried, and raised to new life in him — washed clean from sin and now living with the Holy Spirit within. It is, Harry said, a personal, visible turning to God through Jesus Christ.
Harry then unpacked the phrase "in the name of Jesus Christ," explaining that it distinguishes Christian baptism from John's baptism, which had caused confusion in some circles. He read the account of Paul arriving at Ephesus and finding disciples who had received only John's baptism: "John's baptism was a baptism of repentance. He told the people to believe in the one coming after him, that is, in Jesus." On hearing this, "they were baptised in the name of the Lord Jesus," and when Paul placed his hands on them, "the Holy Spirit came on them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied" (Acts 19:1–7).
He noted that some churches insist baptism must be performed only in the name of Jesus, but that this class instead follows Jesus' own instruction in the Great Commission to baptise "in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" (Matthew 28:19). Being baptised in this threefold name, Harry said, means identifying ourselves with the Trinity: we belong to the Father, are saved by the Son, and are indwelt by the Spirit. He illustrated this with a picture of the phases of a believer's spiritual maturity — a season fixed on "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus," giving way to "Spirit, Spirit, Spirit," then "Father, Father, Father," until finally the believer holds Father, Son, and Holy Spirit together. He connected this to Colossians 3:16, where believers teach and admonish one another through the Spirit's songs, "singing to God [the Father] with gratitude in your hearts."
Harry set out Peter's response to the crowd's "what shall we do?" as having three parts: repent; be baptised, every one, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins; and receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Repentance and baptism, he explained, are the necessary human responses; forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Spirit are the gifts God provides through Jesus, who is the "door," the entry point into a life with God.
At the same time, Harry noted that repentance itself is portrayed in Acts as a gift from God: "God exalted him to his own right hand as Prince and Saviour that he might bring Israel to repentance and forgive their sins" (Acts 5:31); "even to Gentiles God has granted repentance that leads to life" (Acts 11:18); and Paul's instruction that opponents be gently instructed "in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth" (2 Timothy 2:25). That repentance is God's gift, Harry stressed, does not remove the need for a human response. He described repentance and faith as two sides of the same coin: repentance is the starting point, the acknowledgement of the need for forgiveness, while faith is the resulting trust that this forgiveness comes from God — as Paul put it in Acts 20:21, "I have declared to both Jews and Greeks that they must turn to God in repentance and have faith in our Lord Jesus."
Turning to the phrase "for the forgiveness of your sins," Harry explained that in Acts, forgiveness is regularly tied to the word "repent" — a call to turn, to change direction from the attitudes that had led the crowd to crucify Jesus, and to look to God through him for forgiveness. He drew a picture from the Exodus: Israel left slavery in Egypt, passed through the water, and entered the Promised Land; in the same way, believers leave a life enslaved to sin, pass through the water of baptism, and enter the Promised Land of Jesus' abundant, eternal life.
He pointed to Acts 3:19 — "Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord" — to underline that it is repentance, not the rite of baptism, that blots out sin. Once that cleansing has taken place, a person can receive the Holy Spirit and the "times of refreshing" that come with him. Harry stressed that this filling is ongoing rather than one-off, noting that even Peter, already filled at Pentecost, was filled again: quoting Acts 4:8 in the NASB rendering, "Peter, having just been filled with the Holy Spirit…," and later, after the believers prayed together, "the place where they had gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak the word of God with boldness" (Acts 4:31). He also drew out the scope of Peter's promise — "for you and your children and for all who are far off" — as having no limits, extending this filling on through the generations. On the phrase "save yourselves from this corrupt generation," Harry glossed "corrupt" as meaning crooked or twisted.
Finally, Harry returned to verse 41: those who accepted Peter's message believed first, were then baptised, and were added to the church. Church membership, he said, follows baptism, citing 1 Corinthians 12:13: "For by one Spirit we were all baptised into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit." Being baptised into the one body is a work of the Holy Spirit that brings believers into a special relationship not only with the Lord but with one another — all drinking of the one Spirit, so that there should be oneness and unity in the body of Christ, the family of God.
Underneath the historical detail and the run of cross-references, Harry was pressing the class toward a very personal question: has your own turning to God actually cost you anything, and has it actually changed you? His repeated insistence that it is not the rite of baptism but the repentance and faith behind it that carries any spiritual weight was aimed at guarding against a merely formal Christianity — baptism as a box ticked rather than a death, burial, and resurrection genuinely lived out. Equally, by stressing that the Spirit's filling is ongoing rather than a one-time event — even Peter needed refilling — Harry wanted the class to see repentance, forgiveness, and being filled with the Spirit not as a transaction completed once at conversion but as a rhythm to keep returning to. And by tying baptism directly to being added to the family of God, he was reminding them that this turning to Christ was never meant to be private: it places every believer, without limit — "for you and your children and for all who are far off" — inside one body, bound to one another as much as to the Lord himself.
Closing Prayer
Heavenly Father, thank you that we are gathered here in the Name of your Son, Jesus Christ. Father, by the power of your Holy Spirit, open up our hearts and our minds that we might understand your words in the Scriptures and get to know you more, that we might live holy lives, and that we might share the Good News about Jesus in the power of your Spirit, for the building of your Church and the extending of your Kingdom here on earth as it is in heaven, in and through Jesus Christ, Amen.
