The success which followed Peter’s first effort in preaching the gospel
of his murdered and risen Lord, was most cheering. Those who heard him
on this occasion, gladly receiving his words, were baptized, and on
that same day converts to the number of three thousand were added to
the disciples. How must these glorious results, and all the events of
the day, have lifted up the hearts of the apostles, and moved them to
new and still bolder efforts in their great cause! They now knew and
felt the true force of their Master’s promise, that they should “be
indued with power from on high;” for what less than such power could
in one day have wrought such a change in the hearts of the haughty
Jews, as to make them submissive hearers of the followers of the lately
crucified Nazarene, and bring over such immense numbers of converts
to the new faith, as to swell the small and feeble band of disciples
to more than twenty times its former size? Nor did the impression made
on this multitude prove to be a mere transient excitement; for we are
assured that “they held steadily to the doctrine taught by the apostles,
and kept company with them in all their daily religious duties and
social enjoyments.” So permanent and complete was this change, as to
cause universal astonishment among those who had not been made the
subjects of it; and the number of those who heard the amazing story,
must have been so much the greater at that time, as there was then at
Jerusalem so large an assemblage of Jews from almost every part of the
civilized world. On this account, it seems to have been most wisely
ordered that this first public preaching of the Christian faith, and
this great manifestation of its power over the hearts of men, should
take place on this festal occasion, when its influence might at once
more widely and quickly spread than by any other human means. The
foreign Jews then at Jerusalem, being witnesses of these wonderful
things, would not fail, on their return home, to give the whole affair
a prominent place in their account of their pilgrimage, when they
recounted their various adventures and observations to their inquiring
friends. Among these visitors, too, were probably some who were
themselves on this occasion converted to the new faith, and each one of
these would be a sort of missionary, preaching Christ crucified to his
countrymen in his distant home, and telling them of a way to God, which
their fathers had not known. The many miracles wrought by the apostles,
as signs of their authority, served to swell the fame of the Christian
cause, and added new incidents to the fast-traveling and far-spreading
story, which, wherever it went, prepared the people to hear the
apostles with interest and respect, when, in obedience to their Lord’s
last charge, they should go forth to distant lands, preaching the
gospel.