Multi-Part Reading, Pentecost Ideas

Acts 2: 1-21: a Dramatic Reading for Pentecost

Here’s a narrative interpritation of Acts 2:1-21 to be used at a Pentecost service.

NOTES FOR OUR READERS:

 

  1. Each reader should seek Pastor before hand for help with pronunciations if needed.
  2. Animation is absolutely necessary.  Remember this is an excited crowd.  This does not necessarily mean that the rate of speech is increased, but that the emotional overtones of this dynamic event are relayed.
  3. For those of you reading the different regions, do not end your reading with a “period” because this needs to come off as one continuous flow of thoughts.
  4. Pastor will be the only one standing in the front of the church.
  5. Readers who have “lines” should rise while speaking.  Everyone else who is reciting a region should do so while seated.

Pastor:

When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.

 

Reader 1:

Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard them speaking in his own language. Utterly amazed, they asked:

 

Reader 2:

Are not all these men who are speaking Galileans?

 

Reader 3:

Then how is it that each of us hears them in his own native language?

 

Reader 4:

Parthians,

 

Reader 5.:

Medes,

 

Reader 6:

Elamites;

 

Reader 7:

residents of Mesopotamia,

 

Reader 8:

Judea,

 

Reader 9:

and Cappadocia;

 

Reader 10:

Pontus

 

Reader 11:

and Asia,

 

Reader 12.:

Phrygia

 

Reader 13:

and Pamphylia,

 

Reader 14:

Egypt

 

Reader 15:

and the parts of Libya near Cyrene;

 

Reader 16:

visitors from Rome (both Jews and converts to Judaism);

 

Reader 17:

Cretans

 

Reader 18:

and Arabs—

 

Reader 19:

we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!

 

Reader 1:

Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another,

 

All:

What does this mean?

 

Pastor:

Some, however, made fun of them and said, “They have had too much wine.”

 

Reader 1:

Then Peter stood up with the eleven, raised his voice, and addressed the crowd:

 

Peter (Reader 20):

Fellow Jews and all of you who are in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you; listen carefully to what I say.  These men are not drunk, as you suppose.  It’s only nine in the morning! No, this is what was spoken by God through the prophet Joel:

 

Joel (Reader 21):

In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams.  Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy.  I will show wonders in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and billows of smoke.  The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord.  And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

 

Notes:

1.  Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version, Copyright© 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society.  Used by permission of International Bible Society

2.  Arranged by “author unknown” – adapted by S. Brown

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