Dimensions of Baptism Biblical and Theological Studies

GREEN 'She and her household were baptized' 81

and prepared for by the Pentecostal outpouring of the Spirit, which Luke

locates also in a house, though one of a different sort. The location of the

Pentecostal event, 'the house where they were sitting'(2.2), is often under-

stood to be the upstairs room of 1.13. Luke's phrase is far more likely a

reference to the temple, however,^25 and this introduces a paradox of signifi-

cant import. The temple stands as a segregating cultural force that divides

Jew from non-Jew, priest from non-priest, male from female, and so on,

whereas the outpouring of the Spirit falls on all who are unified around the

purpose of God. Though expressed in the temple, this divine revelation por-

tends the democratization of the Spirit—and, if the Spirit, then of salvation

and membership among the people of God—and is precursor to a mission

with sights set on 'the end of the earth' (1.8). By locating this scene in the

house/temple, Luke helps to provide these happenings with a kind of unim-

peachable apologetic for the message and mission that are set in motion

within these architectural confines—a message and mission, we might say,

that reaches their acme in the outpouring of the Spirit in that other house,

the one shared by Cornelius and his household.

What role does household baptism play in this scene? Within the narra-

tive of Acts, as the community of God's people discerns God's acceptance

of persons, those persons are incorporated into the community through

baptism, signifying forgiveness and acceptance.^26 Household baptism in

she is working with an overly narrow notion of conversion; cf. Nicholas H. Taylor,
'The Social Nature of Conversion in the Early Christian World', in Philip F. Esler
(ed.), Modelling Early Christianity: Social-Scientific Studies of the New Testament in
Its Context (London: Routledge, 1995), pp. 128-36; Joel B. Green, '"To Turn from
Darkness to Light" (Acts 26.18): Conversion in the Narrative of Luke-Acts', in Kenneth
J. Collins and John H. Tyson (eds.), Conversion in the Wesley an Tradition (Nashville:
Abingdon Press, 2001), pp. 103-18.

25. Ernst Haenchen insists that the location of the Pentecost story cannot be the
    temple since Luke 'always' uses TO ispov to designate the temple {The Acts of the
    Apostles: A Commentary [Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1971], p. 168). However, okos
    denotes the temple in Lk. 6.4; 11.51; 19.46; Acts 7.47-49. F.F. Bruce thought that the
    reference to sitting (TOV OIKOV O\J fjoav KCCSTJIJEVOI) disqualified a reference to the
    temple {The Acts of the Apostles: Greek Text with Introduction and Commentary
    [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 3rd edn, 1990], p. 114), but see Lk. 2.46: eupov CCUTOV EV
    TGO ispco KO(0E£6|JEVOV EV \IBOCO TGOV 5i5aoKaXcov... Hence, although Luke does not
    specifically designate the OIKOS of V. 2 as 'temple', there is no good reason to exclude
    this reading and good reasons to support it—e.g. the continued presence of the
    disciples in the temple (e.g. Lk. 24.53), the variety of Lukan usage elsewhere, and the
    size of the audience that gathers (w. 5-11, 44).


26. Cf. Green, 'Significance of Baptism'.