Pentecost was one of the three great feast days of the Jews. (The other two being Passover and Tabernacles.) They observed all three of these feast days by making a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Christians know Pentecost as the birthday of the church, from Acts chapter two. It was the day on which Peter and the other apostles first preached the good news of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, when “they that gladly received his word were baptized: and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls.” The church then began meeting in Jerusalem, “and the Lord added to them day by day those that were saved” (Acts 2:47 ASV).

Pentecost means “fifty days,” and was the name that Greek speaking Jews gave to the “Feast of the Harvest,” or “Day of First Fruits.” Pentecost was linked with the Passover, because the date of celebrating Pentecost was determined by counting fifty days from the offering of the first fruits of grain after the celebration of Passover.

Leviticus 23:15-16 tells of the institution of the feast of Pentecost: “And ye shall count unto you from the morrow after the sabbath, from the day that ye brought the sheaf of the wave offering; seven sabbaths shall be complete: Even unto the morrow after the seventh sabbath shall ye number fifty days; and ye shall offer a new meat offering unto the LORD.” The “morrow after the sabbath” would be the first day of the week, or Sunday. Seven weeks later, plus the day itself, would make Pentecost always fall on a Sunday. It is thus easy to understand why the early Christians began to meet each Sunday, or first day of the week for worship, since Christ was raised from the dead on the first day of the week, and the church began on the first day of the week.

One of the essential parts of the feast of Pentecost was the offering of two loaves of leavened bread made from the grain crop that had just been harvested. In many ways the feast of Pentecost was a completion of the celebration which had begun with Passover, also known as the “Feast of Unleavened Bread.” Fifty days before, the people had eaten unleavened bread, as they began harvesting grain. At the end of the period, they again used leaven and offered a thanksgiving to God in the form of bread made from the first fruits of the harvest.

The second chapter of Acts describes the multitude of men gathered at Jerusalem for Pentecost. “And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven” (Acts 2:5). Thus there were Jews from all over the world in Jerusalem when the church began, and preparation was made for Christians to take the gospel to the world. God planned the church to take the gospel into all the world, so He planned for the church to begin with a core of believers who would be going into all the world as they returned home from Jerusalem. There is no record of the church celebrating Pentecost as a special day in the New Testament. Any celebration of Pentecost by Christians came long after the apostolic period. The church of the New Testament has only one special day, the first day of the week, or Sunday.