Acts 4:23-31 The believers prayed ...

Acts 4:23-31 Next, the apostles and believers hold a prayer meeting and the place was shaken. They have a unified prayer meeting. The apostles and their companions considered the threats and warnings of the Jewish leaders, and prayed, firstly Psalm 146:6, recollecting God's power demonstrated in creation, and secondly Psalm 2:1-2, David's prophecy or statement of fact regarding the rage of the worldly governments against the Messiah of God. They recalled God's sovereignty. And then they prayed, not that they would be protected from evil governments or kept safe from persecution, but that they would be granted boldness and confidence to proclaim God's message with signs and wonders following. 

          Verse 31 is the capstone of this prayer meeting. The place where they gathered was shaken and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak the word of God with boldness. There is no further information on what kind of shaking took place. Perhaps there was an earthquake. Or perhaps the people were so overcome by the Holy Spirit that their spirit and soul were shaken. But that the result of being filled with the Holy Spirit was not that they spoke in tongues, or prophesied, but that they spoke God's word with boldness, suggests that at least those who were companions of the apostles, and we have no information as to how many were present at this prayer meeting, received the promise of Acts 2:38-39, the Holy Spirit now infused all who were present.  But the phenomenon accompanying this filling was speaking the word of God with boldness.

          There is perhaps a fitness to the way God works. On Pentecost, Jews from all over the world were present, and the Holy Spirit empowered the disciples to speak in languages that they would all understand. On this occasion, they had been threatened about speaking about Jesus, His crucifixion and resurrection, and salvation in His name - the stuff of the scriptures. And so the Holy Spirit empowered them - perhaps involuntarily - to speak the word of God boldly. If nothing else, this is confirmation that the apostles and the early church (all 8,000 of them, perhaps?) were approved by God to go ahead and ignore the Jewish leadership's warning not to speak in Jesus' name, but instead to proclaim it. And in later passages, the presence of the Holy Spirit is manifested in other types of phenomena, to make specific points that are directly germane to the circumstances.