Obedient to their Lord's command to await the Spirit's coming in Jerusalem, the disciples return to the city (compare 1:4). They gather in a spacious room above the tumult and prying eyes of street traffic.

The assembly included three elements: the eleven apostles, women and Jesus' relatives. Luke explicitly names the eleven and in that way establishes the continuity between Jesus' ministry and the apostolic foundation of the church (compare Lk 6:14-16). Luke also draws attention to the faithful women who accompanied and physically supported Jesus in his ministry. They had witnessed his death and received the first news of his resurrection (Lk 8:1-3; 23:49; 24:1-11). Luke's discussions of women serve to indicate that barriers of gender are abolished among those who will participate in the church's witness in power. In referring to Jesus' family, Luke not only foreshadows the leadership that some of those relatives would exercise (Acts 12:7; 15:13; 21:18) but also highlights Jesus' messiahship and the link between the church and Israel.

This core of disciples, along with others, engaged in united, persistent prayer. They had not been commanded to pray, only to wait. But Jesus' own example at his baptism and his teachings, especially regarding how the Spirit would come in response to prayer, probably provided enough guidance (Lk 3:21; 11:13; 18:1, 8). The disciples' prayer was united, a quality that would characterize their common life under the Spirit's blessing (Acts 2:46; 4:24; 5:12). Their prayer was persistent. They devoted themselves to set times of daily corporate prayer until God answered from heaven.

The Fulton Street prayer meeting that sparked a revival in America in 1858 began with six people. Within six months there were ten thousand businessmen gathering daily for prayer in New York City, and within two years one million converts were added to the American church (Orr 1953:13). A. T. Pierson said, "There has never been a revival in any country that has not begun in united prayer, and no revival has ever continued beyond the duration of those prayer meetings" (quoted in Orr 1937:47). We must prepare for any fresh outpouring of the Spirit by united, persistent prayer.