<p>2:39 <i>For to you is the promise, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, as many as the Lord our God shall call to him</i><i>- </i>Peter&rsquo;s maiden speech on the day of Pentecost was a conscious undoing of his denials, and consciously motivated by the experience of forgiveness which he knew he had received. Having been converted, he was now strengthening his Jewish brethren. He went and stood literally a stone&rsquo;s throw from the High Priest&rsquo;s house, and stood up and declared to the world his belief that Jesus was and is Christ. Peter also preached in Solomon&rsquo;s Porch, the very place where the Lord had declared Himself to Israel as their Saviour (Jn. 10:33; Acts 5:12). Peter at the time of his denials had been &quot;afar off&quot; from the Lord Jesus (Mt. 26:58; Mk. 14:54; Lk. 22:54- all the synoptics emphasize this point). Peter's denials would've been the talk of the town in Jerusalem. So when in Acts 2:39 he says that there is a promised blessing for &quot;all&quot; that are far off... I think he's alluding back to himself, setting himself up as a pattern for all other sinners to find salvation. That's perhaps why he talks of &quot;all&quot; those others who are also &quot;far off&quot; as he had been. He could've just spoken of &quot;they&quot; or &quot;those&quot; who are far off. But the use of &quot;all&quot; may suggest he is hinting that the audience follow his pattern. This, in Peter's context, makes the more sense if we see <i>one </i>of the aspects of the promised Spirit blessing as that of forgiveness and salvation- as in Acts 3:25,26, the blessing was to be turned away from sins. See on Acts 3:26; 1 Pet. 2:25; Lk. 5:8.</p><p>As shown on :38 <i>The gift</i>, &quot;afar off&quot; alludes to Is. 57:19: &quot;Peace (with God through forgiveness) to him that is far off&quot;. This is speaking of Gentiles; Peter was inspired to preach that the ministry of the Spirit was for the Jerusalem Jews, their children who lived in the Gentile world, in the locations from which they had come to spend their retirement in Jerusalem, i.e. the Jewish diaspora- and to the Gentiles. But it's clear from the Cornelius incident that Peter still failed to grasp the import of the words he was preaching- just like us.</p>