Peter mentions male and female servants in connection with the list of all those upon whom the Spirit is poured out. The Holy Spirit is no longer distributed to only a few people on special occasions but to everyone—sons and daughters, young men and old men, even servants. All distinctions in terms of caste and class are obsolete in God’s church.1 The Holy Spirit will now be poured out on all sorts of people, everyone who repents and believes in Jesus Christ (Acts 2:38) including those from a Gentile background (Acts 11:15–18).2 This abundance is one of the ways in which the work of the Spirit in the new covenant is different from his work in the old.3
18 even on my male servants and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy.