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The Dawn of the Age of the Spirit

Acts 2.1-21 (https://www.biblegateway.com NRSVA)
Last week we saw how Luke thinks of salvation history unfolding in three distinct phases, the period from creation until the coming of Jesus, the earthly ministry of Jesus himself, and finally the age in which we are now living, the Age of the Spirit. This new age was ushered in, at Pentecost after the first Easter Day, when the Spirit - which Jesus had promised to his disciples - rushed in upon them like wind and fire.
There is a problem with Luke’s neat sub-division of history. This isn’t the first time that the Spirit has filled human beings. Granted that the Spirit is always part of what it means to be God, hovering over creation when the Creator God spoke the cosmos into being (Gen 1.2) and ever present in Jesus (Luke 4.18), should it have filled ordinary people too if Luke’s strict demarcation of history is correct? But in Judges 15.14 we find that the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon Samson, and in 1 Samuel 10 the spirit of the Lord took possession of the young King Saul. And these are just too examples. So what was going on?
Luke has thought about this problem, and draws inspiration from Peter’s first sermon on the day of Pentecost to explain it. Sometimes the Spirit of God does exceptional things, because that is in God’s nature. He can inspire whomever he wills. But, ‘in the last days’, says Peter, God has promised ‘to pour out his Spirit upon all flesh.’ This is indiscriminate generosity. It’s no longer just heroes, kings and prophets who’ll be inspired. Everyone ‘shall prophesy’!  ‘Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit,’ says Peter, quoting from the Prophet Joel (Joel 2.28-32). ‘Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’
Is this something which Jesus had explained to the disciples while they were with him? Or is it something which Peter had concluded from his own Bible study after the resurrection? Or are these words which Luke has put into the mouth of Peter to justify his own understanding of how God works?
Perhaps they’re the original words of Peter, remembered by those around him as he spoke, because the preacher seems to be quoting the Old Testament from memory. The Greek version of Joel - which Luke would have been using when he quotes scripture - doesn't say that the slaves belong to God. Calling them ‘my slaves’ (verse 18) is a misquote - perhaps deliberately so, because Peter might wish to emphasise that we’re all ‘menservants’ and ‘maidservants’ of God, and he’s waiting to inspire us all. However, Joel seems to be thinking that even ordinary people, those at the bottom of the social pile, will be inspired by God - and that’s how the translators of the New Revised Standard Version understand this verse.

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