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Friday, July 2, 2010

The Holy Spirit and the gift of tongues (pt. 4)

My last blog ended with the question: Why does the Holy Spirit go underground in the last part of Acts? As I promised, that question takes us back to the “baptism of the Holy Spirit.”
In the first part of Acts, Luke firmly established that the Holy Spirit is the one who moves the Gospel as he indwells believers. Now he no longer needs to remind his readers of this fact as often.
This is proven in Acts 19 in Ephesus when Paul asks his wary question of those who called themselves disciples: “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?" To which they responded: "No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit" (v. 2). Paul discovered these disciples didn’t know the true Gospel story; they had only been baptized into John’s baptism for repentance. Paul gives them the Gospel story, baptizes them into Jesus when they receive the story, then lays hands on them to receive the Holy Spirit.
When we try to understand this story on its own, we get tied up with the laying on of hands and the tongues. The context puts a different focus on the story which is actually about the faith of believers, not about “the baptism of the Holy Spirit.” In this case, the believers’ faith is based on an incomplete Gospel. It is simply based on the baptism of John for repentance without the true Messiah playing any part. The problem is not in the baptism of John – which does not demand a “rebaptism” into Jesus. The problem is that the baptism for repentance was not followed by faith in the Messiah. If it had been, there would have been no need for the twelve men to be baptized again after the baptism of John. How can I say that with certainty?
Look up at Acts 18:24-28 and you will see the beginning of this story. Also in Ephesus, Apollos is a man who, like the other twelve men, was only baptized into the baptism of John. But this man “had been instructed in the way of the Lord, and he spoke with great fervor and taught about Jesus accurately” (v. 25). When he comes to the attention of the Christian missionaries, he is not rebaptized, nor does he need to receive the Holy Spirit by laying on of hands as his misguided Ephesian brothers need. Instead “When Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they invited him to their home and explained to him the way of God more adequately” (v. 26, emphasis added). Apollos is already a true believer, already filled with the Holy Spirit. He just needs a little better understanding of how to properly understand the scriptures he already knew. (Doe he sound like someone you might know?)
But this isn't all we see in this passage in Acts. Come back to examine the rest of the story with me.

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