BIBLE STUDY
Did you receive the Holy Spirit when yo Captain Mark Read highlights the need for spiritual empowerment
ACTS 19:1–22
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HAT is the most important thing that you have ever done? I wonder what you have poured time, energy and resources into – or what, despite the challenges and costs, you have felt compelled to see through, or what you see as the climax of your work. Looking at Paul’s life, his time in Ephesus might be the climax of his work. Here, Paul meets some disciples and asks: ‘Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?’ (v2). We might wonder why Paul feels the need to ask this question. It could seem accusatory, which might tally with Paul’s confrontational character, but what has he noticed to provoke his question? What deficit has he observed? When they answer Paul, saying that they have never heard of the Holy Spirit,
Through the week with Salvationist – a devotional thought for each day by Lieut-Colonel Brenda Oakley
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he replies: ‘Then what baptism did you receive?’ (v3). They respond: ‘John’s baptism.’ This reply illuminates two different understandings of the significance of baptism. John’s hearers were baptised in response to the need for repentance. The inference is that to be saved they must repent and be baptised. As Luke records, John ‘went into all the country around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins’ (Luke 3:3). Another way to see baptism is that – just as the Exodus marked escape from death and the birth of a new nation – it is a mark of someone who, through repentance and faith, has been born into the new life of God’s Kingdom. The disciples in Ephesus had responded to the repentance part of John’s message. Paul tells them that
John also told the people to ‘believe in the one coming after him, that is, in Jesus’ (v4). Equally, they had not heard John’s teaching on how Jesus will baptise ‘with the Holy Spirit and with fire’ (Luke 3:16). In response to these revelations, the disciples at Ephesus are ‘baptised in the name of the Lord Jesus’ (v5). Then, as Paul places his hands on them, the Holy Spirit comes upon them and they are empowered for service. It is easy for us to fail to grasp what is available to us – the power of the Spirit. It is possible to be part of a fellowship yet not feel the need for Holy Spirit power. QUESTIONS O What do you understand salvation to mean? O What implications does your salvation have for your daily life?
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Who is it tells me what to do/ And helps me to obey?/ Who is it plans the route for me/ And will not let me stray?/ Who is it tells me when to speak/ And what I ought to say?/ That’s the Spirit! Holy Spirit!/ That’s the Spirit of the Lord in me! (SASB 329)
Paul took the road through the interior and arrived at Ephesus. There he found some disciples and asked them, ‘Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?’ They answered, ‘No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.’ (Acts 19:1 and 2)
Come, thou all-inspiring Spirit,/ Into every longing heart!/ Won for us by Jesus’ merit,/ Now thy blissful self impart./ Sign our uncontested pardon,/ Wash us in the atoning blood;/ Make our hearts a watered garden,/ Fill our spotless souls with God. (SASB 298)
Salvationist 19 June 2021
