Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed

Captain Mark Read highlights the need for spiritual empowerment

ACTS 19:1–22

WHAT 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, 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

* What do you understand salvation to mean?

* What implications does your salvation have for your daily life?

* To what extent are you aware of the Holy Spirit’s power in your life?

A pattern emerges. Paul speaks in the Jewish meeting place. People listen to him and some are compelled to believe. Sometimes his message provokes opposition and he has to leave and continue his teaching among Gentiles in a secular space. I find that interesting, knowing how reluctant we can be to leave the spaces we are in to minister elsewhere.

Our study passage, like many similar passages in Acts, describes Paul’s daily activity. We can imagine our primary purpose to be the same – to make converts by announcing and pointing to God’s Kingdom. This can diminish other activities within our communities. We often fail to see the larger project that Paul is involved in – the establishing of ‘a network of worship-based, ethically rigorous, egalitarian, philanthropic, fictive kinship groups’, as NT Wright described the early Church in a 2018 Gifford Lecture. This requires all gifts, skills and activities, and holds no single ministry in a higher place than any other.

QUESTIONS

* How do you seek to minister more widely?

* What piece of God’s bigger project are you involved in?

Seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, were seeking to drive out evil spirits ‘in the name of the Jesus, whom Paul preaches’ (v13). In Luke 9, Jesus’ disciples try to prevent a man doing the same. Jesus tells them: ‘Do not stop him … for whoever is not against you is for you’ (vv49 and 50).

In Ephesus – a diverse port city, which was home to many cultural practices including several pagan and magic cults – it seems the sons of Sceva felt that, for added power, they could merely add the name of Jesus to their incantation.

However, faith in Jesus is no mere additive. We cannot borrow activities, policies or programmes from elsewhere, add a veneer of Christianity and expect to extend the Kingdom. Instead, our activity must be entirely shaped and directed by Christ through the power of his Spirit.

QUESTION

* How is your activity Christ-centred?

CAPTAIN READ IS CORPS OFFICER, NORTH DEVON

Through the week with Salvationist

– a devotional thought for each day by Lieut-Colonel Brenda Oakley

SUNDAY

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)

MONDAY

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)

TUESDAY

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)

WEDNESDAY

So Paul asked, ‘Then what baptism did you receive?’ ‘John’s baptism,’ they replied. Paul said, ‘John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance. He told the people to believe in the one coming after him, that is, in Jesus.’ (Acts 19:3 and 4)

THURSDAY

For the kindly chiding of thy Spirit/ When we thought to find an easier way,/ For the gracious guiding of thy Spirit/ And the strength we needed to obey. (SASB 319)

FRIDAY

Paul entered the synagogue and spoke boldly there for three months, arguing persuasively about the Kingdom of God… They refused to believe and publicly maligned the Way. So Paul left them. He took the disciples with him and had discussions daily in the lecture hall of Tyrannus. (Acts 19:8 and 9)

SATURDAY

Come Holy Spirit, thou guest of the soul,/ Make thine abode in me;/ Bring in the calm thy sweet presence bestows,/ Let me thy temple be./ Come to my heart today,/ Come to my heart today,/ Rekindle the glow and the glory bestow,/ Come to my heart today. (SASB 318)

Prayer

Lord Jesus, thank you for the gift of your Holy Spirit. Day by day, as we seek to serve you, empower us to live in a way that pleases you and is worthy of your calling.