Reading for Feb 14-18
Acts 19:1-22
Paul’s 3nd Missionary Journey
Monday
What Makes a Christian a Christian?
“Paul . . . reached Ephesus . . . where he found several believers. 'Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?' he asked them. 'No,' they replied, 'we haven’t even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.' ” Acts 19:1-2 (NLT)
Pastor’s Reflection
This section of Acts is fascinating.
How could a believer be a believer without ever hearing, much less receiving, the Holy Spirit?
Somehow this (probably) subgroup of a synagogue in Ephesus, meeting separately during the week, had been baptized with John’s baptism, a baptism in water symbolizing repentance and cleansing from sin. Somehow, however, they never got the message that Jesus is everything to Christianity. They probably had some notion that Jesus had something to do with it, but they had yet to understand that repentance isn’t enough. One has to believe in Jesus, receive Him into one’s life as leader of one’s life and forgiver of sin. At that point, then, one is “filled” with the Spirit of Jesus, the Holy Spirit, the power to live the otherwise impossible to live Christian Life.
I do not believe this passage supports a two stage process of becoming a Christian where one first becomes born again, then, only later, receives a “baptism” in the Holy Spirit. Rather this passage shows that these Ephesians had gotten “half a Gospel”, the repentance part, but hadn’t yet gotten the leadership of Jesus in their lives. Of course every believer has times of experiencing the Holy Spirit in deeper ways, sometimes very profound. Yet to say that one can become a Christian without the fullness of the Holy Spirit doesn’t work biblically. The real question is not how much of the Holy Spirit one has, rather how much of you the Holy Spirit has.
As a pastor I find it easy to understand how these Ephesian believers had not gotten their understanding of Jesus right. All I have to do is to look back on the many weird beliefs that I have heard believers express over the past 20 years or so!
Thankfully judgment day will not be a test on correct doctrine. It will however have everything to do with the degree to which I have allowed Jesus to lead my life.
I wonder....
ReplyDeletein Ephesians (and supported in Corinthians) we are told the Holy Spirit is God's seal on us. This seal marks us as God's, it proves ownership. It also, among other things, protects us from Satan & his gang. They see the seal of God, the seal of the Holy Spirit and its "hands off", we belong to God.
The Holy Spirit is also a "deposit" of what we will experience when that glorious trumpet sounds and we are changed in a twinkling of an eye.
Romans tell us to "not get drunk, but BE FILLED by the Holy Spirit".
I wonder if Apollos had made his choice and was sealed without his being aware of it.
As a young child, I had a drawing to God that kept me going up to the front at every alter call (I was raised in a southern Baptist church, they were big on altar calls & revivals). I never knew if "it took". I was 10-11 yrs old at the time.
One time during a call for "rededication", whatever that means, up I went. The pastor was patient, but truly didn't know what to do with me.
I got baptized with the adults, the only kid and was asked if I knew what baptism meant. I did not. I only knew I had to do it. That I wanted to do it, I was ready to do it. I knew it meant a proclamation that I was seeking God. So, I was baptized.
Did I have the Holy Spirit? Most definately, when I look back and see how I was used as a child, at that time. Did I know I had the Holy Spirit, the answer is "no".
As an adult, at a homegroup in another church, I experienced the 'baptisim' of the Holy Spirit. I felt at the time that I had the Holy Spirit, but I went ahead and let others pray. Yes, I had an experience that the Holy Spirit moved in me. Was He always there? Yes, of course. Did He choose to "fill" me at that time? Yes, I believe He did.
The Holy Spirit isn't a gas tank. He chooses to move in us and through us both quietly and experientially. He is God, one cannot partake of Jesus without God, one cannot partake of God without the Holy Spirit and vice versa in all the ways you can make a triangle interspersed.
His seal is on us the moment we believe. His filling of us happens over and over throughout our lives. And what a miracle and gracious thing it is.
Thank you for your wonderful testimony Lynda. I agree that the Spirit does not fill as liquid fills a glass but as wind fills a sail...
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