Week 43 Acts 19
This past week I’ve been thinking about the set of connected ideas related to coming to faith in the Lord. Luke bundles at least four items that are part of that decision to come to Christ: there’s the 180-degree turning-from-sin & turning-to-God plus baptism-in-water plus baptism-in-the-Holy-Spirit plus speaking-in-tongues.
Today I did a quick scan back through Acts – double-checking before I move on. Some people pretty much just turned to the Lord and were baptized-in-water. That’s what happened with the crowd in chapter two & the Ethiopian man & Paul & Lydia & the jailer & Crispus. Nothing much about the Holy Spirit or speaking-in-tongues.
In other stories the Holy Spirit is definitely part of the whole experience – the apostles in chapter two & Cornelius & the men in Ephesus. They believed and then the Holy Spirit came and they spoke-in-tongues.
Different people seem to have different experiences at the point of belief. I wonder what’s mandatory. Wonder if I’m missing something. For now I’ll stick with Peter: each of you must turn from your sins and turn to God, and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. Then you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
That’s fine for now but I still have 22 letters to read. So there’s more to come. Peter’s idea will likely get some fine-tuning.
Note: quote from Acts 2:38 (NLT) and see the stories in 8:36-38 9:18 16:14-15 16:31-34 18:8 10:44-46 19:5-7. End-of-October reading report: I’ve read 88% of the text. So I’m in pretty good shape heading into November.