Once again, “religion” has made the news. Unless you live in a cave somewhere, you by now know the name of Barack Obama’s former pastor, know the controversial things he said, know the reaction that those words have received. “Religion” makes the news all the time, whether it involves Islamic jihad and the terror that it brings to the lives of innocent people, or whether it’s the latest political pronouncement from James Dobson or Pat Robertson, or whether it’s a former preacher running for president, or whether it’s controversies over churches ordaining or “marrying” homosexuals. At least three editorials in the AJC over the past several weeks have addressed the fact that some Southern Baptists have issued a paper on climate change and environmental concerns, and readers this time of year, when the Georgia legislature is in session, get up in arms regarding whether we ought to allow alcohol sales on Sunday or not. I have an opinion there, and some of you probably wouldn’t agree with it, so I’ll forego sharing it here…but the point is that “faith” is a regular topic of discussion in our society.
And that’s as it should be, don’t you think? For evangelical followers of Jesus Christ, we place our faith squarely at the center of our lives. We prioritize our budgets around spending our money in ways that honor God, including giving away a reasonably large proportion of that money to the work of the ministry. We prioritize our time in such a way as to attend church and Bible studies. We prioritize our talents in such a way as to serve others with them. Jesus, for the Christian, isn’t a spare tire we pull out and run for awhile when life gives us a flat. He isn’t merely a passenger in the car, and He isn’t “co-pilot” if we are serious about Him. No, hop over, Jesus wants to drive! And if we are obedient to the Bible, we let Him! Faith is an important topic, and rightly so.
But just as “everybody talkin’ ‘bout Heaven ain’t a-goin’ there”, and just as everybody talking about the Lord doesn’t know Him, so it’s true that just because someone says, “I have faith”, that doesn’t make it so. The fact is, as today’s text will show, without adequate truth, we cannot have adequate faith. Let’s read the text!
3 weeks is a long time to remember, but if you can think back that far, remember that we met a man named Apollos, who is mentioned again here in passing. Apollos, if you remember, was a great guy, a terrific orator with a sincere heart and a lot of learning. But the problem that Apollos had was that he had an incomplete grasp on the gospel; he was zealous to proclaim what he knew, but he didn’t know enough! Chances are that, when a wonderful couple named Aquila and Priscilla met him, he didn’t even understand enough of the gospel message to himself be considered a Christian. They, of course, took him aside and explained more fully the message of salvation in Christ, and this talented young man became a tremendous witness of the gospel.
What he knew was the “baptism of John”. This is the link with today’s passage, for we come across some other people who are in this same predicament.
This is an unusual passage, one that has been the subject of much debate, because it presents a pretty unusual scenario to us. The controversies surrounding this passage include the question of whether the twelve men of which we read were truly born again followers of Christ, or were instead deficient enough in their understanding of the gospel that their belief, like that of Apollos earlier, could not be considered saving faith. I will take that latter position in this message.
This is a good point to remember something I said a lot early on in this study, and that’s this: history (as is the book of Acts) needs to be read as being descriptive, rather than being necessarily prescriptive. History describes what happened, rather than necessarily prescribing the way things ought to work in the future. Acts must be read descriptively, because we’ll get into a mess if we attempt to take all of the unusual ways that the Spirit works in Acts, smuggle them into the 21st century, and say, “since God acted this way then, He will act the same way now.” He may, or He may not, but we should not make the mistake of reading Acts through the wrong lens; today’s text calls for that warning. First,
I. Paul comes to Ephesus
Paul is on his third and final missions trip, and this passage finds him in Ephesus, visiting a city that he’d previously been in briefly, one which had responded quite well to the gospel message. He ended up spending about 3 years in this city (ca. AD 53-56), and yet Luke chooses to record little of his ministry there.
The Temple of Artemis, the goddess of fertility, stood in Ephesus, and was one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world. Aside: when you hear of the “Temple of Artemis”, do any of the rest of you think of “Artemus Gordon” from the Wild, Wild West? Just asking…anyway, the fact that this was a center of pagan worship comes into play later on in this chapter, when a riot breaks out over the competing claims of Christ and Artemis.
II. Paul finds some “disciples”
Now note that we put this word in quotation marks, because as I said earlier, it seems clear to me that these men, while good, sincere, and devout, were not true followers of Christ. It’s true that Luke has used the term “disciples” to categorize these men, but we shouldn’t read too much into this; he does similar things elsewhere, portraying the spiritual condition of some others by their actions without evaluating too deeply the bases of their commitments. Remember, we earlier read of a fellow named Simon, who Luke says had “believed”, but he turned out to be a magician whose “belief” consisted of a show, a ploy in order to gain more power and wealth for himself.
Paul quickly discerned that something was amiss. Something didn’t ring true. Something was fishy, despite these men’s words—or perhaps because of their words, for all we know. We’re left to speculate as to how it was that Paul sensed that something was lacking in their understanding, but it raises a good question for us, and we can talk about it:
Table Talk
What are some of the things that ought to characterize a true follower of Christ?
Think about things that a Christian should know, things he should do, things that should be able to be seen in his/her life.
Notice the importance, for us, of defining terms clearly when communicating the gospel. Let me use a sports term that many of us will recognize: “home field advantage”. Just yesterday, listening to ESPN, I heard one coach complaining that North Carolina had “home court advantage” in the national tournament, because the games were being played in the state of North Carolina where they could rally so many fans so easily. “Home field”, or “home court” advantage refers to the fact that teams tend to play better when they are in front of the home crowd. Here’s my point: as Christians, we once had, for most of our nation’s history, “home field advantage” when it came to propagating the gospel. People had significant acquaintance with the Bible, with the basic message of the gospel, with the idea that there were fixed standards of right and wrong, with the idea of sin, and the like. There was a great respect for churches, for clergy, etc. Even if a person was rebellious toward God, there was some strong sense that he knew that he should be living differently, and he was pretty sure that getting into church was a significant step in the right direction. Such is no longer the case.
And it’s also true that just saying, “God”, doesn’t mean much anymore in this culture, because we cannot afford to assume that people understand the God the Bible describes just because they nod assent to the term or tip their caps in the general direction of some “God”. Here were some men who believed that they had everything that God had to offer, calling themselves “disciples”, and yet they didn’t know enough of the truth to really have saving faith in Christ. We cannot assume what we used to assume!
Sensing that there was a problem, we find in verse 2 that
III. Paul asks some questions
Question 1: “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?”
• Paul initially must have assumed that these men he met were truly Christians
• Paul assumed that true belief, and the reception of the Holy Spirit, went hand-in-hand, that the two happened simultaneously both logically and chronologically
• Paul assumed that the reception of the Holy Spirit was something which could be clearly seen and felt
Some of our charismatic friends make what I believe to be a mistake in separating the moment of salvation from the reception of the Holy Spirit. The problem is that it is crystal clear that these individuals were not followers of Christ; Paul’s question was not prompted by his belief in a two-stage formula for belief, the first being receiving Christ, and the second being receiving the Holy Spirit; instead, he sensed that there was something wrong with their profession of faith—which there was!
And they say, “we haven’t even heard that there is a Holy Spirit!” Donald Barnhouse tells the story of a group of colonists who during the latter part of the 18th century left Virginia and moved out west to settle the valleys that lay there. Some ended up staying in the mountains, though, for fear of Indians, the breaking down of a wagon, or some other reason. For over twenty years, these colonists saw no white man other than those of their own clan, until one day a group of travelers came into their territory. Conversation shifted to the events of the nation, and the travelers asked the mountaineers what they thought of the new republic, and of the policies of the Continental Congress. “We’ve never even heard of this new republic, nor of this Continental Congress”, they replied. These mountain folk, cut off from civilization, still considered themselves loyal subjects of the king.
Now, the response of these men cannot mean that they had never heard the term “Holy Spirit”. The Spirit is referred to often in the Old Testament, and John Baptist himself spoke of the Spirit, that the Messiah who was to come would baptize with the Spirit. What they must have meant was that they had not heard anything of the events of Pentecost, of the fulfillment of John Baptist’s words, of the coming of the Holy Spirit.
Paul asks a second question: “Into what then were you baptized?” If Paul’s first question linked the Holy Spirit with belief, his second links the Spirit with baptism. In response to the question, the men answered that their baptism was John’s baptism of repentance. To refresh your memories from three weeks ago, John Baptist had come to prepare the way for the coming Messiah, Christ, and had told the people that they needed to repent of their sins, to get their houses in order for the next big move of God. Being baptized by John in the Jordan River symbolized a person’s acceptance of John’s message, of a person’s willingness to turn from sin and to be ready for God’s work in his life.
Apparently these guys were, like Apollos, responding to the light that they had, knowing nothing of Jesus, and following John as the forerunner of the Messiah. We don’t know that this was happening in this case, but it bears being said: John Baptist was quite the charismatic guy. Oh, in one sense, he was a lone wolf, wilderness-dwelling off-the-beaten-path eccentric, but he was a fiery, dynamic preacher who had attracted a following, and it’s possible that one of the attractions these disciples had was to the man himself, as a fiery orator and man of God. My point is that there’s a caution for us, that we focus on Christ, and not on frail individuals. I sound like a broken record, but in an American Idol society where we make heroes out of some dubious folk, we had better be careful not to simply accept the words of any person, any professed preacher of the gospel, simply because he calls himself a preacher of the gospel and is able to deliver an inspiring message. Always check out the Word!
These guys were sincere, as was Apollos, but they were still living in the Old Testament; they didn’t understand that the new age had been ushered in through the coming of Christ. But Paul doesn’t leave them in that state:
IV. Paul provides some answers
And Paul said, “John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in the one who was to come after him, that is, Jesus.” Now, I’m real sure that at this point, Paul went into great detail about Who Jesus was, about what He’d done, His death and resurrection, and the like. Paul didn’t hesitate to preach the gospel to them as he would to any of the Jews.
One of the things that I, as a preacher, have to be careful to do is not to assume that people who sit here every week, even those with their names on the church roll, truly know Christ by faith. I learned that lesson early in ministry, in my first church, and I can peg it to the time I learned it: Brent was born that week, and this coming Thursday, the boy turns 18, so it was 18 years ago, one evening after I had given a message, that crippled old Mr. Locklear came to talk to me. He’d had a stroke, and he really couldn’t speak other than to mumble a few mostly unintelligible sounds. He was in his 80s, and he said that he wanted to trust Christ. He and his wife were longtime members of the church, and she was obviously embarrassed by this behavior, dismissing his words as the ravings of an old man whose mind was failing. But Mr. Locklear was adamant with her, almost to the point of anger, and in tears, he let it be known that he needed to settle once and for all the question of his eternal soul. And he did!
And in the event that any of you are here and you’ve never placed your faith in Christ alone for salvation, I’d love to speak with you as well. These men thought they were disciples, but upon further review, found out that their faith was deficient. They had inadequate knowledge, and thus they had insufficient faith. Their trust was misplaced. Is there any chance that yours is?
V. Paul baptizes these full disciples
The only baptism with which they were familiar was that of John Baptist, and the Bible leaves out here any mention of faith, but that’s in keeping with the fact that there are many times when Luke uses “shorthand” to describe key events. Had they not faith in Christ, they’d not have submitted to baptism at the hand of Paul; had they not professed faith in Christ, Paul would not have baptized them!
Note again the linkage between faith and baptism. Not to confuse the two, but to emphasize the pattern we regularly see in Acts: those who followed Christ confessed that publicly by undergoing baptism!
VI. Paul imparts the Holy Spirit
Interestingly, it took the laying on of Paul’s hands, in this account, for these men to receive the Holy Spirit. This tends to make many of us a bit itchy, but remember our rule of reading history, particularly Acts: descriptive, not prescriptive.
They were baptized into Christ; Paul laid his hands on them (giving his approval as an apostle to what was happening), the Holy Spirit came on them, and they experienced their own “mini-Pentecost”. In fact, we could even speak of four “Pentecosts” in Acts:
• To Jewish believers in Jerusalem
• To the Samaritans through Philip
• To Gentiles by Peter
• To dispersed Jews here, through Paul
These men praised God and exalted Christ, speaking of Him to others. Ultimately, the Spirit’s presence in these men and others so lifted up Christ that idols in the town of Ephesus were burned to the ground as the hearts of people were changed.
While we may not take the experience of these men as the norm, in that speaking in tongues, according to Paul, is not a necessary experience accompanying salvation and the coming of the Spirit, we should at the same time consider the importance of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer. “The ministry of the Holy Spirit is to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ and, during this age, to convict men, regenerate the believing sinner, and indwell, guide, instruct and empower the believer for godly living and service” (EFCA Statement of Faith).
John Stott makes a great comment on this event:
“The norm of Christian experience, then, is a cluster of four things: repentance, faith in Jesus, water baptism, and the gift of the Holy Spirit. Though the…order may vary a little, the four belong together and are universal in Christian initiation. The laying-on of apostolic hands, however, together with tongue-speaking and prophesying, were special to Ephesus, as to Samaria, in order to demonstrate visibly and publicly that particular groups were incorporated into Christ by the Spirit; the New Testament does not universalize them. There are no Samaritans or disciples of John the Baptist left in the world today.”
Table Talk
Look at the EFCA Statement of Faith regarding the Holy Spirit: “The ministry of the Holy Spirit is to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ and, during this age, to convict men, regenerate the believing sinner, and indwell, guide, instruct and empower the believer for godly living and service”. Which of these works of the Spirit are particularly meaningful to you, and why?
