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Results from: Answered Bible Questions, Answers, Unanswered Bible Questions, Notes Ordered by Verse | ||||||
Results | Verse | Author | ID# | |||
1 | What do you do with Acts 8:16? | 1 Pet 3:21 | Rowdy | 118646 | ||
First of all, I must apologize for not responding earlier so as to prevent your withdrawal. As long as a person is quoting and asking a question from the Bible directly to me, I'm ALWAYS willing to at least discuss it, especially if the verse is from the NT. Inserted for reference: Acts 8:14 Now when the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent them Peter and John, 15 who came down and prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit. 16 For He had not yet fallen upon any of them; they had simply been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. 17 Then they began laying their hands on them, and they were receiving the Holy Spirit. You emphasize verse 16 and I'm inferring you are emphasizing the word "simply." From that assumption, I can only conclude you might be thinking this means that being "baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus" does not mean that these folks were saved. Maybe in today's world without the miraculous measure of the Holy Spirit evident all everyone christians went in the first century this use of the word simply might mean such a thing. BUT I think there was so much emphasis and attraction to miracles and the ability to perform them (just as we see in the verses following 17) that some christiains felt "left out" and not fully in receipt of God's portion of christianity He was pouring out on the whole world AT THAT TIME. This is the main reason so much of Paul's writing to the Corinthians was devoted to the miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit. Most christians ended up misusing them or at the very least misunderstanding their main purpose, thus their ending is forecasted in 1 Cor 13. If a person analyzes the logic in this thread with emphasis on the statement as you've made, I'm afraid almost anyone would see the error in your conclusion. I see your point but it's merely just ONE WAY to interpret verse 16 and since the bulk of the NT clearly portrays baptism as prerequisite to salvation, I'll have to stick to the Bible's emphasis on all the 5 steps of salvation as cited earlier. IF I've drawn the wrong conclusion from your post, please correct me and I'll try again. Thanks and God bless. --Rowdy |
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2 | What do you do with Acts 8:16? | 1 Pet 3:21 | Rowdy | 118761 | ||
I thought of another illustration that might make this even more clear. Have you ever been through a special canvasing of a community with flyers with coupons to a local business? And then follow up that campaign with another one in a neighboring community but with a few minor differences, maybe an expiration date on each of the coupon sheets? Or some other differnce? Maybe one is better than the other, with larger discounts? That's the scenario I would paint for you to help you understand the first century world of christians. Now remember, we're dealing with first century christians who were just getting acquainted with God and Godliness as in the case of Corinth. So, in some cities, word of this miraculous measure of power from the Holy Spirit was being spread around the known world, originating in Jerusalem. As you can imagine the cities (congregations of christians) who didn't have these miraculous powers would want those powers and want them very badly, maybe even lust for these abilities. Now maybe you can imagine just how bad things were in the first century and no wonder that our Lord DOESN'T see fit to have this miraculous age to go on with human beings in control. Once again, our Lord wants us to graduate from this kind of simple and shallow spiritual depth in our walk with God. He wants us to grow and mature and get out of this kind of addiction for the physical world and learn to prefer His world of the spiritual, the infinite over the finite. I hope this analogy helps all those who might read this thread. God bless. --Rowdy |
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