Today's Reading
1 Kings: Solomon's wisdom and wealth were beyond anything ever experienced. Yet, notice the mention of "Pharaoh's daughter" as one of his wives. He was warned against taking the wives of pagan peoples, but he did it and that brought down his descendants.
Acts tells the vivid account of Philip and the Ethiopian. This is a popular children's Bible story, but it is so much more. Think of it! Philip obeyed God and went. God led him to this specific man. God had prepared the man's heart. Philip simply shared the Good News. The man received Christ and Philip went away. In the meantime, the man took the Good News of Jesus to Africa. The history of Christianity in Ethiopia goes all the way back to that time!
Psalms: "I am counting on the Lord," wrote the Psalmist. Are you? Am I?
Proverbs: when you put today's verses together, part of gaining wisdom is having the heart tested by God. May I grow in purity of heart!
How about you today?
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Acts 8:14 - 17 says that the people were baptised but had not received the Holy Spirit - the apostle had to go and "give it to them". So, do we receive the Holy Spirit when we accept Christ or not?? Are we all "apostles" to give Him or does someone "special" have to do it? I've been taught that we ALL receive the Holy Spirit when we believe - period. No baptism is necessary because it's not what saves us... our hearts belief is what saves us. Is the Holy Spirit NOT part of that belief?
ReplyDeleteHey Chewie,
ReplyDeleteThanks for thought-provoking questions. I'm not sure we can ever know fully what it was like back then. However, many people have built entire doctrinal positions on passages like this one to which you prefer. We need to understand, that they were living through this without the benefit of the more complete picture which we have. We have the four Gospels -- they had only the verbal stories of Jesus being shared. They were living the book of Acts and they didn't have any of the rest of the New Testament. Paul wrote much later to the Corinthian church (whom he called "carnal") and said, "by one Spirit we have all been baptized..." (1 Cor. 12:13). The people in that church had surely not all been touched by some "special" person.
Regarding the "necessity" of baptism, some people believe it IS necessary to be baptized by water to be saved. Our church teaches that baptism is an act of obedience to Christ AFTER we are saved to show the world outwardly what Christ is doing in our hearts. Christ alone is sufficient for our salvation and all we must do is believe.
Bottom line: be cautious about building a doctrinal position on the unfolding history in Acts. God gave us many other Scriptures that must fit together to help form our foundations.
I hope this helps. Again, thanks for the question!