Acts 19... Discipleship, Baptism, Spirit and Church

Acts 19...   Discipleship, Baptism, Spirit and Church

Discipleship:  Incremental, incomplete Discipleship.
Paul is back on his travels, making a third journey in Turkey, heading to the big and important city of Ephesus; you remember he made a brief visit there on his way home from Corinth and promised to revisit...   This time he found a situation that had developed in his absence... the story begins with a wee group who seem to be Christians but when Paul met them but they had not encountered the Holy Spirit, nor been baptised in the Name of Jesus.  I want to look at their story this morning... These guys lived in the melting pot of ideas that had found their way to Ephesus: people like  Apollos had come and taught about Jesus and although he taught well he missed some things out.

How far on were these people in their Christian journey?  As Paul sits with these guys, he becomes aware of things that make him uncomfortable, maybe.  They knew about John the Baptist. They knew that Jesus was the coming “One, who was greater than John...”  They understood about repentance. Did they know about the completed work of Jesus? Did they know about forgiveness of sins? Did they know Jesus had risen from the dead?  They had not yet received the Holy Spirit, and denied any knowledge of who the Spirit is. So there were gaps  in their understanding.

But Luke records two things about them: (1) They were Disciples.  Always in Luke “Disciple” means “Christian.”   If Luke meant that these guys were just disciples of John the Baptist, he was using the word in a very unusual way.  (2) they had “believed”.  The tense indicates a simple factual event.  These guys had clearly believed in Jesus, take some sort of step to put their trust in him. 

That tells me that Discipleship is not something to be neatly packaged up. We can draw an invisible – or sometime a very visible – circle around ourselves, and say “These people are in and these people are out.”  But we might have difficulty deciding whether the people in this story were in or out.  If Christianity were simply about “who is going to heaven?” maybe these questions would make sense.  But Christianity isn't just about buying the ticket; it's about making the journey. Christianity is Discipleship: discipleship is learning: learning is a process.  We are all incomplete disciples. John Drane says “Discipleship is messy because life is messy”.

The Diverse Church.
Luke adds a wee observation: there were about twelve men in all.  This wasn't the entire Church in Ephesus. There was at least one other group – that had the godly Aquila and Priscilla in it and had written a letter of recommendation tor Apollos.  And there may have been others.  What we have in this story is a picture of a  small group, which apparently had not very much contact with the other Christian groups in their city;  the Ephesian Church consisted of unconnected or loosely connected local groups.  This was one of the Ephesian House churches – but Paul was investing in them. 

Paul recognises the diversity of the Church.  Just as discipleship is a journey, messy round the edges, so church is open at the edges, consisting of divergent groups of people.  We often think that the only right way to run the church is something like what we are experiencing this morning – a group of people who meet to sing hymns and songs, to be taught from the Bible, and so on; it has office-bearers, a pastor, a music group, kids work. But the Church in Ephesus consisted of house churches, and some of them were small, struggling, slightly mixed up groups of people who got things wrong.   And that's OK, because Paul still invested in this small, muddled group of believes.   Mike Breen says if we emphasise building the Church, we will probably not make disciples, but if we focus on making disciples, we ill build the Church.  

Jesus-centred Baptism
Paul discerns that they have no experience of the Spirit. We’ll come back to that; first it leads to another question:  “What kind of baptism did you receive?”  “Well, you know how John baptised people who wanted to clean their lives up?  We were kind of baptised that way.”     To our Western minds, it may seem a bit like splitting hairs, but that's  where Paul begins in sorting things out.

John's baptism was about repentance, turning from sin; but that was to be ready for Messiah coming, for Jesus.   John's baptism was about expectation rather than fulfilment (says F F Bruce)   
John could whet people's appetites.  The fulfilment came and comes through Jesus.    He brings God’s reign, ; he brings forgiveness, cleansing, new life.  He has taken our sins away, conquered death; and risen again.  He is the Baptiser in the Spirit. The Spirit comes to bring us the kingdom. 

A baptism based on expectation, preparing the way, is inappropriate, now that the fulfilment has come.   A baptism of expectation is centred on us – our repentance, what we are doing to be ready for the one who is to come.  That is inadequate.  The fulfilment has come.  We need a baptism  of fulfilment.  A baptism of fulfilment is centred on Jesus, on what he does, what he has accomplished on the cross and what he wants to do in your life.  It goes beyond repentance (which is what we do) to a confident faith in what God does: by faith we welcome the presence of Jesus, the new life he gives, the power of the holy Spirit.  So they were baptised in water, in the Name of Jesus (or, Mt 28,   “of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”) Basically it's the same thing. To know Jesus as Saviour and Kingdom bringer, is to know him as “one with the Father” and as “baptiser in the Spirit”.  We need to articulate a faith that is not just about what we do but about what God does.

Lastly,  The indispensable Spirit.
Paul's first question: “Did you receive the Spirit when you believed?” tells us two things. 

(1) Paul observes the absence of the Holy Spirit.  The Spirit “Seals” us as belonging to Jesus and a seal was something you could see.  There were things Paul was looking for as evidence of the Spirit: gifting, awareness of sonship, freedom, fruit including love.  The idea that the Holy Spirit comes to us as this vague, imperceptible influence that may just make us feel a wee bit better deep inside, is not how the New Testament understands the Holy Spirit. He was there at the beginning of time.  The book of Genesis says “The Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the deep.”  His action caused the prophets to know and speak God's word; his action caused the virgin Mary to conceive and bear a child.  He is God at work.  

(2) The coming of the Spirit rightly belongs with believing, with discipleship.  The Spirit is for every believer, every disciple.  Some people use this text to prove that every believer should seek to receive the Holy Spirit after they come to faith.  But that is turning the truth on its head.  It makes receiving the Spirit an add-on to the Christian life.  But Paul is not asking whether they have had a second experience; he is asking whether the experience that is the natural consequence of believing has happened.  He's not talking about an add-on; he's talking about something that is central to the Christian life.  It's not a optional extra; it is part of the package. God never planned for there to be some Christians who are “Spirit-filled” and others who aren't.  HE never planned it for there to be some Christians who have an experience of the Spirit and others who are just normal.  He planned it for every Christian to have an experience of the Spirit.  Spirit filled Christianity is just normal Christianity.  David Pawson says “The Normal Christian Birth” involes repentance, faith, water baptism  and receivign the spirit. Baptism in the Spirit – being immersed in the Holy Spirit,  overwhelmed by the Spirit  – is not an add-on; it is normal Christianity.  Paul is not offering the “Next stage” for these disciples.  Instead, he is sorting out what is missing in their discipleship. 

So, this passage doesn't prove passage that every Christian needs a second experience when they are baptised in eh spirit.  What it does prove is that every Christian is supposed to have  a vital, vibrant, living experience of the Holy Spirit.  He is indispensable.  If that overwhelming and baptism with the Spirit is not part of your Christian experience, it is meant to be.  And like these disciples in Ephesus, God wants to make your  Christian birth complete by baptising you in the Holy Spirit.

© Gilmour Lilly July  2014