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About Jesus Steve Sweetman Chapters 19 Previous Section - Chapters 18 Paul
in Luke
begins to tell the story of Paul’s third missionary trip.
He does not sail as he often does but he takes an inland road and
ends up in Luke
begins with Paul’s arrival in Paul
asks these men, “did you receive the Holy Spirit when you
believed”? They answered,
"no, we have not even heard that there was a Holy Spirit":
Paul asked, "so what baptism did you receive"?
"John’s baptism", they replied. Paul
then replied, "John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance".
He told the people to believe in the one coming after him, that is,
in Jesus'. On hearing this they were baptized into the name of the Lord
Jesus. When Paul placed his
hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they spoke in tongues and
prophesied”. (ch. 19:2 - 7) This
section of Scripture is important in Pentecostal circles.
It is one text they use to prove what they call the Baptism in the
Holy Spirit, the “second work of grace”.
I use the term second work of grace because it is the term they
use. The first work of grace
is initial salvation, that is to say, one’s conversion experience where
one receives the Holy Spirit. The
second work of grace is this experienced called the Baptism in the Spirit
where the Holy Spirit is poured out on a person who already has the
Spirit, giving them the power to be true witnesses to Jesus.
Pentecostal teaching says that these 12 men received the baptism in
the Spirit here and that in fact it was a second work of grace for them.
But was this really a second work of grace?
No, it wasn’t. Let me
explain. There
are a few variations of the Baptism in the Holy Spirit.
One variation is that it is a second work of grace, but you
actually receive the Holy Spirit when you receive this second experience.
The first experience of initial salvation is when you believe only,
not when you receive the Spirit. So with this understanding, you first
believe, then at some future point you receive the Holy Spirit.
Is this what happened here? Paul
goes to Ephesus and finds 12 men. While talking with these men who appear to be brothers
in Christ something is triggered in
his mind. He thinks,
“something is not right here”. Paul
realizes that there is something missing, and it had to do with the Holy
Spirit, so he asks, “did you receive the Holy Spirit when you first
believed”? He is basically
asking these men, “when you first became a Christian, or when you first
started to believe in Jesus, did you receive the Holy Spirit at that time?
Paul
had to have thought that the Holy Spirit was the missing ingredient in
these men’s lives. He must
have also thought that one should receive the Spirit when one first
believes or else he would not have asked this question.
Some people might disagree with me on that point.
They might say that because Paul asked this question, it might be
possible to believe in Jesus and then at some future date receive the Holy
Spirit. These
men reply by saying that they did not even know that there was any such
thing called the Holy Spirit. At
this point things began to clear up in Paul’s mind.
He was now beginning to figure out the problem.
This very thing went through Paul
thought to himself, “these men know nothing of the Spirit of God.
How can they be really born again then? (see Romans 8:9 –
"he that has not the Spirit of God does not belong to God")
He then asks, “what baptism did you receive”?
Hopefully the answer to this question would clear up this mystery,
and it did. They said that
they were baptized with John’s baptism. With
this answer came complete clarity in Paul’s mind.
“That’s it”, he thought.
These men only knew of John the Baptist.
Like Apollos, they did not even know that Jesus, the one John
preached about, had already come and returned to Heaven in order for the
Holy Spirit to come to the believers.
These men had not received what we would call a Christian baptism.
They were still in Old Testament days, even though New Testament
times were in effect. These
men were still looking for Jesus to come. So,
were these men born again? No.
Were they saved according to New Testament teaching that Paul would
teach? No. Did they have the
Holy Spirit? No.
Did they have a first experience that we could call conversion?
No. Ifs these men died, would they have gone to Heaven.
Most likely they would. They
did have faith, but their faith was placed in the Christ that would come,
like all good Old Testament people. But
still, they did not have a New Testament conversion. They
were living as Old Testament people with a faith in the future Messiah.
So
Paul laid his hands on these men, and when he did, the Holy Spirit came on
these men for the first time in their lives.
This experience was their conversion experience.
They were born again of the Spirit of God in this instance.
Was this a second work of grace?
No it wasn’t. This
was their first work of grace. Therefore
the second work of grace called the Baptism in the Spirit cannot be proved
by this text because it is clearly not a second work of grace.
What Pentecostal teaching calls the Baptism in the Spirit was in
fact their born again experience.
These
men were subsequently re-water baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus,
not the name of John the Baptist. Verse
8 tells us that Paul was back in the synagogue.
This time Luke says that he “spoke boldly for three months,
arguing persuasively about the Many
people today would say that "arguing" has no place in the
preaching of the gospel, but Paul must not have felt that way.
Under certain circumstances arguing might well be appropriate.
You can certainly see that Paul was convinced of what he was
saying. Many people aren't so
convinced today, and that might be one reason why they wouldn't arguer a
point. Tolerance
for other viewpoints would be another reason. We
have seen Paul preach and reason concerning Jesus being the Christ, but
now we see him speaking about the On
the day of Pentecost in Acts 2 the Kingdom
of God
came to earth in a spiritual sense. The
arrival of the Holy Spirit into the lives of God’s people have brought
this spiritual Kingdom to the earth. Someday
this now spiritual kingdom will become a physical kingdom when Jesus
returns to earth as king, and especially as King of the Jews.
The Old Testament speaks of the Messiah returning to sit on the
throne of David, and that is what Jesus will do when He returns to earth.
At that point, Israel
will have the kingdom restored to them with Jesus as their king.
If
you remember, you will note that Jesus often said that the Once
again many Jews rejected Paul’s teaching and once again Paul left the
synagogue and went elsewhere to teach.
In this instance Luke says that he “took the disciples with him
and had discussions daily in the lecture hall of Tyrannous”. No
one really knows who Tyrannous was. The lecture hall could have been a
school where he taught. It
could have been a Greek school, or even possibly a Jewish place.
Again, we don’t know. Whatever
the case, Paul and the other believers separated themselves from their
Jewish brothers and met by themselves.
This reminds me of what Paul told Timothy in 2 Tim. 3:5 when he
said that some would hold to a form of godliness but deny the power of
God. Paul told Timothy to stay
away from such people. The
opposition from certain Jews was not against Paul himself but to all who
followed “the Way”. We see
the word “Way” again, as a name designated to those who followed
Jesus. The
discussion, as Luke puts it, (not merely preaching) took place in this
hall for two full years. To
date, this is the longest Paul had stayed anywhere.
Because of this length of time Luke says that Jews and Greeks who
lived in the whole province of Luke
records that during these 2 years that extra ordinary miracles took place
through Paul. Aprons and
handkerchiefs that he would touch were taken by others to sick people and
they were healed, as well as demons being driven out of people.
Luke says that these were extra ordinary miracles.
Luke had seen miracles, but the ones taking place here in Also
during these 2 years Luke tells us that certain Jews were trying to cast
out demons by saying, “in the name of Jesus, whom Paul preaches”.
These men did not understand what the name of Jesus meant.
The name of Jesus is more than a formula, more than words added to
the end of a prayer. We as
Christians represent Jesus to those we meet.
We are in fact Jesus’ representatives.
This is what the name of Jesus means.
When we do anything in His name, we do it in the place of Jesus.
We do it for Jesus. He
has appointed us to represent Him. Once
again, this is what is meant by the term “in the name of Jesus”.
These
particular Jewish men were not representing Jesus when they were trying to
cast out demons. They were
using the words, “in the name of Jesus as a formula, and it didn’t
work, and it won’t work today. It
is sad to say but many Christians today do not understand what the “name
of Jesus” is all about. They
use it at the end of a prayer, thinking that it has some special
significance, when in fact it doesn’t.
You don’t have to end a prayer by saying, “in the name of
Jesus”. These
men, 7 in all, tried to cast a demon out of a man using this formula and
the spirit answered them by saying, “Jesus we know, and Paul we have
heard of, but who are you”. Then
the demons, using the man’s body, jumped on all 7 men and beat them up.
They ran from the house where they were, naked and bleeding.
Suffice to say, we should take demon possession seriously. In
verse 17 Luke tells us that after this incident the name of Jesus was held
in high regard. The Another
result of the power of God was that many believers who had formerly
practiced sorcery brought their sorcery books together and burned them in
one big fire. The value of
these books were 50,000 drachmas, or roughly about $8,500.00.
Luke
says that “in this way the Word of the Lord spread”.
When people saw, and when they see today, acts of repenting, like
the burning of these expensive books, they know the seriousness of one’s
commitment to Jesus. They in
turn think seriously about making the same commitment.
If people don’t see any evidence of repentance in our lives,
there is obviously no witness coming from us. Thus we hinder the spreading
of the gospel by the way we live, by living as unrepentant people. In
verse 21 Paul decides that he will go to Little
did Paul know at this time that he would indeed reach During
his stay here in The
Riot In To
date most, if not all of Paul’s opposition has come from the Jews, but
this is about to change. When
Jews became Christians, they left the Mosaic Law for Jesus.
When pagan Gentiles became Christians they left their idol worship
along with the wooden, stone, silver and gold idols. There
was a man named Demetrius who was a silversmith.
He made shrines for the goddess Artemis out of silver.
Luke tells us that he made a very good living from his occupation
and had people working for him. Because
many pagans in Demetrius
tells his cohorts that Paul preaches “that man-made gods are no gods at
all”. (ch. 19:26) The danger
in this as Demetrius sees it is that first of all , their trade would
loose its good name, and second of all that the goddess herself “would
be robbed of her divine majesty”. Verse
28 tells us that “when they heard this they were furious and began
shouting; ‘great is Artemis of the Ephesians’.
Soon an uproar began. Two
of Paul’s travelling companions were seized and dragged into the
theatre. At this point Paul
wanted to go into the theatre and speak to this mob, but the disciples
which included some government officials begged him not to do so. The
theatre mentioned here was an amphitheater seating 20,000 people.
It was often used for very large gatherings. Verse
32 tells us that this crowd was now in mass confusion.
There were many that did not even know why they were protesting.
Luke
then tells us in verse 33 that “the Jews pushed Alexander to the
front…” He was supposed to
make some kind of defense on behalf of the Jews, but when the crowd found
out that he was a Jew they shouted, “great is Artemis” for another 2
hours. We
really don’t know who Alexander is.
We don’t know whether
he was a Christian or not. He was supposed to speak on behalf of “the
Jews”, not necessarily the Christians.
Maybe it is possible that the Jews wanted to make sure that these
pagan Ephesians knew that they had no part in what Paul was teaching. In verse 35 the town clerk, a city official, gets up to address this unruly mob. At once with the sight of his appearance the crowd settles down. He re-assures the crowd that the whole world knows about the goddess Artemis and her statue that fell from heaven. In actuality this statue was found, and they only presumed it fell from heaven where Zeus, another god, lived. What the town clerk was saying is that if you are really secure in your religious beliefs, you shouldn’t get all that upset. He says that the reality of Artemis is “undeniable”, and if it is “undeniable” then she will look after you. Beyond this, the men that they dragged to the theatre had “not robbed the temple or blasphemed our goddess”. The city clerk then proceeded to state that this was not a legal assembly, and that there were legal procedures to follow if Demetrius wanted to press charges. But if the crowd continued as they were, they would then be in danger of legal action against them. They could be charged with causing a riot. This settled the crowd and the mob dispersed.
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