God's Story Is Our Story: From Acts to New CreationSample

One of the questions that often comes up as one reads through the book of Acts is what does it mean to be filled with the Holy Spirit? In four occasions this filling occurs after one has already believed. These four occasions of being filled with the Spirit are often accompanied by other miraculous signs. Most other times the Bible speaks of being filled with the Spirit as coming at the time when one believes in Christ (Ephesians 1:13-14) and many other occasions outside of those four accounts come with no accompanying miraculous signs. What are we to make of this?

Is there something significant about these four occasions? One is when the mission of the church begins in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost in Acts 2. The miraculous ability to speak in the language of other nations of those present was a sign to confirm that these people are speaking on God's authority. The second occasion in Acts 8 is when the mission has moved beyond the Jewish people into Samaria. The Samaritans were a mix of Israelite people with other nations that were settled in the northern part of Israel after their exile to Assyria described in the Old Testament. They were also a mix religiously following parts of the Old Testament with other beliefs and practices. The Jewish people saw them as Israelites who had been corrupted religiously. Since the new church was made up exclusively of Jewish people, there would be a question whether a Samaritan would need to become Jewish to be welcomed into the church. So, God miraculously demonstrated that the gospel was for the Samaritans too, and they should be welcomed in accordingly.  The third occasion was when the gospel went to the Gentiles (non-Israelites) in Acts 10. The last occasion was when people in Ephesus had been baptized with John the Baptist's baptism, but not into Christ. This was to show it was not enough to practice the Old Testament faith, but needed to believe in its fulfillment in Christ in this church era.

These special occasions of being filled with the Holy Spirit were ways to confirm to the church that God's mission was to go to all people and that people didn't need to become Jewish. This was a new development in the story that God is telling.

We are participating in this phase of God's story. God promises to live with us and empower us when we turn to trust in Jesus.