INTRODUCTION
At the conclusion of
two of the gospels we find the following:
In Matthew 28:18-20,
Jesus tells his disciples to go and make disciples of all nations…by baptizing
them in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
In Mark 16:15-16,
Jesus tell his disciples to preach the gospel/good news to all creation…and
that everyone who believes and is baptized will be saved.
Acts holds a very special place in Scripture as it is a unique book in the NT. The four gospels show the life of Jesus from birth to his resurrection. The letters are written to Christians, those already disciples of Jesus and giving them encouragement and reminding them often of Jesus, his death burial and resurrection. Acts is the ONE book in the Bible where we have disciples of Jesus meeting non-Christians and converting them. We can gain lots of insight into the conversion process by examining the book of Acts. While Acts often
speaks of groups or large numbers of people being converted (see notes at end of part II),
at times the book mentions specific individual conversions. The fact that the
Spirit prompted Luke to write about cases of individuals (sometimes by name,
other times by profession) being converted shows their importance to their
respective fellowship/church at the time of conversion, or to the narrative of
the book of Acts as a whole. We will
look at ten cases (seemingly the only
ones in Acts) here to see if they follow the pattern given: A) preaching of the gospel by a Christian, B) believing and being baptized by the converts, making
them disciples (=saved); This study will shed light on the conversion process
and help to confirm the Great Commission(s) as given at the end of the gospels.
CONVERSIONS
1) The first
individual converted is an interesting one: Simon the Samaritan sorcerer in Acts 8:4-25. He’s a “powerful” sorcerer who has a cult following. Philip the evangelist goes down to a city in
Samaria and preaches the
word/proclaims the Messiah/good news
of the kingdom of God there (Acts 8:4-5, 12).
Many of those in Simon’s cult, both men and women, believe and are
baptized. And then we see in verse 13. “Simon himself believed and had been immersed…”
This is the first
confirmation of a conversion consisting of being preached to, believing and
then being baptized. Also of note is that towards the end of the story, when Simon is found to be in sin, he is not told to be baptized again, but rather to repent and pray.
2) The next individual
conversion is that of an Ethiopian eunuch, an important official, the treasurer
for the queen of the Ethiopians in Acts 8:26-40. After
being directed by an angel and the Spirit, Philip goes and talks to him. He tells him (or preaches) the good news about Jesus (Acts 8:35). In the variant text, v. 37 has the Ethiopian
saying “I believe that Jesus Christ
is the Son of God” after asking what can stand in the way of him being immersed. Philip and the eunuch go down in the water, and Philip
immerses him (v. 38). Again, we see the pattern of being preached
to, believing and being baptized. Even
without the variant text we can conclude that the eunuch believed Philip since
he brought up the idea of being baptized.
This story is also important because it lets us know that the baptism
that concludes the conversion process takes place in water. It is NOT the Holy Spirit baptism that
happens to the apostles (& perhaps the rest of the 120) in Acts 2:1-4. This fact will be further confirmed by the
Cornelius story.
3) We know from the beginning of Acts 8 and Acts 9
that Saul was heavily persecuting the church. His conversion story is told three times in Scripture. It is recorded initially by Luke in Acts 9:1-19. Paul then recounts the story twice, once in Acts 22:1-16 and again in Acts 26. Jesus puts a dramatic and abrupt stop to Saul's persecution of the church while he is on the road
to Damascus. We get three accounts of
Saul’s conversion, which provide us lots of detail. Jesus appears to Saul
on the road. We can say with certainty
that he believed him to be Lord,
Christ and the Son of God (Acts 9:20, Acts 22:10), after the blinding
vision. While, it should have been
sufficient simply having Jesus appear to him, Saul’s conversion doesn’t
conclude there. Jesus then sends Ananias
to complete the conversion process.
Ananias heals him and then preaches
to him about Jesus, the Holy Spirit and his calling (Acts 9:17, Acts 22:12-16);
Saul is then immersed (Acts 9:18,
22:16), presumably by Ananias. From the three accounts we can glean some interesting insight into who Luke writes about conversion. We will see that all elements of the conversion process are not always explicitly mentioned. For example, in the Acts 9 account we are told about the healing, the Holy Spirit and the baptism; in Acts 22 we are told about the healing, the baptism and calling on the name of the Lord, but not mention of the Holy Spirit. In the Acts 26 account, Paul's blindness and later healing aren't mentioned ,Ananias isn't mentioned at all, and neither is the Holy Spirit nor his baptism stated. This lets us know that Luke doesn't always give every element of conversion in every story (belief/faith, repentance, confessing/calling on the name of the Lord, baptism, reception of Holy Spirit).
4) Like Saul/Paul's conversion, there is another whose story is thrice told. Here we have the conversion of the first Gentile,
one of the oft-mentioned “fearers/worshippers of God” named in Acts. The original event is recorded in Acts 10. Recounting of the events occurs in Acts 11:1-18 and Acts 15:6-11. After a series of double visions had by
Cornelius and Peter (similar to the double visions had by Saul and Ananias),
Peter then goes to Cornelius’ house and preaches
to him (Acts 10:34-43, Acts 11:14-15).
While their belief is not
explicitly stated, it can be inferred from the fact that they began to speak in
tongues and praise God after He poured out the Holy Spirit on them (Acts
10:44-46), which is a baptism of the Holy Spirit, pointed out by Peter in Acts
11:15-16. Also, Peter says that belief in Jesus will lead to forgiveness of sins "through his name", alluding to being baptized in his name: which is explicitly stated - their baptism in water (Acts
10:47-48) in the name of the Lord Jesus.
This story serves to confirm that there is a difference between baptism
of the Holy Spirit (in the book of Acts baptism of the Holy Spirit only
happened here and in Acts 2), which takes places in verses 44-46, and baptism
in water in the name of the Lord Jesus (v. 47-48), which serves as the
conclusion of the conversion process. These verses also let us know that when we see the phrase baptized/immersed/washed in the name of the Lord, it is in water (see Matthew 28:19, Acts 2:38, Acts 8:16, Acts 19:5, Acts 22:16, 1 Corinthians 1:13, 1 Corinthians 6:11) Once again, we see that all elements are not mentioned in each account of the conversion. Their reception of the Spirit and immersion in water is mentioned in Acts 10. In Acts 11, their reception of the Spirit is mentioned (and shown to be a unique occurrence that had only happened once previously back in Acts 2) and repentance. In Acts 15 their miraculous reception of the Spirit and belief are mentioned, but not repentance nor baptism in water. A careful examination of Scripture lets us know that we should assume all elements of conversion present, even if they are not all explicitly mentioned. For an in-depth study of Cornelius' conversion, see James Bales' book: The Case of Cornelius, which is a fascinating book dedicated to the study of the first Gentile convert.
5) Paul and Barnabas go to Paphos, on the island of Cyprus and teach/preach to the proconsul, one
Sergius Paulus in Acts 13:4-12. Here, we
are told that he has faith (Acts
13:8) and that he believed (Acts
13:12). No mention is made of his
baptism, nor repentance, nor reception of the Spirit, but just as no explicit mention is made of the faith/belief of Saul, there is simply no reason to believe that the proconsul was not baptized. This will be addressed in further detail in part II, to appear later this week when we show the second set of individual conversions given in the book of Acts.
For further reading, see Robert Allen Black's PhD dissertation entitled: The Conversion Stories in the Acts of the Apostles.
Be strong in the grace,
Fenton
NOTE: All in-text verses are cited in the Modern Literal Version, while the hyperlinks show the NIV translation.
No comments:
Post a Comment