Troublesome Topic: Precepts about Tongues from Acts 19:1-5

Acts 19:1

Translation

And then it happened that, PAUL, having passed through the highland parts in order to come to EPHESUS, and having found certain disciples, (while APOLLOS

was in CORINTH,

Paraphrase

This is what happened next; after LITTLE had travelled along the inland route to arrive at DESIRABLE, and after he sought out certain disciples, (this was while HE WHO FORMERLY BELONGED TO APOLLO was in the place of HELMETS WITH POINTY SPIKES),

Acts 19:2

Translation

said to them, “If did

you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” And they to him, “But we have not even heard whether there is a Holy Spirit.”

Paraphrase

he (Paul) asked them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed in Jesus?” They answered him, “We have never even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.”

WHY DID PAUL ASK THEM THIS QUESTION?

Paul must have seen something that caused him concern. Instead of seeing evidence of the Holy Spirit in their lives, he saw proof of the absences of the Holy Spirit. It was probably an attitude, or the way they talked, or their priorities, or self-centeredness, or something along that line, which indicated to Paul that they had not received the whole package. They called themselves believers and they wanted to associate with the house-churches in Ephesus, but something was lacking.

It appears that this group of men (we find out later it was about 12 men), were probably not acquainted with Paul; they might have come while he was away for some time. Since they had been baptized with the baptism of John, it appears that they were Jews, not Gentiles.

Acts 19:3

Translation

He said to them, “Into what, then, were you baptized?” And they said, “Into the baptism of JOHN.”

Paraphrase

So Paul said to them, “For what purpose were you baptized?” They responded, “We were baptized in order to fulfill the purpose that John preached about – repentance from evil deeds, forgiveness, and a changed life.”

Acts 19:4

Translation

Then PAUL said, “JOHN baptized a baptism of repentance telling the people that they should believe into

the [one] coming after him, that is into JESUS.”

Paraphrase

Then LITTLE said to them, “THE LORD HAS BEEN GRACIOUS used the accepted ritual of transfer as a confirmation of their repentance while telling them that, when the proper time came, they should move their trust for salvation into the One that would come after him, that is into THE LORD IS SAVIOR.”

Acts 19:5

Translation

Then, having heard, they were baptized into the name of the LORD JESUS.

Paraphrase

After they heard this they underwent the accepted ritual of transfer a second time resulting in them being moved into a new spiritual position; they were now under the authority and within the will of THE SUPREME RULER who is THE ETERNAL AND PRESONAL GOD WHO SAVES.

The next lesson in the Full and Mid Length Series on Tongues is Precepts about Tongues from Acts 19:6-7

Footnotes

1

It is interesting that Apollos’ name was not changed to something that honored the God of the Bible. It appears they were using the name he was known by, which meant “belonging to Apollo,” even though it had a pagan meaning. It may have been true that in some circles they gave him a different name, but it did not become well known. I have rendered the name in my paraphrase in a way that includes his new reputation as a follower of Jesus. Assumptions are sometimes required in the meaning of names, so this is not a surprise. God may have left his pagan name in place so that his life would stand in stark contrast to his name, forcing people to think of him as “formerly belonging to Apollo,” as I have indicated in my paraphrase.

2

The meaning of Corinth sounds funny to us, but it was intended to point to security and defense. Corinth was presented as a hard place to enter with an undesired message.

3: “if did”

The Greek starts many of its questions with the particle “if” but it is sometimes cumbersome to translate it into English, so in those cases we leave it out of our English rendering. Its basic idea is that of “whether” and can be rendered in English as “tell me whether or not ….” But by writing it that way it is no longer a question. Although they did not use any punctuation in Greek at that time, we know this was a question largely due to the use and position of this word “if/whether.” When we form our English sentence into a question, we have covered the general idea of this particle, even if we don’t use the specific word “if/whether”.

4: "into"

In the New Testament, faith in Jesus was always communicated with the preposition “into” rather than “in”. While the Greek preposition “in” refers to something fixed within a sphere or realm, “into” refers to the movement from one realm to another, we might say “moving across a threshold.”