Kelly - Acts 8

Philip is out and about and spreading the word....

What struck most about today's reading is the separation in Luke's mind between baptism and the receiving of the Holy Spirit, it seems to mesh with some American church traditions better than it does with the traditions I'm more familiar with. The believers in Samaria are "only baptized" until Peter and John show up to lay hands upon them. And the Ethiopian Eunuch is "only baptized" and as best we can tell never "receives the Holy Spirit" - but goes on his way rejoicing and founds the Coptic Church.

I'm more comfortable with the two being one....the sacrament of holy baptism is a sacrament precisely because it is a means of God's grace - and to me that means the invocation of the Holy Spirit. The baptism of Christ differs from the baptism that John offered in the wilderness because of this.

And yet I have to deal with a scripture that implies something different from what I'm comfortable believing (which is the way scripture should be, I guess). Not sure where to go with this discrepency....


2 hours later:
****Okay - so a little research has led to the following, which helps me a lot: The baptismal liturgy has 2 main parts. In the first part, the pastor baptizes "in the name of the Father and the Son, and the Holy Spirit" - whereas I suppose the Samaritans were only baptised in the name of the Son. That helps, but not as much as my second discovery....there is a prayer after the actual sprinkling of water in every baptismal service (ELCA, UMC, etc.) that includes the words "Pour out Your Holy Spirit". So we seem to have combined these two functions displayed in Acts into one sacrament.