In ACTS 2:38 Peter says this...
Peter said you WILL receive the Holy Spirit. Does Peter say that there is a waiting period to recieve the Holy Spirit? Does he give a 10 stop process in order to receive the Holy Spirit.
Why do we read Acts 2:38 and then get the idea that the Holy Spirit enters us after some mystic right of passage, which it seems so many people seem to know themselves.
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I dunno. I received the holy spirit when I was born again. I was filled when I asked.
My answer is this. It's because of the false teachings on the gifts and especially tongues. Traditional Pentecostalism espouse that Tongues IS the evidence for the Baptism.
I have always thought the word was the initial evidence. He said we would receive if we asked. That is enough evidence for me!
Well according to Peter, the Holy Spirit enters at conversion. This same Holy Spirit is the one that Paul says distributes the gifts as HE wills. For some reason, doctrinally people have built this symbolic wall between Acts and 1 Corinthians that is inhibiting proper hermeneutics.
What happened in Acts 2 is not typical. I have never heard anyone speak in tongues and have that be a language that was known. It has always been the devotional type of 1 Corin 14:2. Nobody understands it but God.
Because of this people have been taught for a good century that tongues IS the evidence. However, if you harmonize what is happening in Acts, along with the teachings of Paul in Corinthians, you soon realize that it is possible for someone to be filled with the Holy Spirit and not speak in tongues.
Bro, you will never agree with anyone on this because most people do not equate "diversiteis of tongues" with "prayer tongues". We all do not receive "diversities of tongues", as you point out correctly. But we all do have spirits, and we all can pray forth out of our spirit in tongues. It is spiritual tongues, not the supernatural "diversities of tongues".
Why is that? Remember what I said already. Paul teaches that God has placed us in the body of Christ to perform a certain function. Your function in church may not require you to speak in tongues, rather, maybe you are suppose to prophesy, or even have the gift of healing, or maybe discernment and wisdom. But you have to understand that our function in the church goes hand and hand with the Gift that the HOLY SPIRIT wants us to have not what we want.
Exactly right. And this is why Acts two was not diversities of tongues. The ALL did it. Your very argument destroys the notion that Acts two was "diversities of tongues". Were they all hands, feet, or eyes? If this was the diversities of tongues they were... because they ALL did it. Completely out of sync with 1 Corin 12.
So when someone isn't speaking in tongues, why do people say that "O you have to have it..." or "it's such a great experience".... People have to realize that the gifts are given by the Holy Spirit. You may be building up false hope in someone to receive something that they are not meant to have in the first place.
Again... you are correct IF we are talking about the gift "diversities of tongues". But we are not.
They gifts we are given will go hand in hand with the function that we serve in the Body of Christ. That's why Paul asks will all do this, will all do that? No they won't because if everyone spoke in tongues, or prophecied, or healed, the body of Christ would not be functioning properly. If am wrong, than please show me, with scripture how I am wrong.
You are correct IF we are talking about "gifts of the spirit" and "body ministry".
But we are not talking about these. We (at least I) are talking about praying forth from the spirit of Christ that was born again into you. Not the supernatural "diversities of tongues" that is only in those who the Holy Spirit has given that gift.
If you do not accept this "form" of speaking in tongues... then there will be no agreement. We are talking apples and oranges.