Acts 19:1-7 While Apollos was in Corinth, Paul passed through the interior regions and came to Ephesus, where he found some disciples. He said to them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you became believers?” They replied, “No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.” Then he said, “Into what then were you baptized?” They answered, “Into John’s baptism.” Paul said, “John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in the one who was to come after him, that is, in Jesus.” On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. When Paul had laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied— altogether there were about twelve of them.
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Re-phrased, maybe this will ring a bell:
And a true Christian [Saint] asked, "Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you became believers?”
Those who call themselves Christians (of many different denominations) replied, “No, we have never been told there is a Holy Spirit that can be received or how to do that.”
Then the true Christian [Saint] said, “Into what then were you baptized? I ask simply because it is impossible to be a true Christian without receiving the Christ Spirit.”
They all answered, “Into a water baptism performed by someone wearing a robe that looked official.” [Some meaning they were received sprinkles on their foreheads as an infant, while others meant they had been dunked in an industrial-sized baptismal pool, with a heating element to make the water comfy.]
The true Christian [Saint] said, "Preachers, priests, pastors, and ministers of organizations that pay them to be employees of theirs baptize with water, in the pretense that water washes dirty bodies clean; and, that becomes symbolic of a baptism of repentance. Although an infant is pure and has never sinned, and most children under the age of twelve have committed no serious sins [nothing like filthy adults!], the symbolism of baptism tells people to believe in the one has to come after the preacher, priest, pastor or minister, that is, when one is reborn in the name of Jesus, as the Christ.”
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Where the story falls apart today is when it has to be re-phrased to state:
On hearing this from a true Saint of God, one who was reborn truly in the name of Jesus Christ and thus the physical embodiment of the resurrected Jesus, people calling themselves Christians were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.
When a true Saint lays his or her hands on such people professing to love God with all their hearts, all their minds, and all their souls, then the Holy Spirit will come upon them also; and, those newly risen reproductions of the Son of God (regardless of their human genders) will speak in the divine language of Scripture and explain what it means freely, as true preachers, priests, pastors and ministers of the true Church of Christ.
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Unfortunately, that does not happen. Certainly not in churches, especially when the Holy Spirit [contrary to what Oral Roberts would have one believe] is not transferred by people laying their hands on a radio, television, or computer monitor ... where many church services are held in the Coronavirus era. A Saint does not actually have to lay hands on one, as much as a Saint has to demonstrate how being Jesus reborn is not only possible, but a requirement, as stated in Scripture.
Sadly, as of today's true count, the whole number of true Saints in the world, who have the power to lay hands on fakers and make the Holy Spirit available to them is "altogether there about twelve of them." No change it appears, in two thousand years [although the reality is the number went way up high, before guillotines and the love of gods like science, politics and philosophy made the number become rarer than bigfoot and UFO sightings.
And, on top of that, when one of the twelve opens his or her mouth to someone calling himself or herself a Christian, Christians these days act like Romans and Temple Jews, as they start preparing a cross onto which they will crucify Jesus once again, forever trying to reduce the number to eleven, calling a true Saint a Judas Iscariot.
And that is the moral of this story never yielding a new, true Christian today, like ot did so long ago.
R. T. Tippett
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