{"id":9807,"date":"2026-05-30T02:53:41","date_gmt":"2026-05-30T02:53:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=9807"},"modified":"2026-10-02T01:31:15","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T01:31:15","slug":"something-was-missing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=9807","title":{"rendered":"SOMETHING WAS MISSING"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When Paul comes across 12 disciples in Ephesus during his third missionary journey, he asks them an unusual question: &#8220;Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?&#8221; (Acts 19:2)<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And considering this was 20 to 25 years after Pentecost, their answer was shocking: &#8220;We have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit!&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">They go on to explain to Paul that they were baptized into John&#8217;s baptism &#8211; which would have been 25 to 30 years back!\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And then Paul explains that John was baptizing &#8220;with the baptism of repentance&#8221; and that he had pointed people toward believing in the One who was to come after him, i.e. Jesus.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So then these 12 guys are &#8220;baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus&#8221;. Next, Paul lays his hands on them and they suddenly start speaking in tongues and prophesying!<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And I am left with so many questions!<\/p>\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\n<li>How did these guys come across the baptism of John the Baptist &#8211; who was waist deep in the Jordan River &#8211; all the way from Ephesus, over 600 miles away? Were they personally baptized by John or did John&#8217;s disciples take it upon themselves to spread his message of repentance, eventually reaching to Ephesus? Maybe these 12 WERE disciples of John on a lifelong evangelistic mission?<\/li>\n\n\n<li>Are there two different types of baptism? If so, how EXACTLY are they distinguished from each other?<\/li>\n\n\n<li>Were these 12 guys sort of their own little church? Without the Holy Spirit?<\/li>\n\n<\/ul>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I can&#8217;t even begin to speculate on the answers to any of these questions. There are too few details.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But one other question that comes to mind might warrant some conjecture:<\/p>\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\n<li>What prompted Paul to ask these guys whether they had received the Holy Spirit in the first place?<\/li>\n\n<\/ul>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Did he see a lack of joy? Or power?\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">An absence of victory over sin?\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Did they lack fruit? Or confidence? Or love?<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Were there clues in the way they talked? In their priorities? Their values?<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Was there a distance in their relationship with God?<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Whatever the clues, something was missing, and Paul immediately recognized what it was: the Holy Spirit.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What has been your experience? Can YOU tell upon meeting a person whether or not he or she is filled with the Holy Spirit, entirely lacking the Holy Spirit, or somewhere in between?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When Paul comes across 12 disciples in Ephesus during his third missionary journey, he asks them an unusual question: &#8220;Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?&#8221; (Acts 19:2) And considering this was 20 to 25 years after Pentecost, their answer was shocking: &#8220;We have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit!&#8221; [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9807","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9807","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9807"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9807\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9808,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9807\/revisions\/9808"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}