“Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?”
Acts 19:2
In Christian history, many movements have emphasized devotion to Scripture and to the inward work of the Holy Spirit, focusing on repentance, holiness, assurance, and spiritual illumination. This resembles the scene in Acts 19, where Paul met the disciples of John the Baptist—people who were sincere, well-taught, and earnest, yet who had not entered into the fuller experience of the Spirit that John’s own message pointed toward. Paul did not reject their sincerity; he completed what had begun in them, and the Spirit’s outward manifestations followed.
A similar pattern appears when comparing earlier Protestant and Evangelical leaders with the later rise of Pentecostalism. The Wesleys, Edwards, Darby, and many others demonstrated deep devotion to Scripture and truly experienced the Spirit’s inner work. Yet their expectations did not extend to the outward gifts described in the New Testament. Pentecostalism did not replace their spirituality but broadened it, restoring the visible workings of the Spirit and giving fuller expression to the very ideals those earlier teachers upheld.
These leaders led multitudes to faith in Christ, and their work rightly continues to bear fruit. Yet their own teaching pointed forward to a greater fullness, a deeper leading of the Spirit into all truth. Now it is widely understood what kind of manifestations accompany the evident reception of the Holy Spirit in this fuller sense. The question Paul asked in Ephesus still stands as a living invitation today.
Have you received the Holy Spirit in this way, having believed in the Lord Jesus Christ?
Stephen D Green partly with AI wording
