Listen to Glisten: Fake and Flawed Conversions

Fake and Flawed Conversions

One Big Idea: Cardinal Rule: Stick with one big idea that streams throughout the sermon

2 Big Ideas

One Fake Conversion

Many Flawed Conversions

One Fake Conversion:

Who? Simony Simon the Sorcerer from Samaria

Back up...

Philip goes to a city in Samaria!

Proclaimed to them the Christ!

People “paid attention” to the disciples in vs. 6 (rather than Simon, vv.8-10)!

Philip brings what appears to be chaos!

Shrills of unclean spirits

Paralazed and lame were healed!

JOY!

The the things that was happening in Jerusalem was not happening everywhere else.

What was happening in the epicenter of the Jewish religion is not happening outside the borders of Jerusalem!

Remember the Table of Contents at the beginning of Acts:

You shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria!

Then Along Comes Simony Simon the Sorcerer from Samaria!

V.10: The people all paid attention to him!

“This man is the power of God that is called Great.”

Sorcerer was known as Great:

Like the Great Hudini, but without the Hudini… Just Great.

Great= Mega! I am the MEGA: “I am Megatron!”

But even Simony Simon believes and gets baptized!

He sees all the great miracles, and he was amazed

Sounds like a great thing, right??

Well, let’s see...

Once Peter and John get to town, Simony Simon is like, “Okay, time for me to get me some of that power! Time for me to get that type of authority!” I’ll take my greatness even greater. I’ll be like “Megatron 2.0”

So Simon welcomes his fellow magicians and says, “Give me this power also, so that anyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit.”

But Peter quickly puts Simon in his place:

Vs. 21: “You have neither part nor lot in this matter.”

Strange translation… ‘logos’” ESV=Matter?? NIV=Ministry.

LOGOS: WORD!

Like, the GOSPEL hasn’t penetrated you!

Pray for me to the Lord, that nothing of what you have said may come upon me.”

Remorse vs. repentance

He heard the Gospel but didn’t internalize it.

He only saw a show to be performed, not a sin to be forgiven!

Result:

Simon through Church History:

Labelled as the first heretic

“This man is the power of god that is called Great”

Simon believed and after he was baptized, he continued with Philip. And seeing signs…, was amazed.

Justin Martyr: “a Samaritan, Simon” “who ‘did mighty acts of magic” “he was considered a god” and was worshipped not only by ‘almost all the Samaritans’ but even by some in Rome who erected a statue in his honor.’” Stott (Justin Martyr Apology)

Iranaeus: “glorified by man as if he were ‘a god’, author of ‘all sorts of heresies.’ 3rd Century: known as “originator of Gnosticism.”

Simony:

Turning the spiritual into the commercial. Stott

This

One Fake Conversion vs. Many Flawed Conversions

Part: Many Flawed Conversions

Who? The Baptized

Problem: “They had simply been baptised into the name” Stott. Need to be baptized into the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Professor Howard Marshall is right to call verse 16 (‘the Holy Spirit had not yet come upon any of them; they had simply been baptised into the name of the Lord Jesus’) ‘perhaps the most extraordinary statement in Acts’. Stott

Samaritans:

Samaritans: Waiting for the Messiah. Mt. Gerizim vs. Jerusalem center for worship. First 5 books of the Bible.

Messiah=the Taheb: Restorer “The returning one”?

Relationship between Jews and Samaritans

1,000 year old conflict. 10th century BC. 10 tribes defected.

Samaria was captured by Assyria in 722BC.

4th Century: Building of the rival temple on Mount Gerizim and only accepted Pentateuch. “Hybrids of both race and religion, as both heretics and schismatics.” Stott

Why did the Apostles have to ratify the faith?

Philip was orthodox, and they genuinely believed in what he was saying.

How is it that they believed in what Philip preached but didn’t yet have the Holy Spirit?

Explanations:

Not Prescriptive, but DEscriptive

“Apparently in this unique case, where the gospel was first moving beyond the bounds of Judaism, the Lord sovereignly waited to give any manifestation f the full power of the Holy Spirit (vv.15-16) until some of the apostles themselves could be present (Philip was not an apostle), and therefore there would be no question at all that the Samaritans had received the new covenant empowering of the Holy Spirit in the same way that the Jewish Christians had.” ESVSB

They bring the authority of the church to Samaria: The CHURCH IS HERE TOO!

First time faith is brought outside of Judaism? Scholars (like Bruce) suggest that the ancient rift between the two caused the necessity for the Apostle’s to come to break through that great divide.

“The best explanation is that God himself withheld the Spirit until the coming of Peter and John, ‘in order that the Samaritans might be seen to be fully incorporated into the community of Jerusalem Christians who had received the Spirit at Pentecost’. God withheld the gift for his own revelatory and salvific purpose, not because of an inadequate response on the part of the Samaritans. The apostles needed to be there as reliable witnesses on behalf of the Jerusalem church, not to impart the Spirit because of their office.” PNTC

Like a pre-Pentecost experience: “The delay in the sending of the Spirit put the Samaritans somewhat in the position of the Jewish disciples before Pentecost. They had a genuine faith in the risen Lord, but had not yet received the promised Holy Spirit.” PNTC

NIVAC: “In other words, the Samaritan Pentecost should not be considered normative as the way of receiving the baptism with the Spirit.”

“These were unique events in salvation history, not the normal pattern of initiation known to Luke.” PNTC David G. Peterson

What to do with this Two Stage Conversion Process?

Jimmy Dunn: “They believed Philip” “Samatitans got carried along ‘by the herd-instinct of a popular mass-movement.’”

Baptism with “form without reality”

“Their second stage was really their first.” Stott

“It was through Peter and John, not through Philip, that they become Christians.” Stott via Dunn

Second baptism could be a special deliverance of the Spirit’s gifts. Some form of ‘extraordinary grace’ John Calvin “Charasmatic endowment”

“By eliminating one of the two stages (either declaring the first bogus or the second supplementary), the same result is achieved, namely a one-state initiation into Christ.” Stott

“Only” baptized into Christ “Only implies that the two things were expected or accustomed to go together.” Alexander p.332

Water baptism without Spirit-baptism (“the sign without the thing signified”)

“Inspectors of evangelism” Stott

Answer: New Territory. New Church??

“Is it not reasonable to suggest...God deliberately withheld the Spirit from these Samaritan converts? The delay was only temporary, however, until the apostles had come down to investigate, had endorsed Philip’s bold policy of Samaritan evangelism, had prayed fro the converts, had laid hands on them as ‘a token of fellowship and solidarity, and had thus given a public sign to the whole church, as well as to the Samaritan converts themselves, that they were bona fide Christians, to be incorporated into the redeemed community on precisely the same terms as Jewish converts.”

Michael Green, “a devine veto on schism in the infant church, a schism which could have slipped almost unnoticed into the Christian fellowship, as converts from the two sides of the ‘Samaritan curtain’ found Christ without finding each other.” I Believe in the Holy Spirit, p.16