Acts 19:2

"and he said unto them, Did ye receive the Holy Spirit when ye believed? And they said unto him, Nay, we did not so much as hear whether the Holy Spirit was given"Did ye receive the Holy Spirit when ye believed" Evidently, after spending some time with these men, Paul realized that something was missing in their knowledge. Some commentators assert that Paul could tell something was wrong, because these men did not manifest joy, which is the common misconception that the Holy Spirit miraculously and automatically gives the Christian warm feelings of instant joy and contentment. The example of the Corinthians (Christians who possessed spiritual gifts), and yet were far from content (1 Corinthians 3:1), should be enough to derail the above false theory. The phrase, "when ye believed" obviously refers to the time at which they were baptized. Thus Paul just naturally links together faith and baptism. That is, if. person really believed, then they would be baptized, for Jesus commanded it (Mark 16:16). There is some question as to what Paul is really asking these men: (a) Some say Paul is saying something like, "Did you know that the Spirit was given on Pentecost?" But he asked them if "they" had received and not, "Did you ever hear about the coming of the Spirit." (b) Was Paul saying, "Did you receive. spiritual gift when you believed?" Reese says, "Now spiritual gifts were not regularly given simultaneously with baptism for the remission of sins, so it is doubtful that "Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed" has reference to spiritual gifts" (p. 668). Yet, we must note that after these men were baptized, they did immediately receive Spiritual Gifts (Acts 19:6). (c) Paul may be referring to the gift of the Spirit connected with baptism (Acts 2:38), that is, did you receive the blessings promised by the Holy Spirit? Obviously Paul does not know the background of these disciples, and wonders who taught them, and if any apostle had imparted to them spiritual gifts some time after their baptism, such is was done in Acts 8:14 ff.

Acts 19:2 "Nay, we did not so much as hear whether the Holy Spirit was given" "No, we have not even heard whether there is. Holy Spirit" (NASV). Various writers argue that surely these men had heard of the Holy Spirit, which seems like. reasonable argument, but on the other hand, we know very little about these men and the knowledge they possessed: (1) Most assume that they were men taught by Apollos (Acts 18:25/Acts 19:3), but if that was the case, then why were not these men re-taught at the same time Apollos was taken aside? Did Apollos lose track of those he had converted? (2). guess most would assume they were of. Jewish background, since John's baptism appealed to them. (3) But whether they had traveled to Ephesus from Palestine, or had been converted by Apollos, or whether they had been baptized by John or his disciples years previous on. trip to Palestine during one of the Jewish feasts, we don't know. The time gap between this chapter and when John the Baptist was baptizing is over 20 years. Stott makes some comments that seem logical: "This cannot mean that they had never heard of the Spirit at all, for He is referred to many times in the Old Testament, and John the Baptist spoke of the Messiah as baptizing people with the Spirit. It must rather mean that, although they had heard John's prophecy, they had not heard whether it had been fulfilled. They were ignorant of Pentecost" (p. 304).