On 1/7/2010 I posted something here called "
Acts 2:38 in A.D. Urshan's Life."
I meant it to be informative, not to be controversial. According to the records there were 26 replies (some of them were mine) and 445 views.
I'd like to post something similar now about
Acts 2:38 in my life.
I'm not doing this to argue, just for information.
As most of you know, I am what we refer to here as a "one-stepper." I accept "three-steppers" as my brothers and sisters. We just don't quite agree on how the "three steps" of
Acts 2:38 apply to us.
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On Monday March 28, 1955 after attending service at a local Baptist Church, I came home and asked Jesus Christ to come into my life. I was 17 years old. I did not feel any great feeling but something happened that forever changed my life. I became what the Bible calls "a new creature." The change in me was so noticeable that 50 years later at our high school reunion some still referred to the "old Jim" compared to the "new Jim." I went on and a few months later was baptized by immersion in a nearby lake and joined the local Baptist church. I read my Bible, developed a prayer life, attended church regularly and even filled in and taught Sunday School and spoke in a youth meeting.
As I read the Word I realized that there was more available for me. I saw gifts and miracles in the Bible but they were not happening in our local church. When I asked about this I was told that those things were temporary to get the infant church established but they were no longer needed.
I began to pray for an experience in the Bible called the filling with the Holy Spirit or the baptism in the Holy Spirit. I listened to radio preachers like Jack Coe, Bishop S.C. Johnson, A.A. Allen and C.M. Ward and continued studying the Word.
On October 27, 1955 (just 7 months after my conversion experience) I was baptized in Jesus' name at Elim Tabernacle UPC in Milwaukee, WI. A month or so later I began to attend a church called Bethel Tabernacle UPC in Racine, WI. Then on May 20, 1956 I was baptized in the Holy Spirit.
I spent one year (1956/1957) at a UPC Bible school in St. Paul, MN. There I was taught that I was not even saved or a child of God until I had spoken with tongues. Of course this brought up questions. I was taught that what I thought was salvation was only repentance, a conception but not a birth as the seed of the Word was planted. I was taught that my water baptism in Jesus name was a birth of water (baptismal regeneration) but not enough to make me a child of God yet. I was taught that when I spoke with tongues more than a year after I invited Jesus to come in, He finally honored my invitation to come in, and I was then born of the Spirit.
I actually taught and preached that same thing for some time but in time I came to the conclusion that I could no longer continue to do so and be true to the Lord and what He had done in my life and to the Word of God as I understood it.
So, where am I now? I consider myself Apostolic because I have found out that how I believe agrees with what our Apostolic pioneers believed and preached for many years. I believe that there is only one true God and His name is Jesus or YHVH-Savior. I believe that when I asked Jesus Christ to come in back on March 28, 1955 He honored my invitation and came in as the Holy Spirit and made me a child of God. I believe I have been water baptized according to the Word of God but it was an act of obedience and not something I had to do to get saved or to become a child of God. I believe I have been baptized in the Holy Spirit like many (about one quarter or 120 out of 500) of the early church members were in Acts chapter 2. It is my opinion that this baptism in the Spirit was an enduement of power to help me in my walk, worship, work, and warfare but was not the birth of the Spirit.
I can fellowship lots of people without judging them and I consider anyone my brother or sister who has made a personal commitment to Jesus whether they have been water baptized and/or Spirit baptized or not. I also recognize others as brothers and sisters who insist on all three steps according to
Acts 2:38 for salvation but I do not agree with them on that.