Commentary on Acts 8:14-17

Chris Blumhofer

The text before us records an interlude within the larger story of the gospel coming to Samaria in Acts 8:4–13 and 8:18–25. In the larger frame, the crowds respond to Philip’s preaching of the gospel, and a powerful magician named Simon attempts to purchase the Holy Spirit so as to be able to control its power. Our passage sits in the middle: Peter and John come from Jerusalem and pray for the new believers, and they receive the Holy Spirit.

The passage is puzzling in its record of Samaritans coming to faith and being baptized in the name of Jesus but not initially receiving the Holy Spirit. Why is the Spirit withheld from these people upon their coming to faith? The answer to this question offers itself to us as we appreciate the details of the passage.

First, the broader setting in Luke is significant: Philip brought the gospel north to Samaria after the scattering of the Christians in Jerusalem due to the persecution of Stephen (Acts 6:8–8:1, 4). Philip himself likely belonged to the rapidly expanding group of Hellenists in the church (see 6:5); as such, he is distinct from the apostles (1:13) and, more importantly, is the first non-apostle to proclaim the gospel in Acts.

The social and cultural setting is a second area of significance: Samaritans and Jews lived in great tension with one another. Jesus’ encounter with a woman of Samaria in John 4 testifies directly to this (for example, “Jews do not have dealings with Samaritans” [John 4:9]). In 2 Kings 17, we read that the Assyrians overtook this region and resettled Samaria with peoples from five foreign cities, who worshiped both the gods of their homelands and the God of Israel. Samaritans thus faced the suspicion of syncretism from their southern neighbors in Judah.

The social divisions between Jews and Samaritans deepened after Ezra returned to the land. In the Second Temple period, the Jewish historian Josephus depicts Samaritans at times as outsiders who reside in the land of Israel (see also 2 Kings) and at other times as “apostates from the Jewish nation” (see also Josephus, Antiquities, XI.340; 12.257). In the late second century BCE, the Hasmonean king John Hyrcanus brought relations to a low point when he destroyed the Samaritan temple on Mount Gerizim.

Thus the conversion of Samaritans to the Way of Jesus through the evangelism of a non-apostle brings with it a host of complicated social and religious questions. Centuries of suspicion and tension preceded this event. The inclusion of Samaritans into the group of believers—a group at this point populated by observant Jews—would certainly raise internal tensions around matters of faith and practice, as well as external tensions with zealous Jews—Saul not least among them—who would see any association with Samaritans as a fatal compromise with syncretism and impiety.

Third, we see the Jerusalem-based church respond with integrity and openness to the news of faith among a new social and ethnic group. Peter and John go to Samaria in verse 14. The group of apostles could not have appointed two people more qualified to confirm the events in Samaria, though it was sure to create more complexity for them in Jerusalem (see Acts 4:1–22; 5:17–42). There is no hint of suspicion or doubt expressed by these two apostles that the Samaritan conversion was not authentic. In verse 15 Peter and John intercede for the Holy Spirit to come upon the new believers, and in verse 17 they lay their hands upon them.

There is no desire to withhold the gifts of God from these believers, despite the many social and cultural prejudices they might have used as justification. Although it is not clear in the text that laying on hands was necessary to confer the Spirit, there is a powerful image in the apostles’ willingness to set aside conditions of ritual purity in order to touch a people traditionally thought to live in states of ritual uncleanness (see also the second century CE text of Mishnah, Niddah, 4.1).

The puzzling feature of this passage is verse 16, which specifies that the Samaritans had been baptized into the name of Jesus but had not yet received the Holy Spirit. Elsewhere in Acts, baptism in the name of Jesus and reception of the Spirit occur together, though not in a strict order (see Acts 2:38; 9:17–18; 10:47). A near parallel to this passage occurs in Acts 19:1–7, where Paul travels to Ephesus and finds some disciples who had only received the baptism of John. They, too, are baptized in the name of Jesus and receive the Spirit through the laying on of Paul’s (in other words, apostolic) hands.

John Calvin observed that it is possible to over-problematize this puzzling feature of the text. Having been baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus (verse 16) and having received the word of God (verse 14), the Samaritans had certainly received what Paul later calls the Spirit of adoption to sonship (Romans 8:15), writes Calvin. According to the Reformer, what is at stake in this passage is the “excellent” and “visible graces” of the Spirit, which are the particular riches of the church, though not identical with belonging to God’s people by faith.

We might add to Calvin here that in Acts the visible demonstration of the Spirit’s presence does the powerful work of confirming God’s acceptance of a people, particularly a people who had long been held in suspicion (see also Acts 10:1–11:18). It is significant that the apostles are generous and open to these developments, and that their role in conferring the Spirit maintains the ultimate unity of the church in the acknowledgment of God’s Spirit and Word.

Of course, the Samaritans would now need to disciple themselves to Jesus and walk in the Way. Practically, they would need to accept the (Jewish) Scriptural canon, including the prophets (previously rejected within Samaritan religion). Nevertheless, the question of the Samaritans as now embraced by God’s kingdom has been settled—the reign of Jesus has laid claim to a new people (1:8), and the apostles themselves have joined in the proclamation of the gospel among them (8:25).