In the last fifty years or so, there has been a tremendous resurgence of interest in the baptism of the Holy Spirit and the accompanying gifts of the Spirit. In some, the interest is entirely academic; in others, it is a passionate hunger to experience it firsthand. But there are people who claim that such things faded away around the end of the first century, and are therefore no longer available. Did they really fade away? We need to know because other people claim to have been baptized in the Holy Spirit and use the gifts of the Spirit every day, as a normal part of Christian life. As always, the Bible is the normative standard for living the Christian life, so what does the Bible say on this topic? Quite a lot, and if we follow what the Bible says, our Christian lives will become much more exciting and fruitful in the things of the Kingdom.
