Or filled? Which? Both?

Is there a difference between being filled with the Holy Spirit and being baptized with the Holy Spirit?

I don’t know. However, verses such as the following three give me the impression there might not be any difference:

“And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance” (Acts 2:4).

“And as I began to speak, the Holy Ghost fell on them, as on us at the beginning” (Acts 11:15).

“Then remembered I the word of the Lord, how that he said, John indeed baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost” (Acts 11:16).

At Pentecost, the record shows they were filled (2:4). Yet when Peter looks back on that event later, he speaks of it as being baptized with the Holy Spirit. (11:15,16).

Personally, I have been satisfied to leave the issue at that.

I am challenged to yield to the Spirit and to resist the devil.

I am challenged to live in the Spirit and to die to self.

I am challenged to walk in the Spirit and to crucify the flesh.

I am challenged to grow in the yielding, living, and walking.

Back in 2000 sometime, I asked this question: Is the filling of the Holy Spirit something to be sought? I also gave an answer here: The Day of Pentecost.

The Spirit lifted me up
“The Spirit lifted me up.”

2 thoughts on “Baptized With the Holy Spirit?

  1. Thanks for writing this, it got me to click back to your older post on “the day of Pentecost” and I’ll admit my wife and I have been trying that for some time, we need to surrender and that does seem biblical. The story I was often told was completely connected to an act of the hands but nothing ever happens from that to me at least.

Surely you could add something...