使徒行傳

8:16 因 為 聖 靈 還 沒 有 降 在 他 們 一 個 人 身 上 。 他 們 只 奉 主 耶 穌 的 名 受 了 洗 。

8:17 於 是 使 徒 按 手 在 他 們 頭 上 ， 他 們 就 受 了 聖 靈

有人說，這是使徒行傳中最難解的一個問題，

但是，最難解不是不能解。
這也是靈恩派最喜歡引用的經文 (可惜，在福音派看來是斷章取義的解釋)

請看我先前貼的有關賴德的系統神學關於聖靈的洗和另一本系統神學書中關於這裡的撒瑪利亞人為何奉主耶穌的名受洗後，卻未領受聖靈的討論。
http://www1.bbsland.com/rainbow/messages/432811.html
http://www1.bbsland.com/rainbow/messages/432815.html
那是教會初創，開始往外擴張的時期。有其神學的意義。

不是發生在哪時候的事情，以後都會發生。
例如：亞拿尼亞和撒非拉的事件。你今天還聽說過有那個人欺哄聖靈，就會立刻遭到神的審判嗎？

關於這個奉耶穌基督的名受洗卻沒有領受聖靈的事件，也是如此。
那是一個不尋常的事件，不能作為普遍的規則來運用(不能把非常當正常)，
要放在整本使徒行傳的架構中 (或者說要放在整個“救贖歷史”的架構中) 來看，才能給予比較完整的解釋，不能斷章取義。

下面摘錄一個解釋 ( from Expositor's Bible Commentary)
我手頭另外還有一本John Stott 的使徒行傳的注釋，說明得更詳細。
認真的基督徒應該去買一本，國內已經有簡體字版了。
這是我覺得的，每一個大學程度的基督徒都應該看的一本注釋。
因為，使徒行傳是新約中一本非常重要的書；而這本注釋書雖然不是最好的，
但是，是中文版中最好的。

有時候，我覺得基督徒太不愛看書了。
我們都投資了不少錢，花了至少12年的功夫準備念大學，求取最高的世界的學問與知識。可是我們花多少錢，費多少功夫準備念神的話呢？
這可以部分反映出我們多重視神的話。基督徒實在應該多花點錢買書，多花點時間看書的。

Here it is: ( from Expositor's Bible Commentary)

15-17 When Peter and John arrived (lit., "went down," katabantes), they prayed for the Samaritan converts, laid their hands on them, and "they received the Holy Spirit." Before this, Luke tells us, "The Holy Spirit had not yet come upon any of them; they had simply been baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus." We are not told just how the coming of the Holy Spirit upon these new converts was expressed in their lives, but the context suggests that his presence was attended by such external signs as marked his coming on the earliest Christians at Pentecost--probably by some form of glossolalia.
The temporal separation of the baptism of the Spirit from commitment to Jesus and water baptism in this passage has been of paramount and perennial theological interest to many. Catholic sacramentalists take this as a biblical basis for the separation between baptism and confirmation. Charismatics of various denominational persuasions see in it a justification for their doctrine of the baptism of the Spirit as a second work of grace following conversion. But before making too much of this separation theologically, it is well, as we have noted earlier (cf. comments on 2:38), to look at the circumstances and ask what may seem an elementary question, yet one of immense importance: What if both the logical and the chronological relationships of conversion, water baptism, and the baptism of the Spirit as proclaimed in Peter's call to repentance at Pentecost (cf. 2:38; see also Rom 8:9; 1Cor 6:11) had been fully expressed in this case?
The Jerusalem Jews considered the Samaritans to be second-class residents of Palestine and kept them at arm's length religiously. And on their part, the Samaritans returned the compliment. It is not too difficult to imagine what would have happened had the apostles at Jerusalem first been the missioners to Samaria. Probably they would have been rebuffed, just as they were rebuffed earlier in their travels with Jesus when the Samaritans associated them with the city of Jerusalem (cf. Luke 9:51-56). But God in his providence used as their evangelist the Hellenist Philip, who shared their fate (though for different reasons) of being rejected at Jerusalem; and the Samaritans received him and accepted his message. But what if the Spirit had come upon them at their baptism when administrated by Philip? Undoubtedly what feelings there were against Philip and the Hellenists would have carried over to them, and they would have been doubly under suspicion. But God in his providence withheld the gift of the Holy Spirit till Peter and John laid their hands on the Samaritans--Peter and John, two leading apostles who were highly thought of in the mother church at Jerusalem and who would have been accepted at that time as brothers in Christ by the new converts in Samaria. In effect, therefore, in this first advance of the gospel outside the confines of Jerusalem, God worked in ways that were conducive not only to the reception of the Good News in Samaria but also to the acceptance of these new converts by believers at Jerusalem.
The further question as to how far in practice this acceptance by the Jerusalem church would have gone had Samaritan Christians actually traveled to Jerusalem to meet and worship with the Jerusalem believers is left unanswered. Nor does Luke tell us anything about how these Samaritan
believers expressed their commitment to Jesus in their Samaritan cultural and religious milieu. These are matters that would be of great interest to us today but which did not concern Luke. What he does tell us, however, is that in such a manner as this vignette shows, God was working in ways that promoted both the outreach of the gospel and the unity of the church. And rather than trying to extract from the account further theological nuances of a deeper kind, we would better expend our energies in trying to work out in theory and practice the implications of such a divine interest in outreach and unity for the church today.