Word Pictures in the New Testament - David Cox

Word Pictures in the NT [Acts: Chapter 19]
math•tas\). Who were they? Apollos had already gone to Corinth.
They show no connection with Priscilla and Aquila. Luke calls
them "disciples" or "learners" (\math•tas\) because they were
evidently sincere though crude and ignorant. There is no reason
at all for connecting these uninformed disciples of the Baptist
with Apollos. They were floating followers of the Baptist who
drifted into Ephesus and whom Paul found. Some of John's
disciples clung to him till his death (Joh 3:22-25; Lu 7:19; Mt
14:12). Some of them left Palestine without the further
knowledge of Jesus that came after his death and some did not
even know that, as turned out to be the case with the group in
Ephesus.
19:2 {Did ye receive the Holy Spirit when ye believed?} (\ei
pneuma hagion elabete pisteusantes?\). This use of \Pi\ in a
direct question occurs in 1:6, is not according to the old
Greek idiom, but is common in the LXX and the N.T. as in Lu
13:23 which see (Robertson, _Grammar_, p. 916). Apparently Paul
was suspicious of the looks or conduct of these professed
disciples. The first aorist active participle \pisteusantes\ is
simultaneous with the second aorist active indicative \elabete\
and refers to the same event. {Nay, we did not so much as hear
whether the Holy Spirit was} (\All' oude ei pneuma hagion estin
•kousamen\). The reply of these ignorant disciples is amazing.
They probably refer to the time of their baptism and mean that,
when baptized, they did not hear whether (\ei\ in indirect
question) the Holy Spirit was (\estin\ retained as in Joh
7:39). Plain proof that they knew John's message poorly.
19:3 {Into what} (\eis ti\). More properly, {Unto what} or {on
what basis} (Robertson, _Grammar_, p. 592). Clearly, Paul felt
they had received a poor baptism with no knowledge of the Holy
Spirit. {John's baptism} (\to I•anou baptisma\). Last mention of
John the Baptist in the N.T. They had been dipped in other words,
but they had not grasped the significance of the ordinance.
19:4 {With the baptism of repentance} (\baptisma metanoias\).
Cognate accusative with \ebaptisen\ and the genitive \metanoias\
describing the baptism as marked by (case of species or genus),
not as conveying, repentance just as in Mr 1:4 and that was the
work of the Holy Spirit. But John preached also the baptism of
the Holy Spirit which the Messiah was to bring (Mr 1:7f.; Mt
3:11f.; Lu 3:16). If they did not know of the Holy Spirit, they
had missed the point of John's baptism. {That they should believe
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