The people of God must faithfully shepherd the lambs—through prayer. Look at verse 15 of Acts 8 one more time. We read there that, ‘When they arrived, they prayed for the new believers.’ So, by recording that, Luke was saying, “We should all earnestly pray that conversions are genuine, trusting God to confirm true faith through the Spirit.”
We also get that from 1 Thessalonians 5:21–22, where Paul calls believers to ‘test everything; hold fast to what is good.’ Leaders praying for genuine conversion fits the pastoral role of shepherding and discerning true faith.
But then there’s also verse 17 of Acts 8, where we read that, ‘Peter and John placed their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.’ So, Luke is also saying that the laying on of hands, accompanied by prayer, is a biblical practice for blessing new believers and praying for their reception of the Holy Spirit.
And I suppose there is an idea here that this should especially be done if there is any doubt about genuine conversion. Remember Romans 8:9— “Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.” We want genuine conversions, Luke is saying.
To which one of his original readers may have said, “Why are you being so cynical?” To which the Apostle Paul would have chimed in and said—1 Thessalonians 5:21–22: “Test everything; hold fast what is good.” This includes discerning genuine faith, which calls for prayerful pastoral care.
During the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s, there was a story of an Iranian soldier and medic fighting on the Iranian side. He saw, in a bunker, a man from the Iraqi side—the opposing side. He was about to abandon this injured man, but then he noticed that his enemy was clutching a photograph of his wife and young son. So, he decided to save the man’s life.
We could be the same towards our enemies. And if that’s how the Lord Jesus calls us to be towards our enemies, how much more must we pray for those who are invited to come and join us—the potential lambs.
So, do you pray for one another? And do you especially pray for those who are new to the faith? It’s certainly an area where I struggle, and I’ve told you before that my charismatic and Pentecostal brothers and sisters are often a better example to me in this—they are just in the habit of saying, “Shall we have a pray?” after a cup of tea, or a walk in the park. I want to be more like that. But I do often let embarrassment get the better of me.
And then we need not be afraid of placing hands on each other when praying. We do have to be careful with this because placing hands on people can sometimes be sensitive—things can get out of hand. But within reason, and when it’s done with care, placing hands on someone is an important practice today, especially when training for it. The main area where this continues in our traditions is in the ordination and induction of pastors.
It’s something that we should be doing in other areas too—placing hands on someone who’s just professed faith and asking for them to receive the Holy Spirit is a biblical and right thing to do.
But on top of that, taking the idea that this passage may be talking about those who are believers already, then we can also take from this that it’s good for us to lay hands on believers and pray for each other to receive the Holy Spirit too.
