1. We must be filled with the Holy Spirit, just as the disciples of Jesus were in the Book of Acts.

• The chapter measures our experience against what the disciples received in Acts, not against our tradition or our upbringing. Why does the chapter keep sending us back to that book, and what would change if you read it that way?
• Have you been filled with the Holy Spirit as the disciples were in Acts? Say plainly where you actually are, not where you would like to be.
• Read Romans 8:9. “If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His.” What does that verse do to the idea that being filled is optional?

2. What took place on the Day of Pentecost was not a one-off experience; it is the same experience available to everyone today.

• Acts 2:39 says the promise is to you, to your children, and to all who are afar off. Who does that leave out?
• Have you ever quietly assumed the things in Acts were for the first century and not for you? Where did that assumption come from, and who taught it to you?
• In Acts 10:44–48 the Spirit fell on Cornelius and his household while Peter was still speaking, and the Jews who came with Peter were astonished. What does it say about God that He poured out on the very people the church had not expected? Who are the people you have quietly written off?

3. Tongues is not the Holy Spirit. Tongues is the evidence of the Holy Spirit.

• Read Acts 10:46. How did the believers who came with Peter know the Gentiles had received the Holy Spirit? What work is that word “heard” doing in the sentence?
• The chapter says tongues is the initial evidence that the Spirit came in, and the fruit of the Spirit is the evidence that He remains at work. Read Galatians 5:22–23. Which of that fruit is actually growing in you right now?
• The chapter says there are far too many tongue talkers who have no fruit — they may have the Holy Spirit, but the Holy Spirit does not have them. Which of those two sentences describes you?

4. Belief alone, even paired with proper baptism, does not deliver the Spirit.

• Read Acts 19:2 carefully. These men were disciples; they had believed and they had been baptized. If a person receives the Holy Spirit at the moment of belief, why would Paul open with that question at all?
• In Acts 8:14–16 the whole city of Samaria had received the word of God and had been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus, and still the Spirit had fallen on none of them. What does that account do to what you were taught?
• What were you told about when a person receives the Holy Spirit? Can you show it from Scripture, or only from tradition and the testimony of people you trust?

5. We are not saved by the act of believing in Jesus; we are saved by the Jesus we believe in.

• What is the difference between trusting your own act of believing and trusting the Person you believe in? Which one have you been leaning on?
• The chapter traces the “sinner's prayer” to preachers in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, not to Scripture. If your assurance rests on a prayer you once repeated, what is it actually resting on?
• Repentance, baptism in His name, and being filled with His Spirit are called saving faith here, not works. Where have you labeled obedience “works” in order to avoid it?

6. The gift is free, but it must be received. And receiving is not a work.

• Why can no action of ours, not even the greatest and noblest, procure the baptism of the Holy Spirit? What does that tell you about grace?
• The chapter says you may be standing in ankle-deep water with the depths of the divine river in front of you. What has kept you standing there — fear, teaching, or simply never being told?
• If only Jesus can fill you, and He has promised that He will, what is left for you to do? Will you ask Him for it?

7. If someone shows us a truth in the Word of God, even if it runs contrary to our experience and tradition, we ought to receive it with joy and gladness.

• Read Acts 18:24–26. Luke calls Apollos eloquent, fervent, and mighty in the Scriptures — and there was still a significant gap in what he knew. What does that say about how much knowledge protects any of us from being wrong?
• There is no record of Apollos getting angry or offended — just silence, and then the narrative resumes. What is your honest first reaction when someone shows you something in Scripture that you have not been living?
• The chapter says only the proud find it impossible to depart from their traditions. What is one thing you believe that you have never actually tested against the Word? Will you test it this week?