Acts chapter 8

vs 11

So it's not like he wasn't an influential person. He wasn't a pathetic carney with cards up his sleeve. People respected him.

vs 12

Philip obviously had quite an impact on the Samarians in the town he visited. Interesting that we don't even get the name of the town - perhaps this visit is meant to be seen as typical of the kind of thing people were doing, as well as the response they were getting.

vs 13

This isn't the first time that magicians have been totally impressed by miracles from God - think of the magicians in Pharoah's court. However, even though several magicians have been used by God to do things, I can't think of a time when one has come to know God and follow him.

vs 14

Now obviously not the whole of Samaria had accepted the gospel, but the idea that even some of them had was special enough for an envoy of apostles to go. Peter and John are big names.

vs 15-16

I will freely admit that these verses indicate that you can be baptised without also receiving the Holy Spirit. However, what I won't agree to is that this means that this is the only way to receive the Holy Spirit. Not even Acts makes that claim.

vs 17

This time, they did receive the Holy Spirit through Peter and John. A conservative anti-charismatic evangelical view of this is that the Holy Spirit didn't come until the apostles got there so that they could see for themselves that the Holy Spirit was spreading even to non-Jews.

vs 18-19

What were his motives? Did he truly understand what giving the Holy Spirit does? Did it even have a physical marker to tell that it had been passed? You want to say yes, because it has had one already (at Pentecost) and you assume that he is amazed at something he saw.

But, do you think everything magicians did had an immediate physical effect? Isn't knowing that you're passing on the Holy Spirit enough? The answer is we don't know. Anything we say beyond what is written here is conjecture.

vs 20

Here starts Peter's long and angry tirade against Simon. He starts off with a curse, and then by stating his first reason - that the Holy Spirit is a gift, and it cannot be bought (and the suggestion is probably that it can't be sold either, but again that hasn't been out and out said yet).