Sean did you get all of your theologically out of Search for Truth? You keep repeating the common mantra of oneness pentecostals. Yes I know this is how ya'll are taught to divide the Word, it is like a built in safe guard that keep you from understanding Biblical theology because before you really start you've already assumed 2/3rds of the new testament can't teach you anything about the plan of salvation.
But even back to you point, why simplify the gospels to simply teaching folks about Jesus, THEN DENY EXPLICIT STATEMENTS OF JESUS HIMSELF HOW TO BE SAVED? While I agree that the gospels teach folks about Jesus, I would argue that if someone was on a remote island and only had the gospel of John they could get saved. or the gospel of Mark, or any of the 4 gospels. I would counter you position by stating you can teach salvation from the gospels. I find it odd that oneness pentecostals exclude the gospels when presenting the gospel.
Again, this is seen in the way you're approaching theology, because rather than gather all the Bible says on a subject and allowing scripture to interpret and explain scripture, you are writing off a large portion of scripture which is profitable for doctrine. And even if you only use Acts, you are not consistent in your handling of that book, as I pointed out by noting the 21 conversions in Acts. You take the 3 that fit your paradigm and throw the rest out as incomplete. You ignore the fact that even in
Acts 2 the 3,000 are baptized and that is sufficient to be added to the church.
Pretty sure I didn't pass this up, I had a pretty long post to originalist on this.
The Bible says they were added to the church. Why would you assume they did not have the Spirit? If they didn't have the Spirit, they didn't belong to Christ (
Romans 8:9).
All one account, and yet this is the ONLY place in ACTS we are told specifically they DID NOT receive the Holy Spirit, I don't think its illogical to believe this is because God was doing a special work.
I'm not sure your point, you seem like your proving my point, that the book of Acts doesn't support the initial evidence theory.