In today’s Lectionary, both the story of Jesus and the book of Acts associate baptism with the coming of God’s Spirit. When Paul baptised some believers in Ephesus, the Holy Spirit “came upon them”, mirroring what happened to Jesus. ‘Following’ Jesus also means entering that experience which he pioneered. His life lives in us. Those believers “spoke in tongues and prophesied” – something amazing had happened. But not all people who get baptised speak in tongues. How do we know the Spirit of God has influenced us? How can we trust what someone might say in that altered mental state – if it even makes sense? I believe there are things God’s Spirit can do in us that might seem rather more prosaic, for instance give us altered priorities – and the kind of wisdom which comes not from knowing lots of stuff, but from knowing what’s important. As for this thing of what utterances to trust – there are tests – what are the ‘fruits’, the real-world outcomes? Has this person, this speech brought people closer to Christ, furthered love and mercy and justice? Another test is something that I find it really hard to do, which is listen to sisters and brothers who believe different stuff about Jesus and have different life experiences. The early Christians struggled to do this, but they did do it. They had councils, they worked out together which way to go next. It is one of the downsides of social media that they prevent us from hearing alternative voices, and act like a great big echo chamber for our own prejudices. But until we can get at least some idea of the scope of Christian belief, we’re in no place to say “listen to such and such” or “don’t listen to such and such”. This is not just an academic issue: there are real Christians out there who believe fervently that they have a God-given right to treat huge sections of the human race like dirt, including some of their own brothers and sisters in Christ.