After his comments on the fundamental ingredients of Christian initiation, John Stott made the following observation:

“The laying-on of apostolic hands, however, together with tongue-speaking and prophesying, were special to Ephesus, as to Samaria, in order to demonstrate visibly and publicly that particular groups were incorporated into Christ by the Spirit; the New Testament does not universalize them. There are no Samaritans or disciples of John the Baptist left in the world today.”
– The Message of Acts p.305

The interesting thing here is that Stott is wrong twice in that last sentence — and there can’t be many sentences John Stott wrote of which that can be said.

It’s true there aren’t many Samaritans left, but they do still exist.

Even more striking, there are followers of John the Baptist. They’re called Mandaeans, mostly found in southern Iraq. (Fun fact: I once had my hair cut by one in Edinburgh!)

Stott is making a sequence of logical claims here. Let’s lay it out:

1. The laying on of hands, tongue speaking and prophesying were unique events
2. They were special to Ephesus & Samaria
3. Why? To show that the Samaritans and followers of John the Baptist had been included into Christ
4. We should not universalize this.
5. Proof: there are no Samaritans or disciples of John the Baptist anymore.

Stott is factually wrong about #5. That doesn’t necessarily mean he’s wrong about #1–4, but the weak fifth point doesn’t strengthen his case.

More fundamentally, I suspect he may be overstating #1 & #2 — the “uniqueness” of these events and their restriction to Samaria and Ephesus. But I’ll tackle that another time.

For those interested, here’s my back-and-forth with ChatGPT as my debate partner — it helped me clarify the logic and sketch the diagram.