Alrighty, here we go. This is Paul's third missionary journey. We left off at the last lecture, looking at Paul's first journey. The Council of Jerusalem, which was so fundamentally important, the big shift here in the identity of the church and the mission that the church has towards the Gentiles bringing God's salvation to all peoples, all nations.
And then we saw this Paul's second missionary journey and we left off in chapter 18 where Paul was in Corinth and then he returned to Antioch by the same path that he had journeyed. So all of this, I want to keep in mind the big picture, all of this is fulfilling the missionary mandate of Jesus. And when he says to me, you'll be my witnesses in Jerusalem, part one, right, phase one. And then Judean Jerusalem, and then, sorry, Judean Samaria, bigger part, and phase two, and then phase three is all the ends of the earth.
Okay. So that's what's going on here. Paul's third missionary journey, and then we're going to see him travel to Jerusalem and into Rome. This is his final missionary journey that we have recorded from chapters 18 to 21.
And this is towards the end of the 50s. Okay. I have here in your notes, 51 to 58, 80, give or take a year or two. Now, before Paul begins this journey, we have like a little commercial, so to speak, of a man, a Christian, a Catholic, right?
They're all Catholics named Apollo's. He was a Jew named Apollo's and native of Alexandria were in chapter 18 verse 24. He came to Ephesus and he was an eloquent man, well-versed in the scriptures. He had been instructed in the way of the Lord.
He was fervent in speech. He spoke and talked accurately the things concerning Jesus, though he knew only the baptism of John. He began to speak boldly in the synagogue. There's that word boldly again.
Then when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him aside and expanded him to the way of the Lord more accurately. It goes on to talk about how he powerfully confuted the Jews and public showing by the scriptures that the Christ was Jesus. A couple of things to point out here quickly. Paul is this right now.
He's mentioned here, but as you go when you look at 1 Corinthians, he's going to come up again because he, Paul, and Paul kind of cross paths like two ships in the night. He's in Ephesus here, but then next he's going to go travel to Corinth. I just wanted to point that out. Paul is going to be very important in the Epistle of 1 Corinthians.
Notice again here, I know I'm not coming across like I'm beating a dead horse. It's so important. The use of scripture in his ministry. He says he's well-versed in the scriptures, verse 24, verse 26.
He showed by the scriptures that Christ was Jesus. It's so important for us to continually study the Word of God. I'm so grateful that here you are listening to these Bible studies, wanting to dive into scriptures. I want to encourage you to keep doing that.
Find time and prayer every single day, encountering the incarnate Word of the Lord and the inspired Word of the Lord. It can counter Christ through the scriptures. So scripture is crucial in his ministry. He accurately knew the things concerning Jesus, though he only knew the baptism of John.
I think this is really important. It shows that people are in progress, they're in journey. And he knew the scriptures. He knew Jesus.
He's, and though he didn't know about the baptism of Christ, it didn't stop him from trying to spread the good news of the gospel. I find that really, really important. In my ministry, I'm doing, obviously, work in ministry and education in various fields here. And I'm always talking to people, look, you don't have to have a degree in theology or the doctorate in theology before you go out and just share the good news of the gospel.
You can go out there, you get your good formation, you do learn the scriptures, you do learn catechesis, but just go out there and tell your story. How you fall in love with Jesus, how he speaks to you, he cures you of your infirmities, mental, spiritual, whatever they may be, maybe physical. I like that how Apollos is doing the very best he can. He doesn't know everything.
You've got these other two disciples, Priscilla and Aquila, teach him a little bit more about the accurately about the baptism of Jesus, and he goes on to continue to preach. I just think that that's super, super encouraging. Don't think that you have to have all the answers before you go out there and talk about your Lord. That is my big takeaway, at least, with his story.
So that leads us into chapter 19. This is Paul now goes to, so again, while Paul was in Corinth, Paul passed the two Ephesus, these two guys are two ships in the night here. Then he goes to find some disciples, verse two, and he said, did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed? And they said, no, they even heard that there was a Holy Spirit.
And he said, well, then into what baptized? And they said, into John's baptism. And then Paul replied, John baptized with a baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in the one who was to come after him. That is Jesus.
I'm hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. And when Paul had laid his hands on him, the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they spoke with tongues and prophesied, and there were about 12 of them and all. So this interesting little story here, kind of how Apollos doesn't really understand yet fully the baptism of Jesus. He only knows the baptism of John.
While he was in Ephesus, he's preaching, of course, the baptism of John. And these dudes here, these 12 guys, they're baptized into John's baptism. So they don't really fully understand here the sacramental system established by Christ. So when Paul comes along, he teaches them, of course, that there is the baptism of John, which was preparatory.
It is not sacramental, it actually doesn't bring about the forgiveness of sins. Only the baptism of Jesus Christ brings about the forgiveness of sins. And a little clarification here, the true proper formula for baptism is Trinitarian. I baptize you in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
That is Jesus's baptism. If someone is baptized in the name of Jesus, period, you know, full stop, then that is an incorrect baptism. All right, you need to baptize the Trinitarian formula, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. So when it says here, it's Jesus's baptism or the name of Jesus, that's just referring to the Trinitarian baptism.
I hope that makes sense there. I hope that you guys are baptized and then notice something pretty interesting. Paul lays his hands on them and they receive the Holy Spirit. What's that all about?
That my friends is confirmation, right? Baptism and then confirmation, just like we saw Peter and John go to Samaritans and lay their hands on the Samaritans, they receive the Holy Spirit. That's confirmation. Confirmation is a little mini pentecost for all of us.
It strengthens the graces of baptism, it matures us spiritually so we could proclaim the gospel. It's a maturation of sorts. It's not like a graduation, unfortunately, today, you know, when kids or teens are confirmed, it's kind of like they're, it's like their graduation and they think that they're done. No, it's just the beginning, it's just the beginning of the proclamation of Christ in their lives.
So we can see here in Paul's ministry in his little story, you've got baptism as necessary for salvation and then he imparts upon them the sacrament of confirmation as well. Okay. All right. So it was during this time here when he is an Ephesus, I have it here in your notes.
I promised you in the last lecture as we go through, I'll tell you will contextualize when Paul writes the rest of his epistles. So he wrote first Corinthians and perhaps Galatians during this time. As you could probably imagine, there are endless debates on the writing of so many of these epistles. Some of them are pretty clear.
Some of them are debatable, but I'm going to roll with the fact that or roll with the statement, I should say that he wrote first Corinthians and Galatians during this time. Okay. So what does he do next? He continues his usual pattern as I broke it down for you in the last lecture verse eight.
He enters into the synagogue and then for three months boldly arguing and pleading about the kingdom of God. Some are stubborn and disbelieved speaking evil of the way. And then so he goes and goes to the hall of Toronto, which is basically a Gentile, a Gentile house. Okay.
And he continued on for two more years. So same pattern, my friend, same pattern as before he goes, he preaches some believe, some do not, they persecute him, he goes and speaks to the Gentiles. Okay. All right.
And God did extraordinary miracles, extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul. So that handkerchiefs or aprons were carried away from his body to the sick and diseases left them and evil spirits came out of them. This is the extraordinary miracles Peter performed extraordinary miracles. If you remember, even Peter's shadow healed people, right?
And cast out demons. God did extraordinary things through Peter. Now he's doing extraordinary things through Paul, even his dirty old handkerchiefs, his boogers are healing people. God, this is incredible.
Right. So handkerchiefs are passed around and aprons are passed around. They're dirty. They're filthy.
Let's just assume that they're clean. That's just a much better image. It's healing people. All right.
This, my friends is a very important story and it's support for the Catholic teaching and practice of relics, you know, a relic. It basically is a leftovers as the bad connotation with food. But those things that are left remaining from a holy man or woman of saints are could be bone. So first class relic would be bone or hair or, you know, something like that, right?
It comes from the body. A second class relic is something that comes from that they, that the saints wore or owned like in this case, an apron or a handkerchief or something like that. And God performs miracles through these objects because we're not we human beings, our body soul composites. This is what the whole sacramental systems all about.
Jesus performed miracles using actual physical objects. He communicates grace to us. All right. Through physical objects, like all the sacraments is the same thing.
So the biblical support of relics, especially the remains of holy men and women, the saints is very, very biblical. We have a story here of Paul's handkerchiefs, hopefully clean handkerchief being passed around. But even if you go back to the Old Testament, you can see a story of bone-skeeling people. You might remember this back in Second Kings, chapter 13, verse 21.
It says and I have this in your notes, as a man was being buried behold, a marauding band was seen in the scene and the man was cast into the grave of Alicia. And as soon as the man touched the bones of Alicia, he revived and stood on his feet. That my friends is God using the remains of this holy man, Alicia, Saint Alicia, we could call him. And as soon as another dead man touches his bones, God, again, to prove the authority of Alicia as God's prophet and to bring glory to God, brings about this great miracle where this man is resuscitated from life.
So when we have as Catholics put bones of the saints, leftovers is the wrong word again, remains of the saints on our altars and in our worship. Again, we keep the memory and the presence of our brothers and sisters in the faith close to us, but it is 100% biblical. Even with Jesus, in Matthew, chapter 14, I got this verse for you. There's other examples as well.
It says they beg Jesus, they might only touch the fringe of his garments and as many as touched were made well. Jesus heals himself through physical objects. It then Jesus heals people through the physical objects or the physical remains of his saints. I really get excited about this.
I hope you're following me on this. The whole weird Catholic practice of having dead people's bones around is actually fundamentally biblical. What he does is expresses the true mystical body of Christ and how we're all united to our Lord as living stones, as St. Peter says, and that it gives glory to God to God as glorified when he honors his saints.
I got to stop right there. We have a lot more to talk about, but I think this story is extraordinary miracle of Paul is pretty awesome and it supports. Yet again, the practice of relics.