A Good Evangelist Always Listens Series

Saturday of the 6th Week in Easter 2023

There are Christians who sincerely believe that the early Church existed only in local congregations who typically met in the homes of members. In other words, that shortly after Jesus returned to the right hand of the Father, after He had told His apostles to share the Gospel with all creatures, and given Peter his charter as shepherd to the shepherds, they scattered and did their own things. Our first reading today, from Acts, gives the lie to that notion. Apollos, named after the Greek hero-god but a believer in Christ, came from Alexandria in Egypt to Ephesus in today’s Turkey. It sounds like he was a student of rhetoric in Egypt, because he spoke well and was not afraid to get up and make a speech. Moreover, he was convinced of the truth of the Gospel, and felt alright recruiting people to Christ despite what he did not know about His teaching.

But Apollos was also a good listener. He only knew the baptism of John, a baptism of repentance but not of conversion to Christ, not sacramentally a joining to the whole Church. The husband-wife evangelists Priscilla and Aquila heard his effective sermons, diagnosed his needs, and catechized him in the full truth. He was then recommended to the Christians in Greece, and seems to have ministered for a long time in Corinth. He is considered a saint by some of the Orthodox churches.

Besides incorporating the convert into the whole Church, and establishing him or her as a fit candidate for the other sacraments, Baptism makes each of us believers a child of God. We are made one with Jesus Christ, the eternal Son. Christ is in constant communication with God the Father; we can be as well because we are One with the Son.

Now, being one with the Son of God, we are daily transformed into His image, and our minds and wills are brought into conformity with His. So we will want what the Son wants, and thus what the Father wants. He wants our highest and greatest good, to be One with humanity forever. That’s why we can ask what we want in the name of Jesus and be confident we’ll have it. That “it” we ask for will always be a thing or a process or relationship that God wants, and in love we will receive it. Blessed be God for His plan for humanity. Amen.