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Acts 19:1-8
While Apollos was in Corinth,
Paul traveled through the interior of the country
and down to Ephesus where he found some disciples.
He said to them,
“Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you became believers?”
They answered him,
“We have never even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.”
He said, “How were you baptized?”
They replied, “With the baptism of John.”
Paul then said, “John baptized with a baptism of repentance,
telling the people to believe in the one who was to come after him,
that is, in Jesus.”
When they heard this,
they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.
And when Paul laid his hands on them,
the Holy Spirit came upon them,
and they spoke in tongues and prophesied.
Altogether there were about twelve men.
He entered the synagogue, and for three months debated boldly
with persuasive arguments about the Kingdom of God.
The Word of the Lord.
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Saint Paul is preaching the Gospel in Ephesus, when suddenly he encounters a group of incomplete Christians.
“We have never even heard that there is a Holy Spirit,” they say.
They’re lacking two things: knowledge of God and the gift of the Holy Spirit.
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We don’t know the extent of their faith.
We’re they only followers of John the Baptist, meaning they knew there was a God, and they knew their need to repent? Or did they actually hear of the resurrection and believe?
In any case, Paul recognizes that their experience of Christianity is incomplete. They need the Holy Spirit, so he baptizes them.
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Although every Christian is baptized, some still have an incomplete experience of God, much like those in our first reading.
Some lack knowledge of Him – how loving, supreme, and merciful he is – while others lack the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
Christianity only reaches its fulfillment when we experience the fruit of the Spirit, which Saint Paul says is, “joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”
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That is the goal of religion – and the mark of a fully-fledged Christian – to be at peace at with God and at peace with one’s neighbors.
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Image credits: (1) I Lobo You (2) Baptism of Saint Paul, Capella Palatina 1140 (3) BibleInfo.com