Replies

From: Acts 18:23-28

Galatia and Phrygia

[23] After spending some time there he (Paul) departed and went from place to place through the region of Galatia and Phrygia, strengthening all the disciples.

Apollos in Ephesus and Corinth

[24] Now a Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria, came to Ephesus. He was an eloquent man, well versed in the scriptures. [25] He had been instructed in the way of the Lord; and being fervent in spirit, he spoke and taught accurately the things concerning Jesus, though he knew only the baptism of John. [26] He began to speak boldly in the synagogue; but when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him and expounded to him the way of God more accurately. [27] And when he wished to cross to Achaia, the brethren encouraged him, and wrote to the disciples to receive him. When he arrived, he greatly helped those who through grace had believed, [28] for he powerfully confuted the Jews in public, showing by the scriptures that the Christ was Jesus.

***********************************************************************
Commentary:

18:23 - 21:26. Paul’s third apostolic journey starts, like the earlier ones, from Antioch, but it ends with his imprisonment in Jerusalem
(Acts 21:27ff). It was a long journey, but Luke devotes most attention to events in Ephesus.

To begin with Paul tours the cities he already evangelized in Galatia and Phrygia: this would have taken him from the last months of 53 to early 54. Then he goes to Ephesus, where he stays for almost three years and meets up with all kinds of contradictions (cf. 2 Cor 1:8), as he describes it in his letter to the Corinthians in spring 57: “To the present hour we hunger and thirst, we are ill-clad and buffeted and homeless.... We have become, and are now, as the refuse of the world, the offscourings of all things” (1 Cor 4:11, 13). Despite this, or perhaps because of it, his apostolate was very fruitful and the Christian message spread through all proconsular Asia, to important cities like Colossae, Laodicae, Hierapolis, etc. and to countless towns; as he put it in a letter to the Corinthians (1 Cor 16:9), “a wide door for effective work has opened to me”.

The Apostle had to leave Ephesus on account of the revolt of the silversmiths, moving on towards Macedonia and Achaia to visit the
churches he founded on his second journey—Philippi, Thessalonica and Corinth. He stayed there the three months of the winter of 57/58. On his return journey (to Jerusalem, to bring money collected) he went via Macedonia to avoid a Jewish plot. He embarked at Neapolis (the port near Philippi), stopping off at Troas, Miletus (where he met with the elders from Ephesus whom he had called to come to him), Tyre and Caesarea, and managing to reach Jerusalem in time for the Passover.

24. Priscilla and Aquila knew how valuable a man with Apollos’ qualities would be if he could be got to dedicate himself to the Lord’s
service; so they took the initiative and spoke to him. Monsignor Escriva sees this episode as a good lesson about boldness in speaking
about God, as “an event that demonstrates the wonderful apostolic zeal of the early Christians. Scarcely a quarter of a century had passed since Jesus had gone up to heaven and already his fame had spread to many towns and villages. In the city of Ephesus a man arrived, Apollos by name, ‘an eloquent man, well versed in the scriptures’. . . . A glimmer of Christ’s light had already filtered into the mind of this man. He had heard about our Lord and he passed the news on to others. But he still had some way to go. He needed to know more if he was to acquire the fulness of the faith and so come to love our Lord truly. A Christian couple, Aquila and Priscilla, hear him speaking; they are not inactive or indifferent. They do not think: ‘This man already knows enough; it’s not our business to teach him.’ They were souls who were really eager to do apostolate and so they approached Apollos and ‘took him and expounded to him the way of God more accurately”’ (”Friends of God”, 269).

This was the kind of zeal the first Christians had; a little later on St Justin wrote: “We do our very best to warn them [Jews and heretics], as we do you, not to be deluded, for we know full well that whoever can speak out the truth and fails to do so shall be condemned by God” (”Dialogue with Tryphon”, 82, 3).

27. God uses people, in this case Apollos, to channel his grace to the faithful. They are instruments of his; they preach his word and reap an apostolic harvest, but it is God himself who makes the harvest grow, by providing his grace. “It depends not upon man’s will or exertion, but upon God’s mercy” (Romans 9:16). “It is not we who save souls and move them to do good. We are quite simply instruments, some more, some less worthy, for fulfilling God’s plans for salvation. If at any time we were to think that we ourselves were the authors of the good we do, then our pride would return, more twisted than ever. The salt would lose its flavor, the leaven would rot and the light would turn into darkness” ([St] J. Escriva, “Friends of God”, 250).

Hence the importance of supernatural resources in apostolic activity: building is in vain if God does not support it (cf. Psalm 127:1). “All the exterior effort is a waste of time, if you lack Love. It’s like sewing with a needle and no thread” ([St] J. Escriva, “The Way”, 967).