The Gospel of the Forty Days: Baptism, Part 1       “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Mt 28:20). The verse tells us that Christ (now resurrected and speaking with His Apostles before His ascension) commanded them to baptize all peoples as they became disciples. With the same words, Jesus also spoke of God’s revelation of Himself: baptism was to be in the Name (singular, one God) of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (three Persons), thus reinforcing what the Apostles had learned being with Jesus: that God had, in Christ, revealed Himself to be three divine Persons possessing simultaneously the one divine nature of the one God as revealed to Israel. So Jesus’ command (Ac 1:2) and teaching (Ac 1:3) here are part of his “gospel of the forty days.”       Jesus spoke on different occasions during the forty days of the baptism He was commanding the Apostl...

The Gospel of the Forty Days: Apostolic Teaching Office       In recent articles we’ve seen that Jesus’ “gospel of the forty days” included that the Apostles would appoint their successors, what today we call bishops, priests, and deacons. Interestingly, St. Paul states that these different offices of ministry (charisms) are gifts of the risen and ascended Christ (Eph 4:7-8), indicating again a likelihood that Jesus’s instruction during the forty days would include both the nature of the charisms and the ministerial office.       Now St. Paul also says the function of these charisms is that the Church attain “the unity of the Faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God” so we no longer be tossed around by human doctrines and deceits. (Eph 4:12-14). Such refers to doctrine, clearly part of Jesus’ teachings given during the forty days (Ac 1:2-3; cf., Lk 24:26-27, 45-46).       The doctrinal function of the ministeri...

The Gospel of the Forty Days: Priesthood       We again consider the “gospel of the forty days” (Ac 1:2-3), and consider what Jesus may have taught the Apostles after His resurrection about their priesthood.       In the New Testament (NT) the Christian community is described as a “holy priesthood” (1 Pt 2:5), a kingdom of priests to God (Rev: 1:6, 5:10, 20:6). This fulfills God’s original intention for Israel to be a kingdom of priests (Ex 19:6) but which they lost through idolatry. This NT “holy priesthood” we call the “common priesthood” or “priesthood of all believers.” So St. Paul can appeal to all to present themselves “as a living sacrifice,” our “spiritual worship” (Ro 12:1).       Yet, as St. Paul put it, “all the members [of the Body] do not have the same function” (Ro 12:4), and so we distinguish between the “common priesthood” and the “ministerial priesthood.” The book of Hebrews develops wonderfully Ch...

The Gospel of the Forty Days: Bishops and Presbyters       Last week we saw that the “gospel of the forty days” after Jesus’ resurrection (Ac 1:2-3) included that the Apostles would appoint their successors, and we discussed the origin of the terms “bishop” and “deacon.” There is a third term from the Greek which the Apostles adopted as a title for an office in the early Church. The Greek OT and the NT refer to “elder” in many different contexts, but the first time it is used as a designation of an office in the Church is in Acts 11:30 where St. Barnabas and St. Paul (Saul) brought famine relief to the Judean “elders.” The Greek term is presbuteros , or in English, “presbyters.” Also in Acts 14:23 Paul and Barnabas appoint presbyters in all the mission churches, and there are presbyters with the Apostles at the council of Jerusalem (Ac 15:2, 4, 6, 22, 23; 16:4; cf., Ac 21:18).       In Paul’s farewell address to the presbyters of Ephesus (Ac 2...