Acts chapter 18, starting at verse 24, and then reading through verse 7 of chapter 19. 18, verse 24. Now a certain Jew named Apollos, born in Alexandria, an eloquent man, and mighty in the scriptures, came to Ephesus. This man had been instructed in the way of the Lord, and being fervent in spirit, he spoke and taught accurately the things of the Lord. though he knew only the baptism of John. So he began to speak boldly in the synagogue. When Aquila and Priscilla heard him, they took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately. And when he desired to cross to Achaia, the brethren wrote, exhorting the disciples to receive him. And when he arrived, he greatly helped those who had believed through grace, for he vigorously refuted the Jews publicly, showing from the scriptures that Jesus is the Christ. And it happened, while Apollos was at Corinth, that Paul, having passed through the upper regions, came to Ephesus. And finding some disciples, he said to them, Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed? So they said to him, We have not so much as heard whether there is a Holy Spirit. And he said to them, Into what then were you baptized? So they said, into John's baptism. Then Paul said, John indeed baptized with a baptism of repentance, saying to the people that they should believe on him who would come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus. When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. And when Paul had laid hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they spoke with tongues and prophesied. Now, the men were about 12 in all. This incident is the fourth time that we have speaking in tongues occur in the Book of Acts. This is made much of by Pentecostals who try to argue that there has to be a speaking in tongues in order to be saved. That is less common now than it used to be, but it's still a position that's held to sometimes. We talked about the fact last time that that is Clearly not what the text is teaching. There are many parts of scripture that lay out justification by faith alone, apart from any works, including speaking in tongues. But what we have instead is the reality that the four times when we see speaking in tongues are important as helping us to understand the relationship of the Old Testament church to the New Testament church. The four times that the speaking in tongues occurs are first in Acts chapter 2 at Pentecost, then in Acts chapter 8 when Peter goes to Samaria, and there's the encounter with Simon the sorcerer. Then there is Acts chapter 10 with Cornelius, where Peter interacts with Cornelius. He's a centurion who's a Gentile. And the household of Cornelius, which is rather large. And then we have here in Acts chapter 19, And we run into a situation where Paul is engaging with the disciples of John. And I think that it's based upon the textual structure. I think there's a suggestion here that Apollos had discipled these men before he came to the knowledge of what was taught to him by Priscilla and Aquila. Being at the last of these incidents, I'd like to look back at the very beginning of Acts, which points to us the purpose of the book, which you can see more clearly what's going on with these tongue speaking events, the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and it's related frequently to water baptism, though they are not the same thing. So Acts chapter one, we have here a sort of thesis that's given to us by Luke, So Acts chapter 1 verse 1 relates it to the first volume, which is often called the Gospel of Luke. The former account I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began to do and teach until the day in which he was taken up after he, through the Holy Spirit, had given commandments to the apostles whom he had chosen, to whom he also presented himself alive after suffering by many infallible proofs, being seen by them during 40 days and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God." So we have what Jesus did and taught. We have his ascension. We have the Holy Spirit being sent and the teaching of the apostles, the apostolic deposit, which is being given to us in the scriptures. And then from there, we have the apostolic witness, the idea that there's a qualification to be an apostle. You had to see the resurrected Christ. And so those things are all pointed out here. The 40 days, during which Christ continues to teach them about the things pertaining to the kingdom of God. And we know this volume, volume two, the book of Acts, is about the kingdom of God, the spreading of the kingdom. So look here at the next few verses, verses four through eight. And being assembled together with them, he commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem. but to wait for the promise of the Father." So that's the Holy Spirit, the promise of the Father. Which he said, you have heard from me. For John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit. So those two baptisms, the baptism with water and the one from John, and the baptism with the Holy Spirit. You shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit, not many days from now. Therefore, when they had come together, they asked him, saying, Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? And he said to them, it is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in his own authority, but you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be witnesses to me in Jerusalem, in all Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. So this idea that there's a receiving of power from the Holy Spirit is what I want to emphasize is the difference between the baptism with water and the baptism of the Holy Spirit. The baptism of the Holy Spirit is the work of God to give the gifts to the New Testament church to make it so that the word is effectual, powerful. We have giftings, we have abilities that are giving Holy Spirit gifts. And these are discussed in the book of Ephesians and in First Corinthians at some length. From there, there's this listing of places where witness will be given. Jerusalem, which is where we have Acts 2 with Pentecost and the baptism of the Holy Spirit laid out there. Then we have Judea, which you see preaching going out from Jerusalem so that the Jews generally are being preached to. That occurred even before Pentecost, right? Jesus and his disciples were preaching throughout the towns of Judea. But then you have Samaria, which is in Acts chapter eight, where there is a baptism of the Holy Spirit and to the end of the earth that points to the Gentiles. Right. So we have chapter 10 of Acts. We have Cornelius being brought in to represent the Gentiles and his household. And so with that, there is a bringing in of people. It's kind of a first fruits of those who are at the end of the earth. Now, Judea, there's a diaspora, there's a spreading out of Jews across the Roman Empire. And so what we find here in Ephesus are disciples of John who have been scattered far away from Judea. And these are Jews. That's what we see in Acts chapter 19, are Jews that have been scattered there. And so when you look at kind of the spectrum of Jews all the way from kind of those, most orthodox to those who are most apostate. You would say the disciples of John would have been the most orthodox, the ones that are most in line with the teaching that God had delivered to the prophets. And then you would have a mainline mixture going between the Pharisees and the Sadducees. And then you get to the really far apostate, and you have the Samaritans, who are trying to claim to be Jewish in some way, having the God of Abraham, but that they have perverted things. And so you might think of that as almost like Mormons today, where there's this pretense to being Christian, but having really no relationship to historic Christianity, is some of the kind of smatterings of open, open appearances. So these groups, The main body of Jews being in Acts 2, having first fruits drawn out. The Samaritans in Acts chapter 8. And then these sort of avant-garde Orthodox that are in Ephesus here, the disciples of John. They are all brought in out of that sort of Jewish group in the broadest possible sense. And so we run into that. And the question that arises when you look at the text really comes down to, why are these people baptized a second time? What's the relationship between John's baptism and Christ's baptism? And that should call to mind a question of the relationship between circumcision and baptism, seeing as they point to being, they are both the entry right into the covenant of grace, into the visible church. So we'll get to that. What I want to do is jump back to the end of Acts 18. You know where I'm going. We're going to be talking about John's baptism and its relationship to Christ's baptism. But again, this is connected to the section with Apollos. So let's go back to Acts 18, verse 24. Acts 18, verse 24. All right. So we have a Jew named Apollos. He's born in Alexandria. We talked last time about the fact that being Jewish, he has the Jewish heritage. He's raised under the ordinances and oracles of God. He is also from Alexandria, so he's engaged with sort of the Greek philosophical tradition. And having done so, he has education that's broadly He's broadly knowledgeable. He's a cultured man. So that we see he's referred to as an eloquent man. Talk about how that's you could translate that as kind of a man of letters, somebody who is studied, he is good with rhetoric. And so eloquent is a reasonable translation there. And more than that, he's also mighty in the scriptures. So he comes to Ephesus, and he has all of this background and skill. He's got powerful rhetoric, and he also has a knowledge of the scriptures. And he has a background with the Greek philosophy. So verse 25, he's been catechized or instructed in the way of the Lord. He is zealous in the Holy Spirit. Talked about how that says spirit, but it really should be The spirit in spirit should be in the spirit. He spoke and taught accurately the things of the Lord. Now, I didn't properly engage with that. I want to say this, the word accurately there should really be translated diligently. It's not a problem of being wrong. And there's not a problem here of how precise he's being. He's being diligent. He's being diligent in his teaching. And so that would suggest he's doing it in an orderly way. He's doing it well. He's fully engaged on it. He cares about it. He's doing a good job. So think about all this together. He is instructed. He's eloquent. He's mighty in the scriptures. He's got a Jewish background. He's got an academic background. He is good at rhetoric. He's a zealous man, and he is speaking and teaching diligently the things of the Lord. This is a powerful set of gifting. This guy is a valuable, talented, gifted part of the church. And at the same time, he doesn't know about the fulfillment that has come. He only knows the baptism of John. He doesn't know what's happened after that. So he began to speak boldly in the synagogue. So he is he is trying to reform the synagogue, encourage the synagogue to grow in the knowledge of God. He's trying to have the application of the history of redemption that he is aware of. And so he's pushing for that reform. And so he is seeking to encourage the knowledge of God, holiness and righteousness. verse 26. So he began to speak boldly in the synagogue when Aquila and Priscilla heard him. They took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately. And that's the same root word. It's really more it shouldn't be translated that they're teaching him to do it more accurately, because accurately suggests something's wrong. It's about completeness. It's about how much, right? If I give you perfectly a story and I tell you three quarters of it, the problem is not accuracy. The problem is completeness. And so that's what he's missing here is completeness. And so it's not the modifier here of being explaining to him the way of God more accurately. It looks like the modifying of the term, you say, more accurately, that's modifying his doctrine as though it were less accurate and it's becoming more accurate. Really what's being said here is that they diligently explained to him the way of God. So they're telling him additional information, and they're doing it with diligence. This is the way Calvin explains it in his commentary. If you look up the word, you'll see that there's alternate translations. You can have accuracy, you can have diligence. The word is controlled by its context, in terms of how you interpret it. And so, because the issue is not accuracy, it's made clear for us. The issue is, he only knows up to the baptism of John. So that's explained for us here. So that's why I'm suggesting that's important. So verse 27. Oh, I'm sorry, one last thing about verse 26 there. So Aquila and Priscilla, think about Apollos, the gift that he has, the knowledge he has, the education he has, it'd be very easy to be arrogant, to be proud, to ignore, okay? Aquila and Priscilla, they are craftsmen. So this is like a skilled factory worker coming up and correcting somebody who has a doctorate or something like that. The response could be, I know what I'm talking about, shush, shush, that kind of response. And not even that, but also, There's a much stronger sort of patriarchal nature to the society at the time. And he's listening also to Priscilla in this talking. And so that is, in the home, he is being corrected by Aquila and Priscilla together. And his response is to listen and to believe. He considers what is said. He does not abuse them by thinking lowly of them because of the job or because of stations they have. He's listening to them. And he's engaging with them to consider the things that have been said. Now that goes and he benefits from that. That's not just him condescending to somebody. That's him benefiting, right? It is foolish to not listen when someone brings correction. We talked last time we focused on and spent most of the time on Basically, the space where correction is appropriate. In brief, that was simply this idea that there's opportunity here to speak in private, and sometimes there's a duty to correct publicly. It depends on the type of error. Here, there was incompleteness, so that was okay. So, verse 27, he desires to cross to Achaia. He wants to go to Greece. The brethren write him a letter to encourage his reception, and then He helps those who believe through grace, and here's the explanation of the help. He vigorously refuted the Jews in public, and he does that specifically by showing from the scriptures that Jesus is the Christ. So he goes from being incomplete to being extremely useful because he's able to defend that Jesus is the Christ. There's a very specific thing that's being done here, and that has to do with the old administration church and the new administration church and the recognition of the times, where are we in redemptive history? And so that's how he's being used now, having listened to that correction. So when we get into this section in 19, chapter 19, there's the same problem with these 12 disciples that are disciples of john, they do not know where we are in redemptive history. Okay, that's the issue. So we look at their situation, a lot of the commentaries try to rip these two passages apart. And I think it's important that they're together, because when we look at the other passages that I mentioned to you about speaking in tongues, there's very clearly kind of a figurehead who is kind of a leader of that group. And then from there, it shows the reformation of that group. When we look at what happened in Acts chapter 2, Peter is used as a figurehead representing the Jews who are the remnant, who are believing, and he is used to bring other people to believe. When we look at Acts chapter 8 with the Samaritans, there is Simon the sorcerer, who represents this sort of fake Judaism with kind of witchcraft mixed in. and the way in which there is a calling of those people to repent, and he, we talked some time about whether or not he was actually a believer or not, but he's used as a figurehead for that group. And then from there, we look at Acts chapter 10, and you have Cornelius, and Cornelius is a figurehead of sort of the Gentiles. He's a centurion, so he represents Rome and Roman authority. And he's also the head of the house of the people that are meeting there. And so he is used, and Peter interacts with him. So here now, with these disciples of John, Apollos is sort of that figurehead. There's a literary structure. It's something we're seeing over and over again. So to rip them apart, I think, is destructive. And so when we get here, we have the reality that these two are interlinked. We're being taught something that applies to both. And so let's consider that. chapter 19, verse 1. And it happened while Apollos was at Corinth, that Paul, having passed through the upper regions, came to Ephesus. And finding some disciples, he said to them, did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed? So he's coming, he's engaging with some disciples. This language, some disciples, is showing us that these are people who are professing believers. This is not just some disciples of whatever. This is the language that's used to refer to Christians. And so there's kind of a literary trick being played here. where we find out, oh, they're Christians who don't know Christ yet. They don't know that Jesus is the Christ yet, but they have faith in the promises. So they believe the promise of the Messiah to come. They then are told, even though this is like 20 years later, after Christ has already died, they're then told those promises were fulfilled by Christ and the Holy Spirit has been sent already. Okay, so this is what they're being caught up on. So they have received the teaching of Moses. They believe the teaching of Moses. And we're told by Jesus, if you believe Moses, you would believe me. And these guys show evidence that they believe Moses because when they're told about the Christ, they believe. So they're asked, verse two, did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed? So they said to him, we have not so much as heard whether there is a Holy Spirit. I think that's a bad translation. It's not. We have not so much as heard. The Holy Spirit has come is better. There's a single word there that's translated. There is a and you again, you have to translate that word based upon the context. And so I think it is better to understand this. The Old Testament is full of teaching of the spirit of God. Old Testament is full of it. It's full of teaching about the spirit of God. And we were told by John the Baptist about the Spirit of God. And there's this teaching about the Messiah to come and making straight the way. And so it's not like John the Baptist was just hiding this doctrine of the Holy Spirit from them. This is far better to understand as we have not so much as heard whether the Holy Spirit has come. And he said to them, into what then were you baptized? So they said into John's baptism. Then Paul said, John indeed baptized with a baptism of repentance, saying to the people that they should believe on him who would come after him. That is, on Christ Jesus. So we're being shown here that John's baptism is a pre-Christian baptism. And what I mean by that is it's a baptism before Christ's new administration. And so We have circumcision, which is given as the sign of the covenant, right? We think back to Genesis 15 and Genesis 17, where we have the giving of the covenant and then the giving of the sign, and there's an explanation of the relationship to the sign, the sign to the reality. And we then have, before Christ, and even before John, there's the use of the idea of baptism. Baptism is used in the temple to wash instruments. baptizing of instruments that are being cleansed. You have the baptizing of the altar with blood when the high priest would sprinkle blood. There was a baptizing of the of the altar with blood. And so you have this idea of washing and ceremonial washings. The book of Hebrews talks about ceremonial washings and how they are their symbols that point to something. And so what we have is this baptism of repentance that's given by John. Now, think about circumcision. It's given to become a Jew. You are born into a Jewish household. On the eighth day, you're recognized as a Jew by being circumcised. If you are a convert to Judaism, you get circumcised the way now baptism would be given to a member of a Christian church. John's baptism was a baptism for Jews. There's a teaching that's going on. It's going on in Israel. And they're calling the people of Israel to repentance, to baptism for Jews, to cleanse themselves. And this is a preparing for Christ to come. And we need to realize that this baptism We have to ask ourselves, how is it the same as the baptism of Jesus, and how is it different? Well, it's the same in that it represents the same covenant, just like circumcision does. So it's the covenant of grace. It points us to our sin. It points us to Christ's work to pay for our sins. It points to Christ's work to provide a righteousness to cover us. And it points to our need to now pursue the law of God as a lamp unto our feet so that we can grow in godliness and grow in the knowledge of God. At the same time, it is different in that it points to something that hasn't happened yet. Circumcision points to Christ to come, and John's baptism points to the Lord who will come. That's why you're making straight the way. You're making the way ready for the Lord to come. And then from there, the ceremony is outwardly different. How? How is that really different? It's washing. But the difference, it's washing with water. But the difference is that there's a Trinitarian formula, right? You baptize in the name of the Father, in the name of the Son, in the name of the Holy Spirit. Now, this can make some people uncomfortable. Say, well, does that mean that Christ's baptism, when he was baptized by John, is not the same baptism that we have? Well, first of all, I want to point out that Christ was living in the old administration. He did things that we are not required to do. He dealt with ceremonies that we're not required to deal with. He was living in the time of the old administration. But secondly, he was also a bridge, and so there's a certain way in which he takes old things and makes them new. So think about Passover. He has the Passover meal, and in having the Passover, he transforms it and makes it into the Lord's Supper. He changes it in the process of using it. I want to suggest to you the same thing happens with John's baptism with Christ. Turn with me to the book of Matthew chapter 3. Matthew chapter 3, looking at verse 13. Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan to be baptized by him. John tried to prevent him saying, I need to be baptized by you. Are you coming to me? But Jesus answered and said to him, permitted to be so now. For thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness that he allowed him. When he had been baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water. And behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighted upon him. And suddenly a voice came from heaven saying, this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. So although John would not have said, I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, we have John's baptism, and then we have a Trinitarian sign occurring. There is the voice from heaven, which is God the Father being represented. He references Christ as God the Son. And there is the presence of the Holy Spirit in a theophany, or an appearance of a visible sort of manifestation of God with the dove. And so we have a Trinitarian baptism. The Trinitarian name of God is put on Christ with these visible signs of the name of God. And so I want to suggest to you that the baptism of Christ is the same as our baptism. It's a Trinitarian baptism. And he transforms John's baptism into the Trinitarian baptism. It's the first Trinitarian baptism. So that's how I would answer that. and say that we do have the same baptism as Christ, and that's the way in which John's baptism is an Old Testament baptism. In the same way that the Passover is kind of an Old Testament Lord's Supper, it is transformed for us by Christ at the Last Supper. So, looking at that, we have the relationship between circumcision, John's baptism, and Christ's baptism. We see that they are all sort of signs of the covenant, Circumcision is the entry right for Jews or to become a Jew. John's baptism is a baptism of repentance for Jews. Christ's baptism is for Jews and Gentiles, whether you're coming from the main body of the Jewish nation. you get baptized. If you are from an apostate false Jewish church, like the Samaritans, you just get baptized and you join it. If you're coming from the most godly portion of the Jewish nation, like the disciples of john here, you just get baptized and you join the church. And if you're a Gentile, you get baptized and you join the church. That is why you have a sort of repetition of Pentecost with the tongues and prophecy occurring in each of those. It's to show that there's not a difference. It's to answer all the possible objections about, well, what things need to be done for you to join the church? Well, you need to repent, believe, get baptized. And so that is what's being taught here. Now, Let's continue in the text there. Verse 3, "...and he said to them, into what then were you baptized? So they said, into John's baptism." Verse 4, "...then Paul said, John indeed baptized with the baptism of repentance, saying to the people that they should believe on him who would come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus." So this tells us about the pointing forward nature of John's baptism, right? It's pointing forward to Christ, whereas the baptism we receive is pointing backward to Christ. I want to emphasize something here. Baptism of repentance. Sometimes people will try to emphasize a difference between a baptism of faith and a baptism of repentance. It's important to realize that repentance is just the turning of the mind. You go from unbelief to belief, saving repentance. Repentance unto life is going from unbelief to belief. And so there's not, it's not so much that a baptism of repentance is different from a baptism of faith. as there is an emphasis of language on the turning, as opposed to on the object of faith, and that's to point out the error, but they are the same. The baptism of repentance and the baptism of faith would be the same. Verse five, when they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. And when Paul had laid hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they spoke with tongues and prophesied. Now, the men were about 12 in all. We have the laying on of hands here to give the Holy Spirit. That's something that was distinct to the apostolic era. You see this was taken up as a right in confirmation by churches for centuries that I think is, Calvin criticizes this in his commentary as saying this is a sort of empty sign and it's something that has nothing to commend it to us as a continuing right. We don't have this kind of visible representation of the baptism of the Holy Spirit that comes with tongue speaking now. So when you try to link those things, you end up, I think, edging towards the Pentecostal error of saying that you need to have tongues in order to be saved, and that it's a necessary thing to follow. So I want to emphasize that those laying on of hands moments are distinct to the apostolic era. The baptism that occurs here is an entry into the church, and we see There's an organizing of these men, these 12 men. It's interesting. We've already had in Acts 2, we have the Jewish nation coming in and the apostles represent the 12 tribes. But it seems like the last time we have this kind of representation of of Jewish people coming in as a part of this first fruits and this early piece of the church. There are 12 of them. And so I think that's a pointer to us, a reminder to us about this being about teaching the relationship of the Jewish nation to the church and about the reality of the old covenant and the new covenant. And so that's kind of the theme that I've been pointing out. I think there's a number of literary things here that help us to make those connections. And so I hope that's helpful there. So having laid that out, I'd like to give opportunity for the voting members if there's any questions or objections. Then a couple of side points I'd like to make before ending this. One thing that comes up is an objection to the position I've just represented to you. This implies that if you have John's baptism, that you would need to be baptized a second time. And that's what we see here in Acts 19. There are three kind of views that are put forward about this. One is to say that they got baptized a second time, not because there's a difference between John's baptism and Christ's baptism, but rather because they hadn't been baptized with the Spirit yet. You could see how that would relate to a view on believer's baptism. If you reject the Presbyterian position that you need to have children be baptized, you would say that's not a valid baptism and you need to re-baptize because this person has not been baptized in the spirit yet. And so when you appeal to that, that's opposed to that view that children should be baptized. That, I believe, creates a number of systematic problems. I want you to be aware of that error in case you run into it, but is a view that I have rejected. I don't see anything in the text that suggests that. That seems to be an effort here to put a believer's baptism view onto the text. The other thing is some people will try to advocate that there is a need to be baptized a second time if you've been separated from a visible body for a long time. That comes from a view of the visible church where you say you as an individual cannot be a part of the visible church by profession. It requires you to be a part of a local Visible church, so you think about the idea there is the visible church universal all those who profess the true religion and their children That's what the Westminster Confession says and then there are local assemblies that are local visible churches and so If your view of the visible church is such that individuals are not a part of the visible church, but only local bodies are, you're going to have an institutional view that makes it so that the gifts and church authority are not given to the visible saints, but rather are given to institutions, local assemblies. And so if that's the case, and separation from a local view church institution makes you not a part of the visible church, that's what that would mean. So you can see how these views relate to your theology and your view of the church. And so I reject that view. I think the confession is right in saying that visible saints are part of the visible church by profession, and that it's the duty of people who are part of the visible church to form local assemblies or to join local assemblies, but that you're not made a part of the visible church by being a part of a local assembly. So then thirdly, the view that I believe is taught in scripture is that the outward form is different. Right. So Jesus, Jesus is baptism. We looked at how in Matthew chapter three, he had a Trinitarian baptism. There's an objection that's offered, and I think this is the strongest objection that's offered to the view I've presented to you. In John chapter four, verse two, it says that the that Jesus baptized more people than John. But then it has a parenthetical. And the parenthetical says, Jesus didn't baptize, his disciples baptized. And so people will say, see right there, it says Jesus didn't baptize. So that means his apostles weren't baptized by him. They had to be baptized by John. Which means that either they were never baptized, or John's baptism is the same as Jesus' baptism. So my answer to that would simply be, I don't believe that that is an absolute statement. You think about in First Corinthians, Paul says he didn't baptize anybody. And then he gives a list of a few exceptions. He lists, I think, three men, one of them being Crispus, who was a leader in the synagogue. And I think this is similar, where this is saying Jesus didn't baptize. That's generally the case. But I think the apostles were baptized by Jesus as he commissions them. And so that's my answer to that. Last opportunity for comments and questions. All right, taking it. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for the teaching of your word. We ask that you would help us to believe what is true, and that in discussion, if there's any error or any incompleteness, that it would be helped as we engage in the discussion. And we thank you that you have not left us without teaching, but that you have given light to us. and we give praise to you for it. We pray this in Christ's name.