Acts 18:25

Ἰησοῦ for Κυρίου with אABDEL. Vulg. ‘Jesu.’

25. οὗτος ἧν κατηχημένος τὴν ὁδὸν τοῦ κυρίον, this man was instructed in the way of the Lord. The verb κατηχέω (whence our ‘catechize’) implies a course of instruction distinct from his own study of the O.T. Scriptures. We know from Josephus (Antiq. XVIII. 5. 2) that the teaching and baptism of John produced great effect among the Jews. We need not therefore wonder at finding among Jews in Alexandria and Ephesus men who had accepted the Baptist’s teaching about Jesus. But in considering such cases we must remember where such instruction as they had received would stop short. They would know that John baptized in preparation for the coming of the kingdom, they would have heard that he pointed to Jesus as the Lamb of God, being certified thereof when He came to be baptized. But when John was dead and the life of Jesus was brought to a close on Calvary, except the few of John’s disciples who had joined the followers of our Lord, none would know of the way in which the foundations of the heavenly kingdom were laid, none would understand the institution of the Sacraments, nor the sending down of the Holy Ghost, nor the teaching of repentance, and of the gift of salvation to the faithful through grace. Of these things John had known nothing, and we must not forget in our attempt to estimate his work and its effects, that there came to himself a day when he sent to Christ to ask ‘Art thou He that should come?’ (Matthew 11:3.)

καὶ ζέων τῷ πνεύματι ἐλάλει καὶ ἐδίδασκεν�, and being fervent in spirit he spake and taught carefully the things concerning Jesus. By πνεῦμα is meant Apollos’s own spirit and zeal. The reading of the Text. recept. τὰ περὶ τοῦ Κυρίου seems to have been the suggestion of some one who did not understand the plain statement of the text. In the previous expression ‘the way of the Lord’ we have only the Old Test. words (Isaiah 40:3) quoted by the Evangelists concerning John’s preaching. (Matthew 3:3; Mark 1:3.) There may have been some timidity felt about the further statement that Apollos taught the things ‘concerning Jesus,’ and so the reading of the early part of the verse was brought in here also. But after what has been said above we can see how this Alexandrian Jew might publish with the utmost accuracy all that John had proclaimed about the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven, and enforce it from his own studies of the Old Testament Scriptures. He might declare how John had pointed to Jesus, and might even relate much of the works and words of Christ, as an evidence that God was sending greater prophets than they had known for long, and that therefore Christ’s life was a testimony that redemption was near. All this he might know and preach most carefully, and yet lack all that further knowledge which Aquila and Priscilla imparted. Chrysostom on the contrary explains πνεῦμα of the Holy Ghost, and suggests that the case of Aquila is somewhat like that of Cornelius, where the Holy Spirit was given before baptism in the name of Christ. For ζέων τῷ πνεύματι cf. Romans 12:11.

ἐπιστάμενος … Ἰωάννου, knowing only the baptism of John. In this sentence we have the solution of any difficulty which there may seem to be in the verse. He knew nothing of that other baptism, which is the entrance into Christ’s kingdom, and therefore he could merely be looking forward for the fulfilment of the prophecies, and the power of his teaching would consist in the zealous way which he published that the voice of God in His older Revelation proclaimed Messiah’s advent very near.