Q. Last Sunday we celebrated the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord. Was the baptism of John, which Jesus received, the same as Christian baptism?
A. The baptism administered by John was not the Christian baptism which the Church administers. This difference was most clearly demonstrated when St. Paul encountered some men in the city of Ephesus who had received John’s baptism. The Apostle insisted that they still had to receive Christian baptism (Acts 19:1–6). In a similar way, we’re told, a man named Apollos, who had actually been preaching Jesus, “knew only the baptism of John,” with