I believe that Paul was a special case; his experiences e.g. the Road to Damascus, the blinding, and the subsequent unblinding and change of heart suggest it.
Why would any of that suggest Paul was a "special case"? God does not show partiality. Everyone comes to God precisely as God brings them to Himself.Luk 19:5-6 And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up, and saw him, and said unto him, Zacchaeus, make haste, and come down; for to day I must abide at thy house. And he made haste, and came down, and received him joyfully.
Plus the fact that he was able to go and teach the Gospels, albeit often somewhat apparently at odds with some of the teachings of the others, suggest even more strongly that he was special,
Well, then what you're suggesting is that since what God did for Paul was out of the ordinary and that Paul's writings are at odds with others; then Paul's writings must be much MORE authoritative than Peter's.
Acts 8:14-18...Acts 19:1-6...This leads us to believe that we have the actions and the order of those actions correct.
In both those cases they received the Holy Spirit apart from baptism. I fail to understand how the order can be correct if you're saying that you need to be baptized to received the Holy Spirit.
Confirmation is the Catholic Church’s official prayer for the Holy Spirit to empower a person to spread the gospel, to live a fervent Christian life, and share more fully in the mission and ministry of the Church....Being “baptized in the Holy Spirit” is actually a “release” or a “coming to consciousness” of the power of the Holy Spirit who already has been given to the believer through the sacraments of the Church.
The Holy Spirit is given to us by God. The sacraments are only evidence that we have the Holy Spirit working in our lives. We are baptized because the Holy Spirit gives us the motivation to be baptized. We take communion because the Holy Spirit gives us the desire to align ourselves with the death of Christ. All good works come from our Lord Jesus:Jhn 15:4 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.
We think that Paul was a special case because, aside from Jesus physically picking out his Apostles (even more special than Paul, I suppose), this is one of the few cases where He directly picked somebody out in a demonstrably phyical fashion.
There is certainly an argument that Paul’s knowledge was more special or elevated than the others, but one can also argue that Jesus actually spent a lot of time ensuring that their knowledge was ingrained and exact with the others. I would be content to say that his knowledge and teachings were of the same order as the rest.
The argument against the Catholic order of baptism is that the Holy Spirit must come first; these verses support the idea that Baptism either confers the Holy Spirit or leads the way to future infusion of the Holy Spirit.
The Sacraments are not evidence that we have the Holy Spirit. A Charles Manson may take Communion every day and confess every week, but if he had no intention of repenting, the Sacraments will do no good whatsoever.