Acts 18:18-28 - New Kid On The Block And Paul Gets A Fade

Podcast Transcript (Auto-Transcribed by Apple Podcasts)

Welcome back to Tabernacle Talk.

We are in Acts 18, and yesterday we were with Paul in Corinth, and saw many of the things that were done there, some victories, some trials that happened, and how God worked in all of it, how God was faithful to His promises.

And today we are in Acts 18 and verse number 18. It says this, Now Paul, when he had remained many days longer, this is in Corinth, he took leave of the brothers and sisters and sailed away to Syria, and Priscilla and Aquila were with him.

Paul first had his hair cut at Sentria, for he was keeping a vow. Verse 19, They came to Ephesus, and he left them there. Now he himself entered the synagogue and reasoned with the Jews.

This is his habit that he does every single time. When they asked him to stay for a longer time, he did not consent, but took leave of them and said, I will return you again if God wills. And he set sail from Ephesus.

When he had landed in Caesarea, he went up to Jerusalem and greeted the church and went down to Antioch. Again, that's down topically, geographically. It's not down as in south.

He didn't go south to Antioch. He went north to Antioch, but it's down in elevation. And after spending some time there in Antioch, he left and passed successively through the Galatian region.

This is through Asia Minor, throughout what is now Turkey and Phrygia, strengthening all the disciples.

So verses 18 through 23 are less kind of compelling to us in one sense, that this isn't the, hey, he was thrown in prison, there's earthquakes and he lives, he's stoned and yet God keeps him alive.

It's not as bombastic as some of those, but this is what real life is. Real life is not often the big storybook moments. Most times, day by day, it's, hey, I know what God wants me to do today, and I'm going to be faithful at doing this.

And we can see some of what that entailed. So verse number 18, he brings Priscilla and Aquila with him all the way from Corinth to Ephesus. And Ephesus was a huge city at this time.

They had, oh, was it the Temple of Diana? Yeah, greatest Diana of the Ephesians. I forget if I've already gone over that section or if that's yet to come in this particular, in the upcoming days.

So Ephesus was a huge city. And we had read yesterday that Priscilla and Aquila were originally from Rome, but had gotten kicked out when the Roman emperor, when the Roman emperor Claudius had kicked all of the Jews out of Rome.

That made for a very interesting scenario that we read about in the Book of Romans, because after an amount of time, the Jews were allowed back in, but by the time that the Jews came back to Rome, the church, Christians, had already brought the

gospel to the city of Rome. So there were a good number of gentile believers in the city of Rome that had churches.

And then you have this influx of Jewish Christians that they come back to Rome, and now they're interacting with a lot of difficulties and some infighting because they go, okay, do we just stay separate? We've been these two groups of people.

This is how back in Jerusalem, this is how the Jews worship. The Gentiles have their outer court and the Jews worship in the inner court. Do we keep on doing this?

How do we navigate some of this now? And so that's a lot of what Paul talks about in the Book of Romans. It's an amazing study.

I would encourage you, if you have some time, read through the Book of Romans. Read through it with that lens, realizing what Paul is saying is, hey, you two groups of people are not so different. You are all under the same condemnation.

All of us have sinned and fallen short of God's glory. But God loved us so much that He died for all of us, for the Gentiles and for the Jews. And so Gentiles, the Jews are the ones that they brought the Messiah into the world.

He was a Jew. Jesus was of the tribe of Judah from the lineage of King David. So Jesus came from the Jews.

Not only that, the scriptures that you read that tell us about who Jesus would be, that tell us about God's work in His people in the past, all of that came through the Jewish people. So you need them, and Jewish people, you need the Gentiles.

This is what God promised. He promised that He wasn't just going to keep it to one family, but that everyone that calls on the Lord's name would be saved.

That's just a little bit of a detour thought for you today, but something cool, if you're ever reading through Romans, if you're ever hearing about Romans, keep that in mind is that kind of animosity, that newness that happens that's mentioned here.

So Priscilla and Aquila, Jewish couple from Rome, came to Corinth, met up with Paul, now they're in the city of Ephesus. And it says Paul first had his hair cut at Sentria, there in Acts 18 and verse 18.

That seems like an odd thing to us, for he was keeping a vow, but we see that Paul here still had a heart that said, hey, there are times when I'm going to get very, very serious about my faith with God, where I'm going to make promises to him that

are going to have implications on my life. So here you can think in the Old Testament to the Nazarene vow, as well as to several other vows that would take place, where someone would go, okay, as a sign to God of how serious I am about this prayer or

about this commitment that I have to God, I'm going to do this particular thing. Sometimes the more normal thing that that would take place in is fasting, that someone would say, I am so seriously praying for this thing that I am not going to eat

food during this period of time to dedicate myself entirely to prayer. And sometimes it would be, I'm going to shave my head, I'm going to cut my hair in order to communicate both to myself and to people around me how serious I am about this thing

with God. And so Paul has this happen, that he has a continued active walk with the Lord, where it wasn't just asking other people to do things, but he himself was growing in his walk with the Lord.

So then verse number 19, he goes into the synagogue. I think it's interesting that he, they wanted to hear more about the gospel, and he says, I'll return you again if God wills.

But he leaves them with Priscilla and Aquila, and we're going to see why here in one second. So he goes down to Jerusalem, to the church.

He goes back to Antioch, kind of his home church, if you will, where he spent a lot of time with the believers there. And then he goes back up, and he's visiting all the churches again there in Asia Minor, strengthening all the disciples.

Sometimes we can get a very individualistic look at our lives as Christians, and we can say, OK, all I need is me and God and the Bible, and us three, we've got this. Unfortunately, that's not how God designed it.

That's not how he made the Christian life to work. It's, of course, God, His Word, but also His people and us. And here the disciples were strengthened by Paul.

And I would encourage you, have in your heart, in your life, a desire that you would want to strengthen other believers.

We could all fall into the consumeristic trap that would say, man, it's been a while since I've been strengthened by another believer, but are we seeking to strengthen others?

I found in my life, most of the time, when I'm seeking to strengthen someone else, to remind them of a spiritual truth, to encourage them that God's on their side, to, I don't know, share a Bible verse, something like that, God speaks to my heart

that I'm strengthened as I am doing my best to be able to strengthen others, that I find comfort as I'm trying to comfort others. And I'd encourage you in that same way to have that heart. Now, verse number 24.

We're going to hop in and we've got all of, yeah, we've got six minutes, we've got time. Here we go. Verse number 24.

Now, a Jew named Apollos, an Alexandrian by birth and eloquent man, came to Ephesus and he was proficient in the scriptures. This man had been instructed in the way of the Lord and being fervent in spirit.

He was being, he was accurately speaking and teaching things about Jesus being acquainted only with the baptism of John. So all he knew about Jesus was up until John had baptized him.

And he said, you know, behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

So Apollos comes into Ephesus and he is declaring Jesus the Messiah, the Lamb of God, but he doesn't know that he's been crucified and killed and buried and raised again from the dead and ascended into heaven.

He didn't know about the forgiveness of sin now that was offered through Jesus' sacrifice. He only knew kind of that very, very beginning of the story. He only knew John 1, if you want to phrase it that way.

So verse number 26, he began speaking boldly in the synagogue, but when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him aside and explained the way of God more accurately to him.

I think that verse is great, that there is a love, that it doesn't say they rebuked him or they scolded him publicly. It says when they heard him, they took him aside and explained the way of God more accurately to him.

And I'm very thankful for those in my life that have helped encourage me with explaining the way of God more accurately.

There's been times where I've preached things that I grew up hearing, that I took as fact and through encouragement from other believers, specifically I'm thinking right now of one Christmas sermon that I said something that I had heard growing up

and my brother-in-law was like, hey, is there like a Bible verse or, you know, like an ancient scroll or something that communicates that information? And I looked into it and sure enough, he was right.

Like someone along the lines had just made up this pseudo fact. And as a result, I had said something that wasn't true from the pulpit.

Obviously, it wasn't something that was gospel related, but I want to be as accurate as possible when I'm thinking about God, when I'm declaring God.

And that should be all of our goal, that none of us have 100% arrived in our spiritual knowledge and we should always have a heart that we would want to communicate, articulate the way of God more accurately.

You can communicate the way of God inaccurately and they don't just leave him in his ignorance. They take him aside privately and they encourage him and they communicate truth to him.

And we should have the response that he does, that we'll see in a moment, that he takes it wholeheartedly. And he doesn't go, Hey, you aren't as proficient in the scriptures as I am. You don't know what I know.

He listens to them. And it says Priscilla and Aquila. Priscilla is the girl's name.

Aquila is the guy's name. And most of the times in scripture that their names are mentioned together. It's in that order.

That's Priscilla and Aquila. And here this married couple encourages Apollos. And it results in this in verse 27.

When he wanted to go across to Achaia, the brothers encouraged him and wrote to the disciples to welcome him.

And when he had arrived, he greatly helped those who had believed through grace, for he powerfully refuted the Jews in public, demonstrating by the scriptures that Jesus was the Messiah.

And we'll see in tomorrow's episode what happens when Paul gets to Ephesus. And now Apollos is kind of a couple steps ahead of him. So Apollos has been in Ephesus.

Then he moves on into Achaia and into Corinth. We'll see tomorrow. And then Paul comes behind him into Ephesus and I believe meets up with Priscilla and Aquila again.

So today, what can we learn? God is in the details. God is in your everyday.

Even if it's mundane, even if there's not giant things going on, even if it's just, hey, I made a promise to God, I was serious about it, maybe I fasted, maybe I got a haircut, maybe I communicated to someone how they could communicate the Word of

God more effectively, maybe I strengthened someone else in their spiritual walk, maybe I visited believers that I had known before, maybe I just communicated the Gospel and shared that Jesus was the Christ, the Messiah. Maybe I shared His Lordship.

Whatever God might have for you today or tomorrow, even if it's mundane, if it's simple, find honor in it, find glory in it, because God has honored you by giving you the gift of representing Him to the world.

God has placed His image on you that when you walk around, you are supposed to be a living, walking, breathing, singing, worshiping, evangelizing Jesus into this world.

You are called to be a Christian, a little Christ, a tiny Messiah walking around showing His light into a very dark world. So whatever you do, it's not just mundane. It's not just boring.

Your life is not purposeless. There is wonderful wonder and glory in knowing that you carry the living God inside of you, that the Holy Spirit lives in you. That is a wonderful privilege.

So shine His light out to the world around you, and that would be a wonderful thing to do with your life. Hope this will be an encouragement to you today, and look forward to beginning Acts 19 with you tomorrow.