Bible Study: November 10, 2021

We'll start it over. You don't hear that? I'm not recording, so. Okay, I'll start over again.

Acts 17. We were in Acts 17 last week, and you remember we went through several cities with Paul as he continued on his second missionary journey here. We were in Thessalonica. We learned about Thessalonica that it was a city that wasn't receptive to the gospel at all. The Jews, as we have seen historically, came out in the post-Paul in quite dramatic form, had him run out of the city. They went on to Berea, you recall. In Berea, there had a different resection where the people who we know as the Bereans received the word with eagerness, they studied the Bible, they accepted what Paul had said. Many of them were converted, but the Jews from Thessalonica, they heard Paul and Timothy and Silas were there. They came to Berea and they created a stir, and Paul fled, if you will, down to Athens, some 250 miles south. At the end of chapter 17, we found Paul in Athens, and there he found himself in the cultural center of the world, if you will. Athens was a great learning center. So many people that had these, the great philosophers, the great historians, scientists, you name it, the Greek society, was the talk of the world at that time. He found himself there, and you remember that he gave quite a sermon as he found the tomb of the Unknown God. And because of what he, you know, he was there on the Areopagus, and he was able to give a sermon there in one of the principal places of the world at that time, as God gave him that opportunity. So we left it off there at the end of Acts 17, and we'll begin in Acts 18. As we begin there tonight, we're going to go through several more cities and be introduced to some more people who were key in the development of the New Testament Church. Before I do that, though, let me go ahead and share a screen again with you just so that we can remind ourselves the distance that Paul was traveling during this time.

Here's the map that we had last week of his second missionary journey. So when we pick it up tonight, we're down there on the west side of town. Paul is going to be traveling from Athens, which you see over there, to the city of Corinth. And Corinth was one of the primary cities of Greece at that time. Back the map there shows Greece was known as Achaia. And so Corinth, principal city, you can see it's right on the bay there. It has water going right through it.

Corinth itself is a city that's divided by that bay, a tremendous center of commerce back in the day. Also a very pagan society and a very deep-praved society, if you will. It was steeped in all the pagan rituals that we have talked about in the past. And so it was, you know, we might say it was the Las Vegas, the Las Vegas of the area at that time, although I think it was much worse morally than Las Vegas is today. But that's Corinth, and that's where Paul is headed, and that's where we're going to be in the bulk of chapter 18 in Acts today. We'll be going from Corinth. As long as I've got the map here, I'll put this back on a little bit later, too. But you see the little city of Sincre down here, right at the base there of the peninsula. And then Paul is going to be journeying all the way back down to Caesarea, Jerusalem, and then back up to Antioch before we get through chapter 18. So a lot going on in chapter 18. It is fascinating as you go through the book of Acts and be able to see what Paul was doing and to see some of the human nature and how people have responded. And we learn a lot about people. We learn a lot about resistance to the church. We learn a lot about Paul. We learn a lot about how God works as well and see how he brings people into the church and some different things that are going to happen in chapter 18 that are a departure, if you will, from the way the Jews have typically been able to run the Christians, or run Paul and his comrades out of town. So let's pick it up in verse 1 here of chapter 18. It says, after these things, Paul departed from Athens and went to Corinth.

And he found a certain Jew named Aquila, born in Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla. We'll talk about Aquila and Priscilla a little bit later. They show up in two or three books of the New Testament here. And they became quite a name, I guess, in the New Testament church. They were very helpful to Paul in his ministry. But here he meets them when he comes to Corinth. They had recently come from Italy because, as it says, Claudius had commanded all the Jews to depart from Rome, and so Paul came to them. So we'll get back to Aquila and Priscilla a little bit later, because we're going to see more of them and how Paul used them in Ephesus, and then later in, well, possibly Rome as well. But I want to talk about Claudius a little bit here, because it says that the Jews were run out of Rome. They were pretty much evicted.

Claudius was the emperor at that time. If you look back in history, he was the emperor from 41 to 54 AD. He was actually poisoned. That's how he died. But if you look in Josephus, Josephus mentions nothing about this edict of Claudius at all. But if you go back into other histories, secular history, you do find that there is a record of Claudius issuing this eviction notice to all the Jews in Rome. And I have to look up his name, but the name of the person, the name of the historian who wrote that is Suetonius. S-U-E-T-O-N-I-U-S. He's a Roman historian. And he records that Claudius expelled the Jews because they, quote, were constantly exciting tumult under their leader Christus or Crestus. Constantly exciting tumult under their leader. And Suetonius says his name was Christus. Well, no one knows who Christus is, but some of the historians and some of the commentators will say that this may well have been Christ. That Suetonius heard the name Christ, just assumed he was a living being. But the controversies revolved around Christ, where Jews were exciting all these tumult. You know, as we've gone through the books of Acts, the book of Acts, we've seen just about in every city that Paul has come to, the Jews have done that. They've excited all sorts of uproar in every city that Paul has been. They resist the gospel. They resist Jesus Christ as Messiah. They turn against Paul. And what did they do? You know, as we heard last time, they, you know, got some of the people in the city who were known for that. They could incite crowds and turned everyone against Paul for the primary issue of just getting them out of town.

So, you know, you have to wonder after this happens time and time and time again, and we've talked about how none of those things that happened to Paul, being beaten, being stoned, being thrown in prison, none of those were in accordance with Roman law. And sometimes when Paul would mention that he was a Roman, the magistrate to the city would get a little bit alarmed, like, you know, we didn't follow the law, we just followed the mob on this one, we let emotions get away from us. But perhaps, perhaps, and I'm just speculating here as to why Claudius would expel the Jews from there, perhaps just perhaps, as these two mopes happened in Rome, he said, you know, I understand what they're doing, I understand why they do things, how they do things, just get the Jews out of here because they're causing all of these problems, we just don't need them in Rome anymore. And you just have to wonder, is that what he had in mind? Later on in chapter 18, there'll be another thing that we can kind of look at that might tie into that, is what happened in Rome here. But for whatever reason, the Jews have been expelled from Rome, and Aquila and Priscilla are right where God wants them there in Corinth, and Paul finds them there. In verse 3, you know, it doesn't say that Paul found them because they were Christians and they were converts, it says that he found them because, in verse 3, because he and Aquila were of the same trade, and because they were the same trade, Paul stayed with them and worked for by occupation, they were tent makers. So it may well be that, you know, Paul, as his custom was when he went into a city, he would go to the synagogue on the Sabbath, and perhaps, you know, what happened was he met Priscilla and Aquila, they got talking, they both were in the same trade, they hit it off with one another, well, they invited him to stay with him, and so they're in the same household. While he's there in Corinth, he's staying there. Now, later, later we will find that, you know, obviously, Priscilla and Aquila were converted. They did become Christians because Paul uses them in the work at that time, but at this time, it doesn't specifically say that, it just says that the reason he was there is because they were companions. And notice Paul was working, you know, he didn't come to, he, when he came to Corinth, he was by himself, and what he was doing, he was working. He was making his way, he was earning his living, and obviously paying for himself here, as he did, and as he mentions in the book of Corinthians, to the church there as well. So, in verse 4, you know, it says, Paul reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath, and he persuaded both Jews and Greeks. Now, this is what Paul did. That was his custom. He would go there, he would speak from the Scriptures, he would talk with Jesus Christ, he would prove something from the Scriptures that Jesus Christ is the Messiah.

This is what he was doing in Corinth. You know, he's all by himself there in Corinth at this time.

Now, verse 5, you know, his two partners, Silas and Timothy, are going to join him. Verse 5 says, when Silas and Timothy had come from Macedonia, Paul was compelled by the Spirit. We'll come back, come back to that verse in a minute. But here, Silas and Timothy, we know when Paul left Berea, he left Silas and Timothy in Berea. And you'll remember from last week that he did send for them to come. Remember the people escorted Paul down to Athens, and then he sent them back and he said, hey, have Timothy and Silas come meet me in Berea. They did come to Berea, but now it tells us here that they're coming from Macedonia. So something has happened that when they met Paul and Berea, somehow they went back to Thessalonica. And Paul kind of fills in that story for us in 1st Thessalonians. So let's go over to 1st Thessalonians 3. And as he's writing to the church there, we find out what Timothy and Silas were doing back up in Macedonia up at the Thessalonian church. And it's always interesting when you read what Paul's travels were, and then to be able to go back to the books that he wrote to them, and you can see some of the history of Acts as he talks to those people. It's like we have an insight into the letters that he's reading. The Thessalonians do exactly what he was talking about. Now that we know what the history in Thessalonica is and the history as Paul's in Corinth writing this letter, we can find out what it is that Timothy and Silas were doing. Chapter 3 of 1st Thessalonians verse 1. Therefore, when we could no longer endure it, Paul writes, we thought it good to be left in Athens alone, and sent Timothy, our brother and minister of God and our fellow laborer in the gospel of Christ, to establish you and encourage you concerning your faith, that no one should be shaken by these afflictions. So what was happening here is Paul knew what the situation and what the atmosphere in Thessalonica was like. He knew that those Christians there were going to be persecuted.

They weren't satisfied with just Paul leaving and Timothy and Silas leaving. It was a different thing. That Thessalonian church was a persecuted church. That was just part of what they endured during the time. Different than the other churches around them. And remember last week we read that Paul said, you know, the other churches look to you and your faith is known to them. We don't have to say anything. They know what you're going through. They know that you remain faithful.

But here he says, you know, I needed to. I sent Timothy up to you and I sent Silas up to you to encourage you so that no one would be shaken by these afflictions. What was going on? Because they were facing a hard time. The persecution was real in Thessalonica. For you yourselves know that we are appointed to this. For in fact, he says in verse 4, we told you before when we were with you that we would suffer tribulation just as it happened. And you know, it was a tough time.

Tough time there in Thessalonica. And Paul was worried about them. And he'd been there. He loved those people. You know, just as we love each other and the congregations were in and love each other on this Bible study, everyone we know we love, we're family. And Paul felt the same way and thought, what is going on? How are they doing back there? No, he couldn't tune into, you know, the evening news and see what was going on in Thessalonica. He couldn't email them. He couldn't pick up the phone and call them. So what he did was send Timothy back there and say, now, how are they doing? I know that I know they're going through a hard time. Are they still faithful? What is going on with them?

And so he encourages them and he goes, you know, we told you the tribulation would occur.

This is what you're enduring. Verse 5, for this reason, when I could no longer endure it, I just had to know how you were doing. For this reason, when I could no longer endure it, I sent to know your faith, lest by some means the tempter had tempted you and our labor might be in vain.

You can see what he's doing. Like, how are they doing? We just wanted Timothy to go up there to help them, to strengthen them, and then to be able to bring a report back to there because Paul just wanted to know because he loved and was concerned for those people. And now Timothy has returned. But now the Timothy has come to us from you and brought us good news of your faith and love, and that you always have good remembrance of us, greatly desiring to see us as we also to see you. Therefore, brethren, in all our affliction and distress, we were comforted concerning you by your faith. So Paul, it's a good outcome. As Timothy returns and he brings this report, the Thessalonians are doing fine. They're doing well. They've held on to the faith. They're not letting persecution take them. They haven't thrown in the towel. Now, it's encouraging to us, too, to know that someone cares, certainly encouraging to them to see Timothy come and to know Paul was concerned about them. Now, many times we'll talk about, you know, we'll tell people we're praying for them, and I'll remind people, you know, when they're sick, the church is praying for them. It is an encouraging thing to know that people think of us and that people are concerned with us.

Here we have, you know, how inspiring it was, encouraging for the Thessalonian church, should be for us to remind ourselves, too, that, you know, we care for each other. Sometimes we just need to let each other know we care and that we're thinking and praying for each other as well.

But that's the story of where, you know, where Timothy and Silas are coming from. So if we go back to Acts 18, go back to Acts 18.

Acts 18, we're in verse 5, it says, when Tim and Silas and Sympathy had come from Macedonia, and you remember Thessalonica was in Macedonia, so that's where they're coming from. It says, Paul was compelled by the Spirit and testified to the Jews that Jesus is the Christ.

Compel is an interesting word, you know, to use with the Holy Spirit. If you are looking at the Old King James Version, the word that's used there instead of compelled is pressed. And if you look at the Greek word, it can be compelled, it can be pressed. Pressed may be a more visual word in our mind today. We can all be compelled by something, but when we're pressed by someone to do something, it's a little bit different in our minds, I think, than to be compelled. So what Paul is saying here, Luke, who's recording this for us, you know, this Holy Spirit was pressing on Paul, you know, do something, do something here more. And we've probably all felt that at times in our lives, when it's like, we just have this thought come back to us. It's like, you need to do this, you need to do this. So we may hold off on it a little bit, but it just comes back.

No, you need to do this, you need to do that. That's probably what Paul was feeling here, the Holy Spirit leading him into doing something, and that something was.

It says that he would testify to the Jews that Jesus is the Christ.

Now, again, we got to stop because that, stop and think about it for a while, because Paul, it says, had already been there in the synagogues, every Sabbath, reasoning from the scriptures to the Jews that were there. But he was all by himself in Corinth. And there, this is where tone and where the manner of presentation come into being. You know, we can talk about things, and we can lay out all the truth in a very calm and orderly and controlled manner. And we can say everything exactly, exactly true, but there's really no call to action by the way that we may say things, right? I mean, we've all experienced that sometimes with reason. Yeah, that everything they lay out is true, nice to know, and whatever. And that may be what Paul was doing in verse 4, as he was there every Sabbath. He was talking Jesus Christ as the Messiah, talking about the prophecies that Jesus Christ fulfilled. But when he was pressed, when he had Timothy and Silas there with him, and all of a sudden there were three of them there in the church, in the synagogue, that understood the truth of God, then it may be that he began to speak with more power on who Jesus Christ was. And put the Jews on notice, Jesus Christ is the Messiah. You are the ones who killed Jesus Christ, and proved to them, and pretty much through his actions and through his tone, a call to action. Jesus Christ is the Messiah. I'm not just informing you, I'm telling you, I'm letting you know this is the truth. Because as we look at verse 6, we find all of a sudden, when Paul does these things, when he is compelling, when he's compelled, and he's there with two other of his friends with him, converted Christians with him, all of a sudden the Jews do what we see the Jews do. They stand up and they oppose. They don't want to hear it. They don't want to hear that Jesus Christ is there. And now it's in their face, and they don't, they have to do something about it.

When someone is just, you know, kindly or politely talking about Jesus Christ, okay, we can listen to what he has to say. But now it's powerful. Now it's drawing attention. Now there's a call to action. You need to do something with the truth that you have. And so the Jews in verse 6 oppose him. In every city that we've been in, the Jews have opposed Jesus Christ. They're always for the same reason. They simply don't want to hear it is what it is. Now the thing is, is that the Paul, Peter, everyone who can, everyone who talked about Jesus Christ, they could prove from the scriptures that Jesus Christ is the Messiah. But the Jews could never prove from the scriptures that Jesus Christ isn't the Messiah. They simply couldn't do it. So when people get pushed into a corner and they cannot, they don't have an answer. What does human nature do? Do they just, you know, some will say, okay, I agree. You know, you're right. Jesus Christ is a Messiah. And they go from there. But others just simply don't want to hear it. And so what they'll do is start yelling. They'll start talking. They won't let you get a reward in edgewise. And they may even start yelling out accusations, you're calling your names or whatever else. That's kind of the scene that we see in verse 6. The Jews simply do not. They have hardened their heart against Jesus Christ being the Messiah. They don't want to hear it. So in verse 6 it says, when they opposed him and blasphemed, so they were talking not good things about the Holy Spirit, not good things about Jesus Christ. They were dishonoring that and the words that they spoke. When they opposed him and blasphemed, Paul shook his garments and said to them, your blood be upon your own heads. I am clean. From now on, I will go to the Gentiles. He says, I'm clean. I told you the truth. I've done my job. I have shown you from the Scriptures who Jesus Christ is. You're rejecting it. You've closed your minds to it.

I'm out of here. I'm out of here. I've done my job. It probably reminds us of what happened back a few chapters ago in Acts 13. You remember it was the same situation where Paul, we can turn back there for a moment. Acts 13 and verse 46, I believe it is. Yeah, verse 45, we'll pick it up.

We'll see the very same situation here with Paul with this set of Jews in this city. I forget what city this is offhand. I think it might be Lystra that they're in here, but I may be wrong on that. Verse 45 of Acts 13 says, when the Jews saw the multitudes, they were filled with envy and contradicting and blaspheming, they opposed the things spoken to Paul. Here's human nature. One thing we can learn from it will be faced to face with someone who starts yelling at us, calling us names. The can't answer the question. People get mad. It's an indication of a hardened heart. I'm simply not going to listen to you, no matter what you say, no matter what facts you throw out, I'm simply not going to agree. These Jews are doing the very same thing.

In verse 46, Paul and Barnabas grew bold and they said, it was necessary that the word of God should be spoken to you first, but since you reject it and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, behold, we turn to the Gentiles. There may be some time when we could be guilty of a hardened heart, if you will. There may be strongholds and things that we do in our lives that we just simply don't want to hear. We just think, I'm not changing my mind on that for anything at all. It may not be a scriptural thing, but something else that holds us back from what God's will for us is or what God's will is, and maybe something that we think is not scriptural or spiritual at all, but it may well be. But we could do the same thing. We could harden our hearts. That's what these Jews did. It's a very dangerous thing to do. You can think back to all the times of Jesus Christ said, they become dull of hearing, and we're warned, when we're going through the book of Hebrews, we're warned over and over again, don't harden your heart. Don't harden your heart. Paul, he's seen this in every, literally in every city he goes through, he's seeing this hardened heart of the people of the Jews. And it has to discourage him to see his own people rejecting what he has to say. In the book of Ephesians, later on in Acts 18, we'll be going down to Ephesus and watching the church that starts there. And as you read the book of Ephesians, we'll begin to see, as that church begins, how God is working with that church.

And in the book of Ephesians, of course, which Paul writes to the church in Ephesus, he does lay out a number of things, including the order of the church, right? And in chapter four, we talk about that often, you know, what God inspired here is, and Paul is telling the church in Ephesians, as we see many people that'll be involved in the church down there. This is the order of how things are in the church. And he goes through, you know, chapter four. But if we come down to verse 17, as he sees, and as Paul remembers, every place I go, I'm running into these hardened hearts. You know, these hardened hearts of people who just simply will not listen. The truth is there, they just won't listen. Verse 17, he says, this I say therefore, and testifying the Lord that you, he's talking to the church there, should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk. No, they, you know, that's, that's a trait of the Gentiles to have a hardened heart, not to have your heart open to what God would lead you to believe. That you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind, having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart. He says they're ignorant. Ignorant doesn't mean they're stupid, it just means they don't know. They don't know any better, but they, their heart is blind. They simply won't let the light in. They make that determination. And so, you know, whenever you see the word ignorant of the Bible, I think back to Acts 17 where we were, you know, last week in verse 30 where, you know, Paul says, the times of your ignorance God winks that, but now commands men everywhere to repent.

You know, we have to have that same attitude when, you know, we may be ignorant of something that we're not doing, but if someone tells us something, if someone can show us from the Bible what the right way is, we need to have an open heart and realize God didn't call us to stand on what we do, but to pattern our lives and to mold our lives and what he wants us to do. The Jews simply were not, were not doing that. And as Paul writes the letter to Ephesians, you know, we can see in that book and in many of his epistles the things that he ran into because he learned human nature pretty well as he was going on these missionary journeys into the various parts of the world around the Mediterranean Sea at that time. Okay, okay, let's go back to Acts 18. Paul, you know, Paul takes an action here in Corinth then that he hasn't, or at least the Bible hasn't recorded in other areas, what it says that Paul does next. He's, you know, he leaves the synagogue. He says, I'm taking it to the Gentiles. I'm not going to talk to you, to the Jews anymore. You've written your script, you're the blood, the blood is on your own heads, he says. And he leaves the synagogue in verse 7 and he goes to the house next door, it says, of a certain man named Justice. Now the commentators will say that Justice was likely a proselyte, a Gentile in that area, but a convergitude, is that you remember what the what proselyte is, but probably one, well obviously one, who listened to Paul, whose mind was opened and understood the truth of Jesus Christ, the Gospel, and everything and so Paul leaves the synagogue and he goes next door and he's in the house of Justice. He departed from there and turned the house of a certain man named Justice, one who worshipped God, whose house was next door to the synagogue. Now, you know, he's in Justice's house for one thing, he's not staying there, he's still staying with Aquil and Priscilla, but the Gospel and where he's preaching now appears to have gone to Justice's house and so we see the Church of God moving, you know, out of a synagogue-centric thing into a house and when you read many of the things in the Testament, you know, later on we'll see Aquil and Priscilla, a church that was meeting at their house and you see that often, but the churches were meeting at houses and here we have the first time here in Acts that we've seen it that now the church is going to be preached and the Gospel preached out of this house which is right close to the synagogue but Paul apparently is not going into that synagogue anymore, right? Okay, so in verse 8, verse 8, Christmas, Christmas, the ruler of the synagogue, here's a big name, right? Everyone in Corinth, it was a Jew who knew Christmas was, then Christmas, the ruler of the synagogue believed on the Lord with all his household and many of the Corinthians hearing believed and were baptized. So you have, you know, Paul making the stand, leaving the synagogue, but then Christmas, the leader, is like, he's called, he repents, he's baptized, he's now converting to Christianity along with many other Corinthians. So, guys, God, you know, God has led Paul to what's going on here and Christmas, the notable name, is there baptized along with them. Again, you can keep your finger there in Acts 18.

If we go over to 1 Corinthians 1, we see Christmas mentioned again. Of course, 1 and 2 Corinthians are Paul's, the two epistles to Paul to the church in Corinth that we have and as he introduces his letter, he will talk about some of these names that were well known there in Corinth because he's writing to them and Christmas is one of the people that they would know well. He was the leader in the synagogue. If we go down to verse, we'll come back to 1 Corinthians 1 a little later too, but verse 14 this time, 1 Corinthians 1 and verse 14, he says, you know, he's addressing an issue that we're going to come back to in a little bit here, but he says, I thank God, Corinthians, that I baptized none of you except Christmas and Gaius, lest anyone should say that I had baptized my own name. Now he's going to be addressing a kind of a division that's happening in Corinthians based on some names that are there that they have seen and whatever, but he says, you know what, I'm just glad I didn't baptize any of you except Christmas and Gaius, and then later he says in the next verse, and also Stephanus's house, I did baptize them as well, but he's glad because he doesn't want people saying, hey, you know what, I must be more spiritually wonderful because Paul baptized me and this one baptized me. It has nothing to do with, you know, baptism of who baptizes us. It's God who baptizes us. It's God who, you know, grants us repentance, the gift of repentance. It's God who forgives our sins. It's God who leads us to baptism and God who gives us the Holy Spirit. Whatever minister does it, it's just, you know, he's just there to do it, but it is God. So what Paul is saying, you know, I'm glad, I'm glad at least that I don't have people running around saying, hey, I have to be better than I must be better than you because Paul baptized me. We see something when we get into Corinthians, you know, that is developing there, but that's a subject for another time.

But again, you can see, as we see names and acts, you can tie them back into Corinth and the letter to the Corinth makes it a little more personable to us, be personal to us, because we're like there.

We see what's going on and we see what's happening. So if we go back to Acts 18, and again, remember, if anyone's got any questions, comments, or anything along the way, you're free to turn your microphone on and talk at any time, right? So, okay. Christmas is baptized. Many other Corinthians are baptized. And then God does an interesting thing, you know, to Paul. You know, he appears to him in vision. Says, the Lord spoke to Paul, verse 9, in the night by a vision. And he said to this, he said, do not be afraid, Paul, but speak and don't keep silent. Now, Paul is in Corinth.

He's got all this opposition from the Jews. Every city that Paul has been in, he's had opposition from the Jews. One time, we remember, he was stoned. Another time, he was beaten with rods.

Another time, he was thrown into jail. Wherever he goes, it's a bad scene. People get upset. They get the entire city involved. He's called on the carpet, if you will, and it doesn't turn out physically good, spiritually good for Paul, but physically it hurts. So as he's watching what's going on in Corinth, Paul is doing what you and I would do. We would think, when's the next, when's the shooting of Paul? The Jews are already upset with me. They've already, you know, they're opposing what's going on. Sooner or later, I'm going to be called to account for what I'm doing. I'm going to get beaten. I'm going to get stoned. I'm going to get thrown in jail and whatever. And maybe Paul, God, you know, sees that Paul is, you know, okay, I'm bracing myself for this because God comes to him and He says, Paul, don't be afraid. Don't be afraid. You know, we don't see Paul as someone who's weak and afraid to preach the gospel. We also see him preaching it in power like nothing is going to stop him. That's what we've seen. But here God says, Paul, don't be afraid. Go ahead and keep speaking what you've been called to speak. Give the words that you were given to give and don't keep silent. It's like God patting him on the back, giving him, saying, keep going, Paul.

And he says in verse 10, for I'm with you. You know, never forget, no matter what we go through, to never forget that God is with us. Jesus Christ says, I'm with you. I will never lead you. I'm with you. And no one will attack you to hurt you. For I have many people in this city. If you're worried, Paul, about what beating is going to come or for stony is going to come, don't worry about it. No one's going to hurt you. No one's going to attack you to hurt you in this city. I have many.

In this city. Interesting, interesting, you know, that that God would do that a tremendous, tremendous encouragement to Paul, you know, had to be. Imagine, you know, if you're thinking about those things and, you know, in a vision, you're told it's going to be okay, Paul, just keep doing what you need to do. And Paul realizes here, this most unlikely of cities, you know, a very, a very perverted city, if you will, in Corinth, God says, I've got many people. I'm going to call many people in the city that's going to be a church here that raises up a very solid church, if you will. Verse 11, it now says Paul stayed there for a year and a half. He continued there in year and six months, teaching the word of God among them. Many of the other cities, he'd be there for, I don't know, a week, a few days, two weeks, three weeks, and all of a sudden the crowds were against him. Mobs form. He's being cast out of the city. It's very short-lived, just long enough for some to believe a church could begin and then Paul's thrown out, but in Corinth, it's different.

He's going to be here for 18 months, and God is letting him know. God is letting him know that.

And it was a very different situation for Paul here. Verse 12, you know, yeah, this man, Gallio, he is the pro-counsel, kind of like the mayor or the governor, whatever you want to call it, the city official there, and over a K, I guess it would be more like the governor, K is that whole city, you know, that whole area, Greece, where all this is. When Gallio was pro-counsel of a K, the Jews with one accord rose up against Paul and brought him to the judgment seat.

So here, what Paul was expecting to happen, here what we've seen happen in every other city Paul has been in, we see happening again in Corinth. Now the Jews have all banded together. They're coming to Gallio, the governor, the pro-counsel, whatever you want to call him in a K, and they're going to bring some accusations against Paul because all the Jews want is they just want this Christian group out. They want the Christian group out. They don't want to hear about Jesus Christ. They don't want a part of their community or anything like that. Now, you know, if they're in your margin, it might say in verse 12, or it says the judgment seat, they brought him to the Bima is what the actual Greek says. And if you're ever in Corinth, and we had the opportunity to be there, you know, back for the feast a few years ago, when you go and see the ruins of Corinth, I mean, it is just rock now, but you can kind of see what the layout of the city was like, and they have some of the outlines of the temples. But there is a place that is specifically, it's mentioned, here is the Bima. This is the Bima. This is where Paul would have stood. This is where the judgment area of the Corinthians are. It's not like, it's kind of like our courthouse today, except everything goes on inside the courthouse. Back in those days, just like at the Areapagus, everything was out in the open air. Anyone could come and listen. It was, and judgments went on there. Determinations were made there. And so, you know, the Jews, that's where they're bringing this pretty large city of Corinth, they're bringing an accusation against Paul, just the same matter that they have done. It's almost like, I say sometimes when I see some things happening out in the world with well-worth gas stations, everyone must have gotten the memo because the gas prices in every single city are exactly the same across Florida today. So they all got the email of what needs to be done. It's almost like the Jews send out an email. Here's how you get Paul out of your city. Gather a mob, gather a mob, get them going, go to the judge, go to the mayor, the governor, and you can accuse him of these things, and they'll beat him, and then he'll leave.

So here it is. They come up against Paul at verse 13. What they're saying is, this fellow persuades men to worship God contrary to the law. Same old, same old. Now, same thing they talked about, Jesus Christ. Same thing that they said in Lystra, Derby, Iconium, Antioch, of Pisidia. Everywhere he goes, it's like they're teaching people to disregard Caesar and to not, you know, not honor the king anymore, not honor you, to just disregard the law. We know that nothing is further from the truth. Jesus Christ, as we talked about last week or the week before, you know, and we know in Romans 13, and Paul reminded people, you honor the law as long as it is in concert with God's law. When it conflicts with God's law, you honor God first. So none of this is true. It's a charge here. A false charge is being brought up. But you can imagine, if you're Paul again, okay, you're sitting there. This is not the first time you've heard this. You're standing there in the Bema. You've got the pro consul sitting here not too far from you. You're poised and ready for what's coming next because you think I've been through this before. I kind of know what I'm going to say. I kind of know what the script is because human nature is the same. It happens over and over and over again as Paul sees it happening. And he's prepared. And so he is about to open his mouth when something happens that hasn't happened before. When Paul was about to open his mouth, Galileo said to the Jews, if it were a matter of wrong duty or wicked crimes, oh Jews, there would be reason why I should bear with you. But if it's a question of words and names and your own law, look to it yourselves. For I don't want to be a judge of such matters. Now, I kind of picture Paul as he's standing there and getting these words come out of Galileo's mouth and he pretty much says I'm not listening to any of it. I want no part of this. Paul probably just had to look over it and think, are you kidding? But maybe he remembered what God had said. There is no one in the city who is going to attack you to hurt you. You're here, Paul, to do a job, to do what I have called you to do, and here's Galileo, a most unlikely source, who's saying, not going to listen to any of these Jews. What worked in all these other cities isn't going to work here. I'm not going to have any part of what you're trying to, any of these accusations that you're going to bring about to Paul. It's your issues. You deal with it. Now, if you look at Galileo, there's something interesting about Galileo. He has a brother whose name we've heard of. He was a Greek philosopher and his name was Seneca. Seneca, you know, like Aristotle, like Socrates, and those famous Greek philosophers, he is Galileo's brother. Now, you'll remember that Rome conquered Greece, and we've talked about this before, but when Rome conquered Greece, Rome was absolutely tremendously impressed and enamored with Greece culture. When they looked around and saw what Greece had put in place, they were absolutely impressed. They were... everything about Greek culture really was first-rate. As far as societies go, Greek culture has had more lasting effect on the world than any other culture, you know, and the Romans recognized that. They were so impressed and so taken by Greek culture that they wanted it to be them. They wanted to take credit for everything the Greeks wanted to know.

They even took their system of gods and made them their gods. They just gave them different names because they were so impressed with that. Well, Seneca was a famous philosopher, and if you know, one of the things that is most... I guess that everyone knows about Greece is that they were thinkers. That's what the Areopagus was about that we talked about last week in Athens. This is where they aired out all the ideas. They were willing to listen to anything because they were thinkers, and they listened to everything and talked about it. Seneca was one of those philosophers.

Where Seneca was at this time, he was under Nero. He was in the court of the Roman emperor Nero. The Roman emperor Nero was so taken with the Greek culture, he wanted someone in his court, Seneca, because he wanted to pick his mind up. You know, you're going to learn something about the Greeks. Hey, I want someone here to talk to me about it. And so Seneca was there with Nero in Rome, as Gallio is here, proconsul of Achaia. Now, we did learn back in the first part of Acts 18, and maybe I'm just kind of putting the pieces together myself back in the first part of Acts 18, we learned that Claudius, Claudius, the prior emperor, had all the Jews expelled from Rome.

And maybe, just maybe, because he heard about all these insurrections that were going on in all these cities and thought these Jews are causing all these insurrections, just get them out of here.

Just get them out of here. We don't need it in Rome. Maybe, just maybe, Gallio, whose brother was Seneca, learned, here's what the Jews do. If you got Paul and this new Christian group coming in, this is probably what you're going to face. Every other city around here has faced it. Here's what the Jews do. They're going to get the city in an uproar. They're going to raise an insurrection. They're going to come to you. They're going to accuse them of doing things.

You're going to have a mob situation. You could be lured into something that you don't want to do.

Maybe, just maybe, Gallio, knew this, and that's why I said I want nothing to do with it. I already know what's going on here. I've heard about what's happening. Just take matter. Just take care of it yourself. Now, maybe that's happened. It could be just simply God was in Gallio's mind and stopped him from doing it. We'll know that when Jesus Christ returns. Going back to what you just said at the last statement that maybe our God did it. I'm going back to verse 10. Christ said, I have many people, and he wasn't talking about saints. He was talking about people who may be officials and so forth. We know the Jews were there seething that whole time, and eventually he permitted them to persecute Paul. But at the same time, he put them to the chain. There's Gallio, and Gallio's not going to give them what they want, because in Christ's sake, I have many people.

Gallio is one of my people. He may not be a saint. He may not be the most righteous person, but he's not the grossest, evilest person. He's not bought by money or influence.

And again, absolutely God was involved. I didn't mean to say that, but he also knew maybe what the thing is. Maybe Gallio was also pretty supposed. If you read a little bit about him, Seneca says he was one of the most mild-mannered men and polite men he had ever met. So, maybe all that played in.

God may have used that to protect Paul, because we know we're told to pray for them, so we may live peaceable, godly peaceable lives. You look at some of the states right now, you can see the difference. One state has a governor who's just very overbearing. One state has a different type of governor. You look at the type of states, you wonder if this one has a watcher, if this one has an evil one over it, and you wonder how God is working in these cities and these states to accomplish his will. I don't really understand how a saint could live in California or in different places like Las Vegas. It just don't make sense. It's like what? You write your soul be all day grieved to seeing the things. Well, yeah, no, I hear what you're saying. I have known some people in the church who lived in Las Vegas, and when you live in Las Vegas, it's different than the Strip, right? I mean, I've been out there to visit them, and there's ways you can stay away from the Strip and all the activity of Las Vegas. So just don't think of Las Vegas as one big strip that everyone's involved in. No, I know what I brought you, but we know, all right, growing up, growing up, when we went to different neighborhoods, you're driving, you feel a different atmosphere.

Yeah, I don't disagree with that. You feel the pressure of that neighborhood, because there's a different kind of spirit in that neighborhood. You're going to other neighborhoods, and you're like, right, you're refreshed. Like, okay, it's not so bad here, but just driving in, you just feel that weight, and it's not a good weight, but a bad weight.

So I'm going to say maybe some of the states are like that. Yeah, the spiritual discernment, brother.

And yet, God raised this church up in Corinth, right? He had Paul stay there for 18 months in that. Now, what we've got to remember is that God knows everything that's going on. He knows what's in everyone's heart, right? So everything that happened in Corinth, God knew exactly what was happening. So he could say, Paul, you're here to do a job, and I'm going to do something great in Corinth. You're going to be part of it. Don't worry. Just get out and do the work. So at any rate, here's Paul. He's called up. He thinks what's probably going to happen. Galio lets him off the hook, if you will. And it's interesting. Well, verse 16 here says, you know, Galio drove them from the judgment seat. Like, get out of here. We don't want, just go away. There's not going to be anything any spectacle here today. Then it says all the Greeks, right? All the Greeks, all the Gentiles, they took Sosthenes, the ruler of the synagogue, and beat him before the judgment seat.

So it's like, this is kind of like the book of Esther, right? I mean, here's Haman getting ready to have Mordecai hung on the gallows, and all of a sudden the table is turned, and Haman's hung on the gallows, and this is what happened. Sosthenes and his group of Jews are there, and all of a sudden Sosthenes is the one getting beaten. That's what he wanted to have happen to Paul. So it's kind of an interesting thing there that, I mean, this is in a wrong way, kind of brings a smile to your face, right? When you think about what happens there and how God turned the table on the people there, and anything. But anyways, just an interesting thing that happened there in Corinth. All the Greeks took Sosthenes, the ruler of the synagogue, beat him before the judgment seat. Gallio took no notice. It's like, hey, you know what? As I said, it's your problem. Go ahead and deal with it, but with your people, do whatever you want. It's your problem, not mine. So he kind of let it happen.

Mr. Shavey? Yes, ma'am. I was just noticing in 1 Corinthians 1.1 that Sosthenes was a brother.

Yep. I was just going to go there. I was going to say, 1 Corinthians 1.1, we find Sosthenes again.

And Paul, when he's writing to Corinth, his very first line is Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God, and Sosthenes, our brother. I don't know if Sosthenes was a common name back then or not, and whatever. And it's interesting, you know, my first guess would have been that Sosthenes became converted, right? And that's why Paul is now, and everyone at Corinth would have known who Sosthenes was. Here's Christmas, who was the leader of the synagogue. He was baptized. Now Sosthenes, he gets beaten. Now he was a leader, and he's baptized. But when you read the commentaries, they're kind of evenly split on that. They, you know, most of them say, oh no, no relation at all. Others say yes, it is. So I, you know, I guess we're just going to have to wait, you know, when Jesus Christ to find out, is this the Sosthenes? But I don't know why Paul would have mentioned the Sosthenes in the introduction, unless it was well known in Corinth. So, you know, we'll leave that as it is. But it's, again, an interesting thing is you look in Corinthians and see those two names come at you. So if it isn't, if it isn't, though, it just shows that some of us, we need a beating before we wake up.

We do, don't we? Yes.

Bop you over the head. Yep. Okay. Let me look around here. Oh yeah, let's go back to verse 18 here.

Okay. You know what I didn't mention? We were back in verse 5 when we were talking about Silas and Timothy coming back from Macedonia. We never see Silas. We never see Silas's name mentioned again. You know, it's like he was Paul's companion on these trips. He comes back from Macedonia, and then he just sort of disappears from the scriptures, whether Paul just left him there, you know, or whether he just stays there in Corinth or whatever. We just don't see him anymore. Now, we don't think that he fell away or anything like that, but apparently whatever his role in the start of the New Testament Church has expired at that time because it's Timothy, Aquila, and Priscilla going forward. And we find that here in verse 18.

You know, after this incident at the beam at the Judgment Seat, Paul remained in Corinth a good while. And then he took leave of the brethren and sailed for Syria, and he took Priscilla and Aquila with him. So he didn't take Silas with him. He took Priscilla and Aquila, you know, people that he'd been staying with. So through all this time, you know, if they were Christians at the time he started staying with them, they've had all this time, a year and a half, to develop a relationship. But now they are converted. Now they are Christians for sure, if they weren't before.

And so it says he takes them. He leaves with them. He leaves Timothy there, apparently in Corinth and Silas there as well. But he takes Priscilla and Aquila with them. And it says then at the end of verse 18, he cut his head, his hair cut off at St. Crea, where he had taken a vow.

And again, you know, commentary is going to be very interesting when you're looking at some background and kind of sort out thoughts. Never for spiritual guidance and doctrine or anything like that, because they're all based on that. But when you're looking at background, it's interesting to read what some of them had to say. You know, when I first read verse 18, I take that Paul, Paul had his hair cut off at St. Crea, where he had taken a vow. So the question then is, why did Paul do that? Why would Paul do that? You know, what what what bow did he take? What was it, a Nazarite vow? What what was it? You know, because we don't we aren't told that anytime before.

So what was Paul doing? And we know that if he had this file, you know, there was something that you would cut your hair off and then the rest of the vow or the rest of the thing would be satisfied in Jerusalem. When we come down a couple verses, we see that Paul is really interested in getting to Jerusalem on time. In fact, he insists that he's going to have to leave Ephesus quickly to get to Jerusalem for the feast. So I don't know what what his what his vow was or why Paul would have done that. You know, back a few chapters ago in chapter 15, we saw after the Jerusalem conference, when they determined and said that circumcision was not necessary for salvation, you know, you know, Paul, for some reason, as he was beginning to use Timothy in his ministry, had Timothy circumcised.

You know, whether he did that because, because Timothy, you know, they both agreed, hey, it'll be easier to deal with the Jews if you are circumcised. We just take that off of the, take that off of the map. You know, Timothy would have known for sure. Paul would have known for sure. It's not an issue of salvation, but there's nothing wrong with it. So if we can just take that obstacle off, maybe the Jews will receive him, receive him better. You know, if Paul was doing the same thing here, you know, someone this afternoon pointed out, I thought it was a very good point in 1 Corinthians 9 when Paul says he becomes all things to all people, to the Jew he became as a Jew, that maybe these things that weren't wrong, you know, he did some of them to think that, well, okay, if I don't just throw everything that the Jews don't think we've, we've say everything about them is wrong, everything that they're doing is, is, is not part of the Christian religion that if he took this file, I don't know, I'm just, I'm just speaking here.

We don't know what, what was in Paul's mind, why he did this. Later, when we get to chapter 21, I think it is, we're going to see Paul doing another thing that looks like he's trying to win favor with the Jews by what he does. Yes, sir. I got another.

What he did with Timothy came to bite him in the butt in Galatia, because the, the, the circumcision party kept bringing it up. Paul circumcised him and he all got him and Paul is, he's different. So if I still teach circumcision, why might I be persecuted? But they used it as ammo. Yep. That one act, they use it as ammo. He made a mistake, right? Yeah. And you can see why they do that. If it's not important, why did you do it to Timothy?

Why did Timothy need to be, right? Yeah, you can see, you can see that. So, and I looked up on Salas. He appeared, he appeared to have gone back and then he joined Peter, because Peter mentions in the first Peter that he's with him. Okay. So he was with Peter. Yeah, I kind of do remember that now. Okay. Yeah. So, okay. But he, for some reason he doesn't, he's not working with Paul anymore, which is, which there's a reason for it. We don't know what it is, but yeah.

And went to Babylon with Peter. Yeah. Pastor Shaby, it's interesting that a church ended up being set up in Romans 16 and verse 1. The Chanchia that actually ended up being a church there.

Yes. So maybe what Paul did, that vow had some bearing on that. Yep. Yeah. Good, good point. I was going to point that out. There is a church in St. Crea, just like you said in Romans 16.1, you see down in verse 3 of Romans 16, Priscilla and Aquila are there. He says, Greek Priscilla and Aquila, my fellow workers. So, you know, maybe Priscilla and Aquila are now finding themselves in Rome since Paul was writing to the Romans, right? Go ahead. No, that's all.

Thank you. Yeah, you know, in looking at the commentaries, though, you know, a few of the commentaries say that it wasn't that it may not have been Paul who took the vial. It may have been Aquila who had taken the vial and Aquila who had cut his hair off at St. Crea. Because they look at the fact is they go back to the the typically you mentioned the man first and the sentence above, it's Priscilla and Aquila. So, Aquila is the last male name. And so they some will say that he refers to Aquila and it might have been Aquila. So, it's an interesting thought. I had never thought of that.

But maybe it was Aquila. And as he's now going to Ephesus, you know, he needs this whatever vial he might have taken because we don't know if he was a Christian at the time that he, you know, if Paul met him back in verse two here of Acts 18. You know, he no longer needs to do that. You know, I don't know. But both of them make good arguments. One of those things that when Jesus Christ comes back, we'll say, which one who cut their hair off at St. Crea, right? That's I think when we'll know for sure who it is and why. I should mention, you know, well, yeah, Priscilla and Aquila are mentioned a couple more times in 1 Corinthians 16 at the end of the first epistle there.

In verse 9, when Paul's writing to Corinth, he says, The churches of Asia, greet you, Aquila and Priscilla, greet you heartily in the Lord with the church that is in their house.

So here we have, you know, a church now likely, likely in Ephesus because Asia is considered on that map as part of what they called Asia at that time. And then also in 2 Timothy 4, verse 19, as Paul is writing to Timothy, he greets Priscilla and Aquila, who are still there in Ephesus with Timothy at that time. So they were, you know, they were working in the church. They were part of the fabric there of the Ephesian church. Maybe later, you know, the church that was grown to, if indeed the emperor had lifted any kind of, you know, prohibition on the Jews being there, they might have gone back. I would have to look at that one more. So.

Mr. Shaby? Yes, ma'am? I don't know how to chime in. I don't know how to switch my video.

Okay, that's fine. See you, Jesse.

It's Becky. That's my husband. I need to change that setting. Becky, Bingman. I just wonder if it was Aquila who took the vow, and then Paul insisted on being a Jerusalem for the feast. Was Aquila still with him at that point? Maybe that still played into why he wanted to get there quickly. Yeah. Does that make sense? It does make sense. You know, I think that's why you can see both of them. If it was Paul, then there was something he would have to do at the temple back in Jerusalem. So he would need to be there, but he may have just wanted to go to the feast for some other reason, right? And it was necessary for Aquila to cut his hair off as they were going to Ephesus and they were going to deal with things there. Yeah, I can see it either way.

So he was still with him at that time. I'm sorry, do I? Aquila was still with him at that time?

Oh, Aquila was still with him at the time. Yeah, in St. Crea. Okay.

We're both there in St. Crea. Yeah, you remember the map St. Crea is just right down the coast from Corinth. So they sailed there and it was pointed out there was a church there, and that's where they stopped, right? So verse 19, they come to Ephesus. Now we all know Ephesus, right? It's another big city. Their church is going to be quite a church there, says Paul. This time the he is Paul. Paul came to Ephesus and left them for still an Aquila there.

So they came from St. Crea to Ephesus, and then Paul is going to leave pretty quickly, but he's going to leave Aquila and Priscilla there to deal with the people who are coming to the church at that location. He came to Ephesus and left them there, but he himself entered the synagogue and reasoned with the Jews. So as he did while he was there, he did go in, he did preach Jesus Christ, he did reason with them from the Scriptures and show them who they are.

And they wanted to hear more. Just like typically when Paul talks, people do want to hear more, and they asked him to stay, and he said, no, no, I'm not staying any longer here. Verse 21, I've got to leave. Verse 21, I must by all means keep this coming feast in Jerusalem.

But I will return to you, God willing, and indeed he did. We'll see a little bit later on.

Now the church will say the feast that he is likely going to in verse 21 is the Feast of Tabernacles. He wants to keep the Feast of Tabernacles in Jerusalem for whatever reason it might be. That makes some sense because if you know the Mediterranean, you know the sailing season, he would have wanted to go across the rest of the Maratha trainee. Let me pull the map up here again so you can kind of see where he is. He's there in Ephesus, called Asia there, right in the middle of your map. And he's going to sail all the way from Ephesus all the way down to Caesarea, and then go down to Jerusalem for the feast. So it's quite a journey by shift that he is going to have to do.

In the summertime, the sailing is pretty good. When you get into the wintertime, it's not so good, as we're going to learn later on in Acts, where they have to spend some winter months at some place. So, you know, it is likely it was the Feast of Tabernacles that he was wanting to return to Jerusalem for. If you look at the commentaries, they take just the opposite approach. They say it's probably the days of Unleavened Bread, but I think that's probably because the days of Unleavened Bread are mentioned in Acts. There's a couple of the commentaries that say Pentecost, and that's because Pentecost is mentioned in Acts. But it's probably the Feast of Tabernacles that he's wanting to get back to Jerusalem for. But you can see it's good sailing weather before the fall sets in to get back to the other side of the Mediterranean here, to where Caesarea is and Jerusalem.

Well, I'm on the map there. You see Caesarea down in your lower right-hand corner. That's where he's going to land. The ship is going to land to Caesarea, and then they're going to go down to Jerusalem for the Feast, and then Paul is going to wind his way back up to Antioch of Siseria.

Jerusalem, of course, you know, we would today call it the Headquarters Church. It was the first church. That's where all the rest of the apostles are. It's the central church there in the capital city of Jerusalem. Antioch is where Paul started all of his journeys from. It became kind of the Gentile, the Gentile churches center or headquarters. So you kind of see the long journey that Paul is going to be on here as we come here into the conclusion of chapter 18. Before we come to the conclusion of chapter 18, we're going to get introduced to another person here. So he's leaving.

Yes? Could I offer a comment? Absolutely. Acts 27 and chapter Shabia, Acts 27 and 9 says when the sailing was dangerous because the fast was now already passed. I've heard a thought that that refers to atonement, and I wonder how dangerous sailing would be for Paul and all his people, you know, at that time of year.

Yeah, so I don't know how long it takes to sail from Ephesus to Jerusalem, but yeah, they had a ways to go. And then it certainly doesn't seem like they would be going there in the winter months, you know, to sail all that way in the winter months, given the weather that's there. Okay, Acts 18. Okay, so he's going to the feast for whatever reason. He's going to the feast. That's where he wants to be in Jerusalem, and he's going to come back to Ephesus after he's done with that. In verse 22 it says, when he landed at Caesarea, we just saw that on the map, and gone up and greeted the church, he went down to Antioch.

Now, you know, as you look at the map, when he landed at Caesarea, you saw that Jerusalem was south, was south of Jerusalem. So I, you know, it's like, well, what does that mean? He went up to Jerusalem. No, you know, or, you know, he has gone up, and yet he was headed to Jerusalem. And the commentaries point out that whenever people were talking about going to Jerusalem, no matter where they were coming from, they would say, we're going up to Jerusalem.

You know, we will even say, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, right? And in Sesles of Ed, Isaiah 2, Micah 4, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, wherever you're coming from. You're coming from Egypt, you're coming from Ethiopia, or coming down from the northern part, let's go up to Jerusalem. It's always like, that's how they always refer wherever you're going to Jerusalem, go up.

So they say, when it says here that he went up, it means he went to Jerusalem. They always referred to it in scriptures. It just, you always go up to Jerusalem.

And since you went up to Jerusalem, which is like the mountain top, you go down to wherever you're going from there. So even though Antioch was north of Jerusalem, he was going down to Antioch. He was leaving the chief church, the Jerusalem church, the capital, and then he was going down to Antioch, even though Antioch is north. So that makes some sense of the map that we looked in there, because the direction seemed a little different to us. But in biblical lingo, and the way they talked back then, you know, it makes perfect sense when you go back and look at some of the ways they talked about Jerusalem in that regard.

Verse 23 says, after he had spent some time in Antioch, right, maybe he maybe he went there, we don't know how long it was, after he spent some time there, he departed and went over the region of Galatia. You remember the church is in Galatia, so Paul is now starting his third journey, and he's taking the same track as he did on the third. He's going to go visit the churches at Lystra and Derby and Iconium and Antioch and Massidia, all the places where he started churches.

He loved those people. He wanted to, wanted the opportunity to go back and see them, and they loved him. They loved seeing him. I mean, he was the one who, you know, through him, God brought them into the church, right? So it was a tremendously, I think, encouraging time for him and for the churches is there.

So he went back through Galatia and Phrygia in order, strengthening all the disciples. They would have been encouraged by watching what Paul was doing to have him visit, much like we are encouraged when we have someone, you know, visit the church or someone who we know from the past comes back and visits. It's just great to see them again. You know what the feeling is like. So Paul is on his way there, and as you recall, you go up around the north part of the Mediterranean, then you come over to what is called Asia, and Ephesus is right there.

Ephesus is right there when you get past the Galatian churches and the Poseidian Antioch. So he comes to Ephesus. Okay? In 24, we meet this man, Apollos, and Apollos is an interesting man. It says a certain Jew named Apollos, born in Alexandria.

Alexandria was a city in Egypt. It was considered a very, quite a learning center in that day. There were some major universities there, schools. It was kind of one of those areas where you got to see all cultures. There were Jews that lived there, obviously, as Apollos did. There were Gentiles.

There was even, as some of the contradictory say, you have the Middle East, the Oriental flavor.

Alexandria in Egypt was an interesting place to be from, and Apollos comes with all this background with him. He's a very learned man. We learn because here tells us that in verse 24, he was an eloquent speaker. He was a learned, intelligent man, and here he comes from Alexandria. He's got all this background. He's familiar with Gentiles, with Jews. He knows the scriptures. He's dealt with these other people. He comes to them with a pedigree, if you will, of learning. He is someone that God brings into the church. An eloquent man and mighty in the scriptures came to Ephesus.

Mighty in the scriptures. He was strong. He was an intelligent man in all the ways of the world, I guess, but he also was mighty in the scriptures. He knew the Bible, the Old Testament, well.

This man, verse 25, had been instructed in the way of the Lord, and being fervent in spirit, he spoke and taught accurately the things of the Lord. I mean, when he spoke, you knew he was talking about. He could explain the scriptures. He knew how they all fit together. He was someone that you would listen to, and that was going to be able to... that people were going to be able to understand him and listen to him because of everything about him and the way he'd been trained, and God had prepared him to, you know, to do this. He'd been instructed. He was fervent in spirit. He had that energy and that zeal about him and that might that would be behind his speaking, and he spoke and taught accurately. And he knew. He knew what the Bible was about, the things of the Lord, though he knew only the baptism of John. So he knows what he knows, he knows, and he knows the baptism of John, but that's where he has some learning to do, we find out.

Now before we go any further in Acts, let me look at my time here, we do see this man, Apollos.

He makes quite an impression on the Corinthian church as well. Paul has left Corinth. Now we're in Ephesus and Apollos is there, but let's go over to 1 Corinthians 1. And we're going to see, we're going to see here in a minute that Apollos desires to cross over into Corinth, over into that area, to Achaia, into Greece. But in 1 Corinthians, as Paul is introducing his letter to the church at Corinth, he points out a problem that's developed there. You know, we'll give this here in verse 10. 1 Corinthians 1 verse 10, he says, Now I plead to you with you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.

Same thing, you know, Jesus Christ said, the same thing we all want. We are all of one accord. We are all of one spirit, one baptism. We have one God. We have one Lord. We have one, you know, Savior Jesus Christ, that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and the same judgment.

For it's been declared to me concerning you, my brethren, by those of Chloe's household, that there are contentions among you. You guys are quarreling with one another. Some divisions can occur from this. Now, this I say that each of you, now I say this, that each of you says, I'm of Paul, or I'm of Apollos, or I'm of Cephas, who is Peter, or I am of Christ. So it's like, okay, Apollos has come over. Apollos, you know, Apollos is an eloquent speaker, an intelligent man, able to articulate the scriptures strong. So was Paul, and all of a sudden it's like, well, there's Paul. I like Paul. Others, I like Apollos. So there's like, I like Peter. That's who I like to say. You know what? I'm all I'm of Jesus Christ. And all of a sudden you have all this contention over people, but they're all the same, right? They're all from God. He sent them. He's the one inspiring them. And that's what he says in verse 13. Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized in the name of Paul? Now you can kind of see what he's saying there in verse 14. I'm glad. I'm glad I only baptized a few of you so that that's not the thing that you're being divided over. Who baptized me? Who baptized you? And everything like that. If we move over to chapter 3 in 1 Corinthians, Apollos shows up here in this chapter again. We're well familiar with this chapter in it. Paul is going to talk about building a temple. The temple that God is building in us. We'll pick it up here in verse 1 of chapter 3. He says, I brethren could not speak to you as a spiritual people, but as to carnal, as to babes in Christ. Now, if you remember in chapter 2, he had just talked about what man can know the things of man except by the spirit of man that's in him. Therefore, what man can know the things of God unless the spirit of God is in him.

So these people in Corinth, they're baptized. They've received the Holy Spirit. They've been baptized, had hands laid on them. And he goes and he said, you know, I couldn't speak to you. I could not speak to you as spiritual people, but as to carnal, as to babes in Christ. I fed you, remember Paul was the first one there, I fed you with milk and not with solid food. For until now you were not able to receive it. And even now you're still not able. For you're still carnal. For where there are envy, strife, and divisions among you, aren't you carnal and behaving like mere men? For when one says I'm a Paul and another says I'm a Vipalis, are you not carnal? Why then? Who then is Paul?

And who is a Paulist, but ministers through whom you believed, as the Lord gave to each one?

I planted. Paul was the one who raised up the church. A Paulist is here now. He's watering the church. But it's God who gives the increase. So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase. Now he who plants and he who waters are one, and each one will receive his own reward according to his own labor. For we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field. You are God's building. According to the grace of God, which was given to me as a wise master builder, I've laid the foundation and another builds on it.

But let each one take heed how he builds on it. So you can see, you know, and then you know what the rest of chapter three is. We've been in that chapter here recently and talking about the temple and completing the building of the temple that God wants us to have. So Paulus, a Paulus is a key factor, you know, a minister here in the church as he comes to Ephesus from Alexandria. And he's a notable teacher, right? And so as he's moved over to Corinth and working with that church there, we see him, but here we see him in his fledgling his early days as he's come to as he's come to Ephesus. And he knows something. He's got all these traits that God has given him.

He knows the scriptures. He knows the baptism of John. And we go back to Acts 18 and in verse 26 says, so he, Apollos, began to speak boldly in the son of God. He went in there and he was just kind of laying it out. Paul would tell the people what he thought. He just laid out the truth for him. This is what the Bible says. This is the truth. Paulus was doing the same thing. He began to speak boldly in the synagogue. And when Aquila and Priscilla heard him, they took him aside.

And they explained to him the way of God more accurately. Now, he didn't know any. He knew everything as far as the baptism of John. But when Aquila and Priscilla, notice it wasn't Paul, when they saw him, they came along beside him. They didn't like say, who's this Aquila? We're supposed to be the ones doing this in the synagogue or whatever. It's like, here, let us tell you the rest of the story. Let us tell you about Jesus Christ. Let us tell you about his dying and that our sins are forgiven. Let us talk to you about the resurrection from the dead and the help that that him being resurrected. Let us talk to you about the Holy Spirit. Let us talk to you about these things that you don't know. They completed and educated and trained him in all of that.

He had the complete gospel. The thing he was able to understand the way of God more accurately, meaning that he now understood how God worked. He was a man who didn't let that bother him. He wouldn't say, you know, Aquila and Priscilla, I know everything I need to know. I need to hear from you. He was willing to listen. He was teachable. All these traits that we read, that God says, you and I need to be, we see this in the people that God uses. They're teachable. They don't hold on to it. They don't say, hey, wait, wait, wait. The pride is gone. And so, Paulus, who already is quite a guy, he was willing to listen to Aquila and Priscilla. God used him. In verse 27, it says, When he desired to cross to Okea, that's where Corinth is. When he desired to cross to Okea, the brethren wrote, exhorting the disciples to receive him. Yeah, Corinth, you'll like him.

Go ahead. Yeah, let Apollos come over there. When he arrived, he greatly helped those who had believed through grace, for he vigorously, you know, it was like when God uses these adverbs and adjectives and descriptors here, you know, Apollos was no, he was no, you know, he was no wimp when he went in there, he vigorously refuted the Jews publicly, showing from the scriptures that Jesus is the Christ. So let's stop there for this evening. We'll pick it up in chapter 19. Next week, chapter 19 has some very interesting things in it as well we're going to see, as every chapter in Acts does, as we learn about how God began the church and in the Gentile times.

Okay, let me stop talking if there's any questions, observations, any comments from anyone?

That's just interesting how God used these people like the counsels, the deputies, and Paulus, and he has sort of bridges or intermediaries in a way to bring things together.

Yeah, it's fascinating. It is, when you see, I mean, we're kind of there, right? It's kind of like watching the movies. We see everything that's going on here and as God develops the church, we see how it went then, and we also learn the things that, you know, that we can use as God, you know, spreads as God, you know, preaches the gospel through His church today as well.

Brother Shaby, looking at the example that's going to come up, right? And seen as this young man of Alexandria and Berth eloquent in the scripture, who only the baptism of John and Aquila and teach him more with God's help, is it very possible, based on the examples that we're going to see, that they also baptized him? It's not mentioned because you're going to, you know, the example that's coming next, because when you read verse, it says, he was fervent in spirit. That's just in his spirit, not in the spirit of God. The spirit of God apparently was among him with him, but we don't know if he had received, like, what's going to happen in the next chapter. Yeah, the Holy Spirit or not, if he was baptized, the Holy Spirit. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. My guess by what he said there is that he only knew the baptism of John. He had had laid hands laid hands. After 19, we're going to see some of his other people that were there were baptized, were baptized, and had hands laid on. So maybe that happened with the Paulists, and because they were left to establish people. So yeah, actually Paul comes to Appetite. It's just not stated for us to say, but it may have taken place here. But he certainly did have hands laid on him. He was baptized and had laid hands laid on him. He must have been in Jerusalem because, you know, some translation misleads because it says from Alexandria, as they became from Alexandria to Ephesus. No, he was local, but he was born. He was born in Alexandria. Yes, he grew up here, but for you to know the baptism of John, you must have been here to be baptized. Yeah, well, and it says in verse 24, born born at Alexandria. Yeah, but some of them say, you know, yeah, I'm from Alexandria. Oh, okay, like he came over from Alexandria. Yes, but he was Alexandrian from her. From her, right. Yeah.

But anyways. Okay.

Anything else anyone wants to talk about or anything?

Prada, Prada, Prada, Prada, Prada.

Okay, well, while you're thinking, we've got, I'll just remind the people in Jacksonville services are 1130 this week. In Orlando, they're at 130 this week. We'll also have the Zoom link out for Jacksonville services on Friday. Orlando will be on YouTube this week. Okay. Okay.

If there's nothing else, then I'll see some of you on Sabbath, and hopefully the rest of you will see again next Wednesday. Hi, Mr. Shady. This is Vicki. I just want to say hi to everybody.

Hi Vicki. How are you doing? My speaker is not only working.

I'm tired of working with that. Okay, well, it's good to hear your voice. I hope everyone is well there. So it's good to see everybody. I'm hoping to make it back into services and get to see everybody in person. We'll move forward to it. So in the meantime, you have Zoom. I see where you're on Zoom most weeks, so that's good. Yes, I try. It's good to see everybody, though. Even if it's up there, it's really good to see them.

When you see the name, you know the pace, right? Hopefully, most times there's a lot of newcomers that have not seen that yet. It means it's still a lot. One day we're just going to have to have everyone put their picture on for at least a couple minutes just so we can see, and then you can turn them off again. So we'll try that sometime. It'll be like a real classroom at that point.

That'd be nice. I'll get my video working. Very good. Okay, I'll go ahead and sign off. I see we have a number of people leaving off as we chat here. So if you want to stay on for a while, we can. But otherwise, I'm going to say good night unless someone else has something else to say.

Good night, everyone!