God Has People

Sunday, June 30, 2024

Followup from Last Lesson

Last week’s question: What are some “course changes” (a.k.a repentance) you are going to make this week to submit to Jesus? [Give people an opportunity to share what they did and how it went.]

Introductory information

Paul, Silas, and Timothy are traveling on Paul’s second missionary journey

They have been split up since Paul left Berea to go to Athens

This was after some unbelieving Thessalonians had pushed him out of their city and then followed him to Berea to do the same there

Paul had just given a speech to the Council at the Areopagus in Athens, who oversaw religion and education

Some had received and believed the Gospel, but most remained skeptical or simply ridiculed him for it

In Acts 18 Paul decides to go on to Corinth which was a major commerce city about 50 miles west...

READ

Question to consider as we read:

Who builds our relationships?

Acts 18:1–17 CSB

1 After this, he left Athens and went to Corinth, 2 where he found a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla because Claudius had ordered all the Jews to leave Rome. Paul came to them, 3 and since they were of the same occupation, tentmakers by trade, he stayed with them and worked. 4 He reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath and tried to persuade both Jews and Greeks. 5 When Silas and Timothy arrived from Macedonia, Paul devoted himself to preaching the word and testified to the Jews that Jesus is the Messiah. 6 When they resisted and blasphemed, he shook out his clothes and told them, “Your blood is on your own heads! I am innocent. From now on I will go to the Gentiles.” 7 So he left there and went to the house of a man named Titius Justus, a worshiper of God, whose house was next door to the synagogue. 8 Crispus, the leader of the synagogue, believed in the Lord, along with his whole household. Many of the Corinthians, when they heard, believed and were baptized. 9 The Lord said to Paul in a night vision, “Don’t be afraid, but keep on speaking and don’t be silent. 10 For I am with you, and no one will lay a hand on you to hurt you, because I have many people in this city.” 11 He stayed there a year and a half, teaching the word of God among them. 12 While Gallio was proconsul of Achaia, the Jews made a united attack against Paul and brought him to the tribunal. 13 “This man,” they said, “is persuading people to worship God in ways contrary to the law.” 14 As Paul was about to open his mouth, Gallio said to the Jews, “If it were a matter of wrongdoing or of a serious crime, it would be reasonable for me to put up with you Jews. 15 But if these are questions about words, names, and your own law, see to it yourselves. I refuse to be a judge of such things.” 16 So he drove them from the tribunal. 17 And they all seized Sosthenes, the leader of the synagogue, and beat him in front of the tribunal, but none of these things mattered to Gallio.

EXAMINE

What are the key points in this passage?

#1 | God provided partners for Paul: Priscilla and Aquila

They partnered in practical needs (income and housing)

Acts 18:2–3 ...he found a Jew named Aquila... with his wife Priscilla... and since they were of the same occupation, tentmakers by trade, he stayed with them and worked.

They became partners in the ministry

Paul would later reference their partnership in his letters...

Romans 16:3–4 “Give my greetings to Prisca and Aquila, my coworkers in Christ Jesus, 4 who risked their own necks for my life. Not only do I thank them, but so do all the Gentile churches.”

1 Corinthians 16:19 “...Aquila and Priscilla send you greetings warmly in the Lord, along with the church that meets in their home.”

2 Timothy 4:19 “Greet Prisca and Aquila...”

#2 | God provided support from the recently planted churches

Financial support from the Philippians

Acts 18:5 “When Silas and Timothy arrived from Macedonia, Paul devoted himself to preaching the word and testified to the Jews that Jesus is the Messiah.”

It seems that Silas and Timothy brought provisions from the church in Philippi, which is what enabled Paul to start preaching full-time in Corinth

Paul talks about this in his letter to the church in Philippi

Philippians 4:15 “And you Philippians know that in the early days of the gospel, when I left Macedonia, no church shared with me in the matter of giving and receiving except you alone.”

Paul also later references this when writing back to the church in Corinth

2 Corinthians 11:9 “When I was present with you and in need, I did not burden anyone, since the brothers who came from Macedonia supplied my needs...

Emotional and Spiritual support from Thessalonica

Paul and the team had been kicked out of Thessalonica by unbelievers, leaving behind a small group of new believers

We can imagine the anxiety that Paul, Silas, and Timothy would have felt over leaving that small church behind in a hostile community

Paul’s letters to the Thessalonians (which he wrote while staying in Corinth) reveal how Timothy and Silas’ reports blessed him...

1 Thessalonians 2:17-3:7 “...after we were forced to leave you for a short time (in person, not in heart), we greatly desired and made every effort to return and see you face to face… and we sent Timothy, our brother and God’s coworker in the gospel of Christ, to strengthen and encourage you… now Timothy has come to us from you and brought us good news about your faith and love. He reported that you always have good memories of us and that you long to see us, as we also long to see you. 7 Therefore, brothers and sisters, in all our distress and affliction, we were encouraged about you through your faith.”

#3 | God provided a new church community

It seems that Paul had some anxieties and stress when he first began preaching in Corinth

In his first letter, Paul reminded the Corinthian church how he came to them in “...weakness, in fear, and in much trembling.” (1 Cor 2:3)

We can imagine how Paul would be fatigued and rattled after encountering so much difficulty in so many different cities

God’s words gave Paul the strength and confidence he needed

Acts 18:9–10 The Lord said to Paul in a night vision, “Don’t be afraid, but keep on speaking and don’t be silent. 10 For I am with you, and no one will lay a hand on you to hurt you, because I have many people in this city.”

The promise that God had “many people in this city” was two-fold:

It meant that Paul’s efforts wouldn’t be for nothing

It meant that God had placed people in Corinth who would have Paul’s back

God’s message to Paul reminds us that Jesus is the one who builds the church community

This means that we can trust God to build the right community around us, when we follow Him

It also means that we don’t need to carry the burden of outcomes - only the burden of obedience and faithfulness. Consider Paul’s words to the Corinthians in his later letter to them...

1 Corinthians 3:5–9 “What then is Apollos? What is Paul? They are servants through whom you believed, and each has the role the Lord has given. 6 I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. 7 So, then, neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. 8 Now he who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his own reward according to his own labor. 9 For we are God’s coworkers. You are God’s field, God’s building.”

APPLY

Explore and apply the passage with these questions:

[These questions must be focused, yet very open-ended. Allow the conversation to go where people take it - we want to encourage everyone to share and explore the topics of the passage. You don’t have to ask all these questions. Sometimes a group may only get through one or two questions. Select the questions you think are right for the conversation. Then, as it comes time to wrap up, refocus the conversation to “land the plane.”]

What did you notice about the way things played out with the people of Corinth? (Titius Justus, Crispus, Gallio, & Sosthenes)

How would you have felt to receive support and good reports from the towns where it seemed like your ministry had failed? (Thessalonica, Berea, Philippi) And what would it teach you about God?

What will you do this week to treat people like they truly belong to God, and not to you?

Where we want to “land the plane”

People belong to God and not to us. When we bring fear, control, and anxiety into our relationships, we are not treating people like they belong to God. If people belong to God, then we can release them to Him, and release ourselves to focus instead on obedience and faithfulness to Christ.

REFLECT

Prayer Points for Today

Ask the Lord to teach us to trust Him with our relationships and community.

Devotional Question for the Week

In what ways do you treat people like they belong to you? Who do you treat this way? In what ways do you need to surrender those people to God?

FOOTNOTES

Aquila and Priscilla - Aquila was a Jew, originally from Pontus, a province in northeast Asia Minor south of the Black Sea. Displaced from Rome because of an edict in A.D. 49 or 50 from Claudius for all the Jews to leave Rome, Aquila and Priscilla had come to Corinth to ply their trade. (Claudius reigned from A.D. 41 to 54; see the list of Roman emperors at Luke 2:1.) Suetonius (A.D. 69?=140), a biographer of Roman emperors, described what may have been the occasion for such a decree. In his Life of Claudius (25. 4) he referred to the constant riots of the Jews at the instigation of Chrestus. Possibly the name Chrestus is a reference to Christ. Whether Aquila and Priscilla were Christians before they met Paul is not known. Because Aquila was called “a Jew” did not mean he knew Christ (cf. Apollos, a Jew; Acts 18:24). Nor can it be argued that Paul lived with them because they were believers; he stayed with them because they were tentmakers (v. 3). Several times Priscilla’s name is given before Aquila’s (vv. 18–19, 26; Rom. 16:3). This may be due to her noble family background. Stanley D. Toussaint, “Acts,” in The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures, ed. J. F. Walvoord and R. B. Zuck, vol. 2 (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1985), 405.

Gallio’s ruling meant in effect that Paul and his associates, so long as they committed no breach of public order, continued to share the protection which Roman law granted to the practice of Judaism. It probably served as a precedent for other Roman judges, especially as it proceeded from a man whose brother (Seneca) occupied a position of influence at the imperial court. It meant that for the next ten or twelve years, until imperial policy toward Christians underwent a complete reversal, (47) the gospel could be proclaimed in the provinces of the empire without fear of coming into conflict with Roman law. 47 Nero’s action against the Christians of Rome in the aftermath of the fire of A.D. 64 was evidently a personal initiative. But with the growth of Gentile Christianity it was no longer possible for the church to profit from the protection extended by Roman law to the synagogue. F. F. Bruce, The Book of the Acts, The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1988), 354.