Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

I wonder how many of us have read the Bible through at least once.

Do you have a daily or weekly or some kind of routine for regular Bible reading?

How about other books or videos or audio lectures?

What sort of time and energy do you invest in learning the basics of Christianity, the doctrines contained in the gospel, the history of God’s work in the world over the last 2,000 years, and the way other Christians have thought and taught about the faith we’ve inherited?

One marvelous benefit to regular Bible reading and the diligent learning of doctrine is that the whole Bible becomes richer and more profound as you go.

You notice more in each scene, you understand better what is happening, and you more deeply feel the gravitas of the unfolding plan of redemption when you know where this particular episode fits into the grand narrative.

Today we’ve arrived at what can be a confusing and somewhat strange passage in the Acts storyline.

It’s the beginning of Paul’s third missionary journey, it’s the climax of Paul’s ministry as a free man, and it’s a passage that emphasizes a break from the old covenant and a full embrace of the New.

But the whole thing largely centers on two kinds of baptism… John’s and Jesus’s.

Let’s consider this passage together, and let’s learn what is “new” about the New Covenant.

May God help us to grow in our understanding, and may He grant us all the blessings of the New Covenant in Christ as we trust Him for them.

Scripture Reading

Acts 18:24–19:10 (ESV)

24 Now a Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria, came to Ephesus.

He was an eloquent man, competent in the Scriptures.

25 He had been instructed in the way of the Lord.

And being fervent in spirit, he spoke and taught accurately the things concerning Jesus, though he knew only the baptism of John.

26 He began to speak boldly in the synagogue, but when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately.

27 And when he wished to cross to Achaia, the brothers encouraged him and wrote to the disciples to welcome him.

When he arrived, he greatly helped those who through grace had believed, 28 for he powerfully refuted the Jews in public, showing by the Scriptures that the Christ was Jesus.

1 And it happened that while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul passed through the inland country and came to Ephesus.

There he found some disciples.

2 And he said to them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?”

And they said, “No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.” 3 And he said, “Into what then were you baptized?”

They said, “Into John’s baptism.” 4 And Paul said, “John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in the one who was to come after him, that is, Jesus.” 5 On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.

6 And when Paul had laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they began speaking in tongues and prophesying.

7 There were about twelve men in all.

8 And he entered the synagogue and for three months spoke boldly, reasoning and persuading them about the kingdom of God. 9 But when some became stubborn and continued in unbelief, speaking evil of the Way before the congregation, he withdrew from them and took the disciples with him, reasoning daily in the hall of Tyrannus.

10 This continued for two years, so that all the residents of Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks.

Main Idea:

The announcement of the New Covenant is glorious news for those who understand and believe this message, but it is a pronouncement of judgment upon those who do not understand or who reject it.

Sermon

1. Benefit and Investment (v24-28)

The Apostle Paul had spent a short time in Ephesus before the visit we are reading about today; he made a quick stop there on his way home to the church in Antioch (Acts 18:19-21).

While there, Paul did “reason with the Jews” in the synagogue (Acts 18:19), as was his norm, but Luke doesn’t indicate that any of them became believers or Christians at that time.

Instead, Luke just tells us that Paul left, and Priscilla and Aquila seem to have stayed behind.

This couple, who had been Paul’s missionary support and homebase in Corinth for at least 18 months, came along with Paul to Ephesus, and for some reason they decided to stay.

We know this because Priscilla and Aquila were already in Ephesus when Apollos came.

Priscilla and Aquila were Jewish Christians who had been living in Rome, until they were kicked out (along with all other Jews) by a decree from the emperor.

And in Corinth they had become supporters of and even partners in Paul’s missionary efforts.

Luke tells us that Apollos was also a “Jew,” and that he was a “native of Alexandria” (v24).

This means that he was ethnically a descendant of Abraham, but he had grown up in a Greek city of renowned learning and culture.

It’s no surprise, then, when Luke says that “he was an eloquent” or “learned” (NIV84) man (v24).

It is interesting, though, when Luke adds that Apollos “had been instructed in the way of the Lord” (v25).

The word “instructed” here is the Greek word from which we get the English “catechized.”

In other words, Apollos was catechized in the way of the Lord… And that’s the first benefit and investment we see in our opening section… Apollos benefitted from the discipling efforts of someone who invested in him, someone who taught him the fundamentals of what it means to believe and follow the Lord Jesus Christ.

Brothers and sisters, let’s just note briefly here the importance of catechizing our own children and also new converts and new church members.

We do not come into this world with a head full of truth and a heart to obey it!

No, we naturally – as children of Adam and Eve – have our heads full of air and our hearts bent on sin.

We need someone to come alongside us to teach us… to teach us what to believe, what to think… what to say… and what to do.

Later, as we mature, we need someone to explain why we believe and say and do those things… and we must also learn our own responsibility to turn around and begin to teach those who are coming behind us.

This is true of life in general, and it is especially true of Christianity.

We need to be catechized!

And we need to understand that teaching and learning the fundamentals is necessary for every single church member.

A handful of men meet every Friday morning in the church office, and they’ve been studying through a 1400-page book on systematic theology.

Some of them have read the book more than 3 times, so they’ve just switched to a slightly shorter book that similarly walks through some of the basic truths of Christianity.

Maybe you could make time to jump into that group… Maybe you could just pick up the book and read it through for yourself… Maybe you could ask another church member to read it with you, and you could meet up occasionally to talk about it… Maybe you could talk about the catechism questions we list in the bulletin each Sunday… Maybe you could talk about a book of the Bible…

Friends, we are being catechized, whether we know it or not… TV and YouTube and Netflix and Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and cable news channels… they all catechize you according to a worldview… May God help us to be the sort of people who live on purpose, making the best use of our time.

Back to Acts 18… Luke tells us that Apollos “had been instructed in the way of the Lord” and that “he spoke and taught accurately the things concerning Jesus” (v25).

Luke even says that Apollos was “competent in the Scriptures” (v24).

The description here seems to imply that Apollos was a Spirit-filled Christian.

In fact, though Luke does not tell us Apollos’s conversion story, Luke does say that “the brothers” or Christians in Ephesus sent Apollos along to Achaia with a letter of recommendation so that “the disciples” there would “welcome him” (v27).

The reason Apollos’s spiritual state might be in question at all is because of two additional things Luke says about him here.

One, that “he [Apollos] knew only the baptism of John” (v25); and two, that “Priscilla and Aquila… took him [Apollos] aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately” (v26).

We’ll get more into the “baptism of John” in point 2, but right now let’s take a closer look at this second question-mark beside Apollos.

Luke says that Apollos was “speaking boldly in the synagogue” (v26), and we can assume that he was basically doing the same as Paul because of what Luke wrote here about his teaching… Apollos was teaching “from the Scriptures” (v24) the “things concerning Jesus” (v25).

But, in v26, Luke says that “Priscilla and Aquila heard him, [and] they took him aside… [to] explain to him the way of God more accurately” (v26).

Here is the second benefit and investment we see in this first section… Apollos benefitted from the investment of Priscilla and Aquila.

Apollos already “spoke and taught accurately the things concerning Jesus” (v25) before Priscilla and Aquila pulled him aside.

The KJV and the NIV translate the words differently in v25 and v26, but the Greek word is the same in both places.

In other words, Apollos had accurate or true doctrine, but Priscilla and Aquila helped him gain even greater accuracy and precision.

He was saying true stuff, but they helped him to understand true doctrine more comprehensively and to say it with greater “power” (v28) or “vigor” (NIV84) or “might” (KJV).

Brothers and sisters, do you know that this is one of the reasons we need each other?

…This is one reason we need to be tightly connected with a local church.

None of us, not me or you, none of us have plumbed the depths of the Scriptures.

None of us have arrived at the top of the theological mountain, where there is no doctrine left to climb… no passage left to exegete… no theological knot left to untie.

Truth be told, some of us are still running around the bottom of the mountain talking about what great climbers we are.

If we live in isolation, if we never let someone challenge the dumb stuff we say, if we never ask a fellow believer “Do you think I’m understanding this thing right?” then we will never grow… and we may even one day discover that what we believe is completely off the mark.

Brothers and sisters, we need each other.

We need to expose our ignorance (i.e., we need to admit it when we don’t know), and we need to be willing to learn.

We need to speak up when we think a fellow church member gets it wrong, and we need to be willing to admit that the one in error is sometimes me!

Let’s never be satisfied with basic accuracy… but like Priscilla and Aquila (not professional preachers, but tentmakers… blue-collar workers!) let’s always strive for greater accuracy in our understanding of the gospel and the doctrines that shape it.

The third and last benefit and investment I see at the end of Acts 18 is related to the second.

Because Priscilla and Aquila invested in Apollos, he benefitted; but then Apollos left… and he invested his efforts in Achaia, particularly in Corinth (v27; cf.

19:1).

And the “believers” there were “greatly helped” because of Apollos (v27).

No doubt, the saints in Ephesus would have greatly benefitted from Apollos staying there, but for whatever reason, Apollos moved on to Corinth… and that didn’t make Priscilla and Aquila’s investment in him any less valuable or worthwhile.

As a matter of fact, the saints in Corinth so benefitted from Apollos’s teaching there, that he became something of a celebrity to them (1 Cor.

1:12, 3:4).

Friends, let’s all take note of the benefits and investments we see here, and let’s do our part to model these in our own lives.

(1) We ought to be catechized, and we ought to catechize others… (2) we ought to eagerly learn accurate doctrine, and we ought to lovingly and diligently help one another grow in accuracy… and (3) we ought to invest well in fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, whether they will eventually be a benefit to us or to some other Christian or church.

2. A Glorious New Covenant (v1-7)

Brothers and sisters, these seven verses, are the sort of thing that we are liable to read right over without knowing or realizing what we’ve just read.

It’s like that moment in a movie when the major themes of the storyline converge, and something happens that seems unimportant and even odd to someone who hasn’t been watching from the beginning.

In Luke’s storyline, this critical and climactic passage is bound to seem strange and pretty confusing to those of us who don’t quite have our heads wrapped around the whole biblical storyline and how the early church period (i.e., the apostolic age) specifically fits into it.

This passage is a climactic break from the Old Covenant (as the events of v8-10 make clear).

This is an emphatic display of what makes the New Covenant “new,” and it has some very practical implications for Christians today.

First, let’s consider how John’s baptism represents the Old Covenant here.

Second, let’s observe the newness of the New Covenant; and third, let’s think about a few ways this passage should affect our perspective and practices today.

Luke says in 19:1, “And it happened that while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul passed through the inland country and came to Ephesus.”

That path would have taken him right back through those towns where Paul had first preached the gospel in the region of Galatia and Phrygia, which is where Luke said Paul went (in Acts 18:23) when he left Antioch for now the third time on a missionary journey.