Walking Through Acts

Last week we came to a close with Paul’s second missionary journey. Today we get

a glimpse of Paul’s 3rd missionary journey. The author of this book gives us a brief

view of Paul’s time in Antioch and were not given the amount of time he was

there, but we do know that Paul deemed that it was good to go and check on the

churches that he had planted in his previous journeys.

Acts 18:23

23 After spending some time there, he departed and went from one place to the

next through the region of Galatia and Phrygia, strengthening all the disciples.

Now what was Paul’s purpose in doing this? Well, as I’ve mentioned in prior

weeks, the book of Acts is not just a book about what one must do to be saved,

but one that gives us a template for mission work. You don’t just go and teach the

gospel and say best of luck to you. I hope you all do well. No, Paul makes it a point

to go and revisit those congregations that he started in order that he may

encourage them and spur them on. That’s what it means by strengthening the

disciples.

We have to remember that Christianity is still very new and there was always the

prospect of opposition either from the Jews, or the people in the congregation or

the Romans. I’d like to mention that in this verse, it mentions Paul going through

Galatia. One of the challenges that Christians faced there were people coming in

and preaching false gospels; a constant twisting of the truth and mangling of

Scripture to suit the needs of the preacher and or the congregation. And the

people were eating it up. And so the truth of the gospel was being was being

deserted. It was being cast aside. And in response, Paul writes them a letter and

this letter is what we call the book of Galatians today in which he writes, “6 I am

astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of

Christ and are turning to a different gospel— 7 not that there is another one, butthere are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.”

(Galatians 1:6-7).

What we often need to be reminded of is that sometimes strengthening comes in

the form of a rebuke or correction.

Now, it is here where our author Luke decides to draw our attention away from

Paul for a moment and introduces us to a man named Apollos. Here’s how he

describes him.

Acts 18:24

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

eloquent man, competent in the Scriptures.

Now it’s always been interesting to me, the descriptions that are given about

certain figures in the Bible. And it’s a fun exercise to think about the kind of

descriptions someone would write about us. For myself, it might be, “Now a

Cambodian Vietnamese American named Mark, born in Vietnam came to Terre

Haute. He talks way too much about how he can’t stand the cold.”

Now, beyond this silly exercise, I am always reminded that if it’s in the Bible, it’s in

there for a reason. And this description of this man named Apollos is there for a

reason. First, he’s a Jew. But he wasn’t from Jerusalem, or from Lystra, or Phillippi

or Thessalonica or Corinth. He’s from Alexandria. And he’s not just from there, but

a native there which implies his family had been settled there for quite some time.

And this Alexandrian Jew found himself in the city of Ephesus. He is described as

an eloquent man, competent in the Scriptures. Eloquent perhaps in the way he

spoke, but it could also mean, he was eloquent in his thinking and in his

accumulated knowledge. This man was smart, intelligent, articulate. Given the fact

that not many people could read back in this time, it was all the more significant

about the distinction Apollos had amongst those around him.

Isn’t it interesting the variety of people that God chooses to accomplish his will?

He chose young uneducated fisherman to become disciples of Jesus from which

sprouted a movement of radical men of faith that resulted in what we now call

Christianity. But God also chooses people like Apollos. What I’ve drawn from thisis that God can use anyone; rich, poor, smart, not so smart, young, old, the

downhearted, the energetic, the articulate, and those who aren’t so good with

words to accomplish his mission here on earth and because of this fact, you and I

are not excluded from this list. God can and will use us, broken and imperfect as

we are to tell the world about Him and his work of redemption through Jesus.

Sometimes, in the Christian world today, we tend to think that intelligent people

have a harder time grasping the gospel. And in some cases this is true. Sometimes

intellect can get in the way of faith. But that is not the rule. The world would like

you to think that way. I’ve heard things such as, “Christianity is for those who are

un-enlightened”. That it’s “for the gullible.” “It’s for those who need a crutch when

life gets hard.” Those things are simply lies and do not hold up to scrutiny. As we

will see, Apollos becomes a formidable force for good in light of the gospel.

A commentator describes Apollos this way.

“This was the secret of his power and ability. He knew the Scriptures. Modern

education manifests a sad and even tragic lack of learning in any phase of the

Scriptures. The weakest spot in modern training falls at this very point where

Apollos was mighty. Today, the power of preaching has been confused with the

expedient externals of politeness, polish, personality, and position. But Apollos

was an efficient preacher because he had an understanding of the Scriptures,

purity of heart and motives, and ability to proclaim the message.”

Our commentator then moves on to explain how our current world may be

missing the mark.

“Too often congregations select their teachers for the Bible School on the basis of

manners, personality, or degrees from some university. These expedients should

not be scorned nor overlooked, but the essential thing is to select men and

women who are wise in the Scriptures. Many a modern tentmaker in the

congregation can and will serve much better as a teacher of the Word than the so-

called well-educated person who knows science but has never met nor

surrendered to the Savior.”

Again, what made Apollos such an effective preacher and teacher of the gospel?

His knowledge of the Scriptures. This is why it is so important for us today, nowmore than ever to be acquainted with our Bibles. Get to know it. Study it. Read it.

Because the more you do that, the more you will know the heart of God and you

and your family and your friends and co-workers and classmates will be all the

better for it.

Apollos knew the Scriptures. It is not a stretch to think that Apollos had the

Scriptures committed to memory. Back in this time, they didn’t have a printing

press or ways of mass distributing Scripture. So whenever one would take on the

study of the Scriptures, which would only be available in the Synagogues at this

time, one would do so in such a way that it would be committed to memory.

I’ve always admired people who could recite a verse and give you the book,

chapter and verse. Why is that?

I remember in 7th and 8th grade, I had the same English teacher for both years.

And that’s when we started doing research papers. And, for her, the most

important aspect of our research papers surprisingly wasn’t the content of our

research itself, but it was in our citation of our sources. Why? The content of our

research was only as good as the sources from which it came. And if the Bible is

our authority, it is all the more important to be able to cite our source. If we are to

make as bold a claim as to the fact that Jesus is the only way to salvation in a

world that seems to think there are many ways, we better be able to show them

where we get that from (John 14:6). Otherwise, to someone who isn’t a Christian,

it’s nothing but a mere opinion. And then we can get even further down the road

and start quoting things that we think are in the Bible, but in fact are not.

“God helps those who help themselves.” (Romans 5:8; we couldn’t help

ourselves; while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.)

“Money is the root of all evil.” (Love of money; 1 Timothy 6:10)

“God will not give us more than we can handle.” (people have faced many things

they couldn’t handle, so that God could show that He can.)

I’ve mentioned in previous sermons that biblical literacy is decreasing rapidly

amongst Christians. And the only result that can come from that is a lack of

credibility with the world. We live in a culture that is inundated with falsemessages all the time. Let’s just stick with politics as an example of this because

that’s where we can all agree that there is a lack of accountability regarding

information that is broadcast to the masses. About 5 years ago, it was a shock to

me that Snopes wasn’t even free of bias and for the first time, I realized that you

needed fact checkers to check the fact checkers. Here’s what people are craving

these days. They just want to hear the truth. No matter how difficult or hard to

swallow it is, people just want you to tell them the truth. The world needs more

people like Apollos who are mighty (competent; duatos, dunamai where we

derive our word for dynamite means mighty, powerful) in the Scriptures.

Acts 18:25a

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

This phrase is in reference to Isaiah 40:3. A voice cries:

“In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord;

make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

Of which is applied to John the Baptist’s ministry as he quotes this very verse in

Matthew 3:3.

And so, the keen Bible student, which should be all of us (you don’t need to be

going to Bible college to study the Bible), will pick up on the fact that somehow,

some way, Apollos had been instructed in the teachings of John the Baptist.

Acts 18:25b

And being fervent in spirit,

The direct definition of this Greek word zeo, is to boil over in spirit. Apollos was a

man on a mission. He was zealous and he would not be stopped. Sounds a lot like

pre-converted Paul when he was persecuting Christians. Except we are seeing the

flip side of that with Apollos.Acts 18:25c

he spoke and taught accurately the things concerning Jesus, though he knew only

the baptism of John.

What we discover here is that, yes, Apollos was teaching things about Jesus that

were accurate, but the knowledge he had about Jesus was incomplete. What was

he missing? Scripture tells us that he only knew about the baptism of John. This

indicates that he was not acquainted with the baptism of the Great Commission,

and therefore not acquainted with the gift of the Holy Spirit. John’s baptism was

out of a repentance for sins. The Christian baptism is for the forgiveness of sins.

Acts 18:26a

26 He began to speak boldly in the synagogue,

Now, one of the risks that anyone takes when getting up in front of people to

speak is that of making a fool of oneself. For instance, I’ve heard many stories of

Freudian slips coming from the pulpit. I’ve heard about instances where some

people just straight up get the facts wrong. And these are all fine, as long as they

are not on purpose and not intentionally trying to lie or lead people away from

the truth. As I alluded to before, there were people, especially in Galatia that were

trying to preach a different gospel on purpose. Apollos, although preaching an

incomplete gospel is not preaching a false one. It would only be a false one if he

knew the whole gospel and refused to preach it.

There’s this thing that happens to musicians and preachers all the time. If a

musician hits a wrong note or a vocalist’s voice cracks, that sticks with them for a

long time. It’s the same for speaking. On back, I referenced Martin Luther’s 95

theses and I said “99” theses. I remember I used the word “subscription” when I

meant to say “prescription.” And trust me, these are things stick with me. And it’s

not necessarily a bad thing that it bothers me whenever this happens because I

recognize the reverence we ought to have for God’s Word and the preaching of it.

It's weighty and it’s dangerous. Ephesians 6 tells us that the Word of God is a

sword. If handled competently, it will accomplish what it has been set out to do. If

handled incompetently, it can cause a lot of harm and destruction.So we have Apollos speaking boldly in the synagogue, but remember he’s

preaching an incomplete gospel. Priscilla and Aquila, partners in ministry with

Paul, who we got introduced to last week are there hearing Apollos speak. It’s

very important for us to look at how they respond.

Acts 18:26b

but when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him aside and explained to him

the way of God more accurately.

They don’t publicly embarrass him by calling him out. They didn’t say, “I can’t

believe you would leave that out!” They took him aside and filled him in on the

things that he didn’t know yet.

He would have learned about the doctrine of justification by faith, and about the

institution and observance of the Lord’s Supper. He would have learned about the

indwelling of the Holy Spirit to help a man to live the Christian life.

J.W. McGarvey says,

“Apollos learned that, while John’s baptism had attached to it no promise of the

Holy Spirit, this was one of the distinctive features of Christian baptism; and that

while John baptized into no name, the apostles were taught to baptize into the

name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.”

Now, I want to take a bit of a sidestep here, and point out something that has

been a point of confusion for many in the Church around the world. The challenge

is found in trying to harmonize or make sense of the biblical instruction that

women ought not to teach or have authority over a man as given to us in 1

Timothy 2:12 and that of what we find here with Priscilla having a very active part

in teaching Apollos. Is the Bible being inconsistent? In one place, it tells us that

women can’t teach a man, but in another it tells us that Priscilla taught Apollos.

Here’s the answer to that question.

Paul’s letter to Timothy was to the Church at Ephesus. A Church is comprised of

those saved in Christ through faith, repentance, confession of that faith and

baptism by immersion. We know that Apollos wasn’t teaching these things, so asthe logic follows, Apollos was still an unsaved man at this point. And so, where the

1 Timothy passage falls under the scope of those inside the Church (already

considered a part of the household of faith), our example here of Priscilla teaching

Apollos is in the scope of evangelism which is open to both men and women to do

as we are all called to bring the good news to those outside of Christ.

Acts 18:27-28

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.

Piano to play here.

Where does Apollos go in the region of Achaia? We can be pretty certain he went

to the Church in Corinth for 1 Corinthians 1:12 tells us that Apollos had been

there. And as we’ve seen with Paul, Apollos is strengthening the Church and one

of the ways he did this was by refuting the Jews in public by showing that Jesus

was in fact the promised Messiah. So in a public assembly, the Jews would be

engaged in a public debate. And if you were to take a man into a debate to defend

and sustain the claims that Jesus was the Messiah, Apollos would be your guy. He

was already strong intellectually and with his words. Pair that with his passion for

preaching and teaching the truth and you have someone who is formidable. I love

how Gareth Reece in his commentary on Acts puts it. He says, “The Jews were no

match for this preacher from Alexandria.”

And Apollos backed every claim he made with Scripture. Now for most of us in

here, we can get a bit nervous or may not be confident in our biblical

presentations with others. But always know, that whenever we may not feel

confident, we can always be confident in what the Bible says. It’s not our words.

It’s God’s.

It is in the pages of our Bibles that we find the way that leads to life. So let me

encourage you with the words that Paul used to encourage Timothy. Their world

was marked with sin, and deceit and disappointment and discouragement. The

world we live in today is not so different.Paul says,

2 Timothy 3:14-15

14 But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed,

knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been

acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation

through faith in Christ Jesus.