Bible Guys Classics: Acts 18 Part 2

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All right, well, today we're gonna wrap it up. Wrap

it up, everybody.

Paul runs into some more trouble in Corinth and then

he heads home.

Well, he wraps up his second missionary journeys.

Wrap it up, he wraps up the scenes. You okay, Hey,

sorry about that. It's getting along, isn't it. He's Chris,

I'm Jeff. We're the Bible.

Guys, So Jeff. People sometimes email us, yes, and so

this this is an episode, or this is a segment

called mail bags where somebody has requested that we tell

a story. Oh so this is from Cliff k.

They have a question for us.

Yeah, and he says, tell about a time in your

past when you've done something very dangerous or scary that

happened to you and you look back at that moment

and think I should have died or been seriously injured.

I didn't have a scratch on me.

Oh wow. Yeah.

Yeah. And by the way, if you have any other

mail bag questions, please email them too info at thebibleguys

dot com. We would absolutely love to use your question

if we want to in future segments.

Yeah. Well, hey, that's a great question, by the way.

Yeah.

Now, in all fairness, I've had a lot of things

where I did have a scratch on me. I had

to have I think I've had twenty one different times

I had to go to the hospital for stitches.

Wow.

So yeah, So I've had a lot of stitches in

my life. But a time when we had do you

have one?

Do you have one? Yeah? I do so well, I

mean I've had several, trust me. But the one that

I wanted to tell was very miraculous in that we

were going bike riding. We were doing blessing of the bikes,

and at our church we had primarily two campuses doing

this like.

A huffey or a swin.

No, Jeffy, we have actual Harley's motorcycle. Yes, And so

we had sort of partnered with George Dylan Uez over

at wolver and Harley on grash it in Clinton Township

in the area in which we you know, live and anyway,

so we had all these bikes and in the other

campus with Dave Wilson, he had maybe a couple hundred

bikes and we had, you know, a couple hundred bikes

at ours. And so we had this blessing of the

bikes where we go out and we sort of pray,

pray for the bikes and we get together. We did

this big, big party over the other campus. Anyway, The

bottom line is this is that we had like five

hundred bikes that year, right, and we all went out

and rode in packs. In fact, that was the message

name of the message that day. We were in a

series called Drive and we were talking about riding in packs,

which is about community. And so we were actually riding

in a pack. And I had never ridden in a pack,

and I was actually had a chopper. So a guy

that actually attends Heritage now he's a good friend, he

actually donated his chopper to me. Oh, he said, he said,

here it is, and that's the time that I got destroyed.

I totaled his chopper, which was now mine. Okay, but

he runs the cameras by the way on Sunday mornings.

So anyway, I got this chopper and we were on

We were on some road and we were heading on

M fifty three going south, and the on ramp did

like an S. It was like a squiggly S. So

I was able to turn left with no problem because

it was an intern. But then when the whole pack

turned right, they sped up to like seventy miles an hour,

and I wanted to keep in step with them. But

as I was turning right, I went wide because I

was at a chopper right and I hit the gravel.

Oh no, and I went down.

And the people behind me said I looked like a

piece of sausage. And they said I must have rolled

straight like a piece of sages on the cement for

thirty to forty times.

Wow.

Isn't it amazing if you've ever been in a car

wreck or something like this, what happens in your brain?

Because as I was hitting my helmet and literally hitting

it on the pavement, like I was hitting it so hard,

and I actually thought, hey, wow, that doesn't hurt when

you have a helmet on, and so I ended up

getting up. They called the ambulance. Ambulance guy comes out.

He says, how fast are you going? People around me

said he was going at least fifty five to sixty

And the guy looked at me and I was leathered

up at a leather jacket on. I had just jeans on,

some boots and just some gloves with you know, the

holes in him where my knuckles were, and I only

had a half helmet on, only a half one.

Wow.

My helmet was scratched, and even the leather straps around

my ears were scratched, but my ear was untouched.

Wow.

So there were scratches on the leather around my ear,

but not on.

My ears on your ear. Wow.

And the only scratch that I had was one of

my knuckles was bleeding. And I went down and the

bike was trashed. That'll tell you how bad the reck was.

The insurance company trashed the bike. I rolled and the

ambulance driver says, I've been doing ambulances for about twenty years.

He said, I have never once examined a person who

explained to me that they went down on the pavement

at fifty five miles an hour and get up without

a scratch.

Wow.

And then all the people in the pack said, well,

it's because he's the preacher. He's got Jesus looking out.

God was like, all right, we better protect this guy. Yep, yep, wow.

Yeah that was it.

That's amazing.

I think God took care of me, man, I really do.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure though. The question said specifically without

a scratch, and I had any scratch scratch, Yeah, yeah,

kind of let us down there, Chris. Sorry, but that's

a pretty amazing story though. Yeah. Yeah, I have a

million of them too, so I shouldn't take too long.

I had. One time we were walking on a trail

along the edge of a cliff, the trail kit it

turned out it wasn't a trail, It was just a

wide spot on the side of the cliff, and so

it kept getting narrow and narrow and narrow, where finally

we get down to a point where we're back up

against the cliff and my shoes, my shoes I wear

size eleven shoe which makes twelve inches long usually, and

my feet were sticking out over the edge of the

ledge as we were walking, we just keep scooting across,

scooting across. And I was a youth pastor back then,

so stupid. I had a teenage girl next to me,

and she slipped and I just caught her one handed

like this, And so now she's hanging down into this valley.

It was probably we were sixty feet up, seventy feet up,

which yeah, yeah, so I've got her by one hand,

and there's a teenage boy next to where she had

been standing, and so I started swinging her and finally

swung her back up high enough that he could get

her hand. We got her back up on the cliff,

but we had nowhere to go. We had to finish,

and finally it widened back out at the other end.

But you know, we were on a on a cliff

face that was probably only about eight inches wide at

one point. And yeah, it's really stupid. I don't know

why parents let their teenagers be in my youth group.

Well, to be honest, we're so alike in so many ways.

That sounds sort of like me too as a youth passager.

But I'll be honest, you're sort of wins.

Yeah, that was a crazy one. Well, the fact that

she lives through it, you know, it was scary.

Like that's like my child almost died in your care

kind of thing.

Yeah.

By the way, I've had those, I've actually had them.

Well, we have now ahered age. We have very strict

rules about our youth pastors because you and I both

know what not to do right right, right, So now

they can't have to get away with anything not that.

But twenty five years later things have changed.

Oh yeah, yeah, very much.

So.

Yeah, so here we are if you remember. Now we

finished up in Acts chapter eighteen, in the middle of

the chapter where Paul is in Corinth. He's there a

year and a half in Corinth, and it's a difficult,

wicked city, really wild city, but there's a bunch of

people come into faith in Corinth. It becomes a prominent

church church. And he writes back to the church in Galatia,

which is all it's several churches there right in Galatia.

And then he writes back to the church there in

thessalon Nika. And those are the books we've read up

to this point. And now we're coming back to the

end of his time in Corinth, and so we're going

to pick up there. Up until this point, he hadn't

really faced a lot of persecution in Corinth.

So just to be clear, we were starting this series

in the Book of Acts. We broke off, did a

few books, and now we're back in the Book of

Acts chapter eighteen.

Yeah, we're just going through the Book of Acts in

the order that it happens. And then when Paul writes

a book or writes a letter, if we pause in

the Book of Acts at that point, read that letter,

and then we come back to doing it's happening in

chronological order. Yep. So here we go. Whet. But when

Gallio became governor of Akaya, some Jews rose up together

against Paul and brought him before the governor for judgment.

They accused Paul of persuading people to worship God in

ways that are contrary to our law. But just as

Paul started to make his defense, Gallio turned to Paul's

accusers and said, listen, you Jews. If this were a

case involving some wrongdoing or a serious crime, I would

have a reason to accept your case. But since it's

merely a question of words and names and your Jewish law,

take care of it. Yourselves. I refuse to judge such matters,

and he threw them out of the courtroom. The crowd

then grabbed Sasthenes, the leader of the synagogue, and beat

him right there in the courtroom, but Gallio paid no attention.

Paul stayed in Corinth for some time after that, then

said goodbye to the brothers and sisters and went to

nearby Centuria. There he shaved his head according to Jewish custom,

marking the end of a vow. Then he sent sale

for Syria, taking Priscilla and Aquila with him. They stopped

first at the port of Ephesus, where Paul left others behind,

and while he was there he went to the synagogue

to reason with the Jews. They asked him to stay longer,

but he declined, and as he left, however, he said,

I will come back later, God willing, and then he

set sail for Ephesus. The next stop was at the

port of Cessareea. From there he went up and visited

the Church of Jerusalem, and then went back to Antioch.

After spending some time at Antioch, Paul went back through

Galicia and Phrygia, visiting and strengthening all the believers. Meanwhile,

A Jew named Apollos, an eloquent speaker who knew the

scriptures well, had arrived in Ephesus from Alexandria in Egypt.

He'd been taught the way of the Lord, and he

taught others about Jesus with an enthusiastic spirit and with accuracy. However,

he knew only about John's baptism. When Priscilla and Aquilla

heard him preaching boldly in the synagogue, they took him

aside and explained the way of God even more accurately.

Apollos had been thinking about going to Achaia, and the

brothers and sisters in Ephesus encouraged him to go. They

wrote to the believers in Achaia asking them to welcome him,

and when he arrived there, he proved to be of

great benefit to those who, by God's grace, had believed.

He refuted the Jews with powerful arguments in public debate.

Using the scriptures. He explained to them that Jesus was

the Messiah. So you think that's where we end, isn't it.

Yeah, it is. And so we're really just like we

said at the beginning, we're wrapping up because Paul's wrapping

up his second missionary journey. He's about to go on

his third one. We'll get into that tomorrow actually, And

so as he's doing this, he's experiencing more opposition in Corinth.

And that's just so odd the circumstances there. They just

started beating some leader of the synagogue right there in

the courtroom. It's like, thanks for that piece of information.

We don't know what that feud was all about, but

basically it must have had something to do with the

fact that they had no legs to stand on when

accusing Paul, right right, because it was something about synagogues

in worship, and all of a sudden the synagogue guy

got beat up.

Well, these are the Greeks, right, So these are Greeks.

And it seems like, so do you remember Crispus became

a Christian the first time Paul was They remember, yep,

And he was the head of the synagogue. So then

it looks like Soth the niece was the new leader.

And it seems like what happened was they bring an

unreasonable lawsuit against Paul, and Sastthenes was the leader of

that group bringing this lawsuit. And when Gallio went, no,

this is stupid, and he threw it out of court.

It looks like the Greeks got mad at the Jews

and roughed him up. Right, Hey, don't bring these stupid

things into our court. That's what he's doing. That's what's

happening there is it seems to be crazy, you know.

That's the consequence of bringing frivolous lawsuits back in those

days as opposed to now.

Right right right funny.

So so they have one thing I want to point

out one of the amazing things I think we can

learn from Paul. And I think that at our church

we've tried to do this. I've tried to build our

team in this way. Paul doesn't do ministry alone. All

of Paul's ministry is always in the context of a team.

And so you see many times where Paul is heading

in a direction and they're just writing about Paul, or

writing about Paul and Silas, or writing about Paul and Barnabas,

or sometimes Luke says it was us, we were doing

it together. But there's lots of times where Paul peels

off from the group. So there's a group that stays here.

You've got Priscilla and Aquilla stay when Paul and the

others split off and go another direction. And one of

the benefits of a team. Going in a team is

you can multiply your effectiveness. You can kind of divide

and conquer opportunities together. There's so much wisdom and being

on a team rather than thinking you are the leader

and everybody just needs to listen to you, right, and

so there's a lot of value. It's one of the

reasons why, you know, people make fun of it a

little bit, and it is kind of a standard thing now.

But if I get up and introduce myself Sunday, I

was the host on the service, but I didn't preach.

I got hi, I'm Jeff. I'm one of the pastors here.

Move on. It's because my role, my title is I'm

the lead pastor, the senior pastor of the church. But

I don't want people to think Jeff's the pastor at

the church. I'm just one of the pastors. I have

a role here, but that doesn't make me any more

important than any of the other people who have roles

or whatever. We're better when we all leverage our abilities

in the context of a team. And that's the same

thing for everybody who's volunteering you don't have to just

step in and take over a ministry or expect to

be the boss all the time. It might be better

and you may make get way more done in God's

kingdom if you just function well in the context of

a team.

Yeah. I love that, and I love the fact that

you know, not only are you, you know, encouraged to

be a part of a team. That's what you just said. Yeah,

but you also said it was effective to peel off

and sort of double your effectiveness. You know, if that

reminds me of a small group, a small group who

gets together at a church and they grow so much

to where they should branch off and they should each

become leaders and take more younger people of the faith

in their groups and divide and conquer and double their effectiveness.

And this is what happens precisely with Paul packs up

and he's got several things he needs to do. He

finishes his vow. Of the vow appears to be this

second journey that he takes. He finishes his vow, and

then he buttoning up some business. He goes to Ephesus

for a while, and then he shoots back down to

Jerusalem and Antioch and then back he pops back into

Galatia in Frigia one more time. So he's buttoning up

some business. But Priscilla and Aquilla stay, Yeah, and they

wound up having a huge impact in discipling Apollos.

Yeah. Now this is so great because Apollos he is,

he's sort of famous. He's very famous, yeah at that time.

And uh, and yet he takes instruction from Aquila and Priscilla,

and he is in humility, he's willing to learn. And

so think about this. So he's famous in preaching the gospel.

He's talking about John the Baptist's message, which is there's

gonna come a Messiah. And it says that he only

knew the message of John the Baptist. He's only he

only heard about John's baptism. That's what that means about

John the Baptist baptism. And then and then Equilla and

Priscilla are the ones that have to say, hey, by

the way, the one who John was talking about has

already come. He's died, he rose from the grave, and

his name was Jesus Christ. And so they update him

and it says about the way of God even more accurately,

and by the way. The Way is the movement of Christianity.

It's called the Way.

They didn't call themselves Christians. That's right, that's right.

And so she's talking about the Gospel. Basically, she's talking

about the fulfillment of John the Baptist's message. And so anyway,

all that to say, Apollos should be given a lot

of credit here because he's teachable.

Oh so teachable.

Yeah, And so think about all the times that you know,

we are unwilling to hear from somebody who corrects us,

either in our character or maybe not even corrects us,

but even challenges us. Says I have a thought, Hey,

maybe you're being this way too much or this way

too much. And if we consider ourselves superior or more

important or more intelligent, so many times we're not teachable.

We have pride, and we fluff people off. And yet

here this is a great mom Biopoulos always be willing

to hear and to be teached taught.

Yeah, so it says he's from Alexandria. Alexandria was the

second most important city in the entire Roman Empire in

northern Egypt. Have you been to Alexandria? I have not,

So it's right on the Mediterranean. See Cleopatra and Mark

Anthony were based out of their different leaders of Egypt

had built some of their you know, made that their

capital city at various times, and it's just spectacularly beautiful.

There was a huge university there, there was a large

library there. So the city was full of intellectuals and

scholars and orders and debaters. And this is where he

came from. And he has tremendous speaking skills. He's already famous.

This is a guy who's already famous in the in

the Christian world, but perhaps maybe just within the Roman

world in general. And he's out preaching and sharing the

good news of Jesus and all these things. And then

these secondary people, so we all know who Paul is.

He's a big dog. Everybody knows Paul. Paul's writing these letters,

you do all these things. Who's Priscilla and Aquilla? Right?

And then, by the way, remember the first time we

see them, it's Aquilla and his wife Priscilla, and almost

I think it's every time afterwards, it's always Priscilla and Aquilla.

So she apparently takes some leadership responsibility and helping disciple

and clarify the teaching a scripture with Apollos. This is huge.

So Apollos could have been who are these people? Who

was she to talk to me about scripture this way?

Or about God's ways this way? He could have been

do you know who I am? He could have you know,

he probably was at the book table, signing books, taking

shots with people. Right, he's got his radio program, he's

got his books, he's on TV. He's a famous preacher.

And these people come and say, hey, so we really

enjoyed your message, and they pull him aside.

Right.

They don't do a public they don't shame me publicly,

but they say, hey, there's a few things we want

to clarify and maybe we can help you, and he

humbly accepts it. Now he becomes so popular the Corinthian Church.

They become obsessed with him, not his message, with him, like, oh, man,

Apollos is my favorite preacher. He's so funny, he's so handsome,

he's so compelling when he talks. I just feel like

Heaven opens, right, Holy Spirit uses him. And then other

people are like, oh, well, you know Apollos is good,

but I pay really close attention to Paul. And then

others that were like, well, Paul and Apollos are fine,

but cephast Peter, Peter is the best, by the way.

You know, he was one of Jesus' main disciples. And

they all start arguing about who their favorite celebrity preacher is.

And so Paul doesn't blame Apollos for this, and it's

coming up in court in the Book of Corinthians. He

doesn't blame him for it. But Paul does have to

send some correction saying, hey, listen, it's the message that's important,

not the messenger. And Apollos again does not even though

he's incredibly gifted, he doesn't demand that people love him

or look up to him or show him honor. He's

a very humble person through this whole thing, even though

people overblow maybe some of his or overemphasize some of

his gifts.

Yeah, that's awesome.

This is a real He's a rock star in the

Christian church.

Oh, for sure.

He overshadows Paul at points, right, And so for him

to be teachable and to have, by the way, have

God's Holy Spirit decide to use both a husband and

a wife to disciple him is great for many many people.

I believe their great ministry will not be to be

on stage with you and me. Their greatest ministry may

not be on it be to be the most famous person,

or to get the book dealer, whatever. Their greatest ministry

is a husband and wife team discipling up and coming

young leaders. They're going to have, you know, impact in

the kingdom, and so look for those opportunities to disciple

behind the scenes, which is what Priscilla and Quillia did.

They did it privately, off to the side.

So I've been waiting for you to take a breath,

so I could actually make sure that our listeners understand

what you meant when you said you've made a reference

quick reference and said he was probably out there signing

books and taking shots with people. Do you know what

people might think? No taking shots with.

People, taking shots, yeah, yeah, no taking pictures, taking pictures,

okay for the fork shots for the watchers.

He did a motion with selfies right right, right, yeah,

for for the people like me in the world. He

grew up around drinking, right because our family family owned

the bar.

So my mind and heart is so pure, I never

even think of those those things.

Says to the pure, all things are pure.

That's right, that's right.

That's yeah, you said taking shots with people.

I'm like, that's not that's not what I meant.

Yeah, yeah, that's funny. So yeah, so I think I

think it's great. I think that as Paul is wrapping

up this, keep in mind, he's about to go back

out to his third missionary journey, and he's about to

visit cities, and he's about to you know, just basically

go all around the Mediterranean Rim. And he's and you know,

and as he continues to sail and go on these journeys,

they become greater. He goes out further right and and

his and his whole goal is to just bring the

Gospel to the gentiles of the people who are not

Jewish and the people who are you know basically you know, Pagans,

they were they were polytheism, they were polytheists, but they

believed in multiple gods, the Greek gods. And he was

about to basically go out there and bring the Gospel

to them. And you know what, here's another thing. You

just mentioned that Apollos was famous, and Paul was famous,

and there are these other people. I think that when

it comes down to it, uh, God will leverage your

influence in the in the arena in which he wants

you to want wants to use you. So let me

see that different. The most effective way for someone to

know Jesus Christ is in the context of relationship, and

he leverages our relationships, he leverages our influence with people.

And so I guess what I'm trying to say is,

don't underestimate your popularity, which may not be great in

terms of numbers, but it may be deep in concerning

those who got placed in your life.

That's exactly it with Priscilla and the Quilla. You tell

me which was more important that Apollos got out and

preached a bunch of people, or that he preached the

right thing.

That's right.

So then in that relationship what was most important? It

was it was even more important the private things behind

the scenes that Priscilla and Aquila did than it was

the public announcements and proclamations and messages that Apolis preached.

If he was preaching false doctrine, it would have been

a waste. And so it's not that there's one more

important than the other. It's that if we all use

our gifts together, we wind up furthering the cause of

Christ more and that's really it.

It's all about well, that's a great place to end

and will you see you tomorrow on the Daily Bible, guys,