Bible Guys Classics: Acts 18 Part 1

Well, today we're talking about two really fun names to say,

Aquila and Priscilla.

Cool husband and wife, the tent makers and partners with Paul.

So he's Chris, that I'm Jeff, and we're the Bible Guys.

So Jeff. This week we're doing the segment all week

of Stump the pastor.

Okay, And by the way, if you're.

Listening and you have any question that you want us

to try to tackle, you can send your emails into

info at right here the Bible Guys, the Bible Guys

dot com.

These are fun.

Yeah, they are fun. And so we've chosen five or

actually we haven't chosen them. They've been chosen for us

and handed to us.

That's right.

And so today this one's comes from Larry P. And

Larry P says this. Hebrews nine twenty seven states, just

as a man is destined to die once and after

that to face judgment, how did Lazarus and Tabitha, whom

Jesus rose from the dead, not have to die a

physical death twice? And again to your point, anybody who

thinks about that are great thinkers.

Yes, So taking the word it's a point of a

man wants to die yes, and after that the judgment right,

so saying, then Lazarus and Tabitha they were raised from

the dead. They had died, then they were raised from

the dead. So Larry is saying, so then that must

mean that they didn't have to die again.

Right, because it says that's the point that the man

wants to die, right, right.

Right, So there's several things. That's a great question. By

the way, it is, good job knowing versus in Hebrews.

The Bookie Hebrews has a certain amount of complexity to it.

There's a certain amount of depth and the kind of

Christian that can plow through the bookie Hebrews and grasp

it all right, So that's fantastic, which we're going to

get the Hebrews eventually, so that that's going to be good.

But good job on that, Larry. Here's what I would say,

the natural most of the time the Bible talks from

the natural position. This is the natural way the world works.

There's the natural thing whenever God chooses to do a miracle,

so he set up the natural laws, the natural law

of gravity. If you step off the roof of your

house and hit the ground, that wasn't a miracle that

caused you to hit the ground, that's just the natural law.

The natural law is you fall off the roof. Gravity

makes you hit the ground. So the natural way is

you die one time and after that is the judgment.

Yeah, it's the principle. It's the general principle for mankind,

and it's true for everybody.

That's true. When God does a miracle, that means that

he goes beyond the natural. That's why it's called supernatural.

God goes beyond the natural. And in those moments when

he goes beyond the natural way of things, he's making

an exception to the natural rule.

Like Peter was the only human recorded ever to defy

gravity and walk on water.

Except for Jesus.

Except for well, that's right, yeah, but I should say

fully human.

Yes, that's right, so he so when God intervenes in the.

Natural, gum, it's hang on. Jesus was fully human.

I know, yes, he was also God.

I know, I know. I just I said the word fully.

I was just gonna let let the heresy just hang

out there for a while.

I know what I mean. I'm just not saying it

correctly in my mind, and exactly, I know, I know

what you meant.

Peter's the only other guy besides Jesus. Right, that's that's perfect.

So to get back to this topic, because Larry is

waiting at the edge of the set for an answer,

and it's like, you, two yahoos, why did I ask

these guys? You could ask any other Bible teaching guy

probably could have got a straight up answer. So so

the natural is, that's natural. It's natural that we all

would die one time. When God chooses to reach in

and intervene in the natural, it's called supernatural. And in

that moment, God is making exception to the natural world laws.

And so in this situation when he raises Lazarus from

the dead or tab from the dead, there's a couple

other people. Now he intervened, that was the exception to

the rule. But they're not here now, and there's no

indication in the Bible that they were miraculously taken to heaven.

There are only two people that's mentioned that way. So

the assumption would be and Church history tells us Lazarus

died again, right, he died a second time. So for

you and me, we have a natural appointment one time,

and if God chooses to he can intervene and give

you two appointments instead of one. But that's an exception

to the rule.

So the summary would be is that this verse is

a natural statement for all of mankind, and Jesus made

an exception, made the exception Lazarus, Tabitha, and a few

other people whom he raised from the dead, like the

little girl. That's right, right, and and so yeah, that's it.

So they died twice.

Yeah, that's great. And you know what, the second time

you die, I bet you you're not scared of him anymore.

You know.

I think I heard a comedian John Christ talk about

you know, everybody says, oh, what a great day that

Jesus rose Lazarus from the grave. Everybody, everybody standing around

the grave is so happy, except for Lazarus. And he's

like what, Yeah, he's in heaven. And all of a sudden,

Uh Peter, Saint Peter runs up to him and goes, uh, listen, Uh,

God wants you to do him a favor.

St. Peter, Saint Peter was on earth.

Oh dead, gummets. Yeah, well, I'm just sort of riffing

off of John.

Yeah, I get it, I get it. Free to go back.

It's you know I'm as a sign off today.

You know, hey, I'll keep your floating through and stick

with me, buddy.

But anyway, but John Chris was talking about the fact

that he was in heaven and he was notified because

Saint Peter's always the guy in heaven, so he's notified

that he has to go back, and leaving Heaven to

go back to Earth was a bad day for Peter,

for Lazarus.

Yeah, you go from Paradise back to this planet. Yeah,

death and decay, disappointment, sadness.

I know my wife is at home right now, putting

on her makeup, listening to the Bible guys like she

always does every morning, and she's thinking, come on, husband, Yeah, no, no,

get together.

No, I know what you meant. I know what you meant,

and your value goes way beyond pursued. Thanks buddy. Yeah,

we love you. So we are in We're in Acts

chapter eighteen, and this dynamic duo Priscilla and Aquila are

really incredible people and God uses both of them in

extraordinary ways in the lives of a couple of the

most influential Christian leaders in early church history. Right, So

let's pick up there. We're only going to read like

eleven verses today. But man, it's gonna be good then,

so verse one in chapter eighteen. Then Paul left Athens

and went to Corinth. There he became acquainted with a

Jew named Aquilla born and Pontius, who had recently arrived

from Italy with his wife Priscilla. They had left Italy

when Claudius Caesar deported all Jews from Rome. Paul lived

and worked with them, for they were tent makers, just

as he was. Each Sabbath found Paul at the synagogue

trying to convince the Jews and Greeks alike, And after

Silas and Timothy came down from Macedonia, Paul spent all

his time preaching the Word. He testified to the Jews

that Jesus was the Messiah, but when they opposed and

assault to him, Paul shook the dust from his clothes

and said, your blood is upon your own heads. I'm innocent.

From now on, I will go and preach to the gentiles.

Then he left and went to the home of Tisitius Justice,

a gentile who worshiped God and lived next door to

the synagogue. Chrispus, the leader of the synagogue, and everyone

in this household believed in the Lord. Many others in

Corinth also heard Paul, became believers and were baptized. One night,

the Lord spoke to Paul, and a vision told him,

don't be afraid, speak out, don't be silent, for I

am with you. No one will attack you and harm you,

for many people in this city belong to me. So

Paul stayed there for the next year and a half

teaching the Word of God. So there you go. We

meet Aquilla and Priscilla, and I think, if I'm not mistaken,

that's the last time it's mentioned Aquilla and Priscilla from

this point on. Not allow as you Priscilla and Aquilla,

and they wind up having a huge impact. But in

the meantime, this is the beginning of the church in Corinth,

which winds up being a central church for quite some time.

Yeah. And also it's worth nov that Aquila and Priscilla

were tent makers, and they're the ones that sort of

get Paul going on making tents.

Yeah. Well, so it looks like Paul's trade. It would

have been traditional with Jews that a boy would have

grown up with a trade, even if he wound up

being a scholar like Paul, so he probably was trained

to be a tent maker. But in this situation they

wound up connecting with each other because Equila and Priscilla

were tent makers and so was Paul. And you'll notice

Paul writes about that a few different times where he says, hey,

I didn't take any money from you people. He was

coming into these towns and he wasn't receiving offerings for himself.

He was paying his own way by being tent maker. Yeahs,

so were they.

So the notes in My New Life, a life application

study Bible says that Priscilla and Aquilla met Paul and

Corinth and the Second Mission in a journey. They had

just been expelled from Rome by Emperor Claudius and his

decree against Jews. Their home was movable as the tents

that made to support themselves.

They opened up their home to.

Paul and he joined them in tent making, and he

shared with them their wealth of spiritual wisdom. And then

it says this this is worth noting as well. Priscilla

and Equila made most of their spiritual education. They listened

carefully to the sermons and evaluated what they heard and

when they heard Apolo speak. They were impressed by his ability,

but realized that his information was not complete. Instead of

open confrontation, the couple took Apaulos quietly home and shared

with him what he needed to know and until then

a police that had been aware only of John the

Baptist's message about Christ, but Priscilla and Equilla told him

about Jesus life, death and resurrection and the reality of

God's drualing spirit. So so really it was you know,

Apaulus who had sort of gone off and was carrying

on John the Baptist message, and Equillala and Priscilla had,

you know, had you know, it's almost like having you

heard a polos. Haven't you heard that? You know, it's

not just the announcement of the Messiah. Messiah says the

Messiah has come, and so they're the ones, and it

says that they did do it publicly, they put them

aside privately. Y.

It happens a little bit later in the story, although

it's only just a few verses after the verses we read.

The day in this time slot is when you know

it's a year and a half long. The Bible says

tall stay there a year and a half during this time.

During that time he wrote the books of First and

Second Thessalonians. He wrote a couple of the other the

books during that time. So actually tomorrow we're pivoting into

Thessalonians right right, And then when we come back after

we get out of Thessalonians, then we'll read about how

Priscilla and Aquilla discipled Apollos and kind of corrected some

of his theology. And then later on we find in

Corinthians that Apollos is one of the great leaders. It's Paul, Peter,

and Apollos. They're the three famous ones when Paul writes

his letter back to Corinth. So let's talk to us

a little bit about Corinth. Corinth was an economic hub.

If you know how Greece is designed or built, there's

the thick part at the top, it comes down to

a very narrow isthmus, and then it widens back out

at the bottom. And at that very narrow part, the

ancients dug a canal from the a g and c

over to the Adriatic Sea, right and they dug this

thing so that the ships wouldn't have to go all

the way around the bottom of Greece. They could just

cut right through the middle. So corinth sits right there

on that canal and was Las Vegas times one hundred.

It was the wildest city in that entire portion of

the Roman Empire. It was off the hook all the time.

And then it was every kind of debauchery. It's all

these sailors coming in and out. It's the Roman soldiers

coming in and out of that town. The people were wild.

And then even the temple worship, so there was a

temple to Aphrodite there, and the temple worship was with

the you worshiped Aphrodite with the temple prostitutes, the male

and female temple prostitutes, is how you. So it was

a crazy city, and so you can imagine that's why

Paul is. You know, he's trying to preach a gospel,

but it's pretty intimidating because he's looking around and the

world is just crazy. There's no crazier city he's ever

been in than Corinth. And so God has to say

in this vision, don't be afraid, speak out, don't be silent.

I'm with you, and no one will attack you and

hire you. For many people in this city belong to me,

And I think it's important for us as we're kind

of surrounded by a pretty crazy world right now. A

lot of Christians are afraid to speak up. A lot

of Christians are afraid to declare their faith. They're afraid

that they're going to pay some price, and we forget

that there are many, many, many people. They might be silent,

but there's many people that are on God's side. And

so you know, I think that's one of the reasons

why we need to encourage one another. The church is

so much more important. The darker the world gets, the

more important it is that we're connected to a group

of Christians that encourage one each other, encourage one another,

that there's lots of people on God's side, on the

side of right.

Yeah, so everybody would have sailed through that canal, everybody

would have been to Corinth. It would have been the

city that everybody would have had to. Yeah, And so

you know, it's amazing how you know people in New York.

Remember one time I went to a Passion conference. So

I'm going to reference Louis Giglio, who's a you know,

part of the Passion movement, and this is back in

the day, and he remember him coming back and you know,

I was a part of his group. And he said,

you know, people have told me for decades that you

can't have an effective ministry in New York City because

New York City is full of people who are just

anti religious and all these different kind of things and

it's X, Y and Z, and you know, it's just

it's not going to happen. And he said, and yet,

he said, we had this passion conference and we opened

it up into this huge arena and I don't know

what it was, thirteen thousand people and he said, it's

sold out faster than any other city. And so it's

that reminds me of what you just said. So you know,

here's God telling you know, Corinth or Paul. Looking at Corinth,

you may be intimidated. You may be told that just

because of all the people that are here and all

the wickedness and all the debaucher and everything else, that

there's no believers there. But they're here right right. And

it reminds me of that speech that Louis gave.

Yeah to us, that's fantastic, I think that. So because

of this encouragement, he says, Okay, well, I'm going to

hang in here for a year. Because he realized that Okay,

well if there are some other believers, let's dig in

and let's get a foothold here. So the church in

corinth he winds up. Later on, he writes a couple

of books, several books back to the Corinthians. The Bible

seems to reference maybe four different letters that he wrote

to Corinthians. Some people would say that First Corinthians is

two and San Crinthians is two letters, that it appears

that maybe there's two chunks or he wrote four separate letters.

But he writes back to them and a lot of times,

and for them they're Christians, but he's saying, you're living

like the world. So a lot of his letters that

he writes to the Corinthians in particular, I think are

very very relevant to us as Christians today. Of all

of Paul's letters, it almost feels like the Book of

Corinthia first and secrearitys are written rate at our American

culture today, because he's saying, watch out for a living

like the world. Be careful about sexual purity, you know,

put God first, choose to get along, use your spiritual

gifts to serve other people. He's writing things to them

that he doesn't have to write to a lot of

most of the rest of place, he's writing encouragement. But

to them, there's one time, a couple different times, he

tells him, don't make me come there, right because they're misbehaving,

or he says, you know, word has gotten around that

every time you guys get together, you're fighting. And I

believe it because I've been there.

Right.

So they're pretty worldly, and but he believes in them,

and so he decided I'm gonna stay. I'm gonna stay

for a year and a half. And God blesses that ministry,

and out of it comes many great leaders. I have

a note for verses ten and eleven, you know, because

it says many other people became followers of Christ. It

mentions who doesn't mention there, mentions Titius Justice. It mentions

a couple of other people. But here it mentions people

that Paul talks about throughout the rest of the Bible. Phoebe,

she's the one who took the Book of Romans to Rome.

She became a Christian during that time. Yeah, I like Foebes, Yeah, yeah, Tertius, Erastus, Cortus, Chloe,

that lady she's mentioned a couple different times, Gaeis Stephanus

in his household. He mentions him in Corinthians, Fortunatus Akeakus.

There's several people that Paul winds up going on ministry with.

These people serve with him and sharing the gospel in

other places. So he wasn't just there struggling and not

seeing any fruit. He stayed in a very difficult place,

was seeing fruit. And not only was he seeing fruit

and people coming too faith in Christ. These people became

ministry partners of his that wound up going on. And

so don't under sometimes we overestimate what one conversation or

what's one speech or one message should accomplish, and we

underestimate what can happen in twelve months or eighteen or

two years of real intentional discipleship and disciple making, you know.

And also there's a lesson in there. It reminds me

that there's power in being in the same community for

a long time. So you've been in the community that

you live in now for how many years?

Almost seventeen years, sixteen and a half.

Years, So I've been in this area for since two

thousand and four, so it would have been it's been

eighteen years. So pretty similar, just like most everything for us. Absolutely,

But anyway, but I remember going to my wife and

I went to the supermarket way up, I mean it

was almost twenty five minutes away in the opposite direction,

not even the same county as we're in right now,

and had gone over and we went to a Trader

Joe's or something, and I ran into somebody and this

person actually asked me about like, hey, when you go places,

do people recognize you? And you know, sort of like

making it a bigger deal than it is, you know, sure,

And I was reminded and I said, well, actually it's

it's sort of just the benefit of being around in

one community for a long time.

Yeah, And when you're.

Around you can make a lasting difference. So it's a

great encouragement for all of us that you know, you're

not going to necessarily, you know, make a difference in

somebody's life in a ten minute conversation. You know, if

somebody is going through real problems, to invest in them,

to meet with them consistently, over and over, put your

time in. Because when you decide to plant yourself either

in a community or in somebody's life, or to invest

in somebody, you can make a real difference. And so

Paul staying here is amazing because it just mentions it

and it breezes over it. Oh a year and a half,

just like that boom one verse. But we can't undrest it.

We can't even begin to imagine all the time in

the ministry that Paul did in that year and a half.

It's such such a big thing, and we can't under

we can't overtalk this topic. I don't think this is

why God gives you your children for as many years

as they stay. It used to be eighteen and now

it's out in twenty six or thirty years that you

can stay. I feel your pay exactly, but you know

it's time. It's faithfulness over time. It's intentionality over time.

But it's also being intentional about the words you say.

So God said, don't be afraid, speak out, don't be silent.

So a lot of times what we're hoping is we

hope that you know, my presence around them for fifteen

years or eighteen years, that presence it'll rub off. But

it does require that we're not afraid, that we do

speak up, that we declare things. It's the same thing

with our co workers so yes, you should live like

a Christian. Hopefully they'll notice that you're living differently than them.

But you should also speak up. There needs to be

intentionality with the words that you say that you're bringing

the message to don't be afraid, and then you know

you don't have to be alone. You're not alone in this.

The Christianity is not a lone ranger sport. It's a

team sport. And so God says, so don't be afraid.

I'm going to protect you. You're not going to get

roughed up in Corein mostly because in Corinth anything goes anyways.

It's pretty crazy town. So that's part of it. But

he said, there's other Christians, there's other people like you.

Many people in this city belong to me, and so

this gave him confidence. I'm going to stay for a

long period of time, but I am going to speak up.

And as a result, many of the key partners of

Paul throughout the rest of his ministry. He led the

Jesus right there, and so it wasn't just this vague

lifestyle of evangelism. There was a direct personal engagement sharing

the gospel with actual words. And I just want to

encourage our listeners. Make sure that you're also learning how

to present the gospel, share the gospel, not just live it,

but also share it.

You know the best part of that whole thing that

you just went through was the fact that you used

a cutting edge example of Lone Ranger.

Yeah.

Are you going to reference Gilligan's Island next for all

of our cutting edge listeners?

Probably leave it to Beaver, Yeah, leave it to Green Acres.

So I was watching petticoat Junction the other.

Day, right right, got a good example. Yeah, but I understand,

but I don't know if there's a modern day reference

for Lone Ranger.

So you couldn't let that go. I let the fact

that you just yawned while I was talking. Let that go.

Hey listen, But you had to come after me studio

to be honest on this whole episode. You give me

grace because I messed up twice.

So you know, to who much is given, much is required.

That's funny. You want me to take my gloves off

here we go?

No? No, Actually, I think what we need to do

is and.

It's not a solo it's not a solo climb. It's

a team sport. How much?

Ye?

Yeah, Yeah, but there's a solo just came out.

There's not a oh yeah yeah.

Hey, that's probably a good it's coming off the rails.

We need to quit.

We'll see you tomorrow on the Daily Bibble guys,