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Acts 18:12-28
In Corinth
12While Gallio was proconsul of Achaia, the Jews of Corinth made a united attack on Paul and brought him to the place of judgment. 13“This man,” they charged, “is persuading the people to worship God in ways contrary to the law.”
14Just as Paul was about to speak, Gallio said to them, “If you Jews were making a complaint about some misdemeanor or serious crime, it would be reasonable for me to listen to you. 15But since it involves questions about words and names and your own law—settle the matter yourselves. I will not be a judge of such things.” 16So he drove them off. 17Then the crowd there turned on Sosthenes the synagogue leader and beat him in front of the proconsul; and Gallio showed no concern whatever.
Priscilla, Aquila and Apollos
18Paul stayed on in Corinth for some time. Then he left the brothers and sisters and sailed for Syria, accompanied by Priscilla and Aquila. Before he sailed, he had his hair cut off at Cenchreae because of a vow he had taken. 19They arrived at Ephesus, where Paul left Priscilla and Aquila. He himself went into the synagogue and reasoned with the Jews. 20When they asked him to spend more time with them, he declined. 21But as he left, he promised, “I will come back if it is God’s will.” Then he set sail from Ephesus. 22When he landed at Caesarea, he went up to Jerusalem and greeted the church and then went down to Antioch.
23After spending some time in Antioch, Paul set out from there and traveled from place to place throughout the region of Galatia and Phrygia, strengthening all the disciples.
24Meanwhile a Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria, came to Ephesus. He was a learned man, with a thorough knowledge of the Scriptures. 25He had been instructed in the way of the Lord, and he spoke with great fervor and taught about Jesus accurately, though he knew only the baptism of John. 26He began to speak boldly in the synagogue. When Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they invited him to their home and explained to him the way of God more adequately.
27When Apollos wanted to go to Achaia, the brothers and sisters encouraged him and wrote to the disciples there to welcome him. When he arrived, he was a great help to those who by grace had believed. 28For he vigorously refuted his Jewish opponents in public debate, proving from the Scriptures that Jesus was the Messiah.
For a long time, I just skipped this passage when it came up in the lectionary, mostly because it doesn’t have a clear lesson for our lives of faith. But I’ve come to think we should give it some attention from time to time, because it provides us with some helpful glimpses into the life of the early church and the world it carried the gospel message into.
The first part of the reading tells us about an incident in which a group of Jews in the city of Corinth dragged the apostle Paul in front of the Roman official in charge of the city and accused him of teaching religious ideas that were not approved by the Roman Empire. The empire actually did have certain religions that were considered acceptable for the population. And strictly speaking, the way of Jesus wasn’t among them. But the local Roman official, Gallio, makes it clear that as far as he was concerned, the followers of Jesus were just a branch of the Jewish religion. And Gallio had no interest in refereeing Jewish theological disputes.
Interestingly enough, the Jewish mob responds to the decision of Gallio by attacking and beating the leader of their synagogue. No better way to demonstrate your theological orthodoxy than by beating up your leadership, I guess. Fortunately, most Presbyterian churches don’t deal this way with their pastor.
In the second part of the passage, Paul spends some time conducting his ministry in Corinth before moving along to other areas. It seems that in Corinth, Paul lives and works with Priscilla and Aquila, a Jewish couple who were among those expelled from the city of Rome by the Emperor Claudius. Reports from the time say the Jews were expelled because of their troublesome quarreling over “Crestus,” which is assumed to refer to Jesus. So disputes about the meaning of Jesus’ life and ministry – as well as his death and resurrection – seem to have been a constant aspect of Jewish life in the eastern Roman Empire during this time.
Priscilla and Aquila, by the way, were tentmakers by trade, and Paul joined in their work to help earn his keep, because he was trained in their trade. That‘s why part-time pastors who do other work to support themselves are sometimes referred to as “tentmakers.”
The last part of today’s reading introduces a Christian scholar named Apollos. He’s identified as “a learned man, with a thorough knowledge of the scriptures.” He is said to be a native of Alexandria, which was a city in Egypt that was a great center of scholarship in the Hebrew tradition, as well as in Greco-Roman philosophy. The city had been founded centuries before by Alexander the Great, who established a great library there to promote learning.
Apollos was apparently one of the leading Hebrew scholars in that city, and at some point he became convinced the Jesus was the Messiah long awaited by his people. He used his great knowledge of the Hebrew scriptures to show people the connections between the history and prophesies of their tradition and the life and ministry of Jesus.
When Apollos came to the attention of Priscilla and Aquila, they took him under their wing, and helped to educate him on some aspects of the gospel message that helped round out his knowledge of the faith – presumably details from Jesus’ life and teachings. It seems clear from some New Testament passages like the second chapter of Philippians that the Holy Spirit had taught the early church some things about Jesus that could not have been discerned from the Old Testament alone.
Some New Testament scholars think that Apollos might have been the author of the Letter to the Hebrews. That letter was once thought to have been written by Paul, but the vocabulary and style are so different from Paul’s other letters he is no longer considered the author of Hebrews. But the central theme of Hebrews is an explanation of how Jesus fit into the tradition of the Jewish people and their scriptures, and whoever wrote it clearly had a deep and detailed knowledge of those scriptures. So Apollos would be a logical possibility. And Luke said he was a powerful help to the early church in its ministries among the Jewish population of the eastern Roman Empire.
Most people probably think this isn’t a terribly exciting passage, but it really does help us to understand the context in which the first apostles spread the good news about what God had done in Jesus. So it’s probably important that we invest a day to think about it.
Let’s pray. Lord, we thank you for your servant Luke’s faithful retelling of the life and teachings of the early church in the Acts of the Apostles, and for the glimpses he provides us of life among our ancestors in the faith. And we thank you for the faithful service of believers like Priscilla and Aquila and Apollos, who laid the foundation for the church of our time. Amen.
Grace and Peace,
Henry
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