Books of the Book: Acts

Go Make Disciples

Three Angels Broadcasting Network

Program transcript

Participants: Jim & Mark Howard

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Series Code: ABOTB

Program Code: ABOTB00020B


00:01 Welcome back to Books of the Book.
00:02 We're studying here in Acts chapter 18 and, Mark, before the
00:08 break we were taking a look at yet another example of Paul
00:13 being brought to a little trial and once more there's a
00:18 deliverance given and we left off right at the end of verse 17
00:23 as we were coming in to Paul returning to Antioch and we'll
00:28 begin reading in verse 18. It says, So Paul still remained a
00:32 good while then he took leave of the brethren and sailed for
00:37 Syria and Priscilla and Aquila were with him. Now we were
00:42 introduced to Priscilla and Aquila earlier in the chapter
00:46 and they seemed to be a couple who have great promise in terms
00:53 of their fervency and their active part in the church. The
00:58 Apostle Paul seems to be taking a special interest in them
01:03 wanting to develop them and grow them and so we see, I believe,
01:07 in this particular passage is an example of what we talked about
01:11 right before the break and that is that the Apostle Paul was
01:15 focusing on discipling these two, Priscilla and Aquila.
01:19 He kept them with him. You know you look at Jesus and the
01:23 disciples. What made him so effective. Well he took them
01:27 with him wherever he went and he let them see what
01:33 Christianity was about, what it meant to live a righteous life
01:36 by going with him. And they were able to see how to minister to
01:39 others by watching Jesus minister to others. They were
01:43 able to see how he related to people and know how to relate to
01:46 people. Sometimes we think discipleship is sitting people
01:51 in a classroom and teaching them doctrinal matters and there's
01:55 a portion of that that's true, but that's not all that you see
02:00 here. There's a very real living training that goes on that is
02:04 from modeling for someone.
02:05 Yeah. That makes me think of what you were saying there on
02:07 Jesus' discipleship. Mark chapter 3 and verse 14, in
02:12 Mark 3:14 he tells us, Then he, speaking of Jesus, appointed 12
02:16 that they might be with him and that he might send them out to
02:20 preach. So that's interesting that he wasn't just sending them
02:24 out to preach but he wanted to be with them and we see that in
02:27 the practice of Jesus and the life of Jesus that he spent that
02:32 time and modeled that ministry to them and we see it being
02:36 repeated in the lives of the disciples that they picked up
02:40 much of their ministry queues from being with Jesus in those
02:43 real experiences. That's right. Real training.
02:47 Hands on training. So he took Priscilla and Aquila with him
02:51 and it says he had his hair cut off at Cenchrea for he had
02:55 taken a vow. Now it's not real specific about what this vow
03:00 was. It could be that in an effort to have sympathy with the
03:05 Jews or maintain favor that he took a Nazarite vow, a private
03:09 Nazarite vow, or something of that nature. Often times they
03:13 would take a private vow in response to a great deliverance
03:18 or almost as a means of gratitude and rededicating the
03:21 life because of some great thing and of course we see him here
03:25 in Corinth experience this deliverance and so it could be
03:28 that he took a vow in relation to that. But ultimately we know
03:32 that he made this commitment and that's why he had his hair
03:35 cut off and so we can imagine Paul walking around without
03:39 hair. I guess that's why Luke put that in there. Then verse 19
03:42 says he came to Ephesus and he left them, and you would
03:49 understand that to be Priscilla and Aquila, he left them there.
03:53 That adds another dimension to discipleship. Here he says, Okay
03:59 I've spent time with you, you have learned from me. Now it's
04:04 times for you to leave the nest and to begin to use your own
04:09 faculties and begin to exercise your own faith and certainly
04:12 they were doing that already but in a very real way and a
04:16 greater way than when Paul was with them when he was the most
04:19 prominent figure. They now were able to witness to others
04:22 and we see that later when they with a very prominent man,
04:26 Apollos, they have opportunity to explain the way of God more
04:30 clearly to him. So this is a good example that I think we
04:34 need to take note of because sometimes in our churches we
04:40 we have those who feel I can't possibly go and minister to
04:44 others from the Bible because I don't feel qualified and what
04:48 have you, and sometimes the people who are making that
04:53 statement have been in the church for 20, 30 years and the
04:56 hope is that during that period they're watching, they're
05:00 learning. All their learning is for the purpose of then turning
05:04 around and using what they've learned to minister to others.
05:08 The only way sometimes to really get that type of education is to
05:14 break free from the training and go and do it. And you know I've
05:21 heard it said that men learn to swim in the water and not on the
05:27 land. So we've got to get at it and that's really the training.
05:33 So we see that kind of discipleship going on here.
05:35 Then it says in verse 20, When they asked him to stay a longer
05:40 time... Oh I don't think I read the last part of verse 19.
05:43 But he himself entered the synagogue and reasoned with the
05:46 Jews. So the Apostle Paul again reasoning with the Jews. When
05:49 they asked him to stay a longer time with them, he did not
05:53 consent, but took leave of them saying, I must by all means
05:57 keep this coming feast in Jerusalem, but I will return
06:00 again to you, God willing. And he sailed from Ephesus. So we
06:04 see here he promises to come back to Ephesus and we find that
06:08 he does keep that promise. When he leaves them he says I'll come
06:12 back to you, God willing. You know, we hear people say that
06:16 sometimes. I'll see you at church, Lord willing, and it's a
06:19 saying of sorts. But in the Apostle Paul's life it was a
06:23 very real experience. Just back in chapter 16, you remember when
06:29 we were talking about the Macedonian call and before the
06:33 apostle went to Macedonia, he had wanted to go to Asia, but it
06:37 said in chapter 16 and verse 6, They were forbidden by the Holy
06:42 Spirit to preach the word in Asia. Then later they were going
06:46 to go into Bithynia but the Spirit did not permit them.
06:50 So there were cases where the Apostle Paul wanted to go
06:54 somewhere but the Lord was not willing. So he's being very real
06:58 here when he says, I'll come back to you, God willing, but if
07:02 the Lord doesn't will then I'll be going somewhere else and we
07:06 need to have that same flexibility in our own life to
07:10 be able to go where the Lord leads us.
07:12 That's right. It's also interesting, Jim, that he has a
07:14 clear spiritual plan and we may say well that's because he's the
07:17 Apostle Paul. But I think that we really need to take to heart
07:21 that some of us make big plans for our lives, we make plans for
07:24 our families, we make plans for vacations, we make plans for a
07:27 job to try to get a promotion what have you, and yet when it
07:30 comes to our spiritual lives and for our own personal
07:33 spiritual growth many of us make no real plans at all. We just
07:37 say well I'll be in church next week and that's not a spiritual
07:41 plan. Paul had plans. He had plans for witnessing and what
07:45 have you and in this case he mentions a plan to go to the
07:49 feast in Jerusalem. I think there's an important point to be
07:53 made there, too. I know I've been asked by certain Christians
07:56 if we are to be keeping these feasts and I'll point to the
08:00 Apostle Paul and say well Paul kept the feasts. Well we really
08:03 haven't found that. We're all the way up to chapter 18 in the
08:06 book of Acts and we don't have one occurrence of Paul desiring
08:10 to keep the feasts. Here he obviously does but we don't see
08:14 him keeping all the feasts of Passover and of unleavened
08:19 bread and of Pentecost and of the day of Atonement and the
08:23 feast of booths and all these. We don't see that. He had a
08:26 desire to go but we don't see this as a customary practice
08:30 like for example his observance of the Sabbath. I think that
08:33 needs to be noted here. Now we actually move on here to
08:38 in verse 24 the Bible says, Now a certain Jew named Apollos,
08:41 born in Alexandria, an eloquent man and mighty in the scriptures
08:45 came to Ephesus. This man had been instructed in the way of
08:48 the Lord and being fervent in spirit he spoke and taught
08:52 accurately the things of the Lord though he knew only the
08:56 baptism of John. So he began to speak boldly in the synagogue.
09:00 When Aquila and Priscilla heard him they took him aside and
09:04 explained to him the way of God more accurately. And the Bible
09:08 says in verse 27, When he desired to cross to Achaia the
09:12 brethren wrote exhorting the disciples to receive him and
09:15 when he arrived he greatly helped those who had believed
09:19 through grace for he vigorously refuted the Jews publicly
09:23 showing from the scriptures that Jesus is Christ. Now he didn't
09:26 have this understanding before but here we see the discipleship
09:30 again, this time Priscilla and Aquila meet this man who is
09:35 promising and they see the abilities and they undertake...
09:38 It's interesting also, he was eloquent, he was mighty in the
09:42 scriptures, he was educated. Priscilla and Aquila could have
09:45 said, Who are we? But they saw that they had a part that they
09:48 could play in discipling him and giving him this more
09:52 accurate knowledge. So they disciple Apollos and now Apollos
09:56 becomes a mighty worker in the church as well.
09:59 That's right. That's powerful. I like the fact that Apollos
10:03 was it says an eloquent man, mighty in the scriptures.
10:07 You get the sense that he had influence. Sometimes we avoid
10:11 those who are of the higher classes. I've noticed that
10:16 sometimes we recognize that there's a more fertile openness
10:21 to the gospel amongst those who are not affluent or who sense
10:26 then need more and so we tend to focus on those areas because
10:30 we feel that the responses are greater, but just because that
10:34 may be true in many cases, we should not be avoiding and
10:39 anyways we should be focusing on some of these who have
10:43 allowed the things of this world to blind them to the power of
10:47 the gospel and to their need of salvation. We need to be
10:49 focusing on this same class of Apollos. Well, in chapter 19 we
10:53 we come into another story and I want to bring this in during
10:57 this episode and then next time we'll cover the rest of chapter
11:00 19. In verse 1, it says, It happened while Apollos was at
11:04 Corinth that Paul, having passed through the upper regions came
11:07 to Ephesus and finding some disciples he said, Did you
11:10 receive the Holy Spirit when you believed. So they said, we
11:12 have not so much as heard whether there is a Holy Spirit.
11:14 And they said, Into what then were you baptized. So they said,
11:19 Into John's baptism. Then Paul said, John indeed baptized with
11:24 the baptism of repentance saying to the people that they
11:27 should believe on him who would come after him, that is on
11:30 Christ Jesus. When they heard this they were baptized in the
11:33 name of the Lord Jesus and when Paul had laid hands on them the
11:36 Holy Spirit came upon them and they spoke with tongues and
11:39 prophesied and the men were about 12 in all. Now you read
11:42 the story and you recognize this is the one clear example we have
11:48 in the New Testament of a rebaptism, as it were. John the
11:53 Baptist was teaching a baptism of repentance. The Jewish nation
11:58 they understood the law of God and the will of God as given in
12:02 the Old Testament scriptures and they knew that there was
12:07 need to repent from sin, but it doesn't appear that these
12:12 individuals had an understanding of Christ as the Messiah.
12:16 At least they didn't have the evidence for Jesus as the
12:20 Messiah and so there was no real way that the Holy Spirit could
12:22 do the type of work that he wanted to do. So they were
12:26 rebaptized with this new greater understanding and that's why
12:29 even today some who come into a greater understanding of certain
12:33 biblical truths will be rebaptized. Then it concludes by
12:37 this miraculous once again the Holy Spirit coming upon them.
12:41 We've seen that in different places. It's different in
12:44 certain places. Here they laid hands, other places they didn't
12:47 but ultimately this power attended the early church and
12:51 it attended them here after this rebaptism. Well I want to
12:54 dive further into chapter 19, but we've run out of times once
12:57 more. So we look forward once again to studying with you on
13:01 Books of the Book. We'll see you next time.


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Revised 2014-12-17