Acts 18:1-17 Don't Be Afraid, Keep on Speaking!

Acts 18:1-17  After this, Paul left Athens and went to Corinth.  There he met a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had ordered all Jews to leave Rome.  Paul went to see them, and because he was a tentmaker as they were, he stayed and worked with them.  Every Sabbath he reasoned in the synagogue, trying to persuade Jews and Greeks.  When Silas and Timothy came from Macedonia, Paul devoted himself exclusively to preaching, testifying to the Jews that Jesus was the Messiah.  But when they opposed Paul and became abusive, he shook out his clothes in protest and said to them, “Your blood be on your own heads!  I am innocent of it.  From now on I will go to the Gentiles.”  Then Paul left the synagogue and went next door to the house of Titius Justus, a worshiper of God.  Crispus, the synagogue leader, and his entire household believed in the Lord; and many of the Corinthians who heard Paul believed and were baptized.  One night the Lord spoke to Paul in a vision: “Do not be afraid; keep on speaking, do not be silent.  For I am with you, and no one is going to attack and harm you, because I have many people in this city.”  So Paul stayed in Corinth for a year and a half, teaching them the word of God.  While Gallio was proconsul of Achaia, the Jews of Corinth made a united attack on Paul and brought him to the place of judgment.  “This man,” they charged, “is persuading the people to worship God in ways contrary to the law.”  Just 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.  But 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.” So he drove them off.  Then the crowd there turned on Sosthenes the synagogue leader and beat him in front of the proconsul; and Gallio showed no concern whatever.

In the above focus we see Paul in Corinth.  He did his best in Athens, even preaching to the leaders of Athens, but the majority of the people sneered at his ministry because he mentioned the resurrection of Jesus.  For them that exceeded what a rational mind could believe, so most of them rejected the Good News, but some did believe.  Probably Silas and Timothy stayed longer in Athens than Paul because of the need to encourage those who chose to believe the Good New—follow up is always necessary with new converts.  Now in Corinth, Paul is once again teaching in the synagogues.  In doing so, his ministry was even accepted by Crispus, the leader of the synagogue, but for most of the Jewish community, Paul’s Good News of Jesus being the Messiah and the Son of God was an anathema to them. “This man,” they charged, “is persuading the people to worship God in ways contrary to the law.”  For them, to teach anything else than there is only one God was so horrendous that the man should be destroyed.  The cardinal basis of the Jewish religion is that there is only one God and that He created everything.  Any other teaching is corrupt and can be considered devilish or apostasy.  Any teaching such as the Trinity, considered to be multiple gods by the Jews, must be eradicated quickly.  It is the Lord your God you must follow, and him you must revere.  Keep his commands and obey him; serve him and hold fast to him. — Any prophet or dreamer who tries tried to turn you from the way the Lord your God commanded you to follow.  You must purge the evil from among you.  (Deuteronomy 13:4-5)  Consequently Paul’s life was always being threatened by the Jews for this sentence of death was the appropriate judgment for anyone who dared to preach something they considered to be contrary to the law.  As God’s chosen they had already received the correct way to serve God through the law.  In the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, they are enlightened about how special God considers them.  Moses, before the Israelites crossed Jordan into Canaan, reminds the Jews of their chosen position in God’s eyes.  He reminds them of the miracles and wonders God performed in Egypt to deliver them from slavery and of the umbrella of God’s protection through the wilderness: the cloud by day and the pillar of fire at night.  You were shown these things so that you might know that the Lord is God; besides him there is no other.  From heaven he made you hear his voice to discipline you.  On earth he showed you his great fire, and you heard his words from out of the fire.  Because he loved your ancestors and chose their descendants after them, he brought you out of Egypt by his Presence and his great strength, to drive out before you nations greater and stronger than you and to bring you into their land to give it to you for your inheritance, as it is today.  (Deuteronomy 4:35-38)  With all of this understanding of God’s love for them, the Jews in the synagogues that Paul dealt with were not going to change their minds about there being only one God to serve.  Consequently, they were poison to Paul’s very existence.

In 2 Corinthians, chapter 1, we read how dangerous the Jews were to Paul.  The Jews were Paul’s chief opponents to the Good News.  They hated him because he seemed to be preaching another message from the one they had internalized all their lives.  For them, Paul seemed to be teaching about multiple gods when he talked about Jesus as he Son of God.  In his letter to the Corinthians, Paul recounts how dangerous his situation was in Arabia.  In Arabia the Jews opposition to what he was teaching was so strong, with so much hatred towards him, that his life was never safe.  He never knew whether he would have another day to live.  We think you ought to know, dear brothers and sisters, about the trouble we went through in the province of Asia.  We were crushed and overwhelmed beyond our ability to endure, and we thought we would never live through it.  In fact, we expected to die.  But as a result, we stopped relying on ourselves and learned to rely only on God, who raises the dead.  (2 Corinthians 1:8-9)  In his letter we see how desperate and dangerous Paul’s existence was in Asia.  In the olive grove called Gethsemane, we see Jesus under the same pressures that Paul endured in Asia.  

He took Peter and Zebedee’s two sons, James and John, and he became anguished and distressed.  He told them, “My soul is crushed with grief to the point of death.  Stay here and keep watch with me.”  (Matthew 26:37-38)  Jesus’ soul was crushed, smashed; he knew what lay ahead of him; he even asked God to consider his plight and maybe 

if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me.  Yet not as I will, but as you will.  (39)   In Arabia, we see Paul submitting to God’s will, not relying on his way, his strength and knowhow.  We stopped relying on ourselves and learned to rely only on God, who raises the dead.  Paul believed as Jesus said, not my will but your will be done.  Of course, Jesus went to the cross that day.  He had not another day to exist.  However, Paul expected to die at any moment.  But he was spared of a violent death for many years.  But his soul was crushed, smashed, almost daily.  A target of death was on his back all of the time.  Yet he said, not my will be done but yours O Lord.  Paul was a Hebrew scholar; he knew that to the Jews he was ministering apostasy.  He was preaching the worst thing that a Jew could hear; for them he was talking about serving multiple gods.  Consequently, he deserved the sentence of death.  However, God told Paul not to be afraid in Corinth.  Do not be afraid; keep on speaking, do not be silent.  For I am with you, and no one is going to attack and harm you, because I have many people in this city.  Even though the Jews frustrated Paul in Corinth, there were many Christians in Corinth.  He would find safety in numbers.  Nevertheless, he chose to leave the synagogue and minister elsewhere.   Paul devoted himself exclusively to preaching, testifying to the Jews that Jesus was the Messiah.  But when they opposed Paul and became abusive, he shook out his clothes in protest and said to them, “Your blood be on your own heads!  I am innocent of it.  From now on I will go to the Gentiles.  Paul stayed in Corinth ministering the Good News for a year and a half.       

Paul stayed in Corinth a long time ministering the Good News to the community.  He was fulfilling God’s commandments to his apostles to go into all the world and preach the message of the cross and the subsequent resurrection of Jesus.  Jesus came to earth as the Messiah that God had promised long ago to the Jews.  He would fulfill the promise that God made to Abraham that his seed would bless all the nations of the earth.  Jesus the Lord’s ministry did not last long.  However as John states: Jesus did many other things as well.  If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.  (John 21:25)  Paul also did many miracles to validate the truth of what he was preaching.  These miracles he performed opened the eyes and ears of the people in these various communities where he ministered.  As Jesus ends his time on earth, He prays for his apostles and for the believers who would know him as the Messiah, the Lord God.  I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you.  Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one.  (John 17:11)  The Good News of being one with God is wrapped up in the understanding that God is redeeming his creation to himself.  He sent his Son to be the sacrifice for the sins of all people.  God is a just God, and sin cannot go without punishment.  Every sin, every deviation from the nature of God must be dealt with justly.  Eternity with God is a holy existence.  Jesus paid the price for this oneness with a holy God.  Paul also paid the price of suffering to bring the knowledge of Jesus Christ to the world.  Jesus told him that he would pay a heavy price in ministering the Good News, consisting of the knowledge of the cross and the resurrection.  Paul in his life was always swimming upstream against a heavy, violent current.  He opened the door to something the Jews considered an anathema to the God they served.  But God assigned him this purpose for this life.  Paul was a disciple out of season; He was called especially for this work to the Gentile world. Jesus revealed himself to Paul so that he would know Jesus as the Savior of the world.  On the road to Damascus, he found the reality of Jesus, the Christ.  Paul now understood that Jesus was sent by God to redeem the world.  As Jesus prayed for his apostles, so was he praying for Paul, the apostle out of season.  Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me.  I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.”  (John 17:25-26)  Jesus made himself known to Paul, just as he made himself known to the disciples who walked with him daily for three years.  They learned that Jesus was not just another man, but he was God in the flesh.  Paul learned about Christ through the things he suffered.  As the disciples who walked with Jesus, he learned that he had to be completely dependent on God’s will in his life, as Jesus  expressed in the Garden of Gethsemane. Your will be done, not my will.   Dear friends around this table, may you express the will of God in your lives, regardless of the cost.  Let God dwell richly in you each day.  As Paul said about his own life, I stopped relying on myself, my knowledge and abilities, and learned to rely only on God, who raises the dead.  Let us do likewise, so the world will see Jesus in us.  Amen!