Table Talk
What are some reasons the question “Is God faithful” is a valid question? Why might even Paul himself have questioned this?
News flash: Paul was human like the rest of us, and that’s one of the things that I think we need to be constantly reminded of. We ought at this point to entertain the likely possibility that the apostle Paul, for all his boldness, was wavering a bit. He wrote in I Cor. 2:3 that he had come to Corinth “in weakness and fear, and with much trembling”. He had been driven out of all three Macedonian cities which he’d visited (even after hearing the call of the Macedonian man saying, “come over into Macedonia and help us”), and he’d been dismissed from Athens with what Richard Longenecker calls “quiet contempt rather than being violently driven out”. How were things going with the Christians in Thessalonica? What would await him in Corinth? After all, this city was like Vegas, New Orleans, and Seattle all rolled into one; the pride and immorality of the Corinthians was headed for a head-on collision with the gospel of Jesus Christ which stands in opposition to sexual immorality and human pride. The Corinthians boasted in their learning and in their status as Corinthians, and Paul mentions, when he writes to the church there years later, that there weren’t many from the upper crust who accepted the message of the gospel in Corinth. He may have still been ailing from his beating at Philippi. Seen from one perspective, his mission hadn’t been all that successful; was he depressed? And what was his breaking point?
He had done everything right, or at least most things; he had laid it on the line for the Lord, driven by his zeal and passion for the things of God and his love for people, yet he’d been through the wringer of rejection, the pain of persecution, the frustration of physical ailment, and the heartache of hatred. Yeah, he was Paul, and he was doing God’s work, but would God be faithful to him in a time like this, or would God abandon him as a used up, washed-up has-been? Does God follow that Stoic philosophy of “keep a stiff upper lip”, grit your teeth and hang on, buck up and don’t be such a wimp? Or is God faithful to the fallen, strength to the suffering, a real refuge in the time of storm?
If Athens was the intellectual center of the ancient world, Corinth was a great commercial trade center, a seaport junction of sea routes both west and east, and a junction of land routes north and south; it seemed as if all roads led to Corinth. But in vengeance for a revolt against Rome, a Roman general had leveled the city to the ground 200 years before Paul came. Exactly 100 years later, Julius Caesar had rebuilt the city, naming it in his honor (as guys like him seemed to love doing), and quickly, Corinth was rebuilt as a powerful center of commerce and licentious living. In fact, so sordid were the ways of the citizens of Corinth that a verb “to Corinthianize”, and a phrase “act the Corinthian”, were in common parlance, and meant “to live a lifestyle of promiscuous sexual gratification”. The temple of Aphrodite, on the Acrocorinth, gave religious sanction to this lifestyle. Every evening, 1000 temple prostitutes descended from the Acrocorinth to ply their trade on the mean streets; anything could be bought in the city. Yet, the fact that trade radiated outward from Corinth, that the world’s civilizations met at this crossroads, portended the possibility that the gospel could likewise radiate outward from this strategic center.
But this was no easy place to minister, that’s for sure. Paul, in writing later to the Corinthian church, had to tackle head on the fact that the church at Corinth had way too much Corinth in the church, the fact that some of the sexual mores which the Corinthian believers were to leave behind hadn’t been left behind nearly so easily. Paul ministered in an immoral society. We are called to minister both God’s love and God’s holiness. To those who know they are sinners before God, we focus on His love. To those who would justify their sinfulness, we minister His holiness, calling them to repent of their sin. The calling is the same, wherever we are: God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself…gave us the ministry of reconciliation…entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us (II Corinthians 5:18-20).
I. God is Faithful to bring friends alongside us to minister. :1-5
Not long after he got to Corinth, Paul made lifetime friends of a couple who shared a line of work with him: tentmaking (or, more generally, leather-working). Paul practiced this trade from time to time in order to pay the bills and be able to evangelize. Priscilla and Aquila, driven from Rome by the emperor Claudius as were many other non-citizen Jews, had likely become believers even prior to coming to Corinth, but they’d prove to be very valuable to Paul as leaders of the Corinthian church.
Beyond the friendship that Paul struck up with Aquila and Priscilla, his old friends and fellow workers Silas and Timothy finally caught up with him here in Corinth. Great to have old friends joining Paul and his new friends, and such was the case when Silas and Timothy arrived from Macedonia. We understand from other Scripture that they brought good news of the steadfast faith of the Thessalonians (I Thess. 3:6-ff) and a gift of money as well, provided for Paul by the church at Philippi, enabling him to curtail some of his tentmaking work (II Cor. 11:8-ff; Phil. 4:15). There’s nothing wrong with working to support oneself in preaching the gospel; Karen and Jacob Hall, whom you met last week, have to do this very thing by the nature of their work. But neither is there anything wrong, and in fact there’s everything right as Paul says in I Corinthians 9:1-12, with the church providing for the physical needs of a worker or missionary in order to enable that person to concentrate more fully on the work of the gospel.
This week for me was good proof of the importance of just this thing: friends that come alongside in ministry. Our EFCA Southeast District conference was in Tampa; we got back last night. I was challenged and encouraged and supported by colleagues, and was able to extend the same to them. I love knowing that there are people I can call upon for advice, for prayer, for support, whether it’s fellow pastors, or our D.S., or folks from the national office. People at each level have been a blessing to me through the years.
Back to form, Paul went first to the synagogue; in a cosmopolitan commercial center such as Corinth, there’d be plenty of Jewish emigrants. Again we remember, and for those of you who are new, let me point this out: history matters. Many faiths of the world wouldn’t be all that concerned to even have a book named “Acts” among their holy books, because they are ahistorical in nature; actual human events do not matter. Christianity is radically different in this respect: God has acted in history, and if the actual events that the Bible depicts as happening actually did not, then we are utterly sunk. Of course, if they did; if Jesus rose from the grave bodily, then the credibility of our faith is vindicated. Here, Paul is reasoning with the Jews in the synagogue about what the Scriptures predicted, and then he is lining up those predictions with the actual historical events of the life of Jesus Christ, and saying, “do the math!”
But as we’ve seen before, while there were some who believed and followed Christ, there were others who violently opposed the idea that Jesus was the promised Messiah.
II. God is Faithful to open doors for ministry. :6-8
This is getting predictable: Paul’s witness in the synagogue stirs up opposition. Paul uses the dramatic gesture of shaking the dust of the synagogue out of his clothes to indicate his contempt for their contempt for the Savior and the message of the gospel, but he picks up right next door where he left off, and those who were accustomed to making their way to the synagogue to hear his message didn’t have to even alter their route to get there!
I am responsible to share the gospel; I am not responsible for the response. Remembering both ends of that equation will serve us well. I have a role to play; God has a role to play. If I’m not careful, I can fall off the table either way, either toward a Calvinism-taken-too-far approach, or an Arminianism-taken-too-far. If I forget the role that God must play, in bringing people to faith, I will believe that it all depends upon me, and I might be tempted to forget that I am not the Holy Spirit, that only the Spirit can convict sinners of their sin. On the other hand, Calvinism-taken-too-far will produce a passivity on my part that says, effectively, “God will do what God’s gonna do, irrespective of my witness”. Both extremes are aberrations, and neither extreme would be claimed by those who espouse those particular theological understandings. God opened the door to ministry for Paul.
This man, Titius Justus, was likely a Roman citizen (evidenced by his name), but it is possible that this man was one and the same with Gaius (Romans 16:23; I Cor. 1:14). He was likely a man of some great wealth, and we know that there existed some such wealthy persons in the church at Corinth, because that becomes one of the many issues that Paul alludes to in I Corinthians, the fact that the wealth of some of the Corinthians caused them to seize priority over some poorer members of that church. His home became the meeting place for the church at Corinth. Crispus was the leader of the synagogue that Paul had just left; he joined the group as a new believer, as did many others, and the church at Corinth swelled.
Notice the normal process: they “believed and were baptized”. This is the New Testament pattern; those who place faith in Christ follow Him soon thereafter in baptism. Again, if you are a believer and have not followed Christ in this way as a believer, I’d encourage you to do just that.
III. God is Faithful to protect and encourage His own. :9-17
Paul had been fighting a good fight, but every boxer knows that the blows take a toll over time, and he could see a pattern developing, and undoubtedly wondered what was next, how he might suffer in Corinth as he’d suffered in a variety of ways during this second missionary journey. Here’s where God steps in to lift the spirits of His man, to minister grace and reassurance to a guy who had taken the blows and now was reeling a bit. Paul has a vision of the risen Christ, speaking with him and assuring him that no harm would befall him in Corinth, no matter what he said, and thus to preach boldly in the name of Christ. And so Paul, having been given assurance by Christ, found his strength replenished by the God Who is faithful.
Notice Christ’s first words: “do not be afraid”. Seems like this is something God is always communicating to people; it’s usually the first words out of the mouths of angels when the Bible records those times when angels visit men and announce their presence and their words from God. “Fear not”; common refrain. Paul had some reason to fear, and yet, some of the things he was undoubtedly fearful of were just like those things that we fear: potential future events that may well not even happen! It’s called “borrowing trouble from tomorrow”, and we all do it at least occasionally, don’t we?
Abe Lincoln told the story of riding on horseback many a time across rivers swollen by rain. On one such occasion, he and his companions had the rain-swollen Fox River yet ahead of them. Their conversation turned to the “what-ifs”, asking, “if these smaller streams give us much trouble, what will we do when we get to this larger river, the Fox?” When darkness came, they stopped for the evening at a log tavern, and there met a Methodist circuit-riding preacher who’d ridden the countryside and knew the Fox River quite well. They gathered around him to ask about what the Fox was like at that time. “Oh, yes,” he said, “I know all about the Fox River. I have crossed it often and understand it well. But I have one fixed rule with regard to the Fox River—I never cross it until I reach it.”
Paul could only imagine what the rivers were like which lay ahead of him, and that element of fear crept into him, fear of the future, of the unknown which lay ahead. That’s why the words of Christ, and the faithfulness of God to protect and encourage him were so vital.
Christ promised that no harm would come to Paul, but that didn’t mean that no attack would be made against him. The Jews resorted to legal means, bringing Paul before the Roman governor. If the governor had ruled against Paul, the decision would have had a far-reaching effect, and the history of the spread of Christian faith would have been quite different than it is.
Gallio was apparently quite a charming individual; “no mortal is so pleasant to any one person as Gallio is to everybody”, wrote his brother Seneca the Younger. He was a witty and likeable fellow, the fact of which perhaps led to his untimely end at the hands of a suspicious and jealous Nero, in AD 65. But Paul didn’t even have to defend himself before Gallio, who decided quickly that this wasn’t something within his jurisdiction, that he didn’t care at all about what he viewed as such intramural disputes. He judged it to be a squabble involving an interpretation of Jewish faith with which some Jews didn’t agree, but nothing more, certainly no violation of the law nor threat to Rome. Gallio’s decision set a precedent that was honored for many years across the Roman empire, and the gospel enjoyed a great deal of freedom.
God is Faithful to bring friends alongside us to minister.
God is Faithful to open doors for ministry.
God is Faithful to protect and encourage His own.
IV. God is Faithful to bring His people to faith. :10b
“I have many in this city who are My people”. Regardless of whether we read this phrase and reach Calvinistic conclusions or not, the truth is that it is God Who brings people to faith. And this reminds us of both our responsibilities and the limits of our responsibilities. God uses people as His instruments, certainly; Romans 10 makes that clear, the necessity of our sending people like Gary and Esther Smith to mission fields, and the necessity of our own involvement in being witnesses for Christ. That said, it is ultimately God Who brings people to faith in His Son. The Holy Spirit is the One Who convicts of sin, of coming judgment, of God’s righteousness through Christ. Apart from God’s work, I can witness until I’m blue in the face, and no one will come to faith. That said, with the Spirit’s working, while I should grow in my effectiveness as a witness for Christ, I needn’t worry whether I’m wording my witness perfectly, or presenting an airtight defense of the faith. God reassured a faltering Paul by saying, “I have many in this city who are My people!”
Paul shared the gospel even when it was difficult—and he experienced some rejection. We have a responsibility to share our faith with others. Sometimes I think Christians, maybe particularly new believers, worry that they don’t know what to say. There is a place for being trained in how to share faith in Christ. But the most effective witnesses aren’t necessarily those who know the right words, but those whose hearts are the most filled with love for Christ and others. Just say it, in love! Question: as you work your job, do you see yourself as an ambassador for Christ? What do you do with your 9-5 that makes a difference for the kingdom? It’s not just about sharing Christ verbally; it’s also about sharing Christ by the way you live your life. But here’s the promise: as God was faithful to Paul, in so many ways as we’ve seen today, He will be faithful to you as well!
"This faithfulness of God is of the utmost practical significance to the people of God. It is the ground of their confidence, the foundation of their hope, and the cause of their rejoicing. It saves them from the despair to which their own unfaithfulness might easily lead, gives them courage to carry on in spite of their failures, and fills their hearts with joyful anticipations, anew when they are deeply conscious of the fact they have forfeited all the blessings of God."
--Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology, p. 70
Table Talk
In what ways has God shown Himself faithful to you? How has He been faithful even in difficult situations, perhaps even ones that didn’t change in your favor?
