Apollos the Eloquent
Acts 18:24-28
Today we are introduced to Apollos, who would become part of Paul’s ministry team. But who was Apollos? Let us take a look at one of the major personages of the early Christian Church and from this learn what it means for us today.
A little background information will help make things more clear for us. The text says that Apollos came from Alexandria, a city in Egypt named after Alexander the Great. Alexander the Great conquered a great empire which included Palestine and Egypt. Even though he was a warrior king, he was schooled well in Greek learning by his tutor Aristotle, one of the most famous Greek philosophers and was an excellent student. Even though he was of Macedonian in origin, he was thoroughly Greek in culture. As a result of this conquest, it was his desire to spread Greek culture and learning to his entire empire.
Even though Alexander died young, and his empire suffered political and military setbacks, the social change that Alexander promoted spread throughout the Mediterranean. This process of spreading Greek culture and learning was called Hellenization. The Jewish people were influenced by this Hellenization for over three hundred years. Even though various movements like that of the Maccabees rose up in opposition, the influence of the Greeks was so great that even Jerusalem had Greek-speaking synagogues.
This Hellenization led to the scattering of the Jewish people throughout the world. This was not an exile caused by political setbacks, but rather a voluntary one as the opening of the Greek world to the Jews presented economic opportunities for them. They established communities everywhere including Ephesus and Alexandria.
Of course, as this world opened up to the Jews, they were also introduced to Greek learning and philosophy. Others in the Greek world were also introduced to them as well. This gave the Jews opportunity to share their faith in Yahweh. The Jews were a monotheistic religion and could find some affinity with the Greek philosophers who held to some sort of monotheism as well, even if their God was an idea or could not be personally known. The Jews were asked to translate their Scriptures into Greek, and this was done by seventy Jewish scholars, probably in Alexandria.
In Apollos day, there was another eloquent Alexandrian Jew named Philo Judaeus, or Philo the Jew. It is interesting to see his name is at least part Greek as the name Philo means “friend” or “love” and is part of the root for “philosophy” which means “lover od wisdom.” Philo was someone who deeply wanted to make Jewish belief relevant to the Greeks as well as to keep his fellow Jews from losing their faith and being assimilated en toto to the Greek world and lose their identity. He held to the idea that the Greeks actually got many of their views from Moses, making Moses the chief of philosophers. In this presentation of Moses as a philosopher he used what is called allegorization of the Scripture. What was inspired was not the historical accounts themselves but the moral truths they taught. If Apollos lived today, his approach would be called neo-orthodox. There was a tendency then in turning Scripture into a series of myths or at least reduce the historicity of Scripture in lieu of what these sagas taught.
It cannot be determined whether Apollos knew Philo personally. He was somewhat younger, but due to Philo’s standing in Alexandria, it it probable that he knew of him and of his teaching. Besides being told that Apollos came from Alexandria, it also says that he was a man of learning and by implication eloquent of speech. We see from Corinthians that he certainly was considered to be a much better public speaker than Paul, which Paul himself admits.
Apollos was also thoroughly acquainted with the Holy Scripture. We don’t know how much of his interpretation of Scripture was influenced by his Alexandrian roots, but it is probably fair to say, much. But somewhere, he also was introduced to the teaching of John the Baptist and his followers, perhaps in Ephesus itself as Scripture records a Community of those influenced by the Baptist. John the Baptist could hardly be called a Greek Jew. Apollos was introduced to a radically different means of interpretation of the meaning of Scripture and took to it. He became eloquent in preaching about the Messiah who John said was coming, having been thoroughly taught. Not only with eloquence, but with fervency of Spirit, Apollos preached about the coming Messiah. And here in Acts, it says that he taught this accurately, as far as he went with that message. The way was being prepared for Paul’s message, or what Paul Harvey would say “the rest of the story.”
Paul briefly passed through Ephesus, being pressed to strengthen believers on the way back to giving a report to his home church of Antioch and then to Jerusalem to attend a feast. But he left Aquila and Pricilla behind as a sort of advance team. We know they were tentmakers like Paul, and it would take them a little while to establish their business there. The tent business brought on by the Isthmian games at Corinth had probably diminished leading to seeking opportunity elsewhere. So they left Corinth with Paul.
While scouting out all the synagogues in Ephesus, Aquila and Pricilla became acquainted with Apollos and heard him preach. They were apparently much impressed with his teaching and knowledge, and they were led by the Spirit to recruit him. But for all of Apollos’ wisdom and eloquence, he did not know that the message of John the Baptist about the coming Messiah had been fulfilled. It seems that Pricilla is demonstrated to have been the better of the two, and probably took the lead in instructing Apollos. If so, the first lesson the great Apollos would have to learn is humility, the humility of having to submit to a woman’s teaching.
Apollos accepted this teaching with the same joy in which he had received the message of John the Baptist and became a follower of Jesus Christ. Here someone who is ironically named after one of the Greek gods becomes a proclaimer of the true God.
Apollos felt a call to come to Achaia, and in particular to Corinth. The church affirmed this call and sent him. It says that he boldly and eloquently showed the Jewish people of the synagogue that they were thinking wrongly about the Messiah as well as acting wrongly in opposing Jesus and his followers. In other words, he was acting as an apologist, one who defends the flock and shows that they are properly founded in the truth as well as challenging the views of those who opposed the Christian message.
God used Apollos in a mighty way and a lot of the believers at Corinth were thankful for his ministry and became quite attached to him personally. They put the man and the message together. Only Jesus can really be seen as the unity of man and message. This led some who felt loyalty to Paul as founder of the church to make this same mistake about Paul. The message was about Paul, Apollos, or even Cephas (Peter) rather than the message they together brought. The Christian message must center in the person and work of Christ. The minister of the gospel must diminish so that Jesus Christ might increase. This is not to fault either Paul or Apollos as though this had been their intention, but nevertheless, the minister must be aware of the human tendency of becoming too attached to human personality. After all, we are simply the instruments of Jesus who have been commissioned to bring you the good news.
We can appreciate that God calls all kind of people from all kinds of backgrounds to the work of the ministry. Some might be more charismatic than others. Some might have a better education. Some are common folk which seem of no particular promise like the Galilean fishermen which Jesus called to follow him, We must not let anything get in the way of the message of the Gospel. This includes human philosophy and wisdom. This included eloquence as well as ignorance.
It is necessary at this point to bring up that we are those who bring the message about Jesus to an unbelieving world. We are a Christian diaspora planted among all the nations of the earth with the mandate to proclaim Jesus Christ. We are also called to keep the flock from being led astray by false teaching. We are all called to be apologists, to give answer to those who ask us for the hope that is within us and to be able to articulate this as well as possible. We cannot defend a faith we do not know. So the first work of an apologist is to know the ground upon which he or she stands and be firmly convinced of the truth of the message. One cannot be convincing if one is not convinced. Christians need to be carefully and thoroughly taught the Scripture. Nothing is worse than going out unprepared to a skeptical and hostile world.
It is also important, though less so, to be aware of the worldview(s) of others to whom the message about Jesus is being brought. But in this learning of culture, one has to be careful not to be drawn into the world’s culture as well. I think Philo’s mistake was that he compromised too much in trying to adapt Judaism to Greek culture. We cannot afford to assimilate the Gospel with human culture. Our pastors should not ape the cult of celebrities. Movie reviews are out of place in the pulpit. It is far better to stick to the message of Jesus Christ and Him crucified, no matter whether the world thinks it relevant or not.
The Gospel is not about America or some other nation either. This has been a major stumbling block to the evangelical church in America today. They have forgotten the Scriptural admonition that say not to put one’s confidence in princes, or presidents as the case here is in America. It is hard to discern anymore what is American and what is Christian. If the political winds change, the church will find itself in much difficulty. There is plenty of offense in the cross as it is. Paul reminds us that just living a godly life in Christ Jesus will result in persecution. If a Christian isn’t feeling this persecution, then that person should examine whether his or her faith is defective. But let this be persecution which comes from our Christian faith and not by our political convictions. This world will pass away in God’s time, and so will America. As Peter reminds us, if we are thrown in prison, let it be because we have done good things and been true to Christ than for some crime.
I cannot but mourn for the direction I see the American churches turning. They are soon going to melt into culture and be assimilated. The salt is being lost, and the church is in danger of being trodden underfoot as irrelevant. In the very attempt to be relevant, we are quickly becoming irrelevant, both to God and the world. Apollos had to learn to leave his Alexandrian upbringing aside and to learn thoroughly the Gospel of Jesus Christ. May we stop loving the world and its wisdom so much and let the love of Christ increase in our hearts.
