A Study of the Book of Acts
Sermon # 32
“When Halfway is not Enough!”
Acts 18:24-28
In our last study we saw that, “It is always too soon to Quit!” The apostle Paul found the task before him in Corinth almost overwhelming. The immorality of the city coupled with the fact that he was alone, left him feeling overwhelmed. But God did not leave him helpless, he send him friends to help him, finances to support him and spoke words to encourage him. We leave Paul as he sent out to Jerusalem to fulfill a vow he has made to the Lord. This is in reality the end of the second missionary journey. We have before us tonight a parenthesis, Luke interrupts his story of the missionary journeys to introduce a man by the name of Apollos.
In Verse 24 we are introduced to “a certain Jew named Apollos, born at Alexandria, an eloquent man and mighty in the Scriptures, came to Ephesus.
Apollos was from Alexandria located on the north coast of Eygpt and was the second largest city in the Roman empire. Alexandria was noted as a cultural and educational center, its library was the largest in the world at that time. Scholars tell us that before it was destroyed by fire, this library contained 700,000 scrolls and other documents.
Apollos was an educated man. He had the equivalent of what we would today refer to as a university and graduate school education. His credentials were very impressive.
He was also an eloquent man. A man who knew how to move people by speaking just the right word.
Apollos was “mighty in the Scriptures,” he was well versed in the Old Testament Hebrew Scriptures.
Verse 25 further states, “This man had been instructed in the way of the Lord; and being fervent in spirit, he spoke and taught accurately the things of the Lord, though he knew only the baptism of John.”
Apollos was excited about those things that he did understand about Jesus. He was passionate, he was “fervent in spirit”, literally this means “burning or boiling hot.”
This verse says that he “had been instructed in the way of the Lord; . . .though he knew only the baptism of John.” I don’t know exactly what Apollos knew and did not know, but it is clear that Apollos had a limited knowledge of the Lord Jesus.
Some of you perhaps do not know the story of John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement. John was raised in the home of a minister, Samuel Wesley and his godly wife Susanna. He attended Charterhouse and Oxford and became a double professor of Greek and logic at Lincoln College of Oxford. He was subsequently ordained into clergy of the Church of England.
While he was at Oxford he helped to form what was called “the holy club,” a group so nicknamed by the other students because they seriously attempted to cultivate their spiritual lives. Finally he accepted an invitation from the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel to become a missionary to the American Indians in Georgia, where he failed miserably. Forced to return to England he wrote, “I went to America to convert the Indians; but, oh, who shall convert me?”
Not all was lost, because in his earlier travels he had crossed paths with a group of Moravians whose living faith deeply impressed him. So upon his return to London he sought out one of the leaders and to use Wesley’s words was ‘clearly convinced of unbelief, of the want of that faith whereby alone we are saved.’
On the evening of May 25, 1738 Wesley went to a meeting at which Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans was being read. He said while it was being described the change which God works in a heart through faith in Christ that felt his “heart strangely warmed.” He went on to say “I felt I did trust in Christ and Christ alone, for my salvation……”
Prior to Wesley’s “Aldersgate experience” he knew more theology and was more dedicated than most believers, but he was lost. (R. Kent Hughes. Acts: The Church Afire. Wheaton Ill.: Crossway Books, 1996) p. 245-246]
“Hundreds of thousands of people profess some type of belief in Christ, display reverence for God, go to church on Sundays, contribute to the offering, sit at the Lord’s table and admire the ethical teaching of the Lord – but are as lost as John Wesley before Aldersgate. They have not fire, no passion, no life because they do not have Christ.” (Hughes. p.246)
Verse 26 says, “ So he began to speak boldly in the synagogue. When Aquila and Priscilla heard him, they took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately.
It was as he was teaching in the synagogue that Aquila and Priscilla had the opportunity to hear him speak. I really don’t know who I am the most impressed with Aquila and Priscilla or Apollos.
Apollos, a Jew from Alexandria, was an educated man, he was an eloquent man, mighty in the Scriptures, fervent in spirit, still could not take people any further than he himself had been.
Notice what Aquila and Priscilla did and did not do.
This verse says “they took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately. They opened their hearts and their home to this young preacher. They did not embarrass him in public but privately, lovingly completed his theological picture.
This verse also reveals the humble attitude that characterized Apollos. Although cultured and well educated, he humbly sat at the feet of these tentmakers to learn about Jesus. He was smart enough to know he did not know it all and to know that learning is a life-long process. The Bible is complete but our understanding of the Bible is far from complete and we need open minds that we may continue to learn. D.L. Moody said that every time he heard Henry Drummond preach he had to go home and burn some of his old sermons.
Can you recall someone, a pastor or Sunday School teacher or friend who challenged you to go further than you would have on your own? There are many such people in my life but I want to tell you about two of them.
Bro. Stuckey was a little rough around the edges. He was not polished, he ran a Rescue Mission in Little Rock and he preached a youth revival at which I was called into the ministry. Although I never saw Bro. Stuckey again, after that revival he sent me a little book of on prayer that I still have in my library.
Bro. Buck Mitchell was such a man in my life. Bro. Buck was not a preacher, he was a shoe repairman and owed a small shoe store. Bro. Buck was not even of the same denomination background. But Bro. Buck encouraged me as a young preacher. He bought me some of first books in my library.
Who do not have in your life that gave you needed encouragement? Is there someone in your life in whom you have noticed a gift that needs acknowledging and encouraging.
Charles Swindoll asks the following; “Who taught Martin Luther his theology and inspired his translation of the New Testament? Who visited Dwight L. Moody at a shoe store and spoke to him about Christ? Who was the elderly woman who prayed faithfully for Billy Graham for over twenty years? Who financed William Carey’s ministry to India? Who helped Charles Wesley get underway as a composer of hymns? Who personally taught G. Campbell Morgan, “the peerless expositor,” his techniques in the pulpit? You probably don’t know do you?” Swindoll goes on to write, “Had it not been for these unknown people – those nobodies – a large chunk of church history would be missing. And a lot of lives would have been untouched. But they were people just like you and me and God used them to encourage and empower others and as a result church history was changed. God use you to empower others.”
Let me give you three steps to empowering someone for Christ.
1. Pray and ask the Lord to Lead you to someone who needs some encouragement. They are all around you. You may not even need this step because you already know someone. Just as Aquila and Priscilla did in the life of Apollos. God has someone you could encourage.
2. Look for unrealized potential in people around you. Aquila and Priscilla did not reject Apollos.
3. Take the time to make an investment in the life of someone who needs empowerment. Decide right now how you are going to encourage someone! Make a plan for carrying it out.
In verse 27 we are told, “And when he desired to cross to Achaia, the brethren wrote, exhorting the disciples to receive him; and when he arrived, he greatly helped those who had believed through grace; (28) for he vigorously refuted the Jews publicly, showing from the Scriptures that Jesus is the Christ.”
In verse 27 and 28 we are told that Apollos became a great help to those who believed. He refuted the Jews in public and proved the deity of Jesus from the Scriptures. Apollos was one of the best communicators of his day. All because of the investment of one devoted tentmakers.
“Wesley’s conversion began a movement that historian rank with the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution as one of the historical phenomena of the nineteenth century. Wesley’s preaching may have even saved England from a revolution similar to that of France.” (Hughes. p. 249)
Conclusion
Don’t underestimate the influence you can have. Let me close with the illustration of the life of Hugh Latimer. He was very much like Apollos he was very knowledge about the Bible, he could speak with great eloquence and he had considerable influence because he was a bishop, but he was lost.
There was a young monk who knew Latimer and admired him. This monk, was known as “Little Bilney, because he was so short. He did not have much education. No one thought very much of him. But Bilney was save and he wondered how he might have an opportunity to share the gospel with Hugh Latimer. So he prayed and he finally hit upon an idea.
Priests were required to hear the confessions of any one who wanted to confess their sins. So Bilney went up to Latimer and asked Latimer to hear his confession. Latimer said that he would and so they went into the confessional and Bilney confessed the gospel to him. He told him how he was a sinner and been unable to save himself, how Jesus had died for his sins and how by faith he had been saved. That was what he confessed to Latimer, in that way Latimer for the very first time heard the gospel and he was saved. That was a important moment in the English Reformation.
Latimer was eventually martyred for his faith, by being burned at the stake. On the day of his death he sought to strengthen the man who was to die with him. He said, “Be brave Master Ridley and play the man. We shall this day, by the grace of God, light such a candle in England as, I trust shall never be put out.” [James Montgomery Boice. Acts: An Expositional Commentary. (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1997.) p. 316]
You will never know this side of eternity the dividends that your investment in someone’s life will make.
