I want to finish this part of our series on Acts by reflecting on the way God continued to encourage and support Paul in his preaching of the gospel, despite the great opposition he faced. God’s empowering was such that many people came to believe in Jesus. Paul was able to keep going despite the weakness he experienced from time to time because of God’s encouragement. And it’s fitting that we do that as we come to his visit to Corinth, because, as you’ll remember from our sermon series last year, the theme of 2 Corinthians is power in weakness: the power that God supplies despite our personal weaknesses and limitations. And that’s obviously a lesson Paul learnt while he was there in Corinth for 18 months or so.
Corinth was a major centre of trade - a 2 port city. It had a population perhaps of 750,000 people. Athens had about 10,000, Ephesus 500,000. So it was one of the leading cities of the Roman empire. And it was a great commercial and trading centre. Anything that could be bought would have been there. Arabian balsam, Egyptian papyrus, Phoenician dates, Libyan ivory, Babylonian carpets, Cilician goats’ hair, Lycaonian wool, Phrygian slaves, etc. So it was an incredibly strategic place to preach the gospel. If these traders were converted they’d take the gospel with them to all the ends of the earth.
But because of it’s size and importance the Corinthians were perhaps prouder than some. Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians begins with him reminding them that when he came to them he determined to know nothing except Jesus Christ and him crucified. Why? Because Christ’s crucifixion challenged the pride and wisdom of the Greeks. One of the products of the preaching of the gospel is humility on the part of its hearers. The cross removes all grounds for human pride, both because of the example of Jesus Christ who humbled himself to die the lowest death imaginable and because it says that we sinners have nothing to offer by which we can earn or even contribute to earning our salvation. And that was a message that was vital for them to hear, just as it’s vital for us in the west to hear it today.
Mind you it wasn’t necessarily a popular message. Paul points out that "not many of [them] were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. (1 Cor 1:26)"
What’s more Corinth was a notoriously immoral city. Again, 1 Corinthians makes that very clear and again the preaching of the cross is a call to repentance from an immoral lifestyle.
So it’s no wonder that Paul in 1 Corinthians 2 says he came to them with much fear and trembling, yet determined that Christ’s death and resurrection would be his sole focus.
When he got to Corinth he found a Jew named Aquila who worked as a tent maker, Paul’s own profession. It seems that Aquila and his wife Priscilla , who, interestingly, is named first in most other occurrences of their names, had been converted previously. They’d come to Corinth after Claudius had banished all Christians from Rome for causing a disturbance among the Jews. Whether Paul knew them from a previous encounter isn’t said, but if not, he soon made friends with them and in fact began working with them in their trade as tentmakers. He says later, in his letters to Corinth and to Thessalonica, that he had decided to support himself so he wouldn’t be a burden on his converts. He may also have been avoiding the slander of some that he was trying to make a living out of the gospel.
In any case this partnership with Aquila and Priscilla became more than just a business partnership. In fact when he left Corinth to go to Ephesus, they went with him. Now we’re not looking at the end of the chapter today but what we find there is that in the end Paul left them in Ephesus to pastor the church while he went on to Jerusalem. And when Apollos arrived from Alexandria they were the ones who discipled him, filling in the gaps in his knowledge of Jesus and the gospel, so that he could then go back to Corinth and do the work of an evangelist and teacher there.
But back to Corinth. What we find in this section is a pattern that we’ve seen before and that now repeats itself in Corinth and again in Ephesus in ch19.
1. He reasons with the Jews that Jesus is the Messiah
Paul worked as a tent maker during the week and on the Sabbath he went to the synagogue where he reasoned with the Jews arguing that Jesus was the Messiah. This seems to have gone on for some time, during which time Silas and Timothy arrived from Thessalonica.
When Timothy and Silas arrived, it seems from reading 2 Cor 11 and Phil 4 that they came with a gift of financial support from Thessalonica that allowed Paul to give up his tent making and devote himself exclusively to preaching the gospel.
But as the intensity of his preaching increased, so too did the Jewish opposition, until it became such that he couldn’t continue any longer.
2. He leaves the synagogue and goes to the Gentiles
When they began to be abusive he decided the time had come to move on. He makes the dramatic gesture of shaking off the dust from his clothes, as Jesus had instructed his disciples to do when they first went out to preach about the kingdom of God and warns them, "Your blood be on your own head." That, by the way, is a quote from Ezek 33, where God warns the people about ignoring the warnings they’re given. He says if you ignore the trumpet call given by your own watchman and end up dying by the sword of your enemy then you deserve what you get. So too, if you ignore the warning God gives you through his messengers of the gospel, then you’ll have no cause to complain on the day of judgement. The decision is yours.
Paul then makes an equally dramatic gesture by going next door to the house of a man named Titius Justus who was a worshipper of God. He’s one who’s heard the warning and has responded, even though he’s not a Jew. But he’s not the only one. We’re told that Crispus, the official of the synagogue, that is, the one who organised the synagogue worship, became a believer in the Lord, together with all his household. In case you thought that the Jewish people were blind to the truth of the gospel that wasn’t always the case. Here’s the leading elder of the synagogue believing. And as a result:
3. Many people hear the gospel and respond
Paul has moved from the public forum of the synagogue to the private house of Titius Justus, but the work of the gospel continues at a great pace. Perhaps the conversion of Crispus is influential here, perhaps it’s the fact that he’s moved away from the Jewish synagogue. But many of the Corinthians became believers and were baptised.
If Paul was worried about having to abandon the synagogue, God was certainly keen to encourage him. And he does that not only through the conversion of Crispus along with many others but through a vision of Jesus himself.
4. God sends Paul a sign that he’s with him.
It seems that Paul was still worried about how he’d be received. I don’t know about you but I find that encouraging. Here’s Paul, the great evangelist, the apostle to the Gentiles; he’s been travelling around Asia Minor and Greece preaching the gospel for more than year by now seeing people converted and he’s still afraid of what will happen to him. But Jesus appears to him in a vision, to reassure him. "Do not be afraid, but speak and do not be silent; 10for I am with you, and no one will lay a hand on you to harm you, for there are many in this city who are my people."
If ever Paul was to be encouraged this was what he needed to hear. In fact this is what we need to hear isn’t it? What does Jesus say to him? 2 Things: First "I am with you and no one will lay a hand on you to harm you." So too, Jesus is with us whenever we share the gospel with someone. Mind you his promise that no one would hurt him was a promise for this particular situation. He was certainly hurt by people in other situations. But even then Christ was with him enabling him to keep going.
Secondly, Jesus assures him that "there are many in this city who are my people." The work of preaching the gospel isn’t just our work. Nor is it a case of beating your head against a brick wall until it gives way. The people we preach to include those whom Jesus has already claimed as his own. These are people who are ready to hear and respond. And that’s what you find when you preach the gospel. Some people are deaf to what you have to say, but there are others who respond immediately, almost as if they’ve been waiting all their life for someone to tell them about Jesus Christ.
I don’t know if you’ve ever thought about the implications of that statement. Even though this city was filled with people who had no knowledge or understanding of the living God, people who were totally pagan in their worship and belief structures, God had chosen some of them to become his people. Among our friends there are those who may have no understanding of Christianity yet have been chosen by God to respond when the gospel is preached to them. But how is that going to happen? That’s the question Paul raises in Romans 10:14-15: "14But how are they to call on one in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone to proclaim him? 15And how are they to proclaim him unless they are sent? As it is written, ’How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!’"
You see, the only way they’ll respond is if someone like you or me tells them about Jesus Christ.
Well that encouragement is such that Paul stays in Corinth for another 18 months preaching and teaching.
But there’s a second piece of encouragement that God gives Paul, perhaps related to his promise that no one would hurt him.
5. The Roman officials sanction his preaching of the gospel
The Jews increase their opposition to Paul to the point where they end up taking him to court to have Gallio, the Roman proconsul stop him or maybe even put him in gaol for preaching a new religion, one that wasn’t approved by Roman law. But Gallio is having nothing to do with it. In his eyes this is an argument between different Jewish sects about the meaning of certain terms; words and names and the meaning of the Jewish laws. Gallio was clearly an intelligent man who knew enough of the Jewish religion to see through their arguments, but at the same time he was sufficiently contemptuous of them to be not slightly interested in their petty arguments.
So before Paul can even open his mouth to defend himself Gallio declares their complaint invalid, outside the jurisdiction of his court, and he throws them out. As a result the crowd turns on Sosthenes who is now the ruler of the synagogue and they beat him up. This may have been to try to sway Gallio to their side but it’s a waste of time. He just turns a blind eye.
Just as an aside, by the way, There’s a Sosthenes mentioned in the opening verse of 1 Corinthians as a brother, so it may be that Sosthenes was leaning towards Paul’s teaching at this stage the same way his predecessor had and that some time later he was converted.
In any case this decision of Gallio to legitimise Paul’s preaching meant that he was able to stay on in Corinth for some time. It may also have been the thing that led Paul some time later to appeal to the Emperor in the hope that Roman law would provide the protection necessary for the gospel to be preached freely throughout the empire.
Now what I want us to take away from this passage today is two things:
First of all, we can be confident in sharing the gospel with our friends and neighbours because we know that God has already called out people to hear and respond when they hear the good news of salvation. Just as he had many people in Corinth, waiting to hear Paul’s message, so too he has many people in Melbourne waiting for someone to invite them to come into God’s kingdom, to receive the offer of salvation, to get themselves ready for the last day on which Jesus will return to call his own people to himself.
And secondly, if we’re apprehensive about sharing the gospel with others or worried about what might happen to us or to our relationship with those people, then let’s remind ourselves of Jesus’ promise that he’d be with us forever, strengthening us, empowering us, giving us the confidence we need to continue his work on earth.
for more sermons from this source go to home.vicnet.net.au/~sttheos/
