Bible Guys Classics: Acts 18 Part 1

Well, today we're talking about two really fun names to say, Aquila and Priscilla. Cool husband and wife, the tent makers and partners with Paul. So he's Chris, that I'm Jeff, and we're the Bible Guys. So Jeff. This week we're doing the segment all week of Stump the pastor. Okay, And by the way, if you're. Listening and you have any question that you want us to try to tackle, you can send your emails into info at right here the Bible Guys, the Bible Guys dot com. These are fun. Yeah, they are fun. And so we've chosen five or actually we haven't chosen them. They've been chosen for us and handed to us. That's right. And so today this one's comes from Larry P. And Larry P says this. Hebrews nine twenty seven states, just as a man is destined to die once and after that to face judgment, how did Lazarus and Tabitha, whom Jesus rose from the dead, not have to die a physical death twice? And again to your point, anybody who thinks about that are great thinkers. Yes, So taking the word it's a point of a man wants to die yes, and after that the judgment right, so saying, then Lazarus and Tabitha they were raised from the dead. They had died, then they were raised from the dead. So Larry is saying, so then that must mean that they didn't have to die again. Right, because it says that's the point that the man wants to die, right, right. Right, So there's several things. That's a great question. By the way, it is, good job knowing versus in Hebrews. The Bookie Hebrews has a certain amount of complexity to it. There's a certain amount of depth and the kind of Christian that can plow through the bookie Hebrews and grasp it all right, So that's fantastic, which we're going to get the Hebrews eventually, so that that's going to be good. But good job on that, Larry. Here's what I would say, the natural most of the time the Bible talks from the natural position. This is the natural way the world works. There's the natural thing whenever God chooses to do a miracle, so he set up the natural laws, the natural law of gravity. If you step off the roof of your house and hit the ground, that wasn't a miracle that caused you to hit the ground, that's just the natural law. The natural law is you fall off the roof. Gravity makes you hit the ground. So the natural way is you die one time and after that is the judgment. Yeah, it's the principle. It's the general principle for mankind, and it's true for everybody. That's true. When God does a miracle, that means that he goes beyond the natural. That's why it's called supernatural. God goes beyond the natural. And in those moments when he goes beyond the natural way of things, he's making an exception to the natural rule. Like Peter was the only human recorded ever to defy gravity and walk on water. Except for Jesus. Except for well, that's right, yeah, but I should say fully human. Yes, that's right, so he so when God intervenes in the. Natural, gum, it's hang on. Jesus was fully human. I know, yes, he was also God. I know, I know. I just I said the word fully. I was just gonna let let the heresy just hang out there for a while. I know what I mean. I'm just not saying it correctly in my mind, and exactly, I know, I know what you meant. Peter's the only other guy besides Jesus. Right, that's that's perfect. So to get back to this topic, because Larry is waiting at the edge of the set for an answer, and it's like, you, two yahoos, why did I ask these guys? You could ask any other Bible teaching guy probably could have got a straight up answer. So so the natural is, that's natural. It's natural that we all would die one time. When God chooses to reach in and intervene in the natural, it's called supernatural. And in that moment, God is making exception to the natural world laws. And so in this situation when he raises Lazarus from the dead or tab from the dead, there's a couple other people. Now he intervened, that was the exception to the rule. But they're not here now, and there's no indication in the Bible that they were miraculously taken to heaven. There are only two people that's mentioned that way. So the assumption would be and Church history tells us Lazarus died again, right, he died a second time. So for you and me, we have a natural appointment one time, and if God chooses to he can intervene and give you two appointments instead of one. But that's an exception to the rule. So the summary would be is that this verse is a natural statement for all of mankind, and Jesus made an exception, made the exception Lazarus, Tabitha, and a few other people whom he raised from the dead, like the little girl. That's right, right, and and so yeah, that's it. So they died twice. Yeah, that's great. And you know what, the second time you die, I bet you you're not scared of him anymore. You know. I think I heard a comedian John Christ talk about you know, everybody says, oh, what a great day that Jesus rose Lazarus from the grave. Everybody, everybody standing around the grave is so happy, except for Lazarus. And he's like what, Yeah, he's in heaven. And all of a sudden, Uh Peter, Saint Peter runs up to him and goes, uh, listen, Uh, God wants you to do him a favor. St. Peter, Saint Peter was on earth. Oh dead, gummets. Yeah, well, I'm just sort of riffing off of John. Yeah, I get it, I get it. Free to go back. It's you know I'm as a sign off today. You know, hey, I'll keep your floating through and stick with me, buddy. But anyway, but John Chris was talking about the fact that he was in heaven and he was notified because Saint Peter's always the guy in heaven, so he's notified that he has to go back, and leaving Heaven to go back to Earth was a bad day for Peter, for Lazarus. Yeah, you go from Paradise back to this planet. Yeah, death and decay, disappointment, sadness. I know my wife is at home right now, putting on her makeup, listening to the Bible guys like she always does every morning, and she's thinking, come on, husband, Yeah, no, no, get together. No, I know what you meant. I know what you meant, and your value goes way beyond pursued. Thanks buddy. Yeah, we love you. So we are in We're in Acts chapter eighteen, and this dynamic duo Priscilla and Aquila are really incredible people and God uses both of them in extraordinary ways in the lives of a couple of the most influential Christian leaders in early church history. Right, So let's pick up there. We're only going to read like eleven verses today. But man, it's gonna be good then, so verse one in chapter eighteen. Then Paul left Athens and went to Corinth. There he became acquainted with a Jew named Aquilla born and Pontius, who had recently arrived from Italy with his wife Priscilla. They had left Italy when Claudius Caesar deported all Jews from Rome. Paul lived and worked with them, for they were tent makers, just as he was. Each Sabbath found Paul at the synagogue trying to convince the Jews and Greeks alike, And after Silas and Timothy came down from Macedonia, Paul spent all his time preaching the Word. He testified to the Jews that Jesus was the Messiah, but when they opposed and assault to him, Paul shook the dust from his clothes and said, your blood is upon your own heads. I'm innocent. From now on, I will go and preach to the gentiles. Then he left and went to the home of Tisitius Justice, a gentile who worshiped God and lived next door to the synagogue. Chrispus, the leader of the synagogue, and everyone in this household believed in the Lord. Many others in Corinth also heard Paul, became believers and were baptized. One night, the Lord spoke to Paul, and a vision told him, don't be afraid, speak out, don't be silent, for I am with you. No one will attack you and harm you, for many people in this city belong to me. So Paul stayed there for the next year and a half teaching the Word of God. So there you go. We meet Aquilla and Priscilla, and I think, if I'm not mistaken, that's the last time it's mentioned Aquilla and Priscilla from this point on. Not allow as you Priscilla and Aquilla, and they wind up having a huge impact. But in the meantime, this is the beginning of the church in Corinth, which winds up being a central church for quite some time. Yeah. And also it's worth nov that Aquila and Priscilla were tent makers, and they're the ones that sort of get Paul going on making tents. Yeah. Well, so it looks like Paul's trade. It would have been traditional with Jews that a boy would have grown up with a trade, even if he wound up being a scholar like Paul, so he probably was trained to be a tent maker. But in this situation they wound up connecting with each other because Equila and Priscilla were tent makers and so was Paul. And you'll notice Paul writes about that a few different times where he says, hey, I didn't take any money from you people. He was coming into these towns and he wasn't receiving offerings for himself. He was paying his own way by being tent maker. Yeahs, so were they. So the notes in My New Life, a life application study Bible says that Priscilla and Aquilla met Paul and Corinth and the Second Mission in a journey. They had just been expelled from Rome by Emperor Claudius and his decree against Jews. Their home was movable as the tents that made to support themselves. They opened up their home to. Paul and he joined them in tent making, and he shared with them their wealth of spiritual wisdom. And then it says this this is worth noting as well. Priscilla and Equila made most of their spiritual education. They listened carefully to the sermons and evaluated what they heard and when they heard Apolo speak. They were impressed by his ability, but realized that his information was not complete. Instead of open confrontation, the couple took Apaulos quietly home and shared with him what he needed to know and until then a police that had been aware only of John the Baptist's message about Christ, but Priscilla and Equilla told him about Jesus life, death and resurrection and the reality of God's drualing spirit. So so really it was you know, Apaulus who had sort of gone off and was carrying on John the Baptist message, and Equillala and Priscilla had, you know, had you know, it's almost like having you heard a polos. Haven't you heard that? You know, it's not just the announcement of the Messiah. Messiah says the Messiah has come, and so they're the ones, and it says that they did do it publicly, they put them aside privately. Y. It happens a little bit later in the story, although it's only just a few verses after the verses we read. The day in this time slot is when you know it's a year and a half long. The Bible says tall stay there a year and a half during this time. During that time he wrote the books of First and Second Thessalonians. He wrote a couple of the other the books during that time. So actually tomorrow we're pivoting into Thessalonians right right, And then when we come back after we get out of Thessalonians, then we'll read about how Priscilla and Aquilla discipled Apollos and kind of corrected some of his theology. And then later on we find in Corinthians that Apollos is one of the great leaders. It's Paul, Peter, and Apollos. They're the three famous ones when Paul writes his letter back to Corinth. So let's talk to us a little bit about Corinth. Corinth was an economic hub. If you know how Greece is designed or built, there's the thick part at the top, it comes down to a very narrow isthmus, and then it widens back out at the bottom. And at that very narrow part, the ancients dug a canal from the a g and c over to the Adriatic Sea, right and they dug this thing so that the ships wouldn't have to go all the way around the bottom of Greece. They could just cut right through the middle. So corinth sits right there on that canal and was Las Vegas times one hundred. It was the wildest city in that entire portion of the Roman Empire. It was off the hook all the time. And then it was every kind of debauchery. It's all these sailors coming in and out. It's the Roman soldiers coming in and out of that town. The people were wild. And then even the temple worship, so there was a temple to Aphrodite there, and the temple worship was with the you worshiped Aphrodite with the temple prostitutes, the male and female temple prostitutes, is how you. So it was a crazy city, and so you can imagine that's why Paul is. You know, he's trying to preach a gospel, but it's pretty intimidating because he's looking around and the world is just crazy. There's no crazier city he's ever been in than Corinth. And so God has to say in this vision, don't be afraid, speak out, don't be silent. I'm with you, and no one will attack you and hire you. For many people in this city belong to me, And I think it's important for us as we're kind of surrounded by a pretty crazy world right now. A lot of Christians are afraid to speak up. A lot of Christians are afraid to declare their faith. They're afraid that they're going to pay some price, and we forget that there are many, many, many people. They might be silent, but there's many people that are on God's side. And so you know, I think that's one of the reasons why we need to encourage one another. The church is so much more important. The darker the world gets, the more important it is that we're connected to a group of Christians that encourage one each other, encourage one another, that there's lots of people on God's side, on the side of right. Yeah, so everybody would have sailed through that canal, everybody would have been to Corinth. It would have been the city that everybody would have had to. Yeah, And so you know, it's amazing how you know people in New York. Remember one time I went to a Passion conference. So I'm going to reference Louis Giglio, who's a you know, part of the Passion movement, and this is back in the day, and he remember him coming back and you know, I was a part of his group. And he said, you know, people have told me for decades that you can't have an effective ministry in New York City because New York City is full of people who are just anti religious and all these different kind of things and it's X, Y and Z, and you know, it's just it's not going to happen. And he said, and yet, he said, we had this passion conference and we opened it up into this huge arena and I don't know what it was, thirteen thousand people and he said, it's sold out faster than any other city. And so it's that reminds me of what you just said. So you know, here's God telling you know, Corinth or Paul. Looking at Corinth, you may be intimidated. You may be told that just because of all the people that are here and all the wickedness and all the debaucher and everything else, that there's no believers there. But they're here right right. And it reminds me of that speech that Louis gave. Yeah to us, that's fantastic, I think that. So because of this encouragement, he says, Okay, well, I'm going to hang in here for a year. Because he realized that Okay, well if there are some other believers, let's dig in and let's get a foothold here. So the church in corinth he winds up. Later on, he writes a couple of books, several books back to the Corinthians. The Bible seems to reference maybe four different letters that he wrote to Corinthians. Some people would say that First Corinthians is two and San Crinthians is two letters, that it appears that maybe there's two chunks or he wrote four separate letters. But he writes back to them and a lot of times, and for them they're Christians, but he's saying, you're living like the world. So a lot of his letters that he writes to the Corinthians in particular, I think are very very relevant to us as Christians today. Of all of Paul's letters, it almost feels like the Book of Corinthia first and secrearitys are written rate at our American culture today, because he's saying, watch out for a living like the world. Be careful about sexual purity, you know, put God first, choose to get along, use your spiritual gifts to serve other people. He's writing things to them that he doesn't have to write to a lot of most of the rest of place, he's writing encouragement. But to them, there's one time, a couple different times, he tells him, don't make me come there, right because they're misbehaving, or he says, you know, word has gotten around that every time you guys get together, you're fighting. And I believe it because I've been there. Right. So they're pretty worldly, and but he believes in them, and so he decided I'm gonna stay. I'm gonna stay for a year and a half. And God blesses that ministry, and out of it comes many great leaders. I have a note for verses ten and eleven, you know, because it says many other people became followers of Christ. It mentions who doesn't mention there, mentions Titius Justice. It mentions a couple of other people. But here it mentions people that Paul talks about throughout the rest of the Bible. Phoebe, she's the one who took the Book of Romans to Rome. She became a Christian during that time. Yeah, I like Foebes, Yeah, yeah, Tertius, Erastus, Cortus, Chloe, that lady she's mentioned a couple different times, Gaeis Stephanus in his household. He mentions him in Corinthians, Fortunatus Akeakus. There's several people that Paul winds up going on ministry with. These people serve with him and sharing the gospel in other places. So he wasn't just there struggling and not seeing any fruit. He stayed in a very difficult place, was seeing fruit. And not only was he seeing fruit and people coming too faith in Christ. These people became ministry partners of his that wound up going on. And so don't under sometimes we overestimate what one conversation or what's one speech or one message should accomplish, and we underestimate what can happen in twelve months or eighteen or two years of real intentional discipleship and disciple making, you know. And also there's a lesson in there. It reminds me that there's power in being in the same community for a long time. So you've been in the community that you live in now for how many years? Almost seventeen years, sixteen and a half. Years, So I've been in this area for since two thousand and four, so it would have been it's been eighteen years. So pretty similar, just like most everything for us. Absolutely, But anyway, but I remember going to my wife and I went to the supermarket way up, I mean it was almost twenty five minutes away in the opposite direction, not even the same county as we're in right now, and had gone over and we went to a Trader Joe's or something, and I ran into somebody and this person actually asked me about like, hey, when you go places, do people recognize you? And you know, sort of like making it a bigger deal than it is, you know, sure, And I was reminded and I said, well, actually it's it's sort of just the benefit of being around in one community for a long time. Yeah, And when you're. Around you can make a lasting difference. So it's a great encouragement for all of us that you know, you're not going to necessarily, you know, make a difference in somebody's life in a ten minute conversation. You know, if somebody is going through real problems, to invest in them, to meet with them consistently, over and over, put your time in. Because when you decide to plant yourself either in a community or in somebody's life, or to invest in somebody, you can make a real difference. And so Paul staying here is amazing because it just mentions it and it breezes over it. Oh a year and a half, just like that boom one verse. But we can't undrest it. We can't even begin to imagine all the time in the ministry that Paul did in that year and a half. It's such such a big thing, and we can't under we can't overtalk this topic. I don't think this is why God gives you your children for as many years as they stay. It used to be eighteen and now it's out in twenty six or thirty years that you can stay. I feel your pay exactly, but you know it's time. It's faithfulness over time. It's intentionality over time. But it's also being intentional about the words you say. So God said, don't be afraid, speak out, don't be silent. So a lot of times what we're hoping is we hope that you know, my presence around them for fifteen years or eighteen years, that presence it'll rub off. But it does require that we're not afraid, that we do speak up, that we declare things. It's the same thing with our co workers so yes, you should live like a Christian. Hopefully they'll notice that you're living differently than them. But you should also speak up. There needs to be intentionality with the words that you say that you're bringing the message to don't be afraid, and then you know you don't have to be alone. You're not alone in this. The Christianity is not a lone ranger sport. It's a team sport. And so God says, so don't be afraid. I'm going to protect you. You're not going to get roughed up in Corein mostly because in Corinth anything goes anyways. It's pretty crazy town. So that's part of it. But he said, there's other Christians, there's other people like you. Many people in this city belong to me, and so this gave him confidence. I'm going to stay for a long period of time, but I am going to speak up. And as a result, many of the key partners of Paul throughout the rest of his ministry. He led the Jesus right there, and so it wasn't just this vague lifestyle of evangelism. There was a direct personal engagement sharing the gospel with actual words. And I just want to encourage our listeners. Make sure that you're also learning how to present the gospel, share the gospel, not just live it, but also share it. You know the best part of that whole thing that you just went through was the fact that you used a cutting edge example of Lone Ranger. Yeah. Are you going to reference Gilligan's Island next for all of our cutting edge listeners? Probably leave it to Beaver, Yeah, leave it to Green Acres. So I was watching petticoat Junction the other. Day, right right, got a good example. Yeah, but I understand, but I don't know if there's a modern day reference for Lone Ranger. So you couldn't let that go. I let the fact that you just yawned while I was talking. Let that go. Hey listen, But you had to come after me studio to be honest on this whole episode. You give me grace because I messed up twice. So you know, to who much is given, much is required. That's funny. You want me to take my gloves off here we go? No? No, Actually, I think what we need to do is and. It's not a solo it's not a solo climb. It's a team sport. How much? Ye? Yeah, Yeah, but there's a solo just came out. There's not a oh yeah yeah. Hey, that's probably a good it's coming off the rails. We need to quit. We'll see you tomorrow on the Daily Bibble guys,