Bible Guys Classics: Acts 18 Part 2

Hey, everybody, we're the Bibble guys. And if you're just tuning in recently, just know that we are showing a little bit of reruns for a few months, and then we'll be back bigger and better than ever on August thirty first, because behind the scenes we're taking a hiatus to do some very important things. Yeah, we're building building out a new studio and we've got some new structure. Super excited about it. So August thirty first, brand new content. But in the meantime, enjoy some of our greatest hits. All right, well, today we're gonna wrap it up. Wrap it up, everybody. Paul runs into some more trouble in Corinth and then he heads home. Well, he wraps up his second missionary journeys. Wrap it up, he wraps up the scenes. You okay, Hey, sorry about that. It's getting along, isn't it. He's Chris, I'm Jeff. We're the Bible. Guys, So Jeff. People sometimes email us, yes, and so this this is an episode, or this is a segment called mail bags where somebody has requested that we tell a story. Oh so this is from Cliff k. They have a question for us. Yeah, and he says, tell about a time in your past when you've done something very dangerous or scary that happened to you and you look back at that moment and think I should have died or been seriously injured. I didn't have a scratch on me. Oh wow. Yeah. Yeah. And by the way, if you have any other mail bag questions, please email them too info at thebibleguys dot com. We would absolutely love to use your question if we want to in future segments. Yeah. Well, hey, that's a great question, by the way. Yeah. Now, in all fairness, I've had a lot of things where I did have a scratch on me. I had to have I think I've had twenty one different times I had to go to the hospital for stitches. Wow. So yeah, So I've had a lot of stitches in my life. But a time when we had do you have one? Do you have one? Yeah? I do so well, I mean I've had several, trust me. But the one that I wanted to tell was very miraculous in that we were going bike riding. We were doing blessing of the bikes, and at our church we had primarily two campuses doing this like. A huffey or a swin. No, Jeffy, we have actual Harley's motorcycle. Yes, And so we had sort of partnered with George Dylan Uez over at wolver and Harley on grash it in Clinton Township in the area in which we you know, live and anyway, so we had all these bikes and in the other campus with Dave Wilson, he had maybe a couple hundred bikes and we had, you know, a couple hundred bikes at ours. And so we had this blessing of the bikes where we go out and we sort of pray, pray for the bikes and we get together. We did this big, big party over the other campus. Anyway, The bottom line is this is that we had like five hundred bikes that year, right, and we all went out and rode in packs. In fact, that was the message name of the message that day. We were in a series called Drive and we were talking about riding in packs, which is about community. And so we were actually riding in a pack. And I had never ridden in a pack, and I was actually had a chopper. So a guy that actually attends Heritage now he's a good friend, he actually donated his chopper to me. Oh, he said, he said, here it is, and that's the time that I got destroyed. I totaled his chopper, which was now mine. Okay, but he runs the cameras by the way on Sunday mornings. So anyway, I got this chopper and we were on We were on some road and we were heading on M fifty three going south, and the on ramp did like an S. It was like a squiggly S. So I was able to turn left with no problem because it was an intern. But then when the whole pack turned right, they sped up to like seventy miles an hour, and I wanted to keep in step with them. But as I was turning right, I went wide because I was at a chopper right and I hit the gravel. Oh no, and I went down. And the people behind me said I looked like a piece of sausage. And they said I must have rolled straight like a piece of sages on the cement for thirty to forty times. Wow. Isn't it amazing if you've ever been in a car wreck or something like this, what happens in your brain? Because as I was hitting my helmet and literally hitting it on the pavement, like I was hitting it so hard, and I actually thought, hey, wow, that doesn't hurt when you have a helmet on, and so I ended up getting up. They called the ambulance. Ambulance guy comes out. He says, how fast are you going? People around me said he was going at least fifty five to sixty And the guy looked at me and I was leathered up at a leather jacket on. I had just jeans on, some boots and just some gloves with you know, the holes in him where my knuckles were, and I only had a half helmet on, only a half one. Wow. My helmet was scratched, and even the leather straps around my ears were scratched, but my ear was untouched. Wow. So there were scratches on the leather around my ear, but not on. My ears on your ear. Wow. And the only scratch that I had was one of my knuckles was bleeding. And I went down and the bike was trashed. That'll tell you how bad the reck was. The insurance company trashed the bike. I rolled and the ambulance driver says, I've been doing ambulances for about twenty years. He said, I have never once examined a person who explained to me that they went down on the pavement at fifty five miles an hour and get up without a scratch. Wow. And then all the people in the pack said, well, it's because he's the preacher. He's got Jesus looking out. God was like, all right, we better protect this guy. Yep, yep, wow. Yeah that was it. That's amazing. I think God took care of me, man, I really do. Yeah, I'm pretty sure though. The question said specifically without a scratch, and I had any scratch scratch, Yeah, yeah, kind of let us down there, Chris. Sorry, but that's a pretty amazing story though. Yeah. Yeah, I have a million of them too, so I shouldn't take too long. I had. One time we were walking on a trail along the edge of a cliff, the trail kit it turned out it wasn't a trail, It was just a wide spot on the side of the cliff, and so it kept getting narrow and narrow and narrow, where finally we get down to a point where we're back up against the cliff and my shoes, my shoes I wear size eleven shoe which makes twelve inches long usually, and my feet were sticking out over the edge of the ledge as we were walking, we just keep scooting across, scooting across. And I was a youth pastor back then, so stupid. I had a teenage girl next to me, and she slipped and I just caught her one handed like this, And so now she's hanging down into this valley. It was probably we were sixty feet up, seventy feet up, which yeah, yeah, so I've got her by one hand, and there's a teenage boy next to where she had been standing, and so I started swinging her and finally swung her back up high enough that he could get her hand. We got her back up on the cliff, but we had nowhere to go. We had to finish, and finally it widened back out at the other end. But you know, we were on a on a cliff face that was probably only about eight inches wide at one point. And yeah, it's really stupid. I don't know why parents let their teenagers be in my youth group. Well, to be honest, we're so alike in so many ways. That sounds sort of like me too as a youth passager. But I'll be honest, you're sort of wins. Yeah, that was a crazy one. Well, the fact that she lives through it, you know, it was scary. Like that's like my child almost died in your care kind of thing. Yeah. By the way, I've had those, I've actually had them. Well, we have now ahered age. We have very strict rules about our youth pastors because you and I both know what not to do right right, right, So now they can't have to get away with anything not that. But twenty five years later things have changed. Oh yeah, yeah, very much. So. Yeah, so here we are if you remember. Now we finished up in Acts chapter eighteen, in the middle of the chapter where Paul is in Corinth. He's there a year and a half in Corinth, and it's a difficult, wicked city, really wild city, but there's a bunch of people come into faith in Corinth. It becomes a prominent church church. And he writes back to the church in Galatia, which is all it's several churches there right in Galatia. And then he writes back to the church there in thessalon Nika. And those are the books we've read up to this point. And now we're coming back to the end of his time in Corinth, and so we're going to pick up there. Up until this point, he hadn't really faced a lot of persecution in Corinth. So just to be clear, we were starting this series in the Book of Acts. We broke off, did a few books, and now we're back in the Book of Acts chapter eighteen. Yeah, we're just going through the Book of Acts in the order that it happens. And then when Paul writes a book or writes a letter, if we pause in the Book of Acts at that point, read that letter, and then we come back to doing it's happening in chronological order. Yep. So here we go. Whet. But when Gallio became governor of Akaya, some Jews rose up together against Paul and brought him before the governor for judgment. They accused Paul of persuading people to worship God in ways that are contrary to our law. But just as Paul started to make his defense, Gallio turned to Paul's accusers and said, listen, you Jews. If this were a case involving some wrongdoing or a serious crime, I would have a reason to accept your case. But since it's merely a question of words and names and your Jewish law, take care of it. Yourselves. I refuse to judge such matters, and he threw them out of the courtroom. The crowd then grabbed Sasthenes, the leader of the synagogue, and beat him right there in the courtroom, but Gallio paid no attention. Paul stayed in Corinth for some time after that, then said goodbye to the brothers and sisters and went to nearby Centuria. There he shaved his head according to Jewish custom, marking the end of a vow. Then he sent sale for Syria, taking Priscilla and Aquila with him. They stopped first at the port of Ephesus, where Paul left others behind, and while he was there he went to the synagogue to reason with the Jews. They asked him to stay longer, but he declined, and as he left, however, he said, I will come back later, God willing, and then he set sail for Ephesus. The next stop was at the port of Cessareea. From there he went up and visited the Church of Jerusalem, and then went back to Antioch. After spending some time at Antioch, Paul went back through Galicia and Phrygia, visiting and strengthening all the believers. Meanwhile, A Jew named Apollos, an eloquent speaker who knew the scriptures well, had arrived in Ephesus from Alexandria in Egypt. He'd been taught the way of the Lord, and he taught others about Jesus with an enthusiastic spirit and with accuracy. However, he knew only about John's baptism. When Priscilla and Aquilla heard him preaching boldly in the synagogue, they took him aside and explained the way of God even more accurately. Apollos had been thinking about going to Achaia, and the brothers and sisters in Ephesus encouraged him to go. They wrote to the believers in Achaia asking them to welcome him, and when he arrived there, he proved to be of great benefit to those who, by God's grace, had believed. He refuted the Jews with powerful arguments in public debate. Using the scriptures. He explained to them that Jesus was the Messiah. So you think that's where we end, isn't it. Yeah, it is. And so we're really just like we said at the beginning, we're wrapping up because Paul's wrapping up his second missionary journey. He's about to go on his third one. We'll get into that tomorrow actually, And so as he's doing this, he's experiencing more opposition in Corinth. And that's just so odd the circumstances there. They just started beating some leader of the synagogue right there in the courtroom. It's like, thanks for that piece of information. We don't know what that feud was all about, but basically it must have had something to do with the fact that they had no legs to stand on when accusing Paul, right right, because it was something about synagogues in worship, and all of a sudden the synagogue guy got beat up. Well, these are the Greeks, right, So these are Greeks. And it seems like, so do you remember Crispus became a Christian the first time Paul was They remember, yep, And he was the head of the synagogue. So then it looks like Soth the niece was the new leader. And it seems like what happened was they bring an unreasonable lawsuit against Paul, and Sastthenes was the leader of that group bringing this lawsuit. And when Gallio went, no, this is stupid, and he threw it out of court. It looks like the Greeks got mad at the Jews and roughed him up. Right, Hey, don't bring these stupid things into our court. That's what he's doing. That's what's happening there is it seems to be crazy, you know. That's the consequence of bringing frivolous lawsuits back in those days as opposed to now. Right right right funny. So so they have one thing I want to point out one of the amazing things I think we can learn from Paul. And I think that at our church we've tried to do this. I've tried to build our team in this way. Paul doesn't do ministry alone. All of Paul's ministry is always in the context of a team. And so you see many times where Paul is heading in a direction and they're just writing about Paul, or writing about Paul and Silas, or writing about Paul and Barnabas, or sometimes Luke says it was us, we were doing it together. But there's lots of times where Paul peels off from the group. So there's a group that stays here. You've got Priscilla and Aquilla stay when Paul and the others split off and go another direction. And one of the benefits of a team. Going in a team is you can multiply your effectiveness. You can kind of divide and conquer opportunities together. There's so much wisdom and being on a team rather than thinking you are the leader and everybody just needs to listen to you, right, and so there's a lot of value. It's one of the reasons why, you know, people make fun of it a little bit, and it is kind of a standard thing now. But if I get up and introduce myself Sunday, I was the host on the service, but I didn't preach. I got hi, I'm Jeff. I'm one of the pastors here. Move on. It's because my role, my title is I'm the lead pastor, the senior pastor of the church. But I don't want people to think Jeff's the pastor at the church. I'm just one of the pastors. I have a role here, but that doesn't make me any more important than any of the other people who have roles or whatever. We're better when we all leverage our abilities in the context of a team. And that's the same thing for everybody who's volunteering you don't have to just step in and take over a ministry or expect to be the boss all the time. It might be better and you may make get way more done in God's kingdom if you just function well in the context of a team. Yeah. I love that, and I love the fact that you know, not only are you, you know, encouraged to be a part of a team. That's what you just said. Yeah, but you also said it was effective to peel off and sort of double your effectiveness. You know, if that reminds me of a small group, a small group who gets together at a church and they grow so much to where they should branch off and they should each become leaders and take more younger people of the faith in their groups and divide and conquer and double their effectiveness. And this is what happens precisely with Paul packs up and he's got several things he needs to do. He finishes his vow. Of the vow appears to be this second journey that he takes. He finishes his vow, and then he buttoning up some business. He goes to Ephesus for a while, and then he shoots back down to Jerusalem and Antioch and then back he pops back into Galatia in Frigia one more time. So he's buttoning up some business. But Priscilla and Aquilla stay, Yeah, and they wound up having a huge impact in discipling Apollos. Yeah. Now this is so great because Apollos he is, he's sort of famous. He's very famous, yeah at that time. And uh, and yet he takes instruction from Aquila and Priscilla, and he is in humility, he's willing to learn. And so think about this. So he's famous in preaching the gospel. He's talking about John the Baptist's message, which is there's gonna come a Messiah. And it says that he only knew the message of John the Baptist. He's only he only heard about John's baptism. That's what that means about John the Baptist baptism. And then and then Equilla and Priscilla are the ones that have to say, hey, by the way, the one who John was talking about has already come. He's died, he rose from the grave, and his name was Jesus Christ. And so they update him and it says about the way of God even more accurately, and by the way. The Way is the movement of Christianity. It's called the Way. They didn't call themselves Christians. That's right, that's right. And so she's talking about the Gospel. Basically, she's talking about the fulfillment of John the Baptist's message. And so anyway, all that to say, Apollos should be given a lot of credit here because he's teachable. Oh so teachable. Yeah, And so think about all the times that you know, we are unwilling to hear from somebody who corrects us, either in our character or maybe not even corrects us, but even challenges us. Says I have a thought, Hey, maybe you're being this way too much or this way too much. And if we consider ourselves superior or more important or more intelligent, so many times we're not teachable. We have pride, and we fluff people off. And yet here this is a great mom Biopoulos always be willing to hear and to be teached taught. Yeah, so it says he's from Alexandria. Alexandria was the second most important city in the entire Roman Empire in northern Egypt. Have you been to Alexandria? I have not, So it's right on the Mediterranean. See Cleopatra and Mark Anthony were based out of their different leaders of Egypt had built some of their you know, made that their capital city at various times, and it's just spectacularly beautiful. There was a huge university there, there was a large library there. So the city was full of intellectuals and scholars and orders and debaters. And this is where he came from. And he has tremendous speaking skills. He's already famous. This is a guy who's already famous in the in the Christian world, but perhaps maybe just within the Roman world in general. And he's out preaching and sharing the good news of Jesus and all these things. And then these secondary people, so we all know who Paul is. He's a big dog. Everybody knows Paul. Paul's writing these letters, you do all these things. Who's Priscilla and Aquilla? Right? And then, by the way, remember the first time we see them, it's Aquilla and his wife Priscilla, and almost I think it's every time afterwards, it's always Priscilla and Aquilla. So she apparently takes some leadership responsibility and helping disciple and clarify the teaching a scripture with Apollos. This is huge. So Apollos could have been who are these people? Who was she to talk to me about scripture this way? Or about God's ways this way? He could have been do you know who I am? He could have you know, he probably was at the book table, signing books, taking shots with people. Right, he's got his radio program, he's got his books, he's on TV. He's a famous preacher. And these people come and say, hey, so we really enjoyed your message, and they pull him aside. Right. They don't do a public they don't shame me publicly, but they say, hey, there's a few things we want to clarify and maybe we can help you, and he humbly accepts it. Now he becomes so popular the Corinthian Church. They become obsessed with him, not his message, with him, like, oh, man, Apollos is my favorite preacher. He's so funny, he's so handsome, he's so compelling when he talks. I just feel like Heaven opens, right, Holy Spirit uses him. And then other people are like, oh, well, you know Apollos is good, but I pay really close attention to Paul. And then others that were like, well, Paul and Apollos are fine, but cephast Peter, Peter is the best, by the way. You know, he was one of Jesus' main disciples. And they all start arguing about who their favorite celebrity preacher is. And so Paul doesn't blame Apollos for this, and it's coming up in court in the Book of Corinthians. He doesn't blame him for it. But Paul does have to send some correction saying, hey, listen, it's the message that's important, not the messenger. And Apollos again does not even though he's incredibly gifted, he doesn't demand that people love him or look up to him or show him honor. He's a very humble person through this whole thing, even though people overblow maybe some of his or overemphasize some of his gifts. Yeah, that's awesome. This is a real He's a rock star in the Christian church. Oh, for sure. He overshadows Paul at points, right, And so for him to be teachable and to have, by the way, have God's Holy Spirit decide to use both a husband and a wife to disciple him is great for many many people. I believe their great ministry will not be to be on stage with you and me. Their greatest ministry may not be on it be to be the most famous person, or to get the book dealer, whatever. Their greatest ministry is a husband and wife team discipling up and coming young leaders. They're going to have, you know, impact in the kingdom, and so look for those opportunities to disciple behind the scenes, which is what Priscilla and Quillia did. They did it privately, off to the side. So I've been waiting for you to take a breath, so I could actually make sure that our listeners understand what you meant when you said you've made a reference quick reference and said he was probably out there signing books and taking shots with people. Do you know what people might think? No taking shots with. People, taking shots, yeah, yeah, no taking pictures, taking pictures, okay for the fork shots for the watchers. He did a motion with selfies right right, right, yeah, for for the people like me in the world. He grew up around drinking, right because our family family owned the bar. So my mind and heart is so pure, I never even think of those those things. Says to the pure, all things are pure. That's right, that's right. That's yeah, you said taking shots with people. I'm like, that's not that's not what I meant. Yeah, yeah, that's funny. So yeah, so I think I think it's great. I think that as Paul is wrapping up this, keep in mind, he's about to go back out to his third missionary journey, and he's about to visit cities, and he's about to you know, just basically go all around the Mediterranean Rim. And he's and you know, and as he continues to sail and go on these journeys, they become greater. He goes out further right and and his and his whole goal is to just bring the Gospel to the gentiles of the people who are not Jewish and the people who are you know basically you know, Pagans, they were they were polytheism, they were polytheists, but they believed in multiple gods, the Greek gods. And he was about to basically go out there and bring the Gospel to them. And you know what, here's another thing. You just mentioned that Apollos was famous, and Paul was famous, and there are these other people. I think that when it comes down to it, uh, God will leverage your influence in the in the arena in which he wants you to want wants to use you. So let me see that different. The most effective way for someone to know Jesus Christ is in the context of relationship, and he leverages our relationships, he leverages our influence with people. And so I guess what I'm trying to say is, don't underestimate your popularity, which may not be great in terms of numbers, but it may be deep in concerning those who got placed in your life. That's exactly it with Priscilla and the Quilla. You tell me which was more important that Apollos got out and preached a bunch of people, or that he preached the right thing. That's right. So then in that relationship what was most important? It was it was even more important the private things behind the scenes that Priscilla and Aquila did than it was the public announcements and proclamations and messages that Apolis preached. If he was preaching false doctrine, it would have been a waste. And so it's not that there's one more important than the other. It's that if we all use our gifts together, we wind up furthering the cause of Christ more and that's really it. It's all about well, that's a great place to end and will you see you tomorrow on the Daily Bible, guys,