You're listening to the teaching ministry of Harvest Fellowship Church in Boyertown, Pennsylvania. You can find out more about us on the web at www.harvestfellowshipchurch.org. We pray that through our teaching, we may present everyone mature in Christ. Father in heaven, we bow before you on this Wednesday night. We give thanks to you, Lord, for you are good. and your steadfast love endures forever. Now we pray, O Lord, that as we study your word, as we are reminded yet again of your promises to us, how you will be with us. You will not forsake us. O Lord, help us as we study the word, that by your spirit it would come deeply into our hearts. might produce spiritual fruit within us. We pray also for the children tonight as they study the names of God. O Lord, we pray that many of them will be saved even at a young age. Help us now, we pray, in the name of Jesus. Amen. Last week we covered the end of Acts chapter 17, the Acts of the Apostles. And in Acts chapter 17 verses 16 through 34, where was Paul? Athens. So Paul's in Athens. He's there waiting for Silas and Timothy to rejoin him. Remember they were separated. And while he's there he was provoked by what? Right, the rampant idolatry. throughout the city, and so it provokes him to action. And so he reasons with the Jews, he reasons with the Gentiles, he's in the synagogue, he's in the marketplace, he's talking to every single person that he comes in contact with. He also engages the Epicureans and the Stoics. Did anybody go read any more about them? What's that? Chapter 17 still. We're reviewing Chapter 17. And the Epicureans and the Stoics, they called Paul a babbler, or we'll call that a seed picker. Remember that? The seed picker, wisdom from the seed picker. Or perhaps they said a preacher of foreign divinities, plural. We talked about that last week. They take him to the Areopagus. They say, sir, please present your new teaching. And they said, what you're saying is strange in our ears. Please explain yourself. And then Luke said, or as the one commentator I read, he likes to always call him Dr. Luke. As Dr. Luke said, the people of Athens, what did they love spending their time doing? Yeah, new things. I want to know about new things. And so Paul then, he addressed the Areopagus. He says, I can see that you're extremely religious people. I saw this altar to the unknown God. And then he described the God. The God who is over all, the God who created heaven and earth, the God who is Lord over all, a God who is not served by human hands, who does not dwell in man-made structures, the God who made every nation from one man, Adam, and he created these nations in their allotted times and in their boundaries. And what was the purpose that he had created man? Verse 27. that they should seek God. Man is created to seek after God. But although they were created to seek after God in their sin-riddled state, they couldn't really seek after God except only as a blind man stumbling around in the dark. But yet, Paul says, this God is not far away. He is near. Remember, we wrote on the board imminent and immanent. He is near to his creation. And since humans are God's offspring, Paul said they should not think of God as a lifeless image, something that could be fashioned in their hands. And Paul concludes, he says, God up until this point has exercised merciful forbearance in the times before the revelation of Jesus Christ, but now, because Christ has been revealed, but now He commands all men everywhere to To repent, and they need to repent, Paul says, because there's a promised day of God's judgment. So how did the people respond when they heard about this resurrection of the dead? They mocked him. We will hear no more of this crazy man. But there were some people who said, more politely, we'd like to hear more later. And so with that, Paul leaves the Areopagus, and we find that some did believe. Dionysius the Areopagite, and a woman named Damaris, and others. And that's how Chapter 17 abruptly ends. So let's move on now to Chapter 18. We're going to cover the first 17 verses of Chapter 18 tonight, and your Bible probably has a subtitle of Paul in Corinth or something similar to that. But let's read those 17 verses. Hear now the word of the Lord." After this, Paul left Athens and went to Corinth, and he found a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, recently come from Italy with his wife, Priscilla, because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to leave Rome. And he went to see them, and because he was of the same trade, he stayed with them and worked, for they were tent makers by trade. And he reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath and tried to persuade Jews and Greeks. When Silas and Timothy arrived from Macedonia, Paul was occupied with the word, testifying to the Jews that the Christ was Jesus. And when they opposed and reviled him, he shook out his garments and said to them, Your blood be on your own heads. I am innocent. From now on, I will go to the Gentiles. And he left there and went to the house of a man named Titius Justice, a worshiper of God. His house was next door to the synagogue. Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue, believed in the Lord together with his entire household. And many of the Corinthians, hearing Paul, believed and were baptized. And the Lord said to Paul one night in a vision, Do not be afraid, but go on speaking, and do not be silent, for I am with you, and no one will attack you to harm you, for I have many in this city who are my people." And he stayed a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them. But when Galileo was proconsul of Achaia, the Jews made a united attack on Paul and brought him before the tribunal, saying, This man is persuading people to worship God contrary to the law. But when Paul was about to open his mouth, Galileo said to the Jews, If it were a matter of wrongdoing or vicious crime, O Jews, I would have reason to accept your complaint. But since it is a matter of questions about words and names and your own law, see to it yourselves. I refuse to be a judge of these things. And he drove them from the tribunal. And they all seized Sosthenes, the ruler of the synagogue, and beat him in front of the tribunal. But Galio paid no attention to any of this. And may the Lord write the eternal truths of his word to our hearts on this Wednesday night. So I hope you're ready. Bob's not here. What questions may have arisen in your mind as you hopefully are not seeing that text for the very first time in quite some time, or maybe you are, but what questions may have come into your mind as we read those 17 verses? Yes. Where is Pontus? That's my first question. Where was Pontus? Yes. Okay. How long was Paul alone? Ben. Okay. Okay. Yes. Good question. Anyone further back than two rows? Did you have another one Renee? Okay. What was the condition of Paul when he receives this vision? That's good. Grace? Oh, you smiled. I thought you had a question. No thoughts, just questions. Okay. Mine's worded a little differently. I put, what was the significance of Paul's working as a tentmaker? Why does Dr. Luke bring that up? Is that a question? Oh, good question. Who is Sosthenes? Does he replace Crispus? Yes, Judith? Did he use the money that he made tech making to help other churches? Okay. What did he do with that money? Rick, you look like you want to ask a question. It's okay if you don't. Just be careful with those hands. Yes. At that time, did you see Paul talking to or the others about who Jesus is so it makes you understand that they already believe. So when did they, or how did they find out? Good question. Yes, Annette? I guess I'm curious to ask what is the role of the pro-consul? Okay, good. Who is the pro-consul? What does he do? Why did Gallio ignore Sosthenes' beating? What does it reveal about Gallio? I'll ask a few more. What were the circumstances of the Jews being ordered out of Rome? What did Paul mean when he declared his innocence of the Corinthian Jews' blood? How was the Lord's promise to Paul kept? Or maybe what exactly were the Jews accusing Paul of to Galileo? What was the exact accusation? What law are they referring to there? Who were the actual people who seized and beat Zosthenes? And what did Galileo's answer to the Jews mean for Paul and his work? So whatever other questions may be in your mind, Keep them there as we now work our way back through the text. So remember last week we saw Paul. Paul's in Athens. We called Athens the unrivaled intellectual center of the Roman Empire. But now Paul is traveling to a place of strategic geographic importance. And I printed out some less than premium black and white maps tonight. So Elliot, if you could see if anybody else needs a map. Is it the same map? It's the same map. So if you already have it in color, You have the premium version. But a map is better than no map. And so Paul is in this, we could call a strategic geographic important place, at least from a commerce perspective. And we might even look at it from this sense of if trade or commerce could radiate from Corinth in all directions, then perhaps so could the gospel. But remember, all the things that Paul's experienced so far, and not just in Athens, but you think back to Philippi, and also to Thessalonica, and Berea, and then Athens, it seems that Paul is coming into Corinth, we could say, burdened by those problems that he faced, maybe even dejected in a way. from this dismissal that he experienced in Athens. And so maybe he's thinking in his mind, is the same pattern going to happen? What's that pattern? A strong start, but then it's followed by opposition that causes him to leave. Is that going to repeat itself here in Corinth? And so maybe he's thinking to himself, how am I going to fare alone in such a large, wicked, wicked city? So let's go back to verse 1 and start to go through this passage. After this, Paul left Athens and went to Corinth. And so after this proclamation that Paul made here on Mars Hill, it was a marvelous sermon. It did not receive an amazing response to it. But after that, he goes to Corinth, which if you look on your map, you can see on the very left-hand side, you can see the arrow there going from Athens to Corinth, and you can see that we're almost at the end of Paul's so-called second missionary journey. But he goes to Corinth, and we think that this probably was sometime in the years AD 51 to 52. Well, what do we know about Corinth? Corinth was the capital of the independent province of Achaia, and it was the seat of the proconsul. Remember, we had seen one Proconsul before, I think it was back in chapter 13, but I could be wrong on that. But Corinth here, so Corinth is a city that has a very long ancient history, but along came Rome in 146 BC and they completely destroyed it, obliterated it off the map. There was no city left. Then Julius Caesar comes along sometime in the early 40s BC and he restores Corinth. He rebuilds it. He makes it a colony. And so it begins to thrive yet again as a tremendous commercial center. It had two ports, one on each side. And so this was a city of seafarers, we could say traders and merchants. Once again, I read all different numbers for population, but we'll just peg it at around 200,000 people in the city. It could have been less. It could have been more. But there was a lot of immigration that passed through Corinth. But the biggest problem that Corinth had was not what Athens had. Remember, Athens was consumed with idolatry. Corinth here has a reputation for serious moral decay. Temple of Aphrodite. So this is one of the big temples here in Corinth. It had 1,000 consecrated prostitutes. So you got your women who are supposedly serving the gods during the day, out on the streets at night. The word to Corinthianize meant to everyone to be sexually immoral. Corinth, the word Corinth itself, really connotated just the expression, here are girls. Here are girls. That's what it meant. And so it was considered to be the foulest city of the ancient world, a groundswell of sin, iniquity, and vice. And we probably have cities today that we might think of that are like that, but this is what Corinth was like. And so Paul now goes into the sin city of Corinth. In verse two, it says, he found a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to leave Rome. And he went to see them, and because he was of the same trade, he stayed with them and worked, for they were tentmakers by trade." So Paul comes along and he just happens to find a fellow Jewish man, Aquila, although Aquila would have been his Roman name. And Aquila was born in Pontus, And so I thought to myself, well, where is Pontus on this map here? Because if you scour it for quite some time, you'll see the word Pontus is not on there. And so Pontus was a Roman province. It's a region in North Asia Minor on the south shore of the Black Sea, which you can't see there, but it was united with Bithynia. So if you see Bithynia there at the top right-ish side, right under AD 49 through 51, if you were just to go a little bit northeast of that, that's where Pontus was. But he didn't stay in Pontus. It says here that he had recently come to Italy with his wife Priscilla. So he's new to Corinth as well. And so he's here with his wife Priscilla, or sometimes the name Prisca is used instead of Priscilla. And I think someone asked or sort of suggested this before, but it seems that the way that Luke presents this is that there's a presupposition that these two are already Christians. which speaks a little bit to the spread of the gospel in other places as well. But here Luke seems to be presupposing that they are converted. But why had they come here? Why are they new in Corinth? It's because, here's the reason, it's Claudius, Caesar Claudius, kicked all of the Jews out from Rome. Once again, and this was not the first time, there seemed to be a repetitive theme there, they were unpopular in the city. And so one of the Roman historians, he had recorded that the Jews were in a constant tumult at the instigation of one Crestus. Now what does Crestus, the Latin word there, sound like? So it's very close to Christ. And so what it seems like is going on here in Rome is that there is these heated debates going on. This shouldn't be hard for us to imagine because we see Paul doing this as well. Heated debates. You've got your Judaic Jews here in the synagogues and you have your Jewish Christians and they're arguing about the Christ, the Christus. Well, Claudius didn't really care about these two groups. He said, you're all out of here. So he banishes all Jews from Rome. But think about the providence of God there. If God had not providentially caused Aquila and Priscilla to flee Rome, then who would they not have met? Paul. No Paul. And as you read through the epistles, what do you see? That Paul considers these two to be vital partners to him in his gospel ministry. And they're going to go on with him to Ephesus as well. And so that should cause us to reflect on our own lives because as we go through things that seem to be very negative events, do you think you'd be thinking positively as you're kicked out of your house and having to flee a city? Probably not, but we should be able to hopefully step back from that and realize this is part of God's handiwork. Whatever is going on in my life is part of God's handiwork in orchestrating his grander purposes, even when we can't see it. And so Paul goes to see them, and he seems to form a lifelong friendship with this couple. And isn't there the truth that we find in the Bible, thinking even of men like David and Jonathan, of the encouragement that can come to us through godly friendships? Godly friendships. And to form a godly friendship requires an opening of yourself. A man that has friends must show himself to be friendly. But he goes and he spends time with them. And in verse 3, we see that they have the same specialized skill. And so they host him at their house. You think of that. They're new to the city, and here they are, and they're already hosting this other new guy to the city at their house. And they work together. And Luke says it's because their learned trade was tent making. Tents were needed for the many travelers who stayed in this city, for sailors who would usually live in tents while their boats are docked there. And there was also a need to repair torn or broken tents all the time. And so what are they working with? It's probably, we're not entirely sure, but probably leather is the primary material that they're using. And there's some argument about maybe some other materials, even from Paul's hometown. But what's the important part here? The important part that Luke's drawing out is that Paul is working with his hands. He's working with his hands. And in 1 Corinthians chapter 4 verses 11 and the beginning of 12, as he writes back to this church, he says, And this is At times we describe him as the amazing Apostle Paul, and Paul's not afraid to work with his own two hands. It's not beneath him. Even if the people around him thought that this was beneath him to do, he didn't think so. But also, on the flip side, what does he not do? He doesn't say, oh, I'm so tired. I'm so exhausted from working with my hands that I can't go out and share the gospel. He's doing that every second that he's not working. is such an amazing example to us. And we see that in verse 4. He reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath and tried to persuade Jews and Greeks. And so when he's not working with his hands, he's engaged in discourse. And time and time again, as we've seen in the last few chapters, this is a dialogue. There's a lot going back and forth. He's hearing the objections of the Jews. He's refuting them. But there's a lot of dialogue going on and he's trying to persuade them. And I think there is the sense that there is success. He's successfully convincing them, and you could say the monotheists, who are the Jews, the polytheists, who are your Greeks or your Gentiles, of this same truth, and that's of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. But notice here that Luke, he's already presented what Paul's message is. So he's not going to give us 20 verses of what Paul preached. We know what Paul's message is. It's the same message, even if it's at times presented a little bit differently. But in verse 5 then we see now finally a reunion. When Silas and Timothy arrived from Macedonia, Paul was occupied with the Word, testifying to the Jews that the Christ was Jesus. And when they opposed and reviled him, he shook out his garments and said to them, Your blood be on your own heads. I am innocent. From now on I will go to the Gentiles. So finally, Paul is no longer alone. This missionary group of these three men, Luke is still not part of this group, but these three men are reconstituted. And as they're reconstituted, we find that now Paul becomes wholly absorbed with the gospel mission's work. So it seems like as they arrive, he now immerses himself back into full-time ministry. And it's probably because Silas and Timothy bring with them financial gifts from some of these other Macedonian churches. In 2 Corinthians 11 9, Paul says to the Corinthians, he says, and when I was with you and was in need, meaning he had needs, and this is partly why he's working. He has to live. He has to supply his own needs. But he says, when I was in need, I did not burden anyone, so I didn't ask you for money. He says, for the brothers who came from Macedonia, that's Silas and Timothy, he says, they supplied my need. And that money probably came from Philippi. They also brought good news to Paul of the Thessalonians faith and love even despite great persecution that's going on. And so Paul now he becomes much more immersed because he has more means in gospel ministry. He's professing and testifying to these Jews in the synagogue that Jesus, Jesus of Nazareth, was the promised Messiah. And how did they respond? Opposition. Fierce opposition. Face to face, even in the sense of being in battle array. And so it says, they reviled him. And that's kind of a tricky phrase there, because Luke doesn't make it abundantly clear if they're reviling Paul, which would be a personal slander, or if they're reviling Jesus. And I think that's the more probable sense there, that they're actually reviling Jesus and the name of Jesus. And so the reviling then would be a blaspheming of the name of Jesus. And so when they do that, when they blaspheme the name of Jesus of Nazareth, he does this literal action that is also a symbolic action, and he shakes out the dust from his robes. Remember Jesus said that back in the missional discourse, which I know all of you know is Matthew chapter 10. I'm not going to quiz you because I know you know that. But remember what did he tell his disciples? He said, when they reject your message, you need to shake out the dust and move on. And if you were to go to Nehemiah 5.13, you'll see Nehemiah talking about the shaking out of the clothes, except it's in a positive circumstance there. But he doesn't just shake out his garments. He says, your blood be on your own heads. Meaning your judgment or when you're at the judgment, you will not be able to explain it away by saying, we're ignorant. We didn't know. No, you knew because Paul told you. And that's what he's saying here. And I was going back and I was reading through. It's a resource called Ancient Christian Commentary, which means that the people that they cite in there are ancient. And the one ancient commentator here, he described this as saying, whoever does not believe in Christ, who is life, Christ is life, he said, seems to kill himself by passing from life to death and shedding, as it were, his own blood through His self-inflicted death. And that carries with it that connotation of the blood. It's as if to reject the proclaimed Christ to you as if it is to shed your own blood, to murder yourself. Now we see that same expression in the Old Testament about blood being on someone's head. Can anybody think of where that is? I know you probably thought of in Matthew where the people said that before Pilate, his blood be on our head and upon our children. But how about in the Old Testament? What did you say? Yeah, Joshua. Do you have a specific thought of Joshua? Or did you just pick this? Okay. Was that in your Bible? Okay. Hey, there's nothing wrong with using cheat notes. But in Joshua 2, 18 and 19, this is the spies who are talking to Rahab. They said, When we come into the land, you shall tie this scarlet cord in the window through which you let us down, and you shall gather into your house your father, your mother, your brothers, all your father's household. Then, if anyone goes out the doors of your house into the street, his blood shall be on his own head. And we shall be guiltless or innocent. So imagine that there's that picture that they were in the room of life, so to speak. And they said, if you go outside this room of life, you're going to the place of death. And so Paul says. your blood be on your own heads, I," and this is an emphatic I, you could even say, I myself, am innocent or clean. He says, I'm going to be able to stand before God guiltless. I'm freed from the responsibility of your souls because I have dutifully declared to you the gospel. And you know what will testify of it? The very dust of my clothes that I accumulated as I stood here in your synagogue and preached to you." And so he's saying from now on, from this point on, I'm going to the Gentiles. I'm going to the nations. Now is he saying that about every situation for the rest of his entire life? I don't think so because remember, he made this statement earlier. Do you remember that in chapter 13? They said, from now on, we will go to the Gentiles, and the Gentiles rejoiced, and as many as were appointed unto salvation believed. That was in Pisidian Antioch. But he's saying, from now on, in this city, in Corinth, I'm not going to spend any more time in the synagogues, because you have rejected the Lord. But I might ask you, did this vehement opposition that he experienced here, did it have an impact on Paul? I think it did. In verse 7 though, before we get to the effect of it, we see that he leaves there. He goes to the house of a man named Titius Justice, who is a worshiper of God. His house was next door to the synagogue. Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue, believed in the Lord together with his entire household. And many of the Corinthians, hearing Paul, believed and were baptized. So, Paul, just as we saw He left Athens. He's not coming back to Athens. He leaves the Corinthian synagogue. He's not intending to return. And where does he go? Next door. I'm just going to walk next door. And he goes to this Gentile's house, Titius Justus. Justus meaning the just one. And this description here of this man is very similar to the way that Luke described Lydia back in chapter 16, verse 14. But what's significant about where he goes is it's right with an eye shot of the Jews. They could just look over from the synagogue and they can see this is where Paul went and now he's with Gentiles. Now we don't know fully if this man here is a believer or if he's just simply a decent hospitable man. I tend to think he was a believer and this is speculative but I checked with Ron and he said this was okay to present that this man here might be, and we'll just say might be, the Gaius that Paul mentions in Romans 16.23. He says, Gaius who is host to me, and the whole church greet you. And so therefore his full name would have been Gaius Titius Justice, and Gaius would have been his personal, or we could say, or his given name. It certainly is a possibility. And I'll mention one more thing about Gaius in just a second. But we see then, at least we know for sure, that it's Titius Justice's house that becomes this center of the young Corinthian church. But what's wonderful to see in verse 8 is that not every Corinthian Jew rejected the message because we see the president of the synagogue, Crispus, believes. He believes wonderfully on Jesus as Lord, and this is the first recorded conversion of a synagogue leader. And it's not just him, it says his entire household, all the people who reside with him, his family, his servants, they're all graciously brought into the kingdom of God. They're given eyes to see, ears to hear. And what a blow that must have been to the Jewish opposition. Their leader is now on Paul's side. What's that going to lead to? More hostility. Luke goes on, he says, many of the Corinthians, and I think when he says that here he is hinting at Gentiles, many of the Corinthians hearing Paul believed, and so there is this great success going on here, and I think it's outside the synagogue. And they're baptized, they're immersed in the water, they're dipped, and so they visibly profess their faith in Jesus Christ by participating in the ordinance of baptism without delay. And we see a very plain instance, as John Gill says, of believer's baptism. Belief and then baptism. Belief first, and then entering into the waters. Now, if you were to read 1 Corinthians, and just get into chapter 1 you'll see that in 1.14 that Paul says that I personally baptized Crispus and who else? Gaius. So Crispus and Gaius were personally baptized by Paul and he said I didn't baptize anybody else because I didn't want you walking around saying I was baptized by Paul. But he did baptize those two men Crispus and Gaius. But then in verse 9 and 10 we see the Lord now speaking to Paul. One night in a vision and he says to him, do not be afraid but go on speaking and do not be silent for I am with you and no one will attack you to harm you for I have many in this city who are my people. Now, I had not really considered this before I studied this passage. But when Jesus here, and this is the Lord Jesus speaking to Paul, when he says to him, do not be afraid, I think there's this sense here of him saying, stop being afraid. He's not saying, I think you might be afraid in the future. He's saying, you're afraid right now, and you need to stop it, Paul. Stop being afraid. Paul is in some form of state of fear at perhaps multiple things. Perhaps he sees there's going to be a spiritual storm. There's going to be a battle. Maybe he has doubts. Should I move on? Is this going to get too tough like it did in Philippi? Like it did in Thessalonica? Do I need to move on? Is ministry going to become impossible here? Should I maybe just stop talking for a while? Maybe I should stop preaching for a little while? In fact, in 1 Corinthians 2 verse 3, Paul confesses to the Corinthians, he says, I was with you in weakness. in fear and in much trembling. So we see him admitting that and perhaps Paul here in Corinth goes through a state of dejection similar to Elijah. Remember with Elijah, the great victory on Mount Carmel? Jezebel threatens to kill him and he's afraid. He runs. You see the same thing with Jeremiah in Jeremiah 15, 15. And in 2 Thessalonians 3, Paul wrote this from Corinth to the Thessalonians. He said, Paul's dealing with a lot. Fierce opposition. And don't forget he's being bombarded with gross immorality all around him. And for a time, until Silas and Timothy showed up, he was lonely. And those were a lot of different things for Paul, a human man just like us, a lot of things for him to deal with. And so Jesus says, stop being afraid, but instead Go on speaking and don't be silent. Keep on boldly proclaiming the gospel message. Don't be intimidated by these Judaizers into saying nothing. Do not hold your peace. Why? Because, Jesus says, I myself am with you. What wonderful words of assurance from the Lord to Paul. Similar to the words of assurance from the Lord to Moses, we see that in Exodus 3.12 and also to Joshua, Joshua 1.9, I am with you, I will be with you. But this is a renewal as well to Paul of the final words that Jesus spoke to his disciples. Remember he says in Matthew 28.20, and behold, I am with you always to the end of the age, the evil, the present evil age. Now, why did Paul need to hear those words? Why did he need to hear those promises renewed in his mind? Because he's afraid. And when we're afraid, what are we doing? We're doubting that promise. When Jesus said, I am with you, and we're afraid, we're kind of saying, I don't really believe it right now. And so Paul needed to hear these words. And is this a voice that Paul knows? It is. This is not the first time Jesus has spoken to him and he knows this voice. And so he's encouraged and strengthened by the voice of the Lord. And the Lord goes on to say that no one will attack you to harm you. And the sense of that is he's telling Paul you might be attacked. You could be attacked here. I'm not saying that you're not going to be attacked, but if you're attacked, no one will successfully be able to harm you. The enemy will come, but they will not have success. Similar to what Yahweh says to Jeremiah in Jeremiah 1.8, where he tells Jeremiah, the young prophet, do not be afraid of them, the opposers, for I am with you to deliver you, declares the Lord. Here, Jesus says to him, no one will attack you to harm you, for I have many in this city who are my people. What an earth-shattering statement. We talked at the beginning about what a wicked, wicked city this was. This is the equivalent of the Lord saying to Abraham, I have many here in Sodom and Gomorrah. That wasn't God's purpose there, but here it is his purpose. He has many elect here in the wicked city of Corinth that he's going to bring to salvation. How? Through Paul. Through his instrument, Paul. And so it doesn't matter if Paul is an unknown man, if he's a little man, if he lacks eloquence, or if he has no wealth or power, he's the instrument that the Lord is going to use. Remember what Jesus told his disciples in John 10? He said, I am the good shepherd. I know my own, and my own know me, just as the Father knows me, and I know the Father, and I lay down my life for the sheep. And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. Who's he referring to when he says other sheep? Gentiles. not the Jews, other sheep. He says, I must bring them also and they will, this is a certainty, they will listen to my voice. That's the effectual call that we've talked about. He says, so there'll be one flock, one shepherd. Now does the Lord tell Paul which people in the city are elect? No, he doesn't tell them that. But he gives them this clear indication that those who are appointed to eternal life will surely believe. And do we not, us in this room here, do we not have a similar obligation to the Lord? An obligation to testify of him to others, to carry on what Jesus told the eleven in Acts 1? You will testify of me? And if you also remember in John 16, 33, Jesus said to his disciples, I have said these things to you that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation, but take heart, I have overcome the world. In other words, he's saying don't be afraid. I have overcome the world means don't be afraid. And I would ask you tonight, have you become afraid at how you think people will respond if you present them with the gospel? Have you become afraid? Has it led you to stop speaking or to be silent about such matters? And if that's the case, then I would say to you the same way that Jesus here says to Paul, keep on speaking. Keep on speaking to the world. What's the result? Paul stays there a year and six months, so he's there for one and a half years. There's a period of rest. We could say he's obedient to the heavenly vision, and now he has greater renewed confidence in the sovereignty of God and salvation. And this statement here of the duration of Paul's stay, this 18 months, it shows us the fulfillment of the promise that the Lord made to him. And this also marks the longest day of Paul in any region so far. But, and you can almost feel like a little storm cloud show up when you get to verse 12 and you see the word, but, but, when Galileo was pro-consul of Achaia, the Jews made a united attack on Paul and brought him before the tribunal saying, this man is persuading people to worship God contrary to the law. So this seems to be here a new event after the 18 months of Paul's ministry. And it's around this time, somewhere in AD 52, where Gallio is appointed to be in charge of the entire province of Achaia, which you see in very large, bold print there on the left where it says Greece. Below that, you see Achaia. So he has a significant area that he's in charge of as the pro consul. And so whatever rulings that he makes carry significant weight and even carry a precedent for other rulings or trials that were to come later. Now, who is Gallio? Well, he had a famous older brother whose name was Seneca, if you've heard that name before in Roman history. But Seneca was an orator and his older brother, but both of these men were forced to commit suicide. by the wonderful Nero, and it was a result of something called the Pisonian conspiracy. which I think is pretty interesting, I had never heard of before, so you might want to go read up on that. What was this Pisonian conspiracy, and why did it cause them to have to commit suicide? But that's not here, that was in AD 65. And so here we see that he achieves this illustrious position of pro-consul. We saw this before with Sergius Paulus back in chapter 13, verse 7. But when he's appointed, the Jews here, the unbelieving Jews, they join forces, they collectively accuse Paul before the judgment seat of Galilee. That's the word bima or bema, the bima seat, that's where he sits in judgment. And so this is an insurrection, we could say, with one accord against Paul, provoked by his success, provoked by the conversions, provoked by the baptisms, and they say, so here's the accusation, this man is persuading people to worship God contrary to the law. He's convincing Corinthians to worship the divine other than what the law describes. Now when I read that, I thought to myself, what law are they referring to here? Are they referring to God's law, or we could even just say they're the Jewish law, or are they referring to Roman law? Which law are they referring to here? And I think, as we'll see in just the next few verses, I think they're referring to God's law, to the Jewish law. So notice this time they're not saying, here's Paul a traitor, here's Paul committing sedition. The real essence of their complaint here before Galileo is they're saying that this Jesus movement here, or the way, it's not a legitimate form of what we practice. It's not a legitimate form of Judaism. And therefore, we don't think you should recognize it, and we don't think you should protect it at all. So you have Judaism pitted against Paul's teaching. So they had Judaism and Judaism was under the Roman Empire. It was a recognized ancient religion. That doesn't mean it was embraced. It just means that it received a measure of toleration from Rome. So they tolerated it and they recognized here's this ancient religion. So they called it a licit But the argument here is that Paul's teaching is an illicit religion, an unauthorized religion, and they're saying this is nothing like our Judaism, which has received some measure of toleration, and therefore this teaching should be banned by Roman law. So Paul goes on to, he's about to defend himself, and it says here by Luke, but when Paul was about to open his mouth, Galileo said to the Jews, if it were a matter of wrongdoing or vicious crime, oh Jews, I would have reason to accept your complaint. But since it is a matter of questions about words and names and your own law, see to it yourselves, I refuse to be a judge of these things. Paul doesn't even get a chance to defend himself. And in a sense, though, you could also think of it that Gallio is not really interested in what Paul has to say, because Gallio is pretty annoyed about this entire interaction here. And so he says to the Jews, he says essentially, on one hand, if this were a matter of wrongdoing or vicious crime. So wrongdoing would be something that would be an injury to a man's person or his property. Think of things like murder or theft or other things like that. So if it was something like that, or a vicious crime, things like fraud, Forgery, perjury, or treason. So if it was one of those things, oh Jews, and clearly he's presenting it as it's not, if it were, but it's not, I would have reason or I would have justification to hear your charge and to judge Paul. But on the other hand, since it is, he says, a matter of questions about words and names and your own law. Since this seems to be an argument over your own religion and the application of it, what is Gallio determined here? He's basically saying, I've determined in my mind that it is. It is falling within the sphere of Judaism. And he says, this is just some sort of intramural debate. This is sort of like two denominations within the Protestantism. And you're just arguing over words and things like that. And I don't want to be bothered with that. And that's what he says. See to it yourselves. This is your affair. Sort out your own problems. It's very similar to what Pilate told the Jews in John chapter 18. he said, what accusation do you bring against this man? They said, if this man were not doing evil, we wouldn't have brought him here. And he said, take him yourselves and judge him by your own law. Figure it out. Now, of course, they pressed the matter. Here, these Jews don't, and it's In a sense, probably because of the way he responds, he says, I refuse. I will not be a judge of these things. These are not things that I have been appointed to make judicial determinations over. I'm not even going to pretend to understand the differences here. Go away. Go away. And he drove them from the tribunal. That wasn't a please leave, nice thing. That was a forceful expelling from the judgment seat. But perhaps you had not considered this, but I think that includes Paul. So it doesn't show here that he likes Paul, that he's showing favoritism to Paul. He gets rid of all of them. Get out of here. And so there's this forceful dismissing of the charges, perhaps even threatens them with some sort of punitive threat to them, if you ever bring something like that before my judgment seat again. And so The end result, though, is that we could say that Paul here escapes, in a sense, from this charge because of this bias that Galileo seems to have. It's not because his message isn't causing problems in Corinth, because it is upsetting the status quo, but it seems here that Galileo certainly has a bias against the Jews in general. Now, in verse 17, the final verse, We see that they all seized Sosthenes, the ruler of the synagogue, and beat him in front of the tribunal. But Gallio paid no attention to any of this. Now, I thought about this verse for quite some time, because what does they all mean? And you could find many commentators who wax eloquent, and they fall on, some people say this was Gentiles beating Sosthenes. Some people say this was the Jews beating their own leader because he was such a miserable failure at bringing the charges here. I tend to lean more toward this being the Gentiles. That there is a gathered crowd here of Gentiles who are here. This is all out in the open. This isn't inside some little room. The judgment seat is out in the open. And so, a crowd would have gathered around. And so, I think here that it's Gentiles who grab hold of this man Sosthenes, And we don't know much about him, but I would guess that he had replaced Crispus as the head of the Corinthian synagogue. And is Sosthenes the same Sosthenes who's mentioned by Paul in 1 Corinthians 1? Did this Sosthenes, maybe as a result of being beaten, become a Christian? I'll leave you to decide then, and perhaps to trigger your interest to go read more through Corinthians. But they beat him out in front, right in the street, in front of the tribunal seat. Is this some sort of demonstration of anti-Jewish sentiment here in Corinth? Quite possibly. And Gallio doesn't care. He says he paid no attention. Is this a tacit approval from him of hostility toward the Jews? Is he placing himself in line with the emperor who had already thrown all the Jews out of Rome? Quite possibly. Does this mean that he was indifferent to justice overall? That he was a terrible judge at all times? I don't think so. But for whatever reason here, he considers it to be judicious to turn a blind eye to this act of violence. Perhaps it was even a sense of teaching Sosthenes and these other Jews, like, there you go, don't waste my time. This is what will happen to you if you waste my time. And so overall, though, This was not becoming of him as a magistrate. What was a magistrate supposed to do? A magistrate was supposed to keep the public peace. This is not keeping the public peace. He was supposed to quell disorders. This is not quelling disorders. He's supposed to protect people and their property. He's supposed to prevent abuse and mischief, and he fails at all of those things. So it does say a little bit about the quality of man that he was. What can we look at from a larger picture? And it's that his judgment here where he kicks them out. What does that essentially do? It essentially passes a favorable verdict on the Christian faith. That's the end result here. That the Christian faith now has, at least for a time, some form of a positive precedent Which means that when people preach the gospel of Jesus, perhaps here and in the surrounding areas, that they're not going to be charged with illegality, which means that Paul's going to be able to stay in Corinth longer. And it shows that this is the way that Jesus keeps his promise to Paul. People may attack you, but they will not be able to harm you. Paul's not harmed here. And so that's really wonderful. But as we consider the wonderful nature of that news, the storm clouds are brewing. It's not going to be long before the prejudice and hostility of Rome is going to be directed against Christians of the way as well. But now is not the time. As we look back at this passage, And we'll, Lord willing, conclude chapter 18 next week. But as we look at this passage tonight holistically, we think of the word that Paul proclaimed, which should be the same word that we proclaim. The word that we proclaim that brings life to some is the same word that God also uses as an instrument of judgment toward those who hear and reject. So what do we do with that? What do we do with that knowledge, knowing that words of life that some are brought into the kingdom and other people it's used as their actual instrument of their judgment, what do we do with it? We keep on speaking. We keep on speaking. We keep on faithfully preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ, and we let the results lie with God. And so I would say to you tonight, press As Jesus says here to Paul, in the same sense, press on. Press on. Keep on speaking. And one final thought, and this is a weighty, weighty thought, because it comes across as just a very quick comment by Paul, but as we consider the mission that God has given to us. And what is our primary mission? It's this region. It's this geographic region. Yes, we support missions. Yes, we support endeavors all over the world. But our primary mission here is what lies right in front of our faces. And keeping that in our minds, could we collectively, as the body of Christ here at Harvest, could we in good conscience before God say that our hands are clean before Him? in the blood of those around us in this area. Could we say that? That's a good question to come back to ask ourselves time and time again. And as we think that, let us also then be reminded of that phrase again, keep on speaking. Keep on speaking the words of the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ. So as I said, next week, Lord willing, we're going to continue chapter 18, and then we're going to get into quite a significant event that happens in Ephesus as we get into chapter 19. But your assignment is to read verses 18 through 28. And I'm not teaching next week, so I don't know if you'll have questions demanded of you, but I would still encourage you to think of them no matter what. Father in heaven, we bow before you tonight and we thank you, Lord, for your word. And I do thank you, Lord, for all those who are here tonight. I thank you for the body that we have here. the desire of your people, not just to know your word, but to know you through your word. And now, as we go our way, Lord, we pray that you will make us to be hospitable people, just like Aquila and Priscilla, that we might greet one another in the warmth of the love of Jesus Christ, who is our mutual Lord and Savior. And also, Lord, we pray that we will remember your promise to us that you are with us to the end of this age, that we might be filled with encouragement to keep on speaking. Help us in this way. We pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.