Acts of the Apostles + a History of Christ’s Church
Acts of the Apostles 1-28
Acts of the Apostles:
+ The first century Church SHARED Christ while suffering severe persecution.
+ Luke records a historic account of the Church which gives 21c Christians a context to SHARE the Gospel of Jesus Christ with others.
Read more about the Early Church & add your COMMENT on Scripture.
ACT now.
+ SHARE the Gospel history witnessed in the CURRENT chronological SERIES from ACTS of the APOSTLES.
θεοῦ θέλοντος – theosthelō– that is: IF GOD WILLS. Not only is this Paul’s response to many who urge the Apostle to stay longer on his second missionary journey, but once the Apostle returns home we will see this familiar approach in a third missionary journey.
God wills it.
WHY has the Apostle to the Gentiles remained in Corinth ACAIA for a year and a half?
We might easily ask WHY DID JESUS convict Paul fourteen years ago on a road to Damascus and then five years ago send the Apostle who had persecuted Christ’s followers with Barnabas to Cypress and Galatia back in A.D. 47?
Appearances of the Lord embolden the apostles and followers of Christ.
We haven’t thought of Peter much during Paul’s two missionary journeys, but do you recall how his visions emboldened this Jewish fisherman? He will soon write [in A.D. 64]:
For it is better to suffer for doing good, if God wills it, than for doing evil. Because Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, to bring you to God, by being put to death in the flesh but by being made alive in the spirit.
Once God said, I am with you, Paul proclaimed Christ to the Corinthians for 18 months.
18:12 But when Gallio was proconsul of Achaia, the Jews made a united attack on Paul and brought him before the tribunal..
17 And they all seized Sosthenes, the ruler of the synagogue, and beat him in front of the tribunal.
The Lord Jesus had appeared to the Apostle AND spoken to him in a dream.
Paul the Apostle was unafraid because of what God said.
And how comforting to have the Word assure us that NO HARM will come to us due to our witness of the Gospel of Truth.
Before we leave Greece & ACHAIA
What god said differs according to traditions and culture.
(IF your god is NO God at all THEN human flesh will seek its own desires.)
Athens and Corinth
more about the resurrection?
Although I have already emphasized the impact of culture on Paul's troubles with the Gentile cultures, due to the ongoing importance to his 3rd missionary journey as well as 21st century of the Common Era idolatries let's consult additional commentaries as a summary.
In Paul’s day, Corinth was already an ancient city. It was a commercial center with two harbors and had long been a rival to its northern neighbor, Athens.
Corinth was a city with a remarkable reputation for loose living and especially sexual immorality. In classical Greek, to act like a Corinthian meant to practice fornication, and a Corinthian companion meant a prostitute. This sexual immorality was permitted under the widely popular worship of Aphrodite (also known as Venus, the goddess of fertility and sexuality).
(Pick your 21st c. C.E. city parading its sin. Not so different.)
From Athens to Corinth,
from intellectual pride to sensual lust. – Bill Acton
“There had been culture shock in Athens, and now Paul experienced moral shock in Corinth. Its sweat and perfume and grit smothered Paul’s righteous soul, and he became depressed.” (Hughes)
The duration of Paul’s stay in Corinth shows where his heart was in ministry. He was no “in and out” evangelist, but a man committed to making disciples.
Allow me the liberty to move Luke's account of ACTS 18 from good narrative into chronological order of events.
18 After this, Paul stayed many days longer and then took leave of the brothers..
At Cenchreae [21st c. Kechries] he had cut his hair, for he was under a vow.
and with him Priscilla and Aquila (native of Pontus, Jews from Rome deported to Corinth).
and [they] set sail for Syria (with stops in other port cities).
19 And they came to Ephesus, and he left them [Priscilla and Aquilla] there
but he himself [Paul] went into the synagogue and reasoned with the Jews.
Once again some Jews are responsive to the Gospel of their obviously Jewish brother. All they had to do was take a look at the Apostle's shaved head symbolizing his Nazarite vow.
20 When they asked him to stay for a longer period, he declined. 21 But on taking leave of them he said, “I will return to you if God wills,”
and he set sail from Ephesus.
by way of Jerusalem
22 When he had landed at Caesarea, he went up and greeted the church
Even as Paul has journeyed into all the Roman world since his conversion as an itererate zealous Jew traveling on a Roman road between JUDEA and SYRIA back in A.D. 37 DOCTRINE has been at the center of every CONFLICT as an obstacle to the Gospel of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Saul of Tarsus (CILICIA or GALATIA in those days, according to Roman designation of its local governance) had REPENTED!
JESUS had drawn this great enemy and pharisaic sceptic of the Truth of Jesus’ resurrection across the line of DOCTRINE.
ATTACKS by other Jewish men continue to threaten Paul’s mortal life.
Paul who once persecuted the faithful followers of the Messiah Jesus had been the Lord’s boldest advocate of the Gospel. The Apostle now preaches a NEW COVENT to the JEWS which includes GENTILES!
Paul has been preaching the Gospel of Christ to the JEWS first, as is his custom.
7 And he left there and went to the house of a man named Titius Justus, a worshiper of God. His house was next door to the synagogue.
A.D. 50 - These apostles of the gospel arrive in Corinth ACHAIA.
The Corinthians meet in the home of a disciple of Paul's teaching right NEXT DOOR to the synagogue where the Jews teach embellished Hellenized traditions of the OLD broken Covenant.
The Corinthian church will grow under Paul's NEW COVENANT teaching as he remains there until A.D. 51.
8 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.
Paul had encountered Christ perhaps fourteen years ago on a road to Damascus. NOW, as the Apostle sent out to all the world of the Gentiles is encouraged by the Lord in a dream just as he is expecting attack and opposition and possibly DEATH as had happened so many times before.
NO ATTACK will harm you
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.”
11 And he stayed a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them.
Attack, Trial, Case Dismissed
12 But when Gallio 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.”
Lucius Junius Gallio Annaeanus
Lucius Junius Gallio Annaeanus or Gallio was a Roman senator and brother of the famous writer Seneca. source: Wikipedia
In AD 51, he was chosen to serve as the proconsul of Achaea in Greece. - MORE.
14 But when Paul was about to open his mouth, Gallio 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.”
16 And he drove them from the tribunal.
17 And they all seized Sosthenes, the ruler of the synagogue, and beat him in front of the tribunal.
Did Sosthenes another appointed 'ruler of the synagogue' of the Corinthian Jews perhaps also believe the Gospel of the Messiah Jesus or did he simply fail the Jews in their attack on the Gospel of Paul?
But Gallio paid no attention to any of this.
To Be Continued…
NEXT: Paul’s DEPARTURE & an important port on his return journey.
ἔθνη – ethnos “Your blood be on your own heads! I am innocent. From now on I will go to the Gentiles.”
ACTS of the Apostles 18:6b ESV – Paul’s curse toward the Jews rejecting the Gospel in Corinth
Paul’s persistence in ACHIA for 18 months
Our 2nd mission to Jews and the ethnos so far..
As we near the end of Paul’s second missionary journey the author of Acts who is also witness to this part of it shows his readers how the ethnos (gentiles) continue to be a challenge to the Jews.
Once again Paul began this second mission from Antioch Syria where the apostles’ depart with an epistle to all the churches from church leaders in Jerusalem.
Previously:
But some men came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.”
[In Derbe] Paul wanted Timothy to accompany him, and he took him and circumcised him because of the Jews who were in those places, for they all knew that his father was a Greek. 4 As they went on their way through the cities, they delivered to them for observance the decisions that had been reached by the apostles and elders who were in Jerusalem.
Acts of the Apostles 16:3-4 ESV
6 And they went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia..
“This Jesus, whom I proclaim to you, is the Christ.”
.. they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagog ESVue of the Jews.. he reasoned with them from the Scriptures..
4 And some of them were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a great many of the devout Greeks.. 5 But the Jews were jealous..
.. the Jews from Thessalonica.. came [to Berea], agitating and stirring up the crowds. 14 Then the brothers immediately sent Paul off on his way to the sea, but Silas and Timothy remained there.
Paul waits in Athens for Silas and Timothy to return by separate sailing from Macedonia.
17:34 But some men joined him and believed, among whom also were Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris and others with them.
18 After this Paul left Athens and went to Corinth. 2 And he found a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla..
18:5 ..Silas and Timothy arrived from Macedonia..
(Most Biblical scholars believe that Luke, author of LUKE-ACTS, arrived with them.)
Luke – an ethnos physician from Antioch Syria
Luke was a frequent companion of the Apostle Paul, at least from the time of Paul’s Macedonian vision (Acts 16:9, 10) right up to the time of Paul’s martyrdom (2 Tim. 4:11).
When Silas and Timothy arrived from Macedonia, Paul was occupied with the word, testifying to the Jews that the Christ was Jesus.
ACTS of the Apostles 18:5 ESV
6 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.”
We will go to the ethnos!
Some Jews chained to the cultural teachings of first century synagogues believed that having been chosen by God then the ONLY way to please God was to stick together.
AND leaders of synagogues (NOT places of worship, but of teaching) stuck to select old testaments of certain ancient Scriptures.
The Jews had updated their LAW with rules replacing a broken OLD Covenant which God’s chosen had abandoned long-ago.
SO HOW DOES THIS LOOK TO A GENTILE like Luke REDEEMED BY and worshiping Jesus, THE JEWISH MESSIAH?
HOW DID GENTILES (ETHNOS) like LUKE view THE CHRIST (Greek for Messiah) OF THE JEWS?
We CONTINUE with LUKE’s 2nd account from this juncture between the FIRST TWO MISSIONARY JOURNEYS OF PAUL and a THIRD MISSIONARY JOURNEY with the Apostle’s focus into all the world directly pointed to the ethnos – the gentiles of the Roman Empire even beyond Greece.
From now on I will go to the Gentiles.”
7 And he left there and went to the house of a man named Titius Justus, a worshiper of God. His house was next door to the synagogue.
Lexicon :: Strong's G1484 - ethnosBefore we conclude our 2nd Missionary Journey with Paul let's look at what the Apostle's gentile physician meant in his 1st century account of the early church.
The KJV translates Strong’s G1484 in the following manner: Gentiles (93x), nation (64x), heathen (5x), people (2x).
a multitude (whether of men or of beasts) associated or living together
a company, troop, swarm
a multitude of individuals of the same nature or genus
the human family
a tribe, nation, people group
in the OT, foreign nations not worshipping the true God, pagans, Gentiles
Paul uses the term for Gentile Christians
LUKE’s NEW TESTAMENT ACCOUNT:
ethnos – 13x in his Gospel
Greek ἔθνος (ethnos) – 43x in ACTS of the Apostles
Now there were Jews living in Jerusalem, devout men from every nationG1484 under heaven. – ACTS 2:5
And all the circumcised believers who came with Peter were astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out on the Gentiles G1484 also. – ACTS 10:45
Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly and said, “It was necessary that the word of God be spoken to you first. Since you reject it and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold, we are turning to the Gentiles G1484. – ACTS 13:46 [from Paul’s 1st missionary journey]
“Your blood be on your own heads! I am clean. From now on I will go to the Gentiles.”
To be continued…
NEXT: more from Corinth & the conclusion of Paul’s 2nd missionary journey to the ethnos
Cookie Consent
We use cookies to improve your experience on our site. By using our site, you consent to cookies.
Used to monitor number of Google Analytics server requests
10 minutes
__utmb
Used to distinguish new sessions and visits. This cookie is set when the GA.js javascript library is loaded and there is no existing __utmb cookie. The cookie is updated every time data is sent to the Google Analytics server.
30 minutes after last activity
__utmc
Used only with old Urchin versions of Google Analytics and not with GA.js. Was used to distinguish between new sessions and visits at the end of a session.
End of session (browser)
__utmz
Contains information about the traffic source or campaign that directed user to the website. The cookie is set when the GA.js javascript is loaded and updated when data is sent to the Google Anaytics server
6 months after last activity
__utmv
Contains custom information set by the web developer via the _setCustomVar method in Google Analytics. This cookie is updated every time new data is sent to the Google Analytics server.
2 years after last activity
__utmx
Used to determine whether a user is included in an A / B or Multivariate test.
18 months
_ga
ID used to identify users
2 years
_gali
Used by Google Analytics to determine which links on a page are being clicked
30 seconds
_ga_
ID used to identify users
2 years
_gid
ID used to identify users for 24 hours after last activity
24 hours
_gat
Used to monitor number of Google Analytics server requests when using Google Tag Manager
1 minute
_gac_
Contains information related to marketing campaigns of the user. These are shared with Google AdWords / Google Ads when the Google Ads and Google Analytics accounts are linked together.
