Acts 18:1-17

¹ 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, because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to leave Rome. And he went to see them, ³ and because he was of the same trade he stayed with them and worked, for they were tentmakers by trade. ⁴ And he reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath, and tried to persuade Jews and Greeks. ⁵ When Silas and Timothy arrived from Macedonia, Paul was occupied with the word, testifying to the Jews that the Christ was Jesus. 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.” 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. 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. ⁹ And the Lord said to Paul one night in a vision, “Do not be afraid, but go on speaking and do not be silent, ¹⁰ 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. ¹² But when Gallio was proconsul of Achaia, the Jews made a united attack on Paul and brought him before the tribunal, ¹³ saying, “This man is persuading people to worship God contrary to the law.” 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. ¹⁵ 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. But Gallio paid no attention to any of this.

Paul now moves from Athens to Corinth. The city of Corinth was the Las Vegas of the day. It was a place of libertinism though much of it came dressed in the guise of spirituality. There was a temple to Aphrodite there. She was the goddess of love and pleasure. The Romans knew Aphrodite by the name Venus. The reformer Johann Spangenberg pointed out that “there was a temple of the goddess Venus [in Corinth], in which more than a thousand women, fashioned in the image of Venus, lived in open sin. Satan led the Corinthians into such blindness that they considered rampant shame a service to God.” It should be pointed out that the phrase Spangenberg used – “a thousand women, fashioned in the image of Venus” – was a thinly veiled reference to sexually promiscuous women. The Latin adjectival form of Venus was venerius which is the root for the English word venereal.[1]

That should give you some insight into exactly what kind of place this city of Corinth was. But it is here that Paul goes next, and he goes with the same broken and burdened heart that he had in Athens.

Paul saw the act of witnessing as a responsibility for which he would be held accountable if he failed to do it.

Paul’s behavior at this point is completely predictable. He goes first to the synagogue. While there, he faces opposition and, in his response, he makes a most interesting comment. Let’s watch the story develop.

¹ 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, because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to leave Rome. And he went to see them, ³ and because he was of the same trade he stayed with them and worked, for they were tentmakers by trade. ⁴ And he reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath, and tried to persuade Jews and Greeks.

Paul comes to Athens and makes the acquaintance of two followers of Christ, Aquila and Priscilla. John Polhill has pointed out something interesting in the way Paul and Luke refer to this couple and others.

Paul and Luke always mentioned them together, never separately. Paul referred to the wife as Prisca, which was her formal name. Luke’s “Priscilla” was a diminutive, less formal designation, the form that would be used among acquaintances. Luke often used the more “familiar” form of a name. Compare his “Silas” with Silvanus. “Aquila” is a Latin name and derives from the word for “eagle.”[2]

So Paul takes up with his new friends, Prisca and Aquila. They have two things I common. The most important is a shared devotion to Jesus. The second is skill tent making. So Paul and Aquila and Priscilla make tents and Paul continues his evangelistic ministry.

The church father Origen compared Paul’s tent making to Peter and Andrew and the sons of Zebedee’s fishing and said that “just as they were turned from fishermen into fishers of men, so [Paul] was moved from making earthly tents to building heavenly tents.” Origen went on to argue that Paul made “heavenly tents” (1) by teaching the path of salvation and “showing the way of the blessed dwellings in the heavens” and (2) by establishing churches.[3] While that is a kind of allegorical interpretation we normally do not use today, it seems fitting here. Paul was indeed making both earthly and heavenly tents.

But his efforts were not, of course, without resistance.

⁵ When Silas and Timothy arrived from Macedonia, Paul was occupied with the word, testifying to the Jews that the Christ was Jesus. 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.”

The Jews “opposed and reviled him.” There must have been something particular intense about this opposition. Some have surmised that it was perhaps blasphemous against Jesus. Whatever they did and said, they managed to incense Paul. And it is here that Paul makes his jarring statement: “Your blood be on your own heads! I am innocent. From now on I will go to the Gentiles.”

There are really three statements here:

• “Your blood be on your own heads!”
• “I am innocent.”
• “From now on I will go to the Gentiles.”

The first, “Your blood be on your own heads,” clearly means that in rejecting the gospel and in refusing to heed Paul’s warning, they were inviting destruction upon themselves. They were bringing their own blood on their own heads. This, of course, was a devastating tragedy.

But if they brought their own blood on their own heads, that means that Paul was not guilty of their blood. Why? Because he had shown them the way of salvation, had warned them of the coming judgment, and had called them to accept Christ and be saved. It will be helpful at this point to hear the words of Ezekiel 33, for it is possible that Paul had just this very passage in mind when he said what he said. Regardless, he was communicating the same truth. Listen:

¹ The word of the Lord came to me: ² “Son of man, speak to your people and say to them, If I bring the sword upon a land, and the people of the land take a man from among them, and make him their watchman, ³ and if he sees the sword coming upon the land and blows the trumpet and warns the people, ⁴ then if anyone who hears the sound of the trumpet does not take warning, and the sword comes and takes him away, his blood shall be upon his own head. ⁵ He heard the sound of the trumpet and did not take warning; his blood shall be upon himself. But if he had taken warning, he would have saved his life. ⁶ But if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet, so that the people are not warned, and the sword comes and takes any one of them, that person is taken away in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at the watchman’s hand. ⁷ “So you, son of man, I have made a watchman for the house of Israel. Whenever you hear a word from my mouth, you shall give them warning from me. ⁸ If I say to the wicked, O wicked one, you shall surely die, and you do not speak to warn the wicked to turn from his way, that wicked person shall die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand. ⁹ But if you warn the wicked to turn from his way, and he does not turn from his way, that person shall die in his iniquity, but you will have delivered your soul.

The Lord could not be clearer. If a watchman blows the trumpet of warning and the people refuse to prepare themselves for the danger they have been warned about, they in effect invite their own destruction. Thus, their blood is on their own heads. If, however, the watchman fails to blow the horn of warning and destruction befalls the people, then truly their blood is on his hands for he failed to warn them.

Paul is the watchmen, as are all witnesses for Christ. If we fail to warn the world of coming judgment and fail to tell everybody how they can be saved, then their blood is on our hands. If, however, we do warn and do tell and those we warn and tell reject our warning, then their blood is on their own heads.

The 5^th century commentator, Ammonius, explained this in powerful terms when he wrote the following:

“Your blood be on your own heads.” These words are obscure, but I think they mean this: Whoever does not believe in Christ, who is life, seems to kill himself by passing from life to death and shedding, as it were, his own blood through is self-inflicted death. Therefore he means that when you kill yourselves through disbelief, you receive the punishment of murder, so I am innocent. Following this train of thought it may be also said that he who kills himself is punished by God as a murderer. Similarly if a person is the reason why someone kills himself, he will be guilty in the same way.[4]

Church, we must be watchmen and witnesses. It is our responsibility to warn of coming judgment and herald the way home. If we do not do so, who will? If the Church grows silent, how will the world here?

Paul saw the act of witnessing as a responsibility for which he would be held accountable if he failed to do it. We must see it in the same way.

Paul received much-needed encouragement from God which inspired him to persist and which resulted in many coming to know Christ.

Such opposition can take a toll, even on a stalwart champion like Paul. Having told the Jews that he would now turn to the Gentiles, he does so.

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. 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.

It is a bit humorous that he goes literally next door to the home of Titius Justus! That could not have endeared his opponents to him. And to make matters worse, Luke informs us that Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue, believes in Christ along with his whole household.

In the midst of such successes, Paul still faces discouragement. Thus, the Lord comes to him and comforts him.

⁹ And the Lord said to Paul one night in a vision, “Do not be afraid, but go on speaking and do not be silent, ¹⁰ 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.

There is something powerful about the transition from verses 9-10 to verse 11. The Lord encourages Paul. “Don’t give up! Don’t be afraid! I am with you! I will not abandon you!” The result? “He stayed a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them.”

Is it not amazing how God always seems to show up at our lowest points keeping us from despair? Even a Paul needed encouragement and assurance that everything was going to be ok. Even a hero like Paul could get discouraged. It is interesting to note that Paul will later have to encourage young Timothy, telling him not to be discouraged and not to quite, reminding Timothy that God was with him. But here the encourager is the encouraged.

So Paul stays. He stays 18 months. As a result, many come to know Christ. John Calvin commented on how amazing it was that God worked so powerfully through Paul in Corinth.

When Paul goes into it, what hope, I ask you, can he have in his mind? He is an unknown, little man, lacking eloquence or brilliance, making no show of wealthy or power. From the fact that this huge whirlpool did not swallow up his confidence and his eagerness for spreading the gospel, we gather that he was equipped with the extraordinary power of the Spirit of God, and at the same time that God operated through his agency in a heavenly, and in no human, fashion. Accordingly it is not for nothing that he boasts that the Corinthians are “the seal of his apostleship.”[5]

It is indeed a marvel “that this huge whirlpool did not swallow up his confidence and his eagerness for spreading the gospel.” By any human reckoning it certainly should have. But Paul had the King of Kings on his side, and that made all the difference in the world!

God was true to His promise to Paul and protected him from being pushed past his personal point of breaking.

What is more, God was true to His word, even when it appeared that persecution was coming upon Paul yet again.

¹² But when Gallio was proconsul of Achaia, the Jews made a united attack on Paul and brought him before the tribunal, ¹³ saying, “This man is persuading people to worship God contrary to the law.”

Paul knew the promise of God, that God would protect him, but he must have thought at this point, “Well, here we go again!” Thus, he naturally prepares to plead his case. Before he can do so, however, something most interesting happens.

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. ¹⁵ 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.

Before Paul can plead his case, the proconsul Gallio essentially dismisses the entire situation as one in which he is simply not interested. He sees it as a squabble among the Jews and likely considers the Christian movement to be just a Jewish sect. Even so, he is doing much more that he realizes here, for he is essentially fulfilling the promise of God to protect Paul. He did not know he was doing this, of course, but God can turn the hearts of pagan rulers to his own purposes, and He often does so.

Clinton Arnold has pointed out that “at this point Christianity is judged to be a sect within Judaism and, therefore, a legal religion (religio licita) by a Roman governor with expertise as a jurist.”[6] In other words, not only does Gallio help fulfill God’s promise of protecting Paul, he actually grants a measure of protection to the Christians by saying that the state will not rule against this new movement.

Of course, Gallio is still a pagan, as is evidenced by his indifference to the Jews violent reaction to his decision. Knowing they cannot harm Paul, they strike out at one of his prominent converts.

¹⁷ And 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.

Gallio’s indifference is a hidden blessing for Paul, but it is a two-edged sword. The other side of it means that Sosthenes is beaten. Why does God allow Sosthenes to be beaten? We do not know? Presumably it is because God knew that Sosthenes could handle it. We can be sure that God’s grace was as sufficient for Sosthenes in his moment of pain as it was Paul in his many persecutions before and after this episode.

Regardless, God was with His people and He was with his missionary, Paul. As a result, Corinth was revolutionized by the gospel. The 16^th century Swiss Reformed preacher Rudolf Gwalther wrote these moving words about Paul in Corinth:

But the thing that seems ridiculous in the judgment of the flesh does not lack a most prosperous success given by the Lord. For within a year and a half, by the preaching of the gospel, with the Spirit of Christ working there, Paul set a new face on this city and publicly reformed it: a thing which no lawmaker, no matter how great of an authority, could have been able to have persuaded them.[7]

We must not forget what God can do through a church wholly yielded to Him, a church that refuses to quit, a church that throws itself on the mercies and renewing grace of God in the midst of discouragement and frustration, and church that resolves to do whatever it must do to take the gospel to its city.

 

[1] Esther Chung-Kim and Todd R. Hains, eds. Acts. Reformation Commentary on Scripture. New Testament, vol.VI. Timothy George, gen. ed. (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2014), p.251-252.

[2] John B. Polhill, Acts. The New American Commentary. Vol.26. David Dockery, gen. ed. (Nashville, TN: Broadman Press, 1992), p.382.

[3] Francis Martin, ed. Acts. Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture. New Testament, vol.V. Thomas C. Oden, gen. ed. (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2006), p.97.

[4] Francis Martin, ed., p.97.

[5] Esther Chung-Kim and Todd R. Hains, eds., p.252.

[6] Clinton E. Arnold, “Acts.” Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary. Vol.2. Clinton E. Arnold, gen. ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2002), p.401.

[7] Esther Chung-Kim and Todd R. Hains, eds., p.253.