Acts 18:1-6

Chapter 65

Prayer

Almighty God, everything is in thine hands. It is thine to set up and to pull down; to make rich and to make poor. It is well. "Even so, Father, for so it seemeth good in thy sight." We rejoice in all this rule of thine. Whom thou lovest thou chastenest; whom thou wilt enrich thou dost first impoverish; whom thou wilt lead into nobler prayer thou wilt for a small moment forsake. Thy purpose is all love. There is no hatred in God. All thy ways are light, sometimes so bright as to be dark. Clouds and darkness are round about thy throne, but in thyself is no darkness at all. Thou knowest that we are here but for a little time, and during that little time thou art training us for the eternal day, for the unwearying service in the everlasting temple. Thou dost train us variously, but always with tender wisdom. Take thine own way with us, for we are thine, and into thine hands we fall in the name of Jesus Christ, our only, because infinite, Saviour. We assemble in his name. His resurrection day is the brightness of our time; his triumph over death is our victory in pledge and earnest. Because Jesus lives, we shall live also. This is his own sweet word, and we cannot part with it. It is the angel that sings in the house, and that makes the night of trouble better than many a day of joy. We stand in Christ Jesus the Lord. When we have least to say it is because our hearts are full of wonder, love, and praise, for which there are no words. Enable us to live in Christ Jesus, the Priest of the world, the Saviour of sinners, the Redeemer of all that have transgressed. May we learn of him. May we know his very Spirit and reproduce it in our own. He was pure, gentle, true, self-forgetting, sin-forgiving; when he was reviled, he reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not, but committed himself unto him that judgeth righteously. May we attain the measure of the stature of perfect men in Christ Jesus. This is beyond our ability, but thy grace is sufficient for us, thy Spirit is our Comforter. The Spirit of Truth dwells with us, yea, dwells within us, and it is his purpose to purify us and make us like our Lord. May we not interrupt the sacred work by impatience, or by ill-nature, or ingratitude; but may we abide constantly in the 6ure confidence that all things work together for good to them that love God. If thou wilt enrich us with this faith, we shall never be poor again. To have this faith is to have all things things present and things to come. Lord, increase our faith! We bless thee that we are united in Christian love. We thank thee for a new object which constrains our love, and binds to itself all our desires. That object is to know thee and to glorify thee in and through the blessed Son of thy love. We would have no other care; each would say for himself, "For me to live is Christ. God forbid that I should glory, save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ." May each remember this holy vow, and breathe its spirit, that he may live loyally the life of sacrifice and the life of eternal hope. We know how wanting we are, lacking in every good quality, often speaking good words and forgetting to obey them; but thou knowest our fall, thou rememberest our beginnings. If we forget the hole out of which we were dug, thou dost never forget. Have pity upon us! We often mean better than we do. Our purpose is often thine own creation; it is our unworthy deed that seems to throw discredit on the inspired motive. We are unequal; the force within is Divine, but it is marred in the expression because of our fallen humanity. Lord, pity us! Thou Triune God, let thy compassion fall upon us! Make the house a home. Train up all the little children thyself. Set them in such trades and occupations as are best for them when their schooling days are done, tell each what he ought to be, according to thy will, and let his little young heart accept the destiny with eager love. Spare all that will make the world better. Thou dost seem to take away the teacher and the reformer and the wise, and to leave behind many we could well spare. This is our ignorance. Thou art the Husbandman; pluck what thou wilt where thou wilt, the trees are all thine. We have nothing that we have not received. Heal the sick. How long their days! How longer still their nights! How wearily the time moves! Sit beside them, look at them, touch them, speak to their inward hearing, and then they will forget all time and darkness, night and day, for they will be living with the Lord. Reconcile us to all thy way. Send messages to us from the sanctuary, and grant us a great reviving. Let thy Spirit fall upon this assembly and upon all our interests, and inspire us with heroic faith and enrich us with inexhaustible patience. Amen.

Act 18:1-6

1. After these things he departed from Athens [ Act 1:4 ], and came to Corinth [Julius Cæsar had rebuilt Corinth, constituting it a colony and the provincial capital, Acts 1:12 . It was now again, after lying waste from b.c. 146 to b.c. 46, the greatest commercial city in Greece, while Athens was but a superannuated university town, Act 17:21 ].

2. And he found a certain Jew named Aquila, a man of Pontus by race, lately come from Italy [from Rome, his dwelling-place, whither also he returned, Rom 16:3 ] with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to depart from Rome [Suetonius tells us the name of the chief agitator of the Jews was Chrestus; not "Christus," which name he rightly spells when mentioned. Chrestus was a common slave name].

3. And he came unto them; and because he was of the same trade, he abode with them, and they wrought [to assume that Aq. and Pris. were Christians already, in order to account for Paul's intimacy with them, is both gratuitous and ignores the actual reason, the Jewish custom, which Luke gives]: for by their trade they were tent-makers [ tent-tailors. A Cilician industry; the goat-hair rugs themselves were called cilicia ].

4. And he reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath, and persuaded Jews and Greeks [proselytes of the gate].

5. But when Silas [ Act 17:10 ] and Timothy [ Act 17:14-15 ] came down from Macedonia [from Thessalonica, whither, on second thoughts comp. Act 17:15 with 1Th 3:1 Paul had directed Timothy to go], Paul was constrained by the word [G. "seized upon by the word." The opposite experience is when the minister has difficulty in "finding a text"!], testifying to the Jews that Jesus was the Christ [Messiah].

6. And when they opposed themselves [to this word], and blasphemed, he shook out his raiment [Matthew 23:35 ; Rom 13:2 ], and said unto them, Your blood be upon [ 2Th 1:8 ] your own heads; I am clean; from henceforth I will go unto the Gentiles [ Act 13:46 ].

At Corinth

"PAUL departed from Athens." The Athenians said when they left him, "We will hear thee again of this matter." How like selfish human talk that is! They forgot, what we too forget, that there are two parties in every contract. When did it occur to a selfish man that he had anything to consider but his own purpose and his own convenience? It did not occur to the Athenian mind that perhaps Paul himself would not be there the next day! "Paul departed" the sun goes, the preacher ceases to preach, the vain hearer says, "I will hear thee again concerning these things," and perhaps when that hearer returns Paul is not there! How then? We think the sun will always be present. We take for granted that our mercies, privileges, and opportunities will always be available. This is vanity; this is selfishness; this is the very sin of sin. We read in sacred Scripture that "the door was shut." The laggards came again and found that the door was shut. They never thought about the door being possibly closed! We think we can go to church when we like, and take up the broken hymn where we left it. Some day we shall find that "the door is shut." We go back to Mars' Hill and find the teacher gone. "Behold, the days come, saith the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord " the famine that kills the soul! Whilst Paul is available make the most of him. Whilst the Redeemer tarries tarry along with the sacred Presence. "Seek ye the Lord while he may be found; call ye upon him while he is near." There have been those who went away to buy oil for themselves, and when they came back the chance was gone; there was nothing left but the outer darkness! Now is the accepted time!

"Paul departed from Athens and came to Corinth," the apostolic journey, as we have seen, of about forty miles. Probably he did not go by road; that might have taken him a long time. The supposition is that he crossed by water for about five hours, and then walked some eight miles to Corinth, and Corinth did not know he had come! The only event that lifts up Corinth in history was an event that Corinth knew nothing of! Corinth was the Venice of Southern Greece, so situated as to catch two civilizations the east and the west; and a right gay city was Corinth! The Corinthians could drink and dance and follow the devil through all the mazes of his pranks and antics! The Corinthians were skilled in sin. There was no city superior to it in its devotion to the altar of darkness. A little blear-eyed Jew went into it with a sore heart, and Corinth that night sang as loudly, drank as deeply, showed its finery with as base and vain a profusion as if the wandering Jew had never been born! The man may have come into London last night who will invest the metropolis with its sublimest fame. Poor man! living in one of the poorest lodging-houses in all the city, perhaps having hardly enough to pay for this morning's breakfast perhaps he may be in this house. We do not know what is happening. Give us drink enough, meat enough, drum and trumpet and dance enough, and what care we what Jew or Gentile is making his way amongst us? We have no eye but for purple and fine linen, and no palate but for sumptuous fare. Poor Jew with the Christian fanaticism in his heart! Poor, ill-shapen Jew, laughed at by every man of form and nobleness, with an idea in his mind that the world is to be saved by the Cross! Put him in anywhere, his room is better than his company. All things fail but truth. The fine gold becomes dim, and the canker-worm eats the fine clothing, and the painted cheek shows at last its well concealed ghastliness, and the noble frame falls down a meal for death, a festival for worms! But truth, spiritual truth the kind of truth that gets down through the fancy, imagination, taste, feeling, right away into the very heart's heart, that lives when gorgeous palaces and Corinthian grandeurs and vanities are forgotten this is immortality. Not iron, or brass, or things of outward beauty made with hands, but the inner loveliness, the meek and quiet spirit, the pure heart, the truth-loving mind, the soul that yearns for God these shall abide. The sun himself shall sink in years, but the truth of the living God will be the light of the universe when that poor celestial spark is utterly forgotten!

Had the visit to Athens been without advantage? We were sorry for Paul when he turned away from the Athenian city, mocked by Athenian taste. We felt grieved that such a fire should have been extinguished by such indifference. Was the visit, then, wholly without advantage? No. It involved a great lesson to Paul upon the art and mystery of preaching. He preached better at Corinth than he did at Athens. We noticed that in his Athenian discourse there was hardly an evangelical tone. It was a classical speech; it was addressed to a speculative question; it involved that which was practical indeed, but the whole subject was approached in a philosophical spirit. Men are not philosophers, and that is the reason why philosophy seldom touches them. He who speaks to the heart is the true Christian philosopher. In going his forty miles from Athens, Paul seems to have said to himself, "No more preaching like that for me. Give me another chance and I will preach in another tone." So when he came to Corinth he did, and when he wrote to the Corinthians he said, in the second chapter of his First Epistle, "And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God (I learned at Athens that that would never do again, so) I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ and him crucified." The visit to Athens was not in vain. For once, poor Apostle, he tried to talk the Grecian speech, and when he was done they mocked him and said, "We will hear thee again, thou seed-pecker." Going to Corinth he said, "I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling." There he will succeed! He made room for the Lord. He seemed (only seemed) to have got up a sermon for Athens, and when the Athenians heard it they mocked both him and his discourse. But at Corinth he got nothing up; he said, "Lord, take thy way. I am here, play what music thou wilt upon me." "My speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power; that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men but in the power of God." That is the way to make the best of your losses! Here is the secret of the true treatment of human failures. When you are going from the Athens in which you have failed to the Corinth in which you may have another opportunity, put some sharp questions to yourselves. Say, "How was it that I made no impression there? Where was the flaw? Was my tone wrong? Was the substance of my matter wrong? Was my spirit a little too controversial, or contentious? Did I lower the dignity of the Gospel and make it one of many, as if the Athenians had as much right to speak about these things as I had? I see it now. Let me but stand up in Corinth and, God helping me, the Corinthians shall hear of Christ and the Cross!"

Entering Corinth, Paul "found a certain Jew, named Aquila." How did he find him? He found a "certain Jew" amid a population of tens of thousands! How do we find one another? That is a social mystery. We "came together." How? How do the roots know where the sun is? You put stones upon them and they still work their way, and more stones and still they are growing as fast as they can. What is their purpose? To find the sun! There are mysteries of the earth as well as mysteries of the written Word. Paul had never seen Aquila before, and yet when they met and hand touched hand, they had been with one another from eternity! Banish chance from all your criticism of life. There is no chance, but the chance of the eternal purpose.

Paul came unto Aquila and Priscilla, "and because he was of the same craft, he abode with them, and wrought; for by their occupation they were tent-makers." It did not follow that they were therefore poor. According to the Jewish law every man was bound to bring up his son to some way of getting his living. Some Christians have outlived that fanaticism. According to the Jewish law, if a man did not bring up his son to a trade he was said to bring him up to be a thief. There are many such thieves in Christendom! Why do you not learn to work? You can easily set it down if you can do without it. He is not the gentleman whose only claim to the title is that he cannot make his own living. He must then get somebody to make it for him! Will you submit to the humiliation?

In the fourth verse we read that Paul "reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath." So the first verse is explained in the fourth. The first verse is this: "After these things Paul departed from Athens"; and we thought he had departed from the work! He had not changed the work, he had only changed the city. The word "departed" in the first verse made us feel apprehensive. We said as Paul went away, "Is he then disgusted with the work? Has he seen its folly? Does he now see that epicureanism and stoicism, as represented in Athenian life, are better than Christian devotion? Will he preach no more?" We wait until the forty-mile journey is completed, and, behold, Paul is once more in the synagogue every Sabbath, persuading the Jews and the Greeks. What a hold this Christian work gets upon a man! You can give up almost any other kind of work, but who can give up the service of the Cross? We have seen enough of the results of Paul's preaching to lead us to suppose that if any other man might have given up the work Paul might have surrendered it, for surely he was badly treated in the exercise of his ministry! But the work gets hold of the heart. It pays poor wages; it makes no worldly promises; it tells a man that he will be buffeted, and stigmatized, and sneered at. Many a Christian preacher occupies a lower social level than he might under some circumstances have done. Still, the work gets hold of his heart; he cannot give it up. That is plainly proved. In the old, old time the enemy was determined to put down this preaching; he would have no more of it, and he tried his very best, and what was the result? As for the preachers, "they were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented; they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth;" and no man gave up the work. That is its best vindication! If they had been man-made preachers they would have changed their occupation, but being born of the incorruptible seed of the Divine will and purpose they were faithful unto the end.

Paul gains some new experience in Corinth; he puts down this note in his book: "For I think that God hath set forth us the apostles last, as it were appointed to death: for we are made a spectacle unto the world, and to angels, and to men.... Even unto this present hour we both hunger, and thirst, and are naked, and are buffeted, and have no certain dwelling-place; and labour, working with our own hands: being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we suffer it; being defamed, we intreat: we are made as the filth of the world, and are the offscouring of all things unto this day." Why then did he not give it all up? He could not. In the very first words we heard from his lips the reason was given. I have read from first Corinthians, fourth chapter, ninth verse; and in the opening of that verse you have the whole secret: "For I think that GOD hath set forth." It is God's doing. God takes us to the whipping-post and sets us within reach of the mocker. This is God's discipline; this is the way he will test our sincerity and reveal his Gospel. Let a man think that his ill-treatment is limited by human spite and malice, and he will surrender his mission; but let him feel that GOD hath set him there to be mocked, ill-treated, defamed, spat upon, and he will accept all this base treatment as part of the sacred discipline. The enemy would have no power over us but with God's permission. The devil cannot add one link unto his chain until God enables him to forge it. The whole thing is in God's keeping. Seize that idea, and you will be quiet with the peace of heaven.