THEMES:
- Tentmakers: In Acts 18, we start by seeing Paul make tents with his brother and sister in Christ, Aquila and Priscilla. This foreshadows the rest of the chapter in relation to his evangelism. Being in Corinth, people there would by tents for their travels as it was a famous port city. Paul not only made and sold tents to the people of Corinth, he witnessed and preached the gospel. Paul was teaching the Jews and Greeks alike how God “tabernacled” or “pitched his tent” among men. God became man. And, know through Jesus and his Spirit anyone can receive Jesus and become one of his tents as well. May this remind us that Jesus has redeemed us to work and spread the Gospel just as Paul. We are now tentmakers too!
PEOPLE:
- Aquila and Priscilla: “A Jew born in Pontus, a tent-maker by occupation, who with his wife Priscilla joined the Christian church at Rome. When the Jews were banished from that city by the emperor Claudius, Aquilla and his wife retired to Corinth. They afterwards became the companions of Paul in his labors, and are mentioned by him with much commendation, Acts 18:2-3 & 24-26, Romans 16:3,4, 1 Corinthians 16:19, 2 Timothy 4:19.”
- Crispus: “One of the small number baptized by Paul among the Corinthian Christians (1 Corinthians 1:14). He had been ruler of the Jewish synagogue, but he "believed in the Lord with all his house"; and, following Paul, withdrew from the synagogue (Acts 18:7, 8). He seems to have been succeeded by Sosthenes (Acts 18:17). According to tradition he became bishop of Aegina.”
CULTURE:
Places:
- V1 Corinth - Corinth was situated on the isthmus that connects Peloponnesus to Attica; and was the capital of all Achaia, or Peloponnesus. It was most advantageously situated for trade; for, by its two ports, the Lecheum and Cenchreae, it commanded the commerce both of the Ionian and Aegean Sea. It was destroyed by the Romans under Mummius, about one hundred and forty-six years before Christ, in their wars with Attica; but was rebuilt by Julius Caesar, and became one of the most considerable cities of Greece.
- V5 Macedonia - in New Testament times, was a Roman province lying north of Greece.
- V12 Achaia - the name originally of a narrow strip of territory in Greece, on the north-west of the Peloponnesus. Subsequently it was applied by the Romans to the whole Peloponnesus, now called the Morea, and the south of Greece. It was then one of the two provinces (Macedonia being the other) into which they divided the country when it fell under their dominion.
- V18 Cenchreael - This was a port on the east side of the isthmus of Corinth, opposite to the Lecheum, which was the other port on the west. And it is likely that it was at Cenchrea that St. Paul took shipping for Syria, as it would be more convenient to her him, and a shorter passage to embark at Cenchrea, in order to go by the Aegean Sea to Syria, than to embark at the Lechaeum, and sail down into the Mediterranean.
- V19 Ephesus - Ephesus was at the time in which St. Paul visited it, one of the most flourishing cities of Asia Minor. It was situated in that part anciently called Ionia, but now Natolia. It abounded with the most eminent orators, philosophers, etc. in the world; and was adorned with the most splendid buildings. Here was that famous temple of Diana, reputed one of the seven wonders of the world.
- V22 Caesarea - a city on the shore of the Mediterranean, on the great road from Tyre to Egypt, about 70 miles northwest of Jerusalem, at the northern extremity of the plain of Sharon. It was built by Herod the Great (B.C. 10), who named it after Caesar Augustus.
Cultural Background:
- A Matter of Jewish Law: “To Gallio, Paul was a Jew like his accusers, and spoke the same sort of language as they did. If there were differences between Paul and them, these differences concerned interpretations of Jewish law and religion, and it was no part of Gallio’s responsibility to pronounce judgement on questions like these. If public order had been endangered, if crime or misdemeanour had been involved, Gallio would certainly have taken the matter up. But it seemed clear to him that, although Paul’s accusers tried to represent the apostle as offending against Roman law, the matter at issue was one of Jewish law. Accordingly, he had them ejected from the court, and turned a blind eye when the ruler of the synagogue was mobbed by the bystanders. Sir William Ramsay regarded Gallio’s ruling as “the crowning fact in determining Paul’s line of conduct” because it provided a precedent for other magistrates and thus guaranteed Paul’s freedom to prosecute his apostolic mission with the assurance of the benevolent neutrality of the imperial authorities for several years to come. One thing at least is certain: if Gallio had given an adverse verdict against Paul, it would have been pleaded as a precedent by Paul’s opponents for the rest of his life; and a precedent established by so exalted and influential a magistrate as Gallio—a much more important personage than the politarchs of Thessalonica—would have carried great weight. The mere fact that Gallio refused to take up the case against Paul may reasonably be held to have facilitated the spread of Christianity during the last years of Claudius and the earlier years of his successor.”
CONTEMPLATING GOD:
Voices of the Past:
- St. Augustine, Earning an Honest Living: “Paul has repeatedly said of himself that he was working with is own hands as to not burden anyone...From these and other such passages of Scripture it is clear enough that our Lord does not reprove a person of procuring a livelihood in the usual manner, but that he reproves a person who uses ministry as a means of personal gain, a person who would serve in the army of God for the sole sake of earthly things, one who in his works has his eyes fixed not on the kingdom of God but on the acquisition of temporal possessions. This entire precept can be reduced to the following rule: that even in procuring a living we should keep our mind on the kingdom of God...With this rule, even if we lack a job, money, or earthly things, our resolve is not weakened, but that lack of earthly things strengthen us for trials and approval from God.”
- Origen, Making Heavenly Tents: “I do not believe it happened by chance that Peter and Andrew and the Sons of Zebedee were fishermen and that Paul was a tentmaker. And as they, summoned from their trade of catching fish, are changed to become fishers of people when the Lord says, “Come, follow me, and I shall make you fishers of men,” so too Paul...was changed by a similar transformation of his trade so that just as they were turned from fishermen to fishers of men, so he was moved from making earthly tents to building heavenly tents. Paul made tents...by establishing churches when “he proclaimed, in its fullness, the gospel of God from Jerusalem all the way to Illyricum.” In this way Paul made heavenly tents for God.”
Footnotes:
Henry, Martin. Commentary on Acts. Acts 17:11.
ATS Bible Dictionary. “Aquila.”
International Bible Encyclopedia. “Crispus.”
https://www.godtube.com/bible/acts/18-1
http://eastonsbibledictionary.org/2352-Macedonia.php
http://eastonsbibledictionary.org/64-Achaia.php
https://www.godtube.com/bible/acts/18-18
https://www.godtube.com/bible/acts/18-19
http://eastonsbibledictionary.org/682-Caesarea.php
F.F. Bruce, “Christianity Under Claudius,” Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 44 (March 1962): 309-326.
St. Augustine. Sermon on the Mount, 2.17.57-58.
Origen. Homilies on Numbers, 17.4.6-7.