Verses 1-28
Chapter 18
Its very position made Corinth (Greek #2882)
a key city of Greece. Greece is almost cut in two by the sea. On one
side is the Saronic Gulf with its port of Cenchrea and on the other is
the Corinthian Gulf with its port of Lechaeum. Between the two there is a
neck of land less than five miles across and on that isthmus stood
Corinth. All north and south traffic in Greece had to pass through
Corinth because there was no other way, Men called her "The Bridge of
Greece." But the voyage round the southern extremity of Greece was a
voyage of great peril. The southernmost cape was Cape Malea and to round
it was the equivalent of rounding Cape Horn. The Greeks had a proverb,
"Let him who thinks of sailing round Malea make his will." Consequently
the east to west trade of the Mediterranean also passed through Corinth,
for men chose that way rather than the perilous voyage round Malea.
Corinth was "the market place of Greece."
Corinth was more than a great commercial centre. She was the
home of the Isthmian Games which were second only to the Olympic Games.
Corinth was also a wicked city. The Greeks had a verb, "to play
the Corinthian," which meant to live a life of lustful debauchery. The
word "Corinthian" came into the English language to describe in regency
times a reckless, roistering buck. In Greece if ever a Corinthian was
shown on the stage he was shown drunk. Dominating Corinth stood the hill
of the Acropolis. The hill was not only a fortress; it was a temple of
Aphrodite. In its great days the temple had one thousand priestesses of
Aphrodite who were sacred prostitutes and who, at evening, came down to
the city streets to ply their trade. It had become a proverb, "Not every
man can afford a journey to Corinth."
This was the city in which Paul lived and worked and had some of
his greatest triumphs. When he was writing to the Corinthians he made a
list of all kinds of wickedness. "Do you not know that the unrighteous
will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither the
immoral, nor idolators, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor thieves,
nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor robbers will inherit
the kingdom of God." And then comes the triumphant phrase, "and such
were some of you" (1 Corinthians 6:9-11). The very iniquity of Corinth was the opportunity of Christ.
18:1-11 After this
Paul left Athens and came to Corinth. There he found a Jew called
Aquila, who was a native of Pontus, but who had newly arrived from Italy
with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had decreed that all Jews
must leave Rome. Paul went in to these people, and, because they had the
same craft as he had. he worked with them; for they were leather
workers to trade. Every Sabbath he debated in the synagogue and he won
over both Jews and Greeks.
When Silas and Timothy
came down from Macedonia, Paul proceeded to devote himself entirely to
preaching and he kept testifying to the Jews that Jesus was God's
Anointed One. When they opposed him and spoke blasphemous words he shook
out his raiment against them and said, "Your blood be on your own head;
I am clean; from now on I will go to the Gentiles." So he removed from
there and went to the house of a man called Titus Justus, who was a
worshipper of God, and whose house was next door to the synagogue.
Crispus, the president of the synagogue, believed in the Lord with all
his household. And many of the Corinthians listened and believed and
were baptized. The Lord said to Paul in a vision by night, "Stop being
afraid; go on speaking and do not be silent, because I am with you and
no one will lay hands on you to hurt you, for many people are mine in
this city." He settled there for a year and six months, teaching the
word of God among them.
Here we have a vivid light on the kind of life that Paul lived.
He was a rabbi and according to Jewish practice every rabbi must have a
trade. He must take no money for preaching and teaching and must make
his own living. The Jew glorified work. "Love work," they said. "He who
does not teach his son a trade teaches him robbery." "Excellent," they
said.. "is the study of the law along with a worldly trade; for the
practice of them both makes a man forget iniquity; but all law without
work must in the end fail and causes iniquity." So we find rabbis
following every respectable trade. It meant that they never became
detached scholars and always knew what the life of the working-man was
like.
Paul is described as a tent-maker. Tarsus (Greek #5019), was in Cilicia (Greek #2791);
in that province there were herds of a certain kind of goat with a
special kind of fleece. Out of that fleece a cloth called cilicium was
made which was much used for making tents and curtains and hangings.
Doubtless Paul worked at that trade, although the Greek word used means
more than a tent-maker; it means a leather-worker and Paul must have
been a skilled craftsman. Always he gloried in the fact that he was a
burden to no man (1 Thessalonians 2:9; 2 Thessalonians 3:8; 2 Corinthians 11:9).
But very likely when Silas and Timothy arrived they brought a present,
perhaps from the church at Philippi, which loved Paul so much; and that
present made it possible for him to devote his whole time to preaching.
It was in A.D. 49 that Claudius banished all the Jews from Rome and it
must have been then that Aquila and Priscilla came to Corinth.
Just when Paul needed it God spoke to him. Often he must have
been daunted by the task that faced him in Corinth. He was a man of
intense emotions and often he must have had his hours of reaction. But
when God gives a man a task to do, he also gives him the power to do it.
In the presence of God Paul found his courage and his strength.
18:12-17 When Gallio
was proconsul of Asia, the Jews got together to make an attack on Paul.
They brought him to the judgment seat and said, "This man seduces men to
worship God contrary to the Law." When Paul was going to speak, Gallio
said to the Jews, "You Jews, if this were a matter of crime or of wicked
misbehaviour I would of course listen with patience to you; but if this
is a question of talk and words and a law observed by you, see to it
yourselves. I have no wish to be judge of these things." So he drove
them from his judgment seat. And they all took Sosthenes, the president
of the synagogue, and beat him before the judgment seat. And Gallio took
no account of these things.
As usual the Jews sought to make trouble for Paul. It was very
likely that it was when Gallio first entered into his proconsulship that
the Jews attempted to get him to act against the Christians, trying to
influence him before he was settled in. Gallio was famous for his
kindness. Seneca, his brother, said of him, "Even those who love my
brother Gallio to the utmost of their power do not love him enough." and
also, "No man was ever as sweet to one as Gallio is to all." The Jews
sought to take advantage of Gallio but he was an impartial Roman. He was
well aware that Paul and his friends were not guilty of any crime and
that the Jews were trying to use him for their own purposes. At the side
of the judgment seat were his lictors armed with their official rods
and he ordered them to drive the Jews from his Judgment seat. The King
James Version translates the latter part of Acts 18:17,
"Gallio cared for none of those things." That has often been taken to
mean that Gallio was uninterested, but its real meaning is that he was
absolutely impartial and refused to allow himself to be influenced.
In this passage we see the indisputable value of a Christian
life. Gallio knew that there was no fault which could be found with Paul
and his friends.
18:18-23 After Paul
had remained there many days longer he took leave of the brethren and
sailed away to Syria, and Priscilla and Aquila went with him. At
Cenchrea he had his head shorn for he had a vow. They arrived at Ephesus
and he left them there. He himself went into the synagogue and debated
with the Jews. They asked him to stay a longer time but he would not
consent to do so, but he took leave of them saying, "God willing, I will
come back to you again." and he set out from Ephesus. When he had
landed at Caesarea he went up and greeted the church and then came down
to Antioch. When he had spent some time there he went away and he went
successively through the Galatian country and Phrygia, establishing all
the disciples.
Paul was on the way home. His route was by Cenchrea, the port
of Corinth, and thence to Ephesus. Then he went to Caesarea; from there
he went up and greeted the church which means that he went up to see the
leaders at Jerusalem; after that he went back to Antioch from which he
had started.
At Cenchrea he had his head shorn because of a vow. When a Jew
specially wished to thank God for some blessing he took the Nazirite vow
(Numbers 6:1-21).
If that vow was carried out in full it meant that for thirty days he
neither ate meat nor drank wine; and he allowed his hair to grow. At the
end of the thirty days he made certain offerings in the Temple; his
head was shorn and the hair was burned on the altar as an offering to
God. No doubt Paul was thinking of all God's goodness to him in Corinth
and took this vow to show his gratitude.
The story of the Third Missionary Journey begins at Acts 18:23.
It began with a tour of Galatia and Phrygia to confirm the brethren
there. Paul then moved on to Ephesus where he remained for nearly three
years. From there he went to Macedonia; he then crossed over to Troas
and proceeded by way of Miletus, Tyre and Caesarea to Jerusalem.
18:24-28 A Jew called
Apollos, who was a native of Alexandria and a man of culture, arrived in
Ephesus. He was able to use the scriptures to great effect. This man
had been instructed in The Way of the Lord. He was full of enthusiasm
and he told and taught the story of Jesus with accuracy, but he knew
only the baptism of John. This man began to speak boldly in the
synagogue. When Priscilla and Aquila heard him they took him and more
accurately explained the way of God to him. When he wished to go over to
Achaea the brethren encouraged him and wrote to the disciples to make
him welcome. When he had arrived he was of great help to those who had
believed through grace, for he vigorously confuted the Jews in public
debate. demonstrating through the scriptures that Jesus was the Anointed
One.
Christianity is here described as The Way of the Lord. One of the commonest titles in Acts is: "The Way" (Acts 9:2; Acts 19:9; Acts 19:23; Acts 22:4; Acts 24:14; Acts 24:22), and that title shows us at once that Christianity means not only believing certain things but putting them into practice.
Apollos came from Alexandria where there were about one million
Jews. So strong were they that two out of the five wards into which
Alexandria was divided were Jewish. Alexandria was the city of scholars.
It was specially the place where scholars believed in the allegorical
interpretation of the Old Testament. They believed that not only did the
Old Testament record history but that every recorded event had an inner
meaning. Because of this Apollos would be exceedingly useful in
convincing the Jews, for he would be able to find Christ all over the
Old Testament and to prove to them that the Old Testament looked forward
all the time to his coming.
For all that there was a lack in his training. He knew only the
baptism of John. When we come to deal with the next passage we shall see
more clearly what that means. But we can say now that Apollos must have
seen the need for repentance and have recognized Jesus as the Messiah;
but as yet he did not know the good news of Jesus as the Saviour of men
and of the coming of the Holy Spirit in power. He knew of the task Jesus
gave men to do but he did not yet fully know of the help Jesus gave men
to do it. By the words of Aquila and Priscilla he was more fully
instructed. The result was that Apollos, who already knew Jesus as a
figure in history, came also to know him as a living presence; and his
power as a preacher must have been increased a hundredfold.
-Barclay's Daily Study Bible (NT)