Sunday 17th November
Read Psalm 83
If you don’t have a bible at home you can find the readings on a website such as www.biblegateway.com or an app such as YouVersion
Psalm 83 begins with, “Don’t remain silent”, and is a plea to God not to remain silent in view of the enemies that are attacking his people. The Psalmist reflects history, how in the past enemies were destroyed, and he wants God to do the same at present, which he doesn’t seem to be doing. (v1). There is no doubt about it that when we see bad things we often ask, “Why?” It is often thrown at believers as a reason for there being no God.
Undoubtedly, when we are truthful, if we believe in God, evil is a problem; but, to throw the question back, if evil is a problem, there must be God, because otherwise it isn’t a problem, just the way things are.
But is that the way people think and feel? No, of course not because when bad things happen, there is a deep cry about pain and suffering. Who can it be to? The God who is there and who hears.
READINGS FOR THE WEEK AHEAD
As you read the Bible Stop; Read; Ponder; and Pray.
The Athenians brought Paul to the Areopagus which was a place on a high outcrop which had been used for many years as a seat of the council, as a judicial place, and a discussion forum of religious matters. They wanted all the philosophers and religious to hear what this man was saying and so they gave him this forum.
Paul’s message is well spelt out by Luke, the author of Acts, telling of Paul’s opening in which he reflects seeing the multiplicity of altars to all sorts of gods in the city and to one in particular which stated that it was an altar to and UNKNOWN GOD. It is interesting to think of what prompted the builders of this altar. Was it a feeling that they were missing something?
Whatever it was, Paul wants to tell them that the Jewish God, the Lord, was the God who was unknown to them. He was the only God and the one who was behind everything, who had made all things. He was not served by humans but gives them life, breath and everything else and appointed their times in history and where they would live. In other words the history and sociology of the nations was given by this God.
He appointed all of this that men would “seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him.” (V27). This is the answer if we ask why things are the way they are and why do I have this life?
Paul starts to quote from the philosophical background of the Athenians giving a quote from the Greek philosopher Epiminedes. He mentions that our existence is from Godard if that is so we ought not to make up ideas about him which is what idolatry is all about. It is the same in every age that the how people imagine God has little to do with the one who made heavens and earth and gave their own life its birth but ends up being surprisingly like themselves. Making God in our own image is a great game people play but Paul challenges them on this.
He says that in the past God overlooked this stupidity but now he commands a general change of mind on the part of everyone – this is what repentance means. He tells them that this is important because God is going to judge the world on their dealing with this matter and, what’s more, the man he has appointed to do this judging is none other than Jesus who he is proclaiming and who has risen from the dead.
The general response was laughter and sneering but some were interested and wanted to hear more from Paul and so on leaving the council he met with those who believed but the rest he would leave behind. Sometimes it is impossible to persuade people who just resist the message – Jesus warned about this and it would seem that many of the Athenians were like this.
After leaving Athens, Paul went to Corinth, an active sea port about 60 miles from Athens with a rather debauched history which the apostle later warned the church about. In Corinth he met a Jewish couple, Aquila and Priscilla, who had been expelled from Rome with all the other Jews under the Emperor Claudius. It seems as though they were already disciples when Paul met them, perhaps before they left Rome, because numbers of people who became believers during the Jerusalem Pentecost came from Rome. The church there could have been started by those initial believers on the day of Pentecost. Paul stayed with them and shared in their work as tentmakers whilst also teaching in the synagogue on the sabbath, trying to persuade Jews and Greeks. When Silas and Timothy came to join him, he gave himself full time to preaching to the Jews that Jesus was the Messiah but after being opposed by them he told them in no uncertain terms that their blood was on their own heads and that he would now concentrate on the gentiles. Titius Justus, a gentile who lived next door to the synagogue, offered his house to Paul and Crispus who was the synagogue leader became a convert and with his whole household joined the community of believers and were baptised.
Paul may well have been frustrated at the lack of acceptance of his message by the Jewish communities but God encouraged him in the dream he had were God’s word was to keep on speaking because he had “many people in this city” (v10). Sometimes we may become discouraged in the work we do for the Lord and we need encouragement such as this. Here it may not be by dreams but it can be given by friends who see further than us. Paul stayed in Corinth a lot longer that in other places one of the reasons being that he wasn’t attacked and flung out as he was elsewhere. The proconsul of Achaia helped a great deal by refusing to hear some of the complaints the Jews made about Paul. His verdict was that their complaints had nothing to do with civil law only about their religious grievances. There are times when Christians may find their support coming from strange areas, but that support should always be because of the good behaviour of the Lord’s people. Sosthenes got beaten up by the Jewish crowd but Gallio paid no attention. It may be the case that Sosthenes was a following synagogue to Crispus and hadn’t been as forceful in his condemnation before Gallio or maybe he had also become a follower of Paul.
Paul stayed at Corinth for some time (18 months (v11) possibly around AD 50/51) and then sailed for Syria accompanied by Priscilla and Aquila with whom he had stayed while in Corinth. Cenchrea was the Eastern harbour of Corinth about 5 miles from the city centre and it was there Paul had his hair cut off because of a vow he had taken. We don’t know what the vow was but it seems to have been a Nazirite vow as described in Numbers 6:13-18. Hair was grown and then shaved off at the Temple and given as a peace offering to God. They sailed to Ephesus on the coast of Asia Minor (modern Turkey) and Paul went into the synagogue where he reasoned with the Jews but did not stay there but sailed to Caesarea and eventually to Jerusalem which had obviously been his intention when he left Corinth. He did say to the Ephesians that, God willing, he would return which he did about two or three years later.
He left Priscilla and Aquila in Ephesus to either preach or lead an already started Church there. Paul greeted the Church in Jerusalem and then went to Antioch where he had started his missionary journeys with Barnabus as told from Chapter 13. He spent some time there probably going over his further travels with the Church. It is important for Churches to keep touch with their members who go off on Christian service. In my home church, Holyrood Abbey, there was a map kept with all the places our members went in Christian service or ministry and tey were regularly prayed for at the Saturday night prayer meeting.
Saturday Acts 18:23-28
After spending some time in Antioch Paul set out on a second journey heading back to the areas he had first evangelised in Galatia and Phrygia (in modern Turkey) which we saw in chapters 13 and 14.
Luke departs from his stories of Paul and introduces us to a man called Apollos who was a native of Alexandria in Egypt. While Paul was in the interior Apollos came to Ephesus where Paul had left Priscilla and Aquila on his way back to Antioch from Greece ( v19). Apollos was a learned man and skilled teacher. When he preached in the synagogue he taught accurately about Jesus but Priscilla and Aquila knew that there was something lacking in his teaching and they invited him to their home to explain more adequately about the gospel. I wonder how many members of churches would feel confident and humble enough to correct their ministers and lead them into more truth? Priscilla and Aquila were able to do that and encouraged him when he wanted to go to Achaia where he became a great help to the believers there with his powerful apologetic oratory showing that Jesus was the Messiah. He moved on and the next we hear of him he was in Corinth.
