Sermon from March 28, 2004
I have often said to you that there are no uninteresting people. Each of you is a hero in search of a biographer. I wish you well, but there are so few biographers around. You’ll just have to write your own or become the family storyteller. The same is true of churches. There are no uninteresting churches. Each church deserves a biographer.

The people who know the most about a church, their pastors, are forbidden ethically to talk about most of the interesting people and events that have made that congregation what it is. And even if they could ethically talk about it, there are so many good stories to tell. They would have to be geniuses to select those stories that would capture the true meaning of that congregation. And even then, what about the hundreds of stories those geniuses would leave out?

I feel that way about you. I have you in my heart, and sometimes you leave me with my tongue hanging out, exhausted by the sheer energy of God that expresses itself in your fascinating lives as disciples of Jesus. A famous line from Psalm 56 says:

Record my lament;
    list my tears on your scroll –
    are they not in your record?

We may hope that our Father in Heaven, who notices the fall of a sparrow, records the drama of our fragile existence that is fraught with agony and ecstasy.

The inscription on our biography might well be Philippians 2:13. It is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose. Since I am under strong constraints about what I can tell about how the energy of God is at work in you, why don’t we read another chapter of Luke’s story about how the energy of God was at work in the early days of Christianity’s journey to the ends of the earth? I dedicate this sermon to you and your stories, and I pray that you will be encouraged to believe that the same power of God that worked in Paul, Aquila, Priscilla, Timothy, Silas, Apollo and the unnamed saints of Corinth is still at work in you. We begin in Acts 18:1.

Paul Gets Settled in Corinth
After this, Paul left Athens and went to Corinth. Ancient Corinth reminds me of modern Los Angeles: commercial, gaudy, bawdy, and politically important. All you have to do is read the Apostle Paul’s letter, 1 Corinthians, to get a sense of what the city was like. Establishing a church there and teaching it to be holy placed great demands on Paul’s time, energy and Christian love.

Verse two says that on his first visit there he met a Jew name Aquila, a native of Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because (Caesar) Claudius had ordered all the Jews to leave Rome. Of all things it appears that we have an independent witness to that imperial order that opens for us a window into the energy of God that was at work in the fledgling church at Rome.

A Roman historian named Suetonius wrote a biography of Claudius. Caesars have biographers. This one, Suetonius, says of Claudius that “he expelled Jews from Rome, who were constantly making disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus” (Quoted in Fitzmyer, Acts, 619). Whether Jesus was the long-expected Messiah of Israel fueled debates in Jewish synagogues in Rome. They were so fierce that they disturbed the peace in Rome. Claudius banished troublemakers like Aquila and Priscilla from Rome to keep order.

Paul found out about them and went to see them, and verse three opens another window into Paul’s personality. Because he was a tentmaker as they were, he stayed and worked with them. Let me show you why this detail is so important. Keep a marker here and look at 1 Thessalonians 2:6-9.

As apostles of Christ we could have been a burden to you, but we were gentle among you, like a mother caring for her little children. We loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well, because you had become so dear to us. Surely you remember, brothers, our toil and hardship; we worked night and day in order not to be a burden to anyone while we preached the gospel of God to you.

Paul supported himself, where necessary, on his mission trips by using his skill as a tentmaker. Aquila and Priscilla had the same skill, so they joined forces. They had lodgings that were large enough to accommodate Paul, so he stayed with them at first.

Now, verses 4-5: Every Sabbath (as was his custom) he reasoned in the synagogue, trying to persuade Jews and Greeks. When Silas and Timothy came from Macedonia, Paul devoted himself exclusively to preaching, testifying to the Jews that Jesus was the Christ (the Messiah). Every time we read Christ, we should remember that it means Messiah.

Verse six says the hostility toward Paul and his companions become, predictably, very hostile. But when the Jews opposed Paul and became abusive, he shook out his clothes in protest. In the world of the New Testament “shaking one’s cloak at opponents was considered a gesture of innocence and disavowing any agreement with them” (Fitzmyer, Acts, 627). That gesture is consistent with what Paul next said to them. “Your blood be on your own heads! I am clear of my responsibility. From now on I will go to the Gentiles.” He had done his part. He could do no more.

Here I need to remind you of something we talked about a month ago. We need to stop again and address an issue that is probably long overdue. Verse six says, the Jews opposed Paul and become abusive. The biblical expression, the Jews, is inflammatory to many Jewish people today, because it sounds like a blanket condemnation of all Jews for the death of Christ in particular or for the persecution of Christians. Verse five sounds like that: the Jews opposed Paul and become abusive.

I’d proposed to you that when the New Testament says, the Jews, it is not a blaming expression. It is a demographic term that simply describes one of the major players in the early history of Christianity. The other two were Gentiles and the Church.

Then, says verse seven, Paul left the synagogue and went next door to the house of Titius Justus, a worshiper of God – another of those Gentiles, who found Judaism attractive but weren’t willing to become a proselyte. People like him were everywhere Paul went, and they became a crucial audience for him, and many of them became followers of Jesus. But it wasn’t just these Gentile worshipers of God. Plenty of Jews believed Jesus was the Messiah.

In the meantime, verse eight: Crispus, the synagogue ruler, the one responsible for leading the congregation in prayer (Fitzmyer, 510) and his entire household believed in the Lord; and many of the Corinthians who heard him believed and were baptized. By the way, we know from 1 Corinthians 1:14-17 that Paul baptized only a handful of Christians in Corinth. He explained that by saying, Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel (verse 17).

You may have noticed that Paul has not stayed very long in any city where he has gone. He attracted so much animus that officially and unofficially he was forced to leave most of the cities he preached in. It looks like that was about to happen in Corinth until Paul received confirmation that he was to stay put.

Verses 9-11: One night the Lord spoke to Paul in a vision: “Do not be afraid; keep on speaking, do not be silent. For I am with you, and no one is going to attack and harm you, because I have many people in this city.” So Paul stayed for a year and a half, teaching them the word of God. By my count the book of Acts says Paul received five visions from God that clearly directed his life and ministry.

By the way, you may not receive any visions from God, but God’s reassurance to Paul in Corinth may give you cause for assurance. When you find yourself in a new job, new school, new neighborhood, or new city, keep your ear to the ground, because God probably has more people in your new circumstances than you thought possible. You’ll find them, or they’ll find you.

Christianity and Roman Law, Round Two
Back in chapter 16 Luke told the half humorous, completely serious story of Paul and the Philippian magistrates. They had flogged Paul and Silas and imprisoned them without due process of law. That was illegal, because both men were Roman citizens, protected under Roman law from the sort of treatment they received in Philippi. Luke included that episode to establish the fact that being a Christian made no difference in the protection given by Roman law. Luke includes the next episode for the same reason.

While Gallio was proconsul of Achaia, the Jews made a united attack on Paul and brought him into court. “This man,” they charged, “is persuading the people to worship God in ways contrary to the law.”

Just as Paul was about to speak, Gallio said to the Jews, “If you Jews were making a complaint about some misdemeanor or serious crime, it would be reasonable for me to listen to you. But since it involves questions about words and names and your own law – settle the matter yourselves. I will not be a judge of such things.” So he had them ejected from the court. Then they all turned on Sosthenes the synagogue ruler and beat him in front of the court. But Gallio showed no concern whatever. Paul stayed on in Corinth for some time.

Paul Begins His Third Missionary Journey
For all practical purposes Paul and Silas’s year and a half in Corinth marked the end of their second missionary journey, as the rest of verse 18 makes clear. Then he left the brothers and sailed for Syria, accompanied by Priscilla and Aquila. Before he sailed, he had his hair cut off at Cenchrea because of a vow he had taken.

Several times in Acts, Luke faithfully notes Paul’s thoroughly Jewish behavior, and this vow is an example. The truth is that Jews then and Jews now who believe in Jesus could be as strict or as loose in their observance of Judaism as their conscience permitted. Paul is the model of that freedom.

Verses 19-23 are a travelogue of Paul’s journey back to his home base in Antioch. They arrived at Ephesus, a port of call on the way home, where Paul left Priscilla and Aquila. He himself went into the synagogue and reasoned with the Jews. Verse 20 offers an unexpected refusal. When they asked him to spend more time with them, he declined. But, says verse 21, as he left, he promised, “I will come back if it is God's will.” Then he set sail from Ephesus. He did come back later and stayed three years.

When he landed at Caesarea, he went up and greeted the church and then went down to Antioch. After spending some time in Antioch, Paul set out from there on his third missionary journey and traveled from place to place throughout the region of Galatia and Phrygia, strengthening all the disciples in churches he began.

The remainder of chapter 18 introduces a charismatic figure named Apollos. He was a brilliant orator, whose knowledge of Christianity was deficient. Paul’s friends, Priscilla and Aquila remedied that. The chapter closes with Apollos making a journey across the Adriatic Sea. When Apollos wanted to go to Achaia (where Corinth was located), the brothers encouraged him and wrote to the disciples there to welcome him. On arriving, he was a great help to those who by grace had believed. For he vigorously refuted the Jews in public debate, proving from the Scriptures that Jesus was the Christ (the Messiah).

The Pastoral Center of Gravity
Now, let’s close Acts, and let me put what we’ve been reading into proper perspective. Gregory of Nyssa, a Christian thinker of the fourth century, wrote moving words about our human predicament. Here is some of what he wrote.

“The more we believe that ‘the Good’, on account of its nature, lies far beyond the limits of our knowledge, the more we experience a sense of sorrow that we have to be separated from this ‘Good’, which is both great and desirable, and yet cannot be embraced fully by our minds. Yet we mortals once had a share in this ‘Good’ which so eludes our attempts to comprehend it. This ‘Good’ – which surpasses all human thought, and which we once possessed – is such that human nature also seemed to be ‘good’ in some related form, in that it was fashioned as the most exact likeness and in the image of its prototype. For humanity then possessed all those qualities about which we now speculate – immortality, happiness, independence and self-determination, a life without drudgery or sorrow, being caught up in divine matters, a vision of ‘the Good’ through an unclouded and undistracted mind. This is what the creation story hints at briefly (Genesis 1:27), when it tells us that humanity was formed in the image of God, and lived in Paradise, enjoying what grew there (and the fruit of those trees was life, knowledge, and so on). So if we once possessed those gifts, we can only grieve over our sadness when we compare our previous happiness to our present misery. What was high has been made low; what was created in the image of heaven has been reduced to earth; the one who was ordained to govern the earth has been reduced to a slave; what was created for immortality has been destroyed by death; the one who lived in the joys of Paradise has ended up in this place of drudgery and illness,” (Gregory of Nyssa, Commentary on the Beatitudes, 3, quoted in McGrath, Reality, 73).

The story we read today, the story we are reading in the book of Acts, the story of this church and of hundreds of your unwritten biographies is the story of our journey back to what we lost. It is a long journey home and a difficult one. At the start of the journey and at its final destination stands that towering figure that holds increasing sway over the imagination of humanity – Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God, our Savior. When life gets you down, or when you feel insignificant, push back, look up, remember Him and the journey home He began and will bring to consummation, and hope.