Acts, 17:1-33
Josiah Matthews · Jun 19, 2005
Acts (2005), No. 24
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4826232856981

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Alright. Well, what we've been doing is studying through the book of Acts. This is kind of a review, not just for everybody. We're studying through Acts and now we're looking at Paul's second missionary journey. So if you remember, Paul started in Antioch, over in Syria, and he went through Galatia, the Galatian region, and then up through the northern part of Asia Minor, and then he jumped up to Philippi in Greece. And then from Philippi, do you guys remember where he went after that? Thessalonica, that's right. And after that? Berea, and after Berea? Yeah, that's over in Galatia. Athens, that's right. And yeah, good job. I couldn't have done that off the top.

So that's right, we're in Acts chapter 17 today for the first portion of today's lesson and Paul is in Athens. He'll end up going to Corinth next and then he'll head back to Antioch and on his way he'll stop off at Ephesus briefly. Presently in Acts chapter 17 Paul is at Athens and And remember, he's talking with the men in Athens and Paul gets called a spermalagos. And that's actually a raven. So they call Paul a crow, a raven. They don't have crows there. Crow is the American species. But the bird in the Mediterranean world in Europe is a raven. And this is a picture of it. And so Paul is called a spermalagos.

So what's that mean? The idea is that a bird picks up seed and scatters seed. So what they did is, a spermalogos was a person who would pick up little bits of truth and information and then just kind of spout it off and it didn't really have any place or context. So it's sort of a person who knows and spouts off trivial information. So that was a spermalogos. It translated babbler or empty talker in our English language. versions or translations. But anyway, it was sort of a derogatory term. And remember, they called him a spermologist. So I thought I'd throw that up there, just for what it's worth.

And there were the two different groups that Paul came into contact with in Athens. These weren't the only two, but these are the two that Luke mentions in Acts 17. The first, or one, was the Epicureans. And I just wanted to briefly tell you what the Epicureans believed, and then we'll look at what the Stoics believed.

The Epicureans were concerned with the practical results of philosophy in everyday life, and their chief aim in life was pleasure. Epicurus was not a hedonist, but his followers became hedonists. They believed they could find happiness by seeking that which brought physical and mental pleasure, and by avoiding that which brought pain. They did allow for the existence of gods, but did not view gods, deities, as active in the lives of humanity.

So that's the Epicureans. Then the Stoics. The Stoics were quite different, and they taught that a person should be free from passion, that they should be unmoved by joy or grief, submissive to natural law, calmly accepting all things as the result of divine will." So they're fatalistic. They taught that man is part of the universe, and they taught that God is identified with the world's soul, and so God inhabits everything.

And, I don't know if we've ever gone over this here at Holly Hills, but there are, in paganism, anything that's not Christian, there are a couple key elements. One is that there is not a distinction between the Creator and His creation. In Christianity, in Genesis, the first chapter, we make a distinction between God the Creator and His creation. But guess what? In paganism, they don't do that. And here's an example of it.

They taught that God is identified with the world and God inhabits everything. Another element of paganism is that there is not a distinction between man and nature. But the Bible, again, makes the distinction between man and nature. And here, look what the Stoics taught. They taught that man is part of the universe. And again, the Bible doesn't teach that.

So, I thought I'd mention that. So these are the two groups that Paul These are the two groups that Paul will interact with here. Our first question from last week was, from chapter 17, what are the main points that Paul makes to his listeners at the Areopagus? In other words, how would you summarize each of the bullets above? You guys have any? What did you come up with on that one? I didn't personally make any headway summarizing the bullets.

God is not artificial. Okay. He's the creator of all things. Okay. Okay. Okay? Let's go ahead and read it. This is Paul's response to them. And I'm actually going to read the verse before it, too. I like what he says to them there. Let's see here. So, verse 22. I read 22 through 31.

Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, ìMen of Athens, I observe that you are very religious in all respects. For while I was passing through and examining the objects of your worship, I also found an altar with this inscription, ìTo an unknown God.î Therefore, what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you.î So he mentions their ignorance.

He doesnít shy away from that. ìThe God who made the world and all things in it, since He is the Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. Nor is he served by human hands as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all people life and breath and all things."

And I'll make some comments as we go through here, sort of answering the next question, question number two, which is, what errors of understanding and practice does Paul correct in the process of this statement to the men at Athens? And up through verse 25, Up to verse 25, the Stoics and Epicureans wouldn't have had necessarily a problem with what Paul said. And I have this statement to sort of prove that. This is an Epicurean poet talking about the divine nature, and he says that the divine nature, in the second stanza, is neither won by gifts nor moved by wrath, and that's similar to what Paul was saying in that he's not served by human hands.

So they may not have had a big problem with what Paul said through verse 25, but in verse 26, what Paul says, they would have a very big problem with, Paul says, And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation." See, the Greeks didn't believe they were of the same stock as the barbarians. The Greeks believed that the barbarians were basically made to serve and be slaves of the Greeks. So for Paul to tell the Greeks that that they were of the same stock as all the other men on earth would have been objectionable. Verse 27, that they would seek God if perhaps they might grope for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. For in him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said.

For we also are his offspring. And here Paul quotes from Eratos, when he says, we are his offspring. People think that Eretus is actually from Tarsus, which is the home of Paul. And so Paul would have been familiar with this quotation. And actually, we too are his offspring shows up in another, at least one other Greek authors' writings.

Being then the children of God, we ought not to think that the divine nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and thought of man." And remember, that was the thing that originally provoked Paul, is when he looked around, he saw all the idols in Corinth, and that bothered him. And then he saw the idol to the unknown God, and he used that as an opportunity to explain to them the Gospel.

Verse 30, Therefore, having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent, because he has fixed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness through a man whom he has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising him from the dead.

Now, do you think that the Epicureans and the Stoics were alright with Paul talking about a future day of judgment, a future judge? And the answer is no. The Stoics and Epicureans, they didn't see that they had any need to repent. They didn't acknowledge a personal relationship with God. They didn't know that their sins and their position in Adam was a problem before God. So Paul is telling them that you do need to repent, that there is a day of judgment coming up, and that there is a judge. And that they don't agree with at all. That's actually supposed to be Christ returning at the end of Revelation, right before the Great White Throne.

But it's a background so it's faded out, you can't see it. But this is interesting because this is an author, juvenile, and the Greeks would have scoffed at the idea of a future day of accountability. And here's an example. He says, talk of our souls and realms beyond the grave, the very boys will laugh and say you rave. So the idea that there's something beyond was nonsense. It would have been common superstition. From the Stoics and the Epicureans' point of view, what Paul was saying was was superstition, superstitious. The common people believe that there's something beyond the grave, but we don't. That kind of thing. That whole line of reasoning is still prevalent today among non-believers, isn't it?

Sure. Not only that, it's more and more present in the public school because there's no discipline, so there's no accountability. Sure. And these ideas used to be taught, for sure, in school, public school. Boy, I wish they still were. Whatever. It's sad because I have a daughter in kindergarten. What did you say, Art? Satan's methods never change.

Yeah, that's true. In fact, you guys are aware that a lot of the modern heresies and modern cults that are around today are just recreations of ancient heresies and ancient cults. That's what you were saying? Well, and that's very old. Paul mentions that in one of his epistles, doesn't he? But that's the idea today in some groups. Sure. That's right. Okay. Did you, on question number two, What errors of understanding and practice does Paul correct in the process? Did you guys have anything else?

I mentioned a couple things that Paul would have stated that the Stoics and Epicureans would have disagreed with. Did you guys come up with anything else? But this idea of the need to repent and a future judgment and a judge And then when Paul mentioned that God had approved the man, referring to Christ, by raising him from the dead, Luke specifically says that the idea of one being raised from the dead caused them to stop Paul. In other words, Paul wasn't done talking. Paul didn't just give them a gospel and then finish, but they interrupted him, they cut him off because they had a problem with what Paul said about the resurrection.

Let's see here, one more. Number three, how does Paul's choice of the point of cultural contact with the philosophers, the altar of the unknown God, impact how he presents the gospel? Does that make any sense? How does Paul's choice of the point of cultural contact with the philosophers impact how he presents the Gospel? And why was it different from what he presented to the jailer in Philippi? What did you come up with there? Mike, can you pass the gun to David?

Okay, in Athens. Okay, so he doesn't just stand up on the platform there in the Agora marketplace and just start or at this Areopagus and just start telling them that Jesus is the Messiah. That's right. What he does is he finds an opportunity in their culture to introduce the truth. He sees the altar to the unknown God and then uses that kind of as a place to connect with them. They acknowledge that there are unknown gods. or a God, an unknown God. So Paul uses that point to tell them, start to tell them the Gospel.

I can give you a concrete example of something around here. Cool. The people I, a number of people I live with in the apartment, the group behind that, some can't be as big as a complex, as small as an ephemist, or some. A lot of them are what you will extract in the A possible opening to them is, remember, there's a distant article from the Reader's Guidance that talked about the Christian Jewry and the Catholic Consecration and other areas of oppression. And one of their songs they came up with was, Christ Breaks the Chains.

And you can say that in Spanish. You might be able to have something that you can tell them about those. Sure, and that's cool because I've actually found with Spanish people, I know a little bit of Spanish, but if you would ever want to talk to a Spanish person, a Latino person about the gospel, go up to them and talk Spanish with them. Even if it's hola, como estas? They love that. And that is kind of true. Often times, they'll totally open up and they'll act like they're your best buddy. And then you might have an opportunity to talk to them about the Lord. And in case you're wondering, it is Christos Rompas Vos Capelos. Christ breaks the chain.

Cool. I thought of another. So what was different about the way Paul talked with the men of Athens as compared to how Paul talked to the Philippian jailer? Why did he use different approaches? Sure. And he did it rather quickly. Yeah, yeah. You're right. Yeah.

Yeah, that's right, and in a way, the method Paul used of just, you know, laying out the gospel to him, or calling him to faith in Christ, like, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you'll be saved, you and your whole household. The man and Paul did that, actually, I think, was fit the culture, because the culture was, if you fail miserably as a Greek, it's noble to take your life, to commit suicide. So here's the guy getting ready to do that, plus he knew he probably would be killed because he thought prisoners had escaped, so it's maybe twofold. Anyway, In their culture, because of their culture, death is imminent for this jailer, and Paul presents the gospel to them rather quickly. Again, you're right, the jailer probably had heard about the Lord throughout the night, as Paul and Silas were keeping everybody awake. I thought of another modern example of that.

Here in Denver, in the United States about three years ago, we had a computer technology bubble break. Tech jobs just dove, tech business just declined in the United States, right? And Denver was up there, was one of the leading cities in the United States when it came to technology jobs. Well that has been, that declined sharply and for Denver, the statistic just came out last week that of the leading cities in the country that were involved in technology, Denver is recovering at the worst rate.

So, if you knew someone who was an unbeliever, let's say, and you wanted to talk with them about the Lord, and this person was involved in a tech job, you could maybe bring that up and then talk to them about the certainty that a person can have in Christ, the security and certainty of salvation that's offered by God. It's not subject to commerce fluctuations. It's not subject to a crash. It's secure. So I mean you could do things like that maybe. Cool.

Anyway, this is what Paul did. Paul did these kinds of things. We'll see more examples of that. When Paul went to talk to either Christians or non-Christians, he used words and terms and phrases that they wouldn't understand in their culture. So, in dependence upon the Lord, we can do the same thing.

Okay. We will need to move on into the first part of Acts chapter 18. verses 1 through 22. If you have the notes, I'm pretty much going to stick to the notes this morning and I'll make some comments as we go through them. The first section there that says events, this is sort of just a summary of the chapter.

Paul left Athens heading for Corinth. Paul encountered Aquila and Priscilla. there who were also tent makers. Paul reasoned with the Jews in the synagogue in Corinth, having relatively good response there, even among the synagogue leaders. The Lord told Paul in a vision that he should be bold in Corinth and not hold back. So Paul stayed in Corinth a year and six months. And the text specifically tells us that Paul stayed there a year and a half, so we know that. Sometimes when we try to figure out how long Paul spent in a certain city, you don't really know for sure, but every once in a while the scripture tells you exactly how long he stayed there.

Finally, there came resistance from among the Jews who tried to take Paul before Gallio, the Roman pro-council. Gallio refused to deal with the Jews' concerns since it did not involve Roman law. The Jews then beat Sosthenes, the synagogue leader, but this did nothing to impact Gallio's stance. Paul then left Corinth with Aquila and Priscilla, stopping briefly in Ephesus to reason with the Jews at the synagogue. Then they headed for Antioch to the church from which Paul had been sent on his first missionary journey.

Let's see what we're doing on time here. Okay. I was going to read the text as well, verses 1 through 22. We don't have a lot of time, we have a lot of notes to go through, so we're going to skip that, not because it's not important. What we're going over here is our study materials for you during the week. So please read the actual text, X18-1-22, and use these notes as study tools. Let's briefly look at Corinth. This is a picture of modern day Corinth.

And in the middle, of course, is ancient Corinth. On the left is the Temple of Apollo. In the middle is sort of the Agora. And this picture is taken from the Acro-Corinth, which is a big hill near Corinth. I have a picture of that. This is a picture of of the isthmus from space. The red dot is approximately where Corinth is situated. In AD 67, Emperor Nero tried to build a canal, or started to build a canal through that isthmus, but the project actually wasn't completed until 1893. That is a long project. Let's look here in the notes under background.

As Athens was known for its philosophers and idolatry, Corinth was known for its debased morality and production of fine mirrors. Here are a couple of mirrors. On the left is an actual mirror case from Corinth from around the 4th century BC and then this is a bronze mirror on the right. This one is actually from Italy but I put it up there because they would make similar mirrors in Corinth. And on the upper right is a drawing of Corinth. And then on the bottom right is the Bema, which is a judgment seat. And that comes up in this chapter. Paul gets taken before the Bema seat, before Galileo. Okay, back to the notes here.

As for its debased morality, several Greek words had developed which were based on Corinthian morality, or lack thereof. For example, one Greek word for practicing fornication was korenthazomai. So if someone committed fornication, you would say they were korenthizing. A Greek term for a prostitute was korenthiai kori. And later, On Paul's third missionary journey, when he's in Ephesus, he writes his first epistle to the Corinthians, and in that letter he addresses their moral practice, he addresses their conduct.

And here's an example, 1 Corinthians 5.1, it is actually reported that there is immorality among you, and immorality of such a kind as does not exist even among the Gentiles, that someone has his father's wife. So here was someone having a relationship with his father's wife, mother-in-law or mother. So it's really messed up. In this epistle to the Corinthians that Paul wrote from Ephesus, not too long thereafter, Paul continues on addressing sexual morality and related issues for the next two chapters, or three chapters if you include Paul's chapter on marriage, chapter 7.

In 18, you know what? Have you guys had an opportunity to read chapter 18 yet? Mike, you probably haven't, being new. Has anybody else had the opportunity to read 18? Let's go ahead and do that, because we're going to go over important details, but if we haven't read it, then it will help to read it. Let's do it. If we go long, we just shut the doors. If we have to push the main service back an hour or two, it's okay. Chapter 18, I'll read rather quickly though. Verses 1-22.

After these things in Athens, Paul left Athens and went to Corinth. And he found a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, having recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Emperor Claudius had commanded all the Jews to leave Rome. Paul came to them, Priscilla and Aquila, because he was of the same trade. He stayed with them and they were working, for by trade they were tent makers, or leather workers. They worked with leather.

And he was reasoning in the synagogue every Sabbath and trying to persuade Jews and Greeks. But when Silas and Timothy came down from Macedonia, Paul began devoting himself completely to the Word, solemnly testifying to the Jews that Jesus was the Christ. But when they resisted and blasphemed, he shook out his garments and said to them, Your blood be on your own heads.

I am clean. From now on I will go to the Gentiles. Then he left there and went to the house of a man named Titius Justus, a worshiper of God, whose house was next to the synagogue. Crispus, the leader of the synagogue, believed in the Lord with all his household, and many of the Corinthians, when they heard, were believing and being baptized.

And the Lord said to Paul in the night by a vision, Do not be afraid any longer, but go on speaking and do not be silent. For I am with you, and no man will attack you in order to harm you, for I have many people in this city.' And he settled there a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them.

But while Galileo was pro-council of Achaia, the Jews with one accord rose up against Paul and brought him before the judgment seat, the bema, that thing on the bottom right. saying, This man persuades men to worship God contrary to the law. But when Paul was about to open his mouth to answer, Galio said to the Jews, If it were a matter of wrong or a vicious crime, O Jews, it would be reasonable for me to put up with you. But if there are questions about words and names and your own law, look after it yourselves.

I am unwilling to be a judge of these matters. And he, Galio, drove them away from the judgment seat. And they all took hold of Sosthenes, the leader of the synagogue, and began beating him in front of the judgment seat. And I don't know why they did that. So, here's the Jews picking on the leader of the synagogue, and they beat their own Jewish leader in front of Galileo. But Galileo was not concerned about any of these things.

Paul, having remained many days longer, took leave of the brethren and put out to sea for Syria, which is where Antioch is, and with him were Priscilla and Aquila. In Centria, the other side of the Isthmus near Corinth, in Centria he had his hair cut for he was keeping a vow. They came to Ephesus and he left them there, Priscilla and Aquila. Paul left at Ephesus. Now he himself entered the synagogue at Ephesus and reasoned with the Jews. When they asked him to stay for a longer time, he did not consent, but taking leave of them and saying, I will return to you again if God wills. He set sail from Ephesus. When he had landed at Caesarea, he went up and greeted the church at Jerusalem and then went down to Antioch.

Alright, so I thought that'd be good because we're going to be talking about things in the chapter. Here you go, Ryan. Do you have this? You got it? Okay. So, I thought we should read that. So let's hop back into our notes. This will make more sense now.

Aquila and Priscilla were a couple who would appear later on in Acts and in three of Paul's letters. So they're a couple that Paul continually refers to. He has a long relationship with this couple. And in the Bible, in the New Testament, couples aren't often mentioned like this. Did you have something to say? No? Okay. Sorry.

Luke also in this chapter mentioned that Emperor Claudius had kicked the Jews out of Rome. And we know that this happened around 49 or 50 AD because the Bible says it. That's good enough. But for an apologetic reason, there are three other Roman historians that mention this action of Claudius. Suetonius, Dio Cassius, and Orasius. And here's a quotation from Suetonius.

He says, because the Jews at Rome caused continuous disturbances at the instigation of Crestas, he expelled them from the city. This happened in AD 49. Suetonius didn't write this until 69, 20 years later. So it's possible that over 20 years, Crestas, which is Christ's actual name, in Greek could have been changed to Krestos. That's not for sure, but anyway, here's a Roman writer authenticating that, yeah, Claudius did kick the Jews out of Rome.

Funny looking guy. In verse 3 of chapter 18, it mentions that Paul, Priscilla, and Aquila were tentmakers, or leather workers. And this is the only explicit reference to Paul being a tentmaker. So we're looking at it right now. Oftentimes we talk about tentmaking and missionaries, tentmaking, or Paul being a tentmaker. Well, this is the one place in the Bible where it mentions it.

But Paul often makes mention of working hard. He mentions that he toiled day and night, not just in preaching the Gospel and teaching believers, but also in working. And Paul is a great example for guys like me that have to work 50 hours a week still, but yet still want to study the Word and teach. Paul did this.

In our notes it says, Paul repeatedly makes reference to working hard to avoid being a burden to the churches. Number two, Paul's occupation, based on his multiple travels, is quite portable. So it's a good trade to have if you're going to travel around.

You can make tents or leather wear goods basically anywhere. Paul is from Tarsus, which is in Cilicia. And that area was known for its leather working, and they would actually make shirts out of goat hair, and they were called silicium. From silicia, they were called silicium. So Paul probably would have known how to do that as well.

Number three, in 2 Timothy 2.15, Paul uses a term out of the tent maker's trade to convey to Timothy how one ought to study God's Word.

And you that know 2 Timothy 2.15, what word do you think that is? You can look it up if you want to.

Okay, yeah. No, it's right there though. Okay, keep going. It's in there. Which one? No, it's not that one. It's rightly dividing. Yeah, and literally it's cutting straight because they have to snip, snip, snip, cut the leather straight or whatever. So Paul is telling Timothy to rightly divide the word. In other words, in some versions it's translated handling accurately the word. So be careful with it and rightly divide it or be careful with it, handle it accurately, that kind of thing.

But that was a term from Paul's trade. And a fourth comment is, the rabbinical writings of the Jews held that even a rabbi must earn his own support with another trait. To do otherwise, it was held by the Jews, would lead one to sin. So Paul, by rabbinical tradition, would have learned and carried on such a trait even before coming to belief in Christ.

Now, in Acts 18, it also mentions that the synagogue comes up quite a bit in chapter 18. Verse 4 says Paul was reasoning in the synagogue every Sabbath. Then when Silas and Timothy came down and brought a gift from the church at Philippi, then Paul every day was testifying to the Jews that Jesus was the Christ, and he even stayed with Titius Justus, who lived next to the synagogue. Then it mentions Crispus, the leader of the synagogue. And a little while later it talks about Sosthenes, the leader of the synagogue, who was beat before Galileo.

From archaeology, we know that there were a number of synagogues in Corinth. Archaeologists have uncovered at least eight inscriptions that indicate the presence of synagogues. And the Jews needed ten men to form a synagogue, isn't that right? And Philippi, remember, didn't have a synagogue. The Jewish believers, the Old Testament believers, before Paul got there, would meet down by the river, because presumably there weren't enough Jewish men to form a synagogue.

But in Corinth, there are quite a few synagogues, quite a few Jewish men, a large population of Jews in Corinth. And archaeology confirms that. We also see that there is a significant presence of Jews in the church at Corinth, confirmed by Paul's multiple references to the Old Testament in both his letters to the church at Corinth, 1st and 2nd Corinthians. Corinth was also famous for its mirrors, which we mentioned earlier. They're not mentioned in Acts, but they are mentioned. Mirrors are mentioned in both of Paul's letters to the Corinthians.

Paul uses the mirror as a symbol of God's written word, and we're certain of that because of James 2.23. These were first surface mirrors made of polished metal that tarnished easily. So they would take a piece of metal, smooth it out, flatten it out as best they could, and they would use this thing as a mirror. It would tarnish quickly so they would carry a pumice stone with them and they would continually have to polish their mirror to keep it shiny and reflective. And you can see the one on the right is just a mirror made of bronze.

Next, in verse 5 it mentions that Paul began to devote himself to the ministry of the Word exclusively to the ministry of the Word when Silas and Timothy came from Macedonia. So remember, Paul was making tents with Aquila and Persilla, and at the same time he was preaching in the synagogue. But when Silas and Timothy came down from Macedonia, they brought a gift, financial gift, from the Church at Philippi for Paul. And that enabled Paul to stop making leather goods for a while and focus only on preaching the Gospel at Corinth.

That's mentioned in a couple of passages, 2 Corinthians 11.9 and Philippians 4.16. The Church at Philippi would continue to support Paul even while he was in prison later on.

In verse 6 of chapter 18 it mentions that Paul shook out his clothes and stated that your blood be on your own heads. And these were Jewish expressions. There are a couple of examples of that you can look up this week in the Old and New Testaments. The Jews would understand these comments as being statements that Paul was not sharing in their hearts of rejection, nor participating with them in any other way, and that they, the Jews, were responsible for rejecting the Gospel, and Paul was not responsible in neglecting to preach it. So Paul had done his job, and they rejected him continually, so he finally said, okay, fully on you, you're responsible.

And he focused more to the Greeks. In verse 7, Paul mentions Titius Justus, a worshipper of God, whose house was next to the synagogue. In Romans 16.23, Paul mentions a man named Gaius, and this could be the same man. The Romans would have three names, typically, so this fellow could be named Titius Gaius Justus, or something like that. Corinth was a Roman colony, though with lots of Greek and significant Jewish influence. So it was common for a person to have three names.

Paul also mentions Crispus, the synagogue leader who became a believer, and he comes up in Paul's first epistle to the Corinthians later on. Remember, near the beginning of this journey, which is the second missionary journey of Paul, Paul was in Northern Asia Minor and he wanted to go north, but he received a vision from the Lord and told him no, he needed to go into Macedonia. It was the vision of the Macedonian man. Well here, Paul receives another vision, which is unusual, and it directs him to stay where he is, to stay put. and keep preaching the gospel. And Paul does for, as we know, a year and a half.

Next we have Gallio. Gallio was the pro-council of Achaia, which was that region in Greece. And Gallio's position as pro-council is one that's confirmed by several secular records. And there's an inscription that mentions Gallio. I should have tried to find that on the internet, but I didn't. But you could search that. Go to Google and click image and then type in Gallio inscription or something like that and it might pop up.

Galio became pro-council in the spring of 51 A.D. and was only there in Achaia for about one year, or in that position for about one year. So that's a good marker in the Book of Acts. Galio was pro-council in 51, so that means we know that what happened here at Corinth was around A.D. 51. So it's a good marker again when we're when we're putting together a timeline. Here we know 51 AD, Galileo was pro-council, Paul was there. It helps out.

All totaled, Paul had been on his second missionary journey for about three years, and half of that he spent in Corinth. Because remember, after Corinth, he sails back towards Syria, Antioch, stopping in Ephesus briefly. Paul only stopped in briefly at Ephesus a city that would involve Paul's presence for three years during his third missionary journey. So on his third missionary journey, Paul's going to take another big loop, go through Galatia again, go through Asia Minor, wrap himself down into Greece and Achaia, where Corinth is, then wrap himself all the way back around Greece and come back to Asia Minor. And he stays there three years in Ephesus before he heads back east.

Let's briefly look at the questions that you can work on this week. And you're going to need to take a look this week at 1st and 2nd Corinthians. Paul wrote in 1st Corinthians 3, 1-3, And I, brethren, could not speak to you as spiritual men, but as to men of flesh, as to infants in Christ.

I gave you milk to drink, not solid food, for you were not yet able to receive it. Indeed, even now you are not yet able, you are still fleshly. For since there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not fleshly? And are you not walking like mere men? So Paul spent a year and a half with the believers in Corinth.

They were still infants in the Lord. So think about what kind of spiritual food do you feed an infant? Do you feed them milk or meat? And also think about there's a time when it's okay for a believer to be immature and they're appropriately fed milk, of the word. But, there comes a point where that immature but yet maturing believer needs to be fed meat.

And these Corinthians were past that point at the time of Paul's third missionary journey when he was in Ephesus. So he writes in this letter, Look, when I was with you the first time, it was okay that I was feeding you milk because you were immature. But now, you guys shouldn't still be immature. And here, I've got to give you milk again, and I should be giving you meat. So there was some responsibility on their part. They weren't walking with the Lord. Think about those issues. You can do some more studying on that.

The second question is, the church at Corinth had a year and a half of Paul's time, yet it appears from Paul's two letters to display quite a bit of immaturity, especially in the first letter. Do we have evidence that Paul was still quite convinced that these people were saved? And what is that evidence? So you'll need to look at the two letters to the Corinthians. Which verses or passages would give us that insight into Paul's view of them? Are there any verses that would cause us to wonder if some of them were not saved?

Number three, why would Paul make mention of mirrors twice with the Corinthians, one in each letter, so he mentions it in 1 Corinthians, then he mentions it in 2 Corinthians, yet he never mentions a mirror with any other church? Given that Paul made tenths, how would he know to mention the mirrors in his letters?

So this goes back to what we were talking about at the beginning of the class, shows us and the importance of connecting with the people we're teaching or sharing the gospel to. Alright, do you guys have anything to add? Alright, let's pray. Dear Father, thanks for letting us go through Acts 17 and 18 this morning and please continue to equip us that we may be involved in dependence upon you and by your grace in this body or elsewhere. And please do open opportunities for us to share your truth to unbelievers and give us wisdom this week. In Jesus' name, Amen.