Welcome to Connect with Skip Heitzig. We're glad you've received Skip's weekly devotional email to instruct and inspire you in God's Word this week. Do not be deceived, neither fornicators, those who have sexual relations before marriage, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, those that have sexual relations with somebody else other than their spouse after marriage, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God.
Now watch this. And such were some of you. He's writing to people who used to do all those things.
This is what you guys used to be like, He writes to them. Such were some of you. But, here's the good news, you were washed. That's salvation. You were cleansed. You were sanctified, set apart by God. You were justified, accounted as righteous before God.
Because of His Son. In the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of God. So He is writing to a group filled with people in a church who came from that culture.
That's what they used to live like. That's the city of Corinth. Now with that as a background, we get to verse one finally.
After these things, Paul departed from Athens and went to Corinth. And he found a certain Jew named Aquila, born in Pontus. Pontus is a little area up by the Caspian and Black Sea, who had recently come from Italy with his wife, Priscilla. Cute couple. Cute names. Hi, I'm Aquila. Hi, I'm Priscilla. Oh, how cool.
Your names rhyme. You guys are just awesome. And it says they came. They're in Corinth. They have left Italy.
And here's why. Because Claudius, that's the emperor, had commanded all the Jews to depart from Rome. And he came to them. That is, Paul came to Corinth. And in particular, Aquila and his wife, Priscilla. So, because he was of the same trade, he stayed with them.
Just moved right in with them. And he worked for, by occupation, they were tent makers. That's the Greek word. Now what that means, it's translated tent maker, but literally means leather workers. When you say Paul was a tent maker, yeah, but literally he was a leather worker.
And tents were made of leather, but sometimes they were made of the hair of animals, the wool of sheep or goats. Now that was Paul's trade. Why was that Paul's trade? Well, he was Jewish. And every father who was Jewish taught his Jewish sons to have a trade, especially if they were rabbis. If they were rabbis, you would teach your son he needed a trade because there will be times in your life, young rabbi, when you'll need to work for yourself, not in ministry, but just secular work.
You needed trade so you can go from place to place and teach and have freedom to minister, but you have your own job. There was a saying among the Jews about fathers saying, fathers who did not teach their sons to work, taught their sons to steal. Work was regarded very highly. The work ethic was regarded very highly. And if you know anything about Paul in regard to his writings on work, he also had a high work ethic.
In fact, he said, if there's somebody among you who doesn't work, don't let him eat. He himself was a hard worker. And while he was ministering in the gospel, some of the times where he went, he was not supported by churches.
He was a scoinapoyoi, a tent maker, a leather worker. Now, do you remember what city Paul came from? Tarsus, thank you.
You can just yell it out if you know the answer. And Tarsus was in a province. Anybody know the name of the province? Harder question.
Pastors, come on. Cilicia. It was Tarsus of the area of Cilicia.
Cilicia was famous for a product called, listen, cilicium, which was the black hair of black goats with which was harvested to make tents. So Paul, being a tent maker, worked with leather and with fur animal hair to make tents. Now, bring this up because I think Paul employs this thinking when he writes to Timothy and he says that we ought to be rightly dividing the word of truth. Do you remember that phrase, rightly dividing, study to show yourself approved, rightly dividing the word of truth? The word rightly dividing means to cut a straight line and it was a word used in tent making. It meant that you cut a straight line in a panel of leather or a patchwork of cloth to make panels to make tents, cutting a straight line. So this idea, this motif shows up in Paul's writing. That was his occupation. That was his trade. So he could go anywhere and find the guild of tent makers and get a job.
Something else that is also helpful. Did you know that in synagogues, people sat in particular locations? You know, we just kind of sit wherever we feel like sitting. But did you know in ancient synagogues, there were men on one side, women on the other side, but men sat according to their professions? Bricklayers in one section, tent makers in another section, those who worked with pottery, those who were artists, they all had their different sections. So if Paul was to go into the synagogue when Aquila and Priscilla were there, he would have probably sat next to them.
Same occupation. That's probably where he met them. Going into the synagogue in Corinth, he met these two, Aquila and Priscilla, and they become friends. Now, they become friends for life. I commend to you, not now, but look it up later, Romans chapter 16, where he mentions Aquila and Priscilla. By the way, usually it doesn't show up with the husband's name first. Usually in Scripture, more times than not, it is Priscilla first and then Aquila. I'm not going to tell you why just now.
I'll tell you why in just a minute. But what I want to make is this point. They became lifelong friends. He speaks of them as fellow workers in the gospel who risked their necks for the sake of the gospel. So they become some of Paul's closest compatriots in ministry and lifelong friends and ones that he writes about on a number of occasions.
Verse 2 mentions an event that happened that you need to know of. It says that they had moved Aquila and Priscilla to Corinth because they came from Italy when Claudius commanded all the Jews to depart from Rome and he came to them. History tells us there was a riot that broke out in Rome by which the emperor expelled and then banned all the Jews from Rome. That is, if you were Jewish, the synagogues were emptied. Anybody who had an enclave of Jewish or settlements of Jews were all moved out of Rome en masse.
They were banned. History shows that to be true. Here's what's interesting. A historian by the name of Suetonius says a riot broke out in Rome because of a Jew named Crestus.
Now listen to the spelling. C-H-R-E-S-T-U-S. Crestus. Now the problem is when you look in ancient history, you look in antiquity, you can't find anybody named Crestus of any notable value or of anybody who started a riot.
There's no record of it. So most scholars believe that that was a Roman way, sort of a mispronunciation of Christus, Christ. And that an evangelistic underpinning, a groundwork, kind of an under-swell was breaking out in Rome and it happened among the Jews and the non-believing Jews rioted so strongly that the emperor just said, all the Jews out and that it was over evangelism of Jesus Crestus, Christ. And they didn't know that Jesus was a guy who was from Judea or died outside of Jerusalem and then rose from the dead. They didn't know anything about him so they just said, some guy named Crestus.
But it was probably over a riot that broke out over the name of Jesus Christ as many Jews came to faith in Christ. Now it gets even more interesting and I know I'm taking up a lot of time and I really, really think I'm going to get through one or two chapters, it never happens. But I always think you want to know as much as you can possibly know. So, okay good.
And we can always pick it up next time and we will. I believe that Priscilla and Aquila, though one was Jewish, Aquila the husband, Priscilla may be Jewish, maybe not, we're not told. I have an interesting theory about her, I'll tell you in a minute, I told you. But evidently both of them were saved before they met Paul. Which means there was a church, there was a group of believers in Rome before Paul ever went to Rome. Paul did not start the church in Rome. He writes to the Romans before he ever went to Rome. He writes to the believers in Rome, the church in Rome, and he says someday I hope to go to Rome, but he had never been to Rome, though there were Christians in Rome. Well how did that happen?
You ought to know the answer to this. Pentecost, somebody said it, who said that? Good job. You're listening to Connect with Skip Heitzig. Before we get back to Skip's teaching, we want to help you understand what real peace looks like so you can experience it in your own life. That's why we want to send you a copy of Unleashing Peace, Experiencing God's Shalom in Your Pursuit of Happiness by Jeremiah J. Johnston. This resource is our thanks for your gift of at least $50 today to help share solid biblical teaching with more people around the world through Connect with Skip Heitzig.
Go to connectwithskip.com slash offer or call 800-922-1888 and request your copy when you give at least $50 today to reach people around the world through Connect with Skip Heitzig. Let's continue with today's teaching with Pastor Skip. So at Pentecost there were Jews from all over the world that heard the witness of Peter. Many of them were saved because of the revival that broke out in Jerusalem and those Jews who came for the feast went back home. Many of them went home with the gospel in their hearts and they preached to other people. Well now the Jewish people are banned from Rome.
It doesn't mean there's no more Christians in Rome because there's Gentiles who are also Romans that are still in Rome, but the Jews are expelled. And that's why Aquila, Mr. Aquila, and his wife Miss Priscilla are now in debauched Sin City, Corinth, to start their new shop, their tent making shop. And Paul shows up in town and goes, I know how to do that.
It's my trade since I was a kid. And in the synagogue, they maybe started telling Paul, you know, there's this guy we believe in named Jesus Christ. And Paul said, you believe in him? So do I. And they hit it off.
They became close friends. And so verse four, and he reasoned. There's that word again.
Keeps showing up. That's Paul's style. He was a thinker. He reasoned Jewish scripture with Jewish people.
He made a reasonable case for the Christian faith. He reasoned in the synagogue every what? Day? No, every Saturday. Once a week. Sabbath.
Every Sabbath. Why didn't he do it every day? He worked. He was a tent maker. He's cutting leather and he's cutting cloth and he's making panels for tents and he's selling them. Why? Because he has to make a living.
Now somebody would say, what a waste. Not to Paul. He saw it by the will of God.
Now later on, without complicating the story. Silas is going to come from the churches in Macedonia. Not only will they encourage him, they're going to give him a gift of money. Basically saying, Paul, guess what?
Your tent making days here are over. You've been given generous support from these churches. You can go into full time studying of the scriptures, which he does. But at first he believed that he should show that the gospel was not kind of any financial endeavor, so he worked. And I love this style because I remember when I told my pastor in California, I want to go start a church.
You know, in fact, I'm 23 wondering why it hadn't happened yet. And you know what he basically told me? He told me this years before that, though, like when I was 20, he said, get a job. I go, what do you mean, pastor, get a job? He said, get a profession, get a trade, learn something that you can take anywhere you move. If the Lord moves you to be a church planner, you don't have to start a campaign.
You don't have to get your support. You can go out and just get a job and see what the Lord does, which is exactly what I did. I went to school for radiology.
I transferred that to Albuquerque. I worked in local hospitals. I had an office across the street downtown, and then I started a Bible study on the side. That grew into a work that was evidence to me that was God's calling for my life.
But I didn't want to presume that, and so I got a job. Paul got a job, and he's working as a tent maker. But it's Saturday, so he's in the synagogue, and he's reasoning in the synagogue every Sabbath, and he's persuading, and the better translation would be he hoped to persuade or he sought to persuade both Jews and Greeks. Question, what are Greeks doing in the synagogue?
You should know this by now. In every synagogue, there was a section in the back for God-fearers. God-fearers could be Gentiles who were interested in the Jewish God, but they hadn't made full conversion by the ritual of circumcision and a few other things, but they were God-fearers. So they're believers in God.
They're just not completely sold out. When Silas and Timothy had come from Macedonia, Paul was compelled by the Spirit, and he testified to the Jews that Jesus is the Christ. Gave him just the boost he needed, maybe a little discouraged, but when his friends come, he gets encouraged, and he goes back to testifying. Now notice these words in verse 4 and 5, reasoned, persuaded, and testified.
You know what that tells me? That primarily, principally, Paul was a communicator. That was his gift.
That was his calling. He was a teacher and a preacher. That is, he explained and reasoned truth to people so they could grow, and he proclaimed or preached the gospel to them. And by the way, that is what a pastor ought to be primarily. A pastor-teacher, a preacher-teacher, one who knows the word, knows doctrine, and teaches people, and persuades them, and instructs them, and testifies. And one of the things that alerts me in every new generation of preachers is how subtly some skew away from teaching the Bible.
And I told you before, I asked J. Vernon McGee, one of my all-time heroes, who's been in heaven for years, died in the 80s. One of the last churches he spoke at was our church. And I said, Dr. McGee, why don't more pastors teach the Bible? And he said, because they're lazy.
I've said that a lot, but I just love saying it the way he said it. They're lazy. And churches have become more pep rallies than what they ought to be, prep rallies, where you prepare people to live life. And how do you prepare somebody to live life? Not just exhort them, come on, praise, come on, worship, come on, God is good. But show them how, instruct them how, teach them how.
Proclaim, teach, instruct, persuade, reason, testify. But, verse 6, now when you do that, you can expect some fireworks. If you're going to be testifying that Jesus is the Christ in the synagogue, this is to be expected. But when they opposed him and blasphemed, right?
This happens everywhere Paul goes, right? Some believe, some don't. And those that don't believe pretty rabidly, pretty hostilely. Those who believe, believe. But those who don't, don't with vengeance. So they opposed him and they blasphemed. And so notice what Paul does.
This is very interesting. Now this guy's a firecracker. So it says, he shook his garments. Can you imagine him doing that, shaking his garments, saying, your blood be upon your own heads. I am clean, from now on I will go to the Gentiles.
Whoa! And that was quite a day in the synagogue. They never remember a Sabbath like that before. Now he's using an Old Testament terminology, an Old Testament phrase. Your blood be upon your own heads. That's used a few times in the Old Testament.
It speaks of you bear the responsibility for your own actions. Ezekiel speaks about not testifying to a generation and that generation's blood being on your heads, he says to the prophets. You remember the Jews who said, crucify him, crucify him. And they said, his blood be upon us and our children. The Jews cried, who cried, crucify him before Pontius Pilate. So Paul shakes his garments.
An interesting gesture. You know that when Jews would leave Gentile territories, they would shake the dust off their sandals. They would just beat their sandals against a rock before crossing the line into Jewish territory, making the statement, I don't want to bring your Gentile dust to Jewish holy ground. And so Jesus said, shake the dust off your feet if they don't receive you, right? Now shaking the garment off in the synagogue is sort of giving that idea back to them. You guys shake the dust off your sandals because you don't want to defile Jewish territory. I'm shaking this Jewish dust off my garment so that I don't bring your defilement anywhere else. I'm going to the Gentiles, he says.
He probably started a riot that day. From now on, I'm going to the Gentiles. And he departed from there and entered the house of a certain man named Justus. Pause on that name because people in those days had three names. And he is probably the same guy mentioned in 1 Corinthians as Gaius, Gaius, tedious justice.
His name shows up in a few different places, but here it's just called justice. So they entered the house of justice, one who worshiped God, whose house was next door to the synagogue. So it's like, quick, get out of the synagogue, go into that guy's house.
Can I give you a principle? It will happen no matter what. If you testified that Jesus is the Christ, like Paul did, and he got hostility, if you do that, you will get hostility. Jesus promised that.
He said, we're going to beat you. Your family is going to hate you. If you really embrace me and live wholeheartedly for me, you're not going to get along with people in the world, in the world system. If you're really living the Christian life, there's going to be opposition. Or if I could even boil it down to more of an irreducible minimum, discipleship, like this, or apostleship, if you will, like Paul does here, apostleship will bring hardship. Discipleship brings hardship, or apostleship brings hardship.
Those two ships sail together. If you are sent out, that means that's apostleship. If you say, I'm going to let God use me and be sent out, I'm going to tell people at work, at school, in my family, when I go on vacation, in the store, I'm going to be a vocal witness, that's apostleship. I'm going to get sent out. The other ship that will sail with you is hardship.
You're going to get flack. If you want everybody to like you all the time, don't witness. In fact, don't be a Christian.
If you're OK without everybody loving you, but you want just the love of God and the family of God is enough for you, be a Christian with all of your heart, because going to heaven is always better than going to hell. But apostleship brings hardship. Thanks for listening to Connect with Skip Heitzig. We hope you've been strengthened in your walk with Jesus by today's program. Before we let you go, we want to remind you about this month's resource that will help you experience God's Shalom in life's busiest seasons.
Unleashing Peace by Jeremiah Johnston is our thanks for your support of Connect with Skip Heitzig today. Request your copy when you give $50 or more. Call 800-922-1888.
That's 800-922-1888. Or visit connectwithskip.com slash donate. And did you know that you can find full message series and libraries of content from Skip Heitzig on YouTube? Simply visit the Connect with Skip Heitzig channel on YouTube and be sure to subscribe to the channel so you never miss any new content. Come back next time for more verse-by-verse teaching of God's word here on Connect with Skip Heitzig. Make a connection. Make a connection at the foot of the crossing. Cast all the burdens on his word. Make a connection, a connection. Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.
