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That's connectwithskip.com. Now, let's get started with today's message from Pastor Skip Heitzig. Had its roots in the Bible and it was tethered affixed to the Christian religion as he called it in his writings and his observation. It was a remarkable thing, this experiment in democracy as the Europeans called America, an experiment in democracy. But that diplomat noticed that we were tied to the Christian religion. Now, the question is, how did that happen? How did a civilization so many miles away from the original happenings in Jerusalem, how did that happen that on the other side of the world you have a nation, a civilization where churches abound, where the Bible is taught, where we are free to worship our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
How did that happen? It happened because the one who began the movement, Jesus himself, told his disciples and they decided to actually do it, go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. And so they did that. In the book of Acts in chapter 1 verse 8, if you remember that's our anchor verse, that's the outline of the book. It was Jesus who said to them, you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, in all Samaria and to the uttermost parts of the earth. A few years after that, a man by the name of Saul of Tarsus, a Jewish rabbi, was radically converted on his way to put out that movement. Imagine if Saul would have been successful and he doused the movement that was starting to move out of Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and go north into Damascus.
We may never be here doing what we're doing. But he wasn't successful because it was God's plan that the gospel go into all the world. Interestingly and ironically, one of the chief carriers of that message was that Saul of Tarsus who became Paul the Apostle. And we see him on the move. He has made one missionary journey. He came back to Jerusalem, then Antioch where they sent him, did another round, went back to Jerusalem and Antioch where they sent him.
Now he's on trip number three. Before he gets on trip number three, at the end of journey number two, he has been in Corinth and he moves from Corinth 350 miles to the west to the city of Ephesus. Corinth, as we already told you, was one of the chief cities of the ancient world on the trade routes. And it was the chief city of that southwestern part of Greece, that land mass known as, if you remember, the Peloponnesian Peninsula.
I just like to say it. Or the Peloponnesus. It was almost an island, but because there was that narrow Isthmus that connected one part with the other, it was a peninsula. Paul had been in Corinth.
He had spent 18 months there. He gets aboard a ship and he goes to 350 miles, I'm sorry, I said west, to the east to Ephesus. One of the most frequented trips in the ancient world by boat was the trip from Corinth to Ephesus.
You could always make sure, it would be easy to find a caravan route or a boat going there because they did it all the time. It was on the trade routes by sea. So he goes from one area to another area, and he goes to the east, from one area to another area, from Achaea, southwest Greece, over to Asia Minor, to the area known as Ionia, which was southwest Anatolia later, which later on today is modern day Turkey. He goes to Ephesus. It is the center and chief commercial city of that region. With a population of, oh, about 250,000 people.
It was known as the marketplace of Asia, the marketplace of Asia Minor. Paul goes there, goes to a synagogue, because that's what he does, right? He first goes into a synagogue. Every city he goes into finds a Jewish synagogue. If there's not one, he'll go down to the river where a few Jews are congregating like he did when he came to Philippi. But he goes into a synagogue.
What's weird about this, this time in Ephesus, they like what they hear. And they invite him to stay. Now, usually he goes and they don't like what they hear, they don't invite him to stay, they kick him out. This time he's in Ephesus and he goes into the synagogue and they go, wow, come back again, tell us more.
And then he says, well, I can't, I got to leave. And so he wants to go to Jerusalem and then back to Antioch. But he says, I'll be back, Lord willing, I'm coming back to Ephesus.
Because he's never had this kind of reception in a synagogue. So now on his third missionary journey, he goes back to Ephesus. In the meantime, he's been in Ephesus, he leaves, he goes toward Jerusalem and then back to Antioch after the end of his second missionary journey. In the meantime, this strange cat, this strange guy by the name of Apollos shows up in Ephesus.
Aquila and Priscilla, thankfully, are there, been well taught and trained by Paul. And they are disciplers. So they're listening because Apollos was a Jew from Alexandria, Egypt.
A brilliant man, quite an orator. And in the synagogue, this Jewish man with a pagan name, very articulate, very brilliant, stands up and he preaches the gospel, sort of, up till the baptism of John. He believed that the Jews believed in the Messiah and that John was the forerunner and predicted that Jesus would come. But that's all he knew. He didn't know that Jesus had come. He didn't know that Jesus had died, that he had risen from the dead, that he was coming again. All of that, he didn't know. He only knew the story of Jesus up to John the Baptist.
But here's what I like about him. He shared what he knew. He didn't know much, but what he knew, he shared and he shared it well. Aquila and Priscilla heard him and they taught him the way of the Lord more accurately. They filled in the gaps. They told him about Jesus.
They filled in the gaps. They told him about Jesus' death on the cross, his resurrection, his coming again. So he leaves Ephesus and goes to Corinth.
If you don't mind, I'm going to Skip back just a little bit into chapter 18 to set the story as we get into chapter 19. Verse 23, which it begins now, his third missionary journey. After he had spent some time there, he departed and went over the region of Galatia, Phrygia, in order strengthening all the disciples.
So he's beginning his third journey already. Now, a certain Jew named Apollos, born in Alexandria, an eloquent man, and the word indicates not only was he able to speak, but he had a brilliant mind. He was able to brilliantly articulate is the idea. An eloquent man and mighty in the scripture or learned in the scripture, that is the Old Testament scriptures, came to Ephesus. This man had been instructed in the way of the Lord and being fervent in spirit.
Boy, when you get somebody who's a bright mind, a brilliant intellect, but also fervent in spirit and just pours themselves into it, you have a dynamic guy and that's this guy. Being fervent in spirit, he spoke and he taught accurately the things of the Lord, though, here's the caveat, he knew only the baptism of John. So he began to speak boldly in the synagogue. When Aquila and Priscilla heard him, they took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately.
So interesting mix, interesting character, Jewish, pagan name, Greek name, Apollonius, shortened to Apollos, from Alexandria, Egypt, shows up in Ephesus. Messianic, sort of, part way. Believes in Jesus, kind of. But he's articulate, he's brilliant, he's passionate.
Aquila and Priscilla said, man, this guy's a gold mine. He can preach. If you only knew the truth, he'd be awesome. Let's tell him the real truth, the whole truth, the rest of the truth. So they did.
Now nothing can stop this guy. Now let me just fill in something else I started on last time. I mentioned a little bit about Alexandria, Egypt, and it was the source of a lot of different things. And I mentioned that there was one time a library in Alexandria, Egypt, that was considered the best and largest in the world at the time. It had hundreds of thousands of volumes burned to the ground after Caesar Augustus invaded the area. Alexandria, Egypt had intellectual wealth, not just because it had a library, but it had great thinkers and great projects that came from Alexandria, Egypt. It had a Jewish community, I told you about that last week, I won't repeat myself, but one of the great Greek thinkers named Euclid, you've probably heard of his name, Euclid, the mathematician called the father of geometry came from Alexandria. It was known for its learned people. There was also a version of the Bible, a translation from the Hebrew into Greek known as the Septuagint version.
Septuagint meaning 70 because 70 people translated the Old Testament Hebrew text in degree. You're listening to Connect with Skip Heitzig. Before we return to Skip's teaching, God's peace, his Shalom can penetrate every aspect of your life, spiritually, mentally, physically, and emotionally. In his book, Unleashing Peace, Experiencing God's Shalom in Your Pursuit of Happiness, author Jeremiah J. Johnston helps you understand Shalom and guides you into the peace that passes all understanding. And when you give a gift of $50 or more today, we'll send you Unleashing Peace. Our thanks for your support to reach more people with God's love through Connect with Skip Heitzig.
Go to connectwithskip.com slash offer or call 800-922-1888 and request your copy when you give. Now let's get back to Skip for more of today's teaching. So it was known for learning. It was known for being articulate. It was known for a classical style of Greek and the Septuagint version was finished in that city around 132 BC. I bring all that up because when you go through the New Testament books, you come to the book of Hebrews and the question is, who wrote the book of Hebrews?
And the answer is, we don't know. Doesn't say Paul, doesn't give a name at all. But it's interesting that the Greek language used in the book of Hebrews is a classical style Greek, very different from Paul's writings, very, very different from John's writings. John was a little more colloquial kind of country, easy to understand Greek. In fact, if you ever take Greek, my Greek professor first took us through 1 John than the Gospel of John because it's easier to understand. Hebrews is a whole different style, a classical style, and it prolifically quotes the Old Testament. So somebody who was mighty in the scriptures wrote Hebrews and the version that is used throughout the book of Hebrews is the Septuagint version, which leads me to believe, this is only my personal opinion based on what I just said, that it was Apollos that wrote the book.
I believe he's the author of the book. I can't prove it. I may be wrong.
We'll get to heaven and you can all laugh at me. Boy, were you wrong. But you may disagree, but I'd be interested to find out who you think wrote it. It's easy to say Paul wrote it, but there's no indication that he wrote it. He might have just decided to write a different style of Greek and a completely different writing style than he was used to.
That is possible, and some believe that. I happen to believe, I lean to, at least it's as good as explanation as any, that Apollos wrote the book. Well, he leaves Ephesus and goes to Corinth. Well, let's read it.
We'll finish it out. I don't want to do all the talk and let the Bible talk. Verse 27 of chapter 18, when he desired to cross Achaea or to Achaea, that's the region where Corinth is, the brethren wrote exhorting the disciples to receive him. And when he arrived, he greatly helped those who had believed through grace.
Now he has the whole picture. Now he goes to Corinth and teaches them. Remember, he's mighty in the scripture.
He's going to be able to piece all those messianic scriptures together. For, and I love this, he vigorously refuted the Jews publicly, showing from the scriptures that Jesus is the Christ. Why did he leave Ephesus and why did he go to Corinth in Achaea? According to Paul, to water the seed that Paul planted there.
1 Corinthians chapter 1, he writes to the Corinthians and he said, I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. So he goes there. He's amazing. He's brilliant. He can vigorously refute publicly the Jews. I love it when somebody is so apt in debate and has a biblical perspective, is willing to debate somebody publicly.
I have a friend who is a scientist from MIT, lives in Arizona, has come to Africa. I've invited him a couple of times. He refutes evolution scientifically and he loves to come, but he says, my conditions are this. I want to find somebody in your community, some scientist, some brilliant person who will debate me publicly. I want a public debate, strongest skeptic, strongest evolutionist, but he has to be willing to debate me publicly. And he goes, just to give him the favor, I will give him my evidence in my evidence and my manuscript before the debate.
So he knows what I'm going to say. So I invited him here. He spoke to the church, but I couldn't find somebody to publicly debate him. Well, it's interesting that Apollos gets to Corinth publicly, vigorously refutes those who would come against the messianic standpoint and he does it vigorously. Well, obviously he made an impact on the Corinthians, so much so that Paul writes to them and he goes, how is it that some of you say, I'm of Paul, I'm of Apollos, I'm of Cephas, I'm of Christ.
Remember that scripture? That's because Apollos was brilliant and made an impact. Paul planted, Apollos watered, God gave the increase, but he made such an impact that people were willing to divide the body of Christ following a person rather than Christ. I could explain more, but I don't want to get too much into detail.
However, I'll just say this. This could have become a problem between Paul and Apollos and yet it never did. By the time we get to the very end of 1 Corinthians, the same letter that Paul is penning that writes about Apollos, he mentions him again and he said that after Apollos left and joined with Paul, that he, though you invited him to come back, decided not to go. He's not going back to Corinth. He says, but I urged him to go.
Now that's fascinating to me. So probably the conversation went like this, Paul, I'm not going, man. They're trying to pit you and I against each other.
They're dividing up into little camps. I'm of Paul. I'm of Apollos. I'm of Cephas. I don't want to add to that. And Paul said, no, Apollos, you have a great gift.
You should use it. Don't let the sin of the people keep you back from exercising the gift that God has for you. So I see just a beautiful synergy, spiritually speaking, and a beautiful way of serving one another, not competing, but complimenting one another between Paul and Apollos. Now we get to chapter 19, where we were trying to get all along. And it happened while Apollos was at Corinth. That Paul, having passed through the upper regions, came to Ephesus. Now he came back. Remember, he said he wanted to go back there. And finding some disciples, he said to them, did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?
So they said to him, we have not so much as heard whether there is a Holy Spirit. You ought to know a little bit about Ephesus. Ephesus, as I mentioned, is the chief commercial port of that area, 250,000 people. But it was most commonly known for a certain temple. Now there was a lot of temples in there, but Ephesus was called the guardian of the temple of Artemis, or the temple of Diana. Artemis is the Greek name, Diana is the Roman name. And because the temple was there, and I'll tell you a little bit about this temple later on in this text, massive, four times bigger than the Parthenon in Athens, if you've ever seen that, four times larger. It was one of the imperial cults in existence in the Roman Empire.
And it was right outside of Ephesus. Diana was the goddess of the hunt. She was also the protector of young girls, she was called. She was sort of a patron goddess of motherhood. I'll explain a little more about that in the verses ahead.
But when young girls got married, they took a lock of their hair and their maiden garment and offered it in the temple of Diana, hoping that she would protect them and take care of them and help them birth children. Paul goes there, it's a superstitious city, there's lots of different kind of worship that goes on there, but a very noteworthy city. It becomes his base of operations for the next three years, two and a half to three years. Remember I said the Corinth, he stayed longer than any other city except for one and that was Ephesus?
So he stays here a long time. Jesus said, you will go from Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, the uttermost parts of the earth. That's the book of Acts. Paul makes Ephesus his new Jerusalem. This now becomes the center, the base of operations for his third journey.
And I'll tell you why that's important. He's going to use this to reach that whole region and he does that through Bible study in the same place. He just raises a people who will go like little embers out of the fire and it lights it up in different areas around this region.
You'll see it. So he comes, comes to Ephesus, set up operations, he's going to be there a while. And he said to these disciples, these believers, remember, this is his first time he's been there, he now finds believers. Aquila and Priscilla have been there. But also who else?
Apollos, right? So watch this. So he said to them, did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed? So they said to him, we haven't heard so much whether there is a Holy Spirit. And he said to them, into what then were you baptized? So they said into John's baptism. That's the baptism of repentance. Then Paul said, John indeed baptized with a baptism of repentance, saying to the people that they should believe on him who would come after him, that is, on Christ, Jesus. When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.
And when Paul had laid hands on him, the Holy Spirit came upon them and they spoke with tongues and prophesied. Now, the men were about 12 in all. What's happening here? Who are these men? What's going on?
Let me give you a couple of explanations and I'll let you figure it out or decide on your own. One possibility, these were believers in a sense, that is, they were converts, early converts of Apollos of Alexandria. Apollos of Alexandria knew only part of the gospel. He only knew the gospel up to John the Baptist. So he was baptizing people and that was John's baptism. That's all he knew until Aquila and Priscilla filled him in, right? So it could be that they were getting baptized, but this baptism was John's baptism, looking forward to Jesus who would come.
Aquila and Priscilla go, dude, he came. Christian baptism doesn't look forward to Jesus coming, it looks back to the fact that he came, died, buried, and rose. That's what Christian baptism identifies with, his death, his burial, his resurrection. So they were baptized only in John's baptism. They get re-baptized.
By the way, the only case we find in the scripture where somebody gets re-baptized, and that's because they were converts of Apollos, early converts. We're glad you joined us today. Before you go, remember that when you give $50 or more to help reach more people with the gospel through Connect with Skip Heitzig, we'll send you Jeremiah Johnston's powerful book, Unleashing Peace, to guide you into the peace that passes all understanding. Remember that when you give $50 or more to help reach more people with the gospel understanding. To request your copy, call 800-922-1888.
That's 800-922-1888. Or visit connectwithskip.com slash donate. For more from Skip, be sure to download the Connect with Skip Heitzig app where you can access messages and more content right at your fingertips. Come back next time for more verse by verse teaching of God's word here on Connect with Skip Heitzig. Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never changing truth in ever-changing times.
