Written by: Andrew Wooding – Church Army

Acts 18 v 27-28
Now Apollos wanted to go to the country of Southern Greece. So the believers helped him and wrote a letter to the followers there, asking them to accept him. These followers had believed in Jesus because of God’s grace, and when Apollos arrived, he helped them very much. He argued very strongly with the Jews before all the people, clearly proving with the Scriptures that Jesus is the Christ.

Notes 
Reading these Bible verses just now, the first thing that popped into my head was, “If this had happened now, I wonder if the believers would have sent an e-mail instead of writing a letter.”

I have to say that I’m very impressed with the believers here. They didn’t just say nice things to each other about Apollos – they actually took the time to sit down with pen and paper (or maybe it was a quill and papyrus in those days!) and write those nice things down for Apollos and others to read.

How often do we take the time to do that? How often do we think nice thoughts about our friends, family and others, but just leave it at that instead of telling them about it?

I get lots of letters, mainly from my bank manager – and lots of e-mails, mainly from people I’ve never heard of who want to sell me expensive products on the internet. But my favourite letters and e-mails are from people I know who take the time to tell me they are thinking of me, or thank me for something I have said or done. Just a few short words on paper or in an e-mail could make all the difference to someone you know today who might need some encouragement from you.

Thinking about it, the Bible can be seen as God’s letter of encouragement to us! Imagine, the God of the universe arranged for his feelings about us to be put down on paper for all to read.

Now, isn’t that something to get excited about!

Acts 19 v 1-4
While Apollos was in Corinth, Paul was visiting some places on the way to Ephesus. There he found some followers and asked them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?”
They said, “We have never even heard of a Holy Spirit.”
So he asked, “What kind of baptism did you have?”
They said, “It was the baptism that John taught.”
Paul said, “John’s baptism was a baptism of changed hearts and lives. He told people to believe in the One who would come after him, and that One is Jesus.”

Notes
John the Baptist was the man who paved the way for Jesus. He did some great stuff – he told people to turn away from their sins, he got them excited about the coming of the Messiah, and he even baptised people. But in the end he was the warm-up act for the main attraction.

You could say that John the Baptist was the movie trailer, while Jesus was the movie itself. If you only watch the trailer, can you say that you’ve seen the movie? Of course not. In the same way, it wasn’t enough for the followers in these verses to say that they believed in John. Paul pointed out to them that Jesus was where it was at!

But look at how he did it. Did he say, “You’ve got it all wrong?” No. Did he tell them to forget about John and start from scratch? No. Did he put them down or get angry with them?

What Paul did was point out the good in what they believed: “John’s baptism was a baptism of changed hearts and lives.” What he was saying was, “It’s good that you’ve had John’s baptism – that’s fantastic. Now let me tell you about something better that can build on what you already believe.”

I believe that our evangelism should be like this. Many of our friends and family might have taken some first steps towards faith, even if they haven’t become committed Christians yet. These first steps should be applauded and encouraged. To me, the most effective evangelism is when we move people on from where they already are – not try and knock them down completely, in order to build them up again.

Who do you know that you can you encourage today in their first steps towards faith?

Acts 19 v 5-7
When they heard this, they were baptised in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then Paul laid his hands on them, and the Holy Spirit came upon them. They began speaking different languages and prophesying. There were about twelve people in this group.

Notes
Here – and in the second chapter of Acts – one of the signs of the coming of the Holy Spirit was that the believers spoke in tongues, or “different languages”. Back in Acts, chapter 2, visitors from many different countries understood perfectly what was being said to them in these “different languages”. To me, this shows that Christ’s church is for all nations. Believers of all colours, languages and backgrounds are united under Christ.

This came home to me when I visited the Christian festival Spring Harvest in North Wales a few years ago. There were thousands at the first evening meeting, and the speaker said to the crowd, “How many churches do you think are represented here?” Some guessed a few hundred. But the answer he gave was: “One!”

On the final night of the festival, the evening meeting nearly didn't happen. A site worker had been digging up some ground where the power cables were. His spade connected with the cables, the power went out, so did he, and he was soon rushed straight to hospital. (He later recovered.)

Unless the power was fixed by eight o'clock our final meeting would have to be cancelled. Amazingly, the power came on again at one minute to eight. At another Spring Harvest site in England, thousands of Christians had prayed at for us at five minutes to eight. There in North Wales we got the power in the end, but only because a group of Christians in another country had been praying for us. 

Christ has only one church, and Christians have brothers and sisters in Asia, Africa, Australia, Antarctica - everywhere, all over the world. Think of them and pray for them, even if they speak in different languages and live hundreds of miles away!

Acts 19 v 8-10
Paul went into the synagogue and spoke out boldly for three months. He talked with the Jews and persuaded them to accept the things he said about the kingdom of God. But some of the Jews became stubborn. They refused to believe and said evil things about the Way of Jesus before all the people. So Paul left them, and, taking the followers with him, he went to the school of a man named Tyrannus. There Paul talked with people every day for two years. Because of his work, every Jew and Greek in the country of Asia heard the word of the Lord.

Notes
My favourite television programme is the science fiction show, Doctor Who. It was cancelled in 1989, but it still has a huge following all over the world, which is quite impressive for something that started in 1963. The main villains in Doctor Who are the Daleks, scary robot creatures intent on dominating any planet that they land on. One of their catchphrases is the chilling: “Resistance is useless!”

Reading today’s Bible passage, I wonder if this could also be Paul’s catchphrase! He “spoke out boldly” for three months in a certain synagogue, telling the Jewish people about the kingdom of God. But he encountered resistance to his message, and some of the Jews “refused to believe and said evil things about the Way of Jesus before all the people.”

What are you like when people say bad things about you? Are you embarrassed? Do you get hurt? Do you want to crawl away and lick your wounds, or wish the ground would swallow you up?

Paul might have felt some of these things – we don’t know. What we do know is that he seemed to have that Dalek catchphrase in his mind: “Resistance is useless!” Instead of giving up, he left the synagogue, taking all the new followers with him, and just carried on talking about God, this time in a school. The result was that “every Jew and Greek in the country of Asia heard the word of the Lord.”

When you tell people about your faith, some might be interested, but others might laugh or make fun. Don’t take it to heart. Just do what Paul did and carry on. The Daleks were determined to spread evil through the universe. As Christians, let’s be like Paul do our best to spread the good news about the kingdom.

Acts 19 v 11-14
God used Paul to do some very special miracles. Some people took handkerchiefs and clothes that Paul had used and put them on the sick. When they did this, the sick were healed and evil spirits left them.
But some Jews also were travelling around and making evil spirits go out of people. They tried to use the name of the Lord Jesus to force the evil spirits out. They would say, “By the same Jesus that Paul talks about, I order you to come out!” Seven sons of Sceva, a leading Jewish priest, were doing this.

Notes
I don’t know about you, but I love getting fun gifts for my birthday or at Christmas – videos, CDs, books, games. But there would always be a number of aunts and uncles that would send me handkerchiefs, dozens of them. Different colours. Different designs. Some with my initials in the corner. And some in packs of six or three. Why did I get them all? Did people think I had a problem with sneezing?

It seems that Paul had come up with an ingenious use for his handkerchiefs, and even some of his old clothes, although I hope that they were washed first. People were taking Paul’s handkerchiefs and clothes and putting them on the sick so that they would be healed.

I don’t know about you, but this raises all sorts of questions for me. Just who was doing the healing here? Did the handkerchiefs heal people? Was it Paul’s followers healing the people, or Paul himself? Or did the people heal themselves?

I firmly believe here that the healing was done by God, and no one else. So what is it with the hankies?

I can only guess, but I reckon that for the sick people, touch was very important. They firmly believed that Paul was one of God’s messengers, but Paul wasn’t around. So they made do with the next best thing: touching one of his hankies. God, in his grace, met them in this and healed them.

Yes, God used extraordinary methods in the Bible – parting seas, pillars of fire, burning bushes, stars in the sky. But he also uses normal, everyday objects like hankies. He even uses normal, everyday people like you and me – and that’s nothing to sneeze at!

Acts 19 v 15-19
But on one occasion an evil spirit said to them, “I know Jesus, and I know about Paul, but who are you?”
Then the man who had the evil spirit jumped on them. Because he was so much stronger than all of them, they ran away from the house naked and hurt. All the people in Ephesus—Jews and Greeks—learned about this and were filled with fear and gave great honour to the Lord Jesus. Many of the believers began to confess openly and tell all the evil things they had done. Some of them who had used magic brought their magic books and burned them before everyone. Those books were worth about 50,000 silver coins.

Notes
What an image! Seven men, sons of a Jewish priest called Sceva, were trying to cast out an evil spirit. But the man with the spirit went for them, and they “ran away from the house naked and hurt”. What had happened to their clothes? Presumably the man with the evil spirit had savagely ripped them to shreds. How could one man overpower seven so much that they fleed in terror from his house? The answer is that it wasn’t just the man overpowering them – the evil spirit inside him gave him strength.

Evil, then, is a serious business – so much so that many of the believers confessed their evil to each other and burnt their expensive books of magic.

I am a big fan of “magicians” on the telly: Paul Daniels, David Blaine, and of course the late great Tommy Cooper. I even have a second-hand box of magic tricks at home. Sometimes I try to do one of them, but I always seem to get it wrong, accidentally dropping one of the props, shuffling the playing cards wrong, or completely misreading the instructions. Of course, this isn’t real magic – it is illusion, trickery and sleight of hand.

I am not a fan of people who dabble in real magic (e.g. Ouija, spells and Tarot). Now, that is just asking for trouble. It’s the equivalent of playing with fire. Do you really want to dabble with a force that can overpower seven whole men, rip their clothes to shreds and scare them half to death?

God is infinite and almighty. He is the one with the real power. If you’ve dabbled with evil in the past, fear not. Do what the believers did – confess your mistakes, get rid anything that helped you to dabble, and God can heal and forgive.

Acts 19 v 20-22
So in a powerful way the word of the Lord kept spreading and growing.
After these things, Paul decided to go to Jerusalem, planning to go through the countries of Macedonia and Southern Greece and then on to Jerusalem. He said, “After I have been to Jerusalem, I must also visit Rome.” Paul sent Timothy and Erastus, two of his helpers, ahead to Macedonia, but he himself stayed in Asia for a while.

Notes
I know we’re only looking at three Bible verses today, but I’m exhausted already! In just a few short sentences we read that Paul was planning to go through Macedonia, Southern Greece, Jerusalem, and then on to Rome – and all this after he had been roaming around Asia for a while. I love watching travel programmes, especially the ones by Michael Palin such as Sahara, but this is ridiculous – especially when you consider that there weren’t any planes, trains and automobiles in those days.

For Paul it would have been a case of camels, boats, and a healthy dose of good old-fashioned walking. He didn’t have any designer hiking boots from the local camping shop. There weren’t even any isotonic, energy-giving drinks in those days. How did he do it?

What I get out of these verses is that for Paul the Christian life wasn’t about standing still. He was having a great time looking round Asia, and he was happy to stay there “for a while”. But he was already planning his next few adventures. This kind of restlessness and looking forward can be a healthy thing.

Where are you in your Christian life today? Do you feel like you’re standing still? Are you caught in a rut? Maybe you even feel like you’re going backwards – I know I do sometimes!

Maybe today you could spend some time with God, asking him what he wants you to do and where he wants you to go. This doesn’t necessarily mean travel – it could be about spiritual growth in an area of your life, or doing something new in church that you haven’t done before. Enjoy how you are at the moment, but at the same time join with Paul and look forward to your next few adventures with God!


word-on-the-web uses the Scripture text taken from the Youth Bible, New Century Version (Anglicised Edition) copyright 1993 by Word Publishing Milton Keynes