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Published February 13, 2023

The Watchman in Corinth

If you were with us last week, you’ll recall that Paul’s missionary team of four had whittled down to just one. Luke had remained in Philippi (presumable to pastor the first church in that city) and Silas & Timothy had stayed behind in Berea while Paul went on to the city of Athens. Of course, Silas & Timothy would rejoin Paul before too long, but for now, Paul was left to minister on his own.

And so, following his typical pattern, Paul preached the Good News to anyone he could find – both in the Jewish synagogues as well as in the public square! But for all of Paul’s preaching, it seems that the city of Athens had little appetite for the Word of God and only a few people accepted the Lord in that city.

And so, always eager to share the Good News with more and more people – Paul didn’t linger long in Athens and soon made his way to Corinth – and that’s where we are going to pick up the story today.

At this point, Timothy and Silas have yet to catch up with Paul, and so he is still ministering alone – but that won’t be the case for long. As we will read today, God graciously provided yet another set of co-workers for Paul – a married couple that would work together with him in Corinth and would later travel with him to Ephesus.

But that’s not the only thing that God provided for Paul in Corinth. As we go through this chapter we will see that God not only provided co-workers for Paul, but He also provided for Paul’s physical needs, He gave him encouragement and a renewed sense of calling, and he also gave him protection from those who wanted to harm him.

It really is a great chapter for us to see how God graciously provided exactly what Paul needed – and exactly when He needed it.

Our passage today is Acts chapter 18 – and we’re going to start at verse 1 as Paul leaves Athens and makes his way to Corinth.

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Carrying Out Your God-Given Ministry

For the last several weeks, we’ve been going through the book of Acts – following the growth and development of the early church.

As the Apostles boldly share their testimony of the resurrection of Jesus Christ and call people to put their faith in Him for Salvation, the Holy Spirit has been at work, and crowds of people have been responding to the Gospel. The church has been growing tremendously!

But of course, with rapid growth comes growing pains – and we’ve seen a few examples of that already.

We’ve seen Ananias and Sapphira being put to death by the Lord after lying to the Holy Spirit.
We’ve seen the Apostles being thrown into prison – and then rescued by an angel who simply opened the doors and led them out.
We’ve seen the religious leaders command that Apostles stop preaching in the name of Jesus – even flogging them as a warning – but the Apostles insisted that they would continue obeying God rather than man!

And thus far, all of these growing pains have not stopped the tremendous growth of the church. But today in our passage, the church is going to face perhaps their greatest threat yet. This particular ‘growing pain’ not only has the potential to destroy or at least seriously damage the unity of the church, which is the hallmark of the followers of Christ – but it also has the potential to prevent the Apostles from faithfully preaching the Good News.

And by the way, the threats to the church that we’re going to read about here in Acts chapter 6 are equally present us for today, and so I think this will be a very relevant passage for us!

Our passage today is in Acts chapter 6 – and we’re just going to start by just reading the very first verse. It reads like this:

But as the believers rapidly multiplied, there were rumblings of discontent. The Greek-speaking believers complained about the Hebrew-speaking believers, saying that their widows were being discriminated against in the daily distribution of food.

Acts 6:1

Now right off the bat there are a couple of things that we should clarify.

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Contrasting Characters in the Early Church

This morning we are continuing our look at the book of Acts – specifically we will be looking at the last few verses of chapter 4 and the first few verses of chapter 5. Last week Mike took us through the bulk of Acts 4 as Peter & John boldly proclaimed the resurrection of Jesus Christ as they stood on trial before the temple authorities. They had earlier been arrested after healing a lame man and preaching to the crowds that Jesus was the Messiah who had been raised from the dead.

Well, the religious authorities at the temple didn’t appreciate that kind of preaching, and so, upon being released from prison, Peter & John were strongly warned to never to preach again in the name of Jesus – but of course, the apostles stated quite emphatically that they could never stop speaking about what they had seen and heard. In fact, as soon as they were released, they met together with the rest of the church to pray for even more boldness in sharing the Gospel.

And of course, God was quite happy to answer their prayers. In fact, the last verse of that passage says this:

31 After this prayer, the meeting place shook, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit. Then they preached the word of God with boldness. Acts 4:31

Undeterred by the threats of the authorities and empowered by the Holy Spirit, the disciples faithfully continued to carry out the mission they had been given by Jesus Himself – to go into all the world and preach the Gospel.

And of course, as they did that, the church grew by leaps and bounds. Back in verse 4, Luke gives us a numbers update and he says….

“…the number of men who believed now totaled about 5,000.” Luke 4:4

5000 men had put their faith in Jesus in just a short time – in probably just a matter of days or weeks. And that’s just the men. There were undoubtedly women and children as well, so the total number of those in the church could have been around 10,000 or more by now. What a church! And even more amazing is how Luke describes this enormous group of people… Look at what he says in verse 32:

32 All the believers were united in heart and mind.

Acts 4:32a

Now that is an amazing statement! All the believers – some 5 to 10,000 of them – were all united in heart and mind. That’s almost hard to believe!

Most of us know from experience how hard it is to get people on the same page – whether you’re trying to do something as a team at work or as group of kids for a class project or even just trying to decide what movie to watch as a family – it is a rare thing that people are united in heart and mind!

But that’s exactly what God intends for his church. In fact, this is exactly what Jesus prayed for when He prayed for his disciples back at the last supper. If you remember from John chapter 17, Jesus said:

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Tag: gifts

The Watchman in Corinth

Carrying Out Your God-Given Ministry

Contrasting Characters in the Early Church