These Jews who rejected Paul (v.8) were the ones who begged to hear more (18:19,20), but evidently they still didn’t want to hear the lowly carpenter was their Christ.  So they hardened their hearts (cf.IIChron.36:11-13) against the truth, and spoke evil of “that way,” i.e., of the Lord (Jo.14:6cf.Acts 9:1,2).  Some must have believed though, for Paul had “disciples” he took with him when he left (19:9).  We don’t know if the school Paul joined was next to the synagogue, as in Corinth, but those unsaved Jews were surely provoked to envy when they saw the success of Paul’s school (v.10).

Once Paul popularized Jesus in Asia, men tried to capitalize on Him by associating with Him, so God gave Paul the power to do things they couldn’t (19:11,12).  His old tentmaker aprons could cast devils out from a distance, something that made him stand out from the Jews in verse 13 in the way Moses stood out when God worked a special miracle by him (Ex.8:17-19).Only God could make life from dust (Gen.2:7).

These “vagabond” Jews were types of the nation Israel, who should have been in their homeland in the kingdom by this time in Acts (cf.Ezek.36:24,25).  Cain was a type of them.  He killed his brother, so God made him a vagabond (Gen.4: 9,12), and the Jews killed their brother Jesus, and God made them vagabonds.  Judas was another type of them (Ps.109:8, 10cf.Acts 1:15-26).  He had no physical kids to become vagabonds, so that psalm cursed his spiritual children, the children of Israel.  The psalm’s reference to making them “desolate” should remind you of Matthew 23:37-39.

If that sounds harsh, remember, these Jews were using the name of the Christ they crucified and the apostle they persecuted to make money.  But that’s the purpose of Acts: to show how low the nation of Israel had fallen, spiritually.

As the sons of a priest (Acts 19:14), these Jews should have been priests themselves in the kingdom by now, not exorcists, with Gentiles bringing them “riches” (Isa.61:6). They were exorcists before Paul (Acts 19:13), but once he made Jesus popular, they combined exorcism with His name, and regretted it (v.15,16). Possessed men had superhuman strength (Mark 5:2-4).  The wounds of these men disqualified them from being priests (Lev.21:17-21).  That’s where Israel stands today, defeated by the devil and disqualified from being the priests God wants them to be in the kingdom.

Job was a type of how Jews will be priests in the kingdom.  He was his family’s priest and, like Sceva, had 7 sons (Job1: 2,5) who died (v.19); but after much tribulation he got 7 sons back in his “latter end” (42:12,13).  Jews will get their priests back after they go through tribulation in their latter days. These Jews typified how Israel was just reaping what she sowed when one of their priests left a Gentile naked of God’s righteousness and spiritually wounded (Lu.10:30-34). As in Acts 13, Jews are judged while Gentiles are saved  (19:18).

“Curious” arts (19:19,20) are black arts, i.e., dabbling with spirits—like these exorcists! Curio cabinets originally featured things people are curious about, like black arts objects.  They must have been at it a long time to have that many books on it.  The “deeds” they showed (v.18) were talismans  they sold to ward off evil spirits.  That means they “confessed” to doing what the exorcists were doing, combining Jesus with their black arts.  Crucifixes are talismans that priests use to ward off evil spirits during exorcisms.  When they heard what happened to the exorcists, they feared (v.17) that the devils they were trafficking with would turn on them.

If you think evil spirits can prevail (v.16) against you, v.20 says the Word prevailed against them.  Of course, today they oppose us by duplicating the doctrines we teach, the way Pharaoh’s magicians withstood Moses’ miracles (IITim.3:8 cf.ITim.4:1-3). But their doctrines can’t produce eternal life, something that will be obvious in heaven, if not sooner.

A video of this sermon is available on YouTube: “Paul Goes Back To School” Acts 19:8-22

Summary:

Apollos was from Alexandria (18:24), home of the world’s largest library.  But being a bookworm of the Bible is what made him “mighty in the Scriptures.”  Then, when he heard of “the baptism of John” (v.25), he knew it was time to go preach the kingdom he’d read about in Scripture all his life.

But if all he knew was John’s baptism, he didn’t know the King had come and been rejected, and the kingdom was on hold; but he met some grace folk who knew it (v.26)! Paul led them to Christ (18:1-3), and taught them all that Apollos didn’t know.  Then they taught it to Apollos—including how God reacted to the Jews rejecting their kingdom by sending Paul to preach salvation without John’s baptism.

Once Apollos knew all that, he went to Corinth in Achaia (18:27cf.19:1), where he helped the grace believers there by convincing the unsaved Jews that Jesus was Christ (v.28).  That made them stop persecuting them. That’s how Apollos watered the seed of the gospel Paul planted there (ICor.3:6).

Meanwhile, Paul met some believers who evidently couldn’t speak in tongues (Acts 19:1-3).  He knew that Jews baptized unto Peter were baptized with the Holy Ghost (Acts 2:38) and could speak in tongues (2:1-4), so he asked them what they were baptized unto.  They replied they hadn’t heard if there “be any Holy Ghost.”  The Spirit is mentioned in the Old Testament often, but the mystery is mentioned often in the New Testament, and many believers haven’t heard of it.

John mentioned the Spirit (Mt.3:11), but he didn’t start out saying Christ would come and baptize them with the Holy Ghost (John 1:35-42).  So these Jews here were early converts of John who hadn’t heard of the Holy Ghost.  That means they didn’t know John later baptized Jews in Christ’s name, so Paul brought them up to date (v.4), adding that when people heard John say that, they were baptized (v.5).

Why would Paul give them the Holy Ghost (v.6)?  Why wouldn’t he?  Wouldn’t you help Jewish kingdom believers in the Tribulation if God left you behind at the Rapture?

Some Bible teachers teach Paul rebaptized those Jews in verse 5, but John’s baptism was for salvation (Mark 1:4), and you only need to get saved once.  There’d have been no reason for Paul to rebaptize them.  Andrew and Peter were baptized by John (John 1:35-42), and they weren’t rebaptized.  Verse 7 ends this passage by telling us that there were 12 of these Jews, and 12 is the number of Israel (Gen.49:28; Mt.19:28).  This is to emphasize that John’s baptism was Jewish.  Despite many Gentiles who look to him as the first Baptist, he only baptized Jews (Acts 13:24).

This passage starts with a man stuck on John’s baptism and ends with more men stuck on it.  That’s a type of how this dispensation began with men who found it hard to leave baptism behind when the dispensation of grace began, and how it will end with more men stuck on it.  They’ll depart from the faith Paul preached (ITim.4:1), salvation without baptism. Baptism has a form of godliness (IITim.3:1,2,5).

The middle of this passage also pictures what’s happening in between the beginning and end of this dispensation.  Paul went to Ephesus (19:1), and later wrote the Ephesians that there’s only one baptism in this dispensation (Eph.4:4,5), the spiritual baptism of I Corinthians 12:13.

Paul had to pass through “the upper coasts” to get to Ephesus (Acts 19:1), and when Paul preached, he bought people into the upper heavens, the third heaven, as pictured when he preached in Acts 20:7-9, where it talks about “the upper chamber” and “the third loft.”  Like Eutychus, the church of today is falling asleep under Paul’s preaching. And at the end of this dispensation, it will fall from the third heaven where Pauline preaching takes us, and they’ll go back to preaching baptism for the remission of sins again like John preached.

A video of this sermon is available on YouTube: “The Perfecting Of A Bookworm” Acts 18:24-19:7

Summary:

These unsaved Jews took Paul to court (v.12) and charged him with worshipping God “contrary to the law” (v.13).  In the past, unsaved Jews charged Paul with worshipping God contrary to Roman law (17:7).  But if that’s what they meant here, that’s not how the deputy took it (18:14-16).

The “words” they must have charged Paul (v.15) with saying were probably the same “blasphemous words” they charged Stephen with saying against the law (6:11,13).  But that was not true of Stephen or Paul.  The “names” (18:15) the deputy refused to hear them argue about were the names of Jesus, and whether He deserved to be called by the name Messiah. 

Gallio the deputy wasn’t the only one upset with the Jews that day.  All the Greeks in his courtroom got so mad at them that they began beating their leader (v.17). If that seems like an overreaction for wasting the court’s time, what you’re seeing is the hatred men have always had for Jews.  Gallio must have hated them too, because he was completely carefree about it.  Judges today would have a bailiff restore order.

We know Sosthenes (v.17) was the new “chief ruler of the synagogue,” because the old one got saved (18:8).  Sosthenes must have also gotten saved, because Paul mentions him in I Corinthians 1:1.  And it was no coincidence that synagogue rulers kept getting saved.  They’d usually be men who knew the Scriptures well, and men like that would know what it meant when the Gentiles in the church next door spoke in tongues. They’d know God gave tongues to Jews to help them share the gospel with Gentiles in the kingdom (cf. Zech.8:22,23). So they’d know God gave the Jews tongues in Acts 2:4 as a sign He was about to bless them with the kingdom. But they’d also know God gave tongues to Gentiles as a sign He was judging the Jews, not blessing them.  We know this because when Paul was explaining to the Corinthians why they had the gift of tongues, he quoted Isaiah 28:11,12 (ICor.14:21).  God had been telling the Jews to repent in Hebrew, but they wouldn’t listen.  So He said, “I’ll speak to you in the only language you seem to understand, that of judgment.  I’ll let the Babylonians conquer you, and speak to you in their language.”  And He did!  Half of Daniel was written in Chaldee.  And since men of the other nations that Babylon conquered were always coming and going in Babylon, they heard their languages too.  And when those Jews heard those tongues, they knew God judged them.  And when the leaders of the Corinthian synagogue heard Gentile tongues, they knew God judged them for rejecting their King.

Why’d Paul take a vow found in the law while telling others we’re not under the law?  To save the Jews (ICor.9:20,23)—the Jews who took him to court!  That’s love!  But it was a voluntary vow the law didn’t require, so he didn’t have to put himself under the law to do it.  It involved a sacrifice (Num.6), but priests will offer them in the kingdom (Ezek. 45). Later, God prevented Paul from offering one, so we know He didn’t want sacrifices to continue in our age.

Paul’s tactic worked!  The Jews listened to him (Acts18:19, 20).  So he left to do something equally Jewish—keep a voluntary feast in Jerusalem (v.21cf.Jo.10:22). After he landed in “Caesarea” (v.22), Jerusalem’s seaport, he went “up” to Jerusalem (elevation 2,474ft.). But after sailing 1200 miles, he only kept the feast and greeted the 12.  He sailed that much to show Jerusalem Jews he took that vow, so they would go home and tell Jews in their synagogues about his vow, so when Paul arrived in their synagogues, they’d listen.

Paul also stopped in his home church of Antioch (v.22) because he knew they’d have heard he took the vow, and he wanted them to know he wasn’t a hypocrite. Then he went to Galatia (v.23) to prove to those Jews he didn’t disrespect the law.  This is more proof he did nothing hypocritical.  If he had, he wouldn’t have dared show his face in Galatia, after the letter he wrote them scolding them about the law!

A video of this message is available on YouTube: “The Tale Of A Carefree Deputy” Acts 18:12-23

Summary:

Corinth (v.1) spanned the Isthmus of Corinth, so it had a sea-port on two coasts.  That gave it twice the commercial traffic of other seaports, and twice their wealth.  Paul didn’t want them to think he was after their money, so rather than go straight to the synagogue as he usually did, he got a job (v.2,3). Before he became a rabbi, his father taught him to make tents, as the Lord’s father taught Him to be a carpenter.

That was the perfect trade for the apostle who tells us to rightly divide the Word (IITim.2:15).  We get accused of cutting up the Bible and throwing away the parts not written to us, but that’s not how Paul made tents!  He sewed the parts back together to make something useful, and we put the divided parts of the Bible together to make the Bible useful.

Claudius may have told Jews to leave Rome (v.2) because they’ve always been hated due to their laws and customs that made them different (cf.Jer.12:9)—so don’t be prejudiced! 

Paul preached harder when Silas and Timothy arrived (18:5) because he was refreshed by their fellowship, and by the news Timothy brought him from Thessalonica that they were withstanding the persecution storm he raised there (IThes.3: 1-8).  You should be in church so you can be encouraged in your stand for the truth when you see others standing for it.

The Jews contradicted themselves when they tried to argue with Paul, which made them mad enough to blaspheme (18: 6). So he shook off their dust (cf.Mt.10:5,7,14). That was his way of washing his hands of their blood (cf.Mt.27: 4).  If he hadn’t warned them to get saved, he would have been guilty of their blood (cf.Ezek.3:18,19) because a dispensation was committed to him (ICor.9:16,17).  If he didn’t dispense it to leaders (Acts 20:26) we wouldn’t have a gospel go preach.  We know we’re not guilty of anyone’s blood because we don’t have the authority to make pronouncements like Paul did (18:6).  Our motive to share the gospel is the love of Christ (IICor.5:14), not the fear of what He’ll do if we don’t.

In Acts 13:46, Paul turned to the Gentiles, but he said “henceforth” he’d “go” to them (18:6). He just went to a hillfull of them (17:22-31), so here he meant from that point on he’d go to Gentiles in a different way, by sending them epistles (cf.28:28’s sent).The “now” in IThessalonians 3:6 suggests he wrote that letter here, which some say was his first.

If you commit three crimes, it’s often three strikes and you’re out.  They lock you up forever.  God gave Israel three strikes (Acts 13:46; 18:6; 28:28), then locked them up—but only till after the Rapture, when they’ll be His people again.

Justus (18:7) must have been a Gentile or he’d have been in the synagogue with the Jews.  He worshipped God, but never became a Jew, perhaps because he thought Jesus was their Christ, and those Jews didn’t.  So when he overheard Paul preach He was Christ from his house next door, he invited Paul in to hear more.  That’s where Paul started the church!  Justus’ salvation provoked Crispus to emulation (18:8cf.Ro. 11:13,14), i.e., to want to equal or excel Paul at what he was doing. Crispus got so jealous that he was never able to reach the Gentile next door, he joined Paul to help him reach them.

It provoked the rest of the Jews to envy when they saw how “many” of the Corinthian Gentiles got saved (v.8)—and when they heard them speak with tongues (ICor.14). Tongues were a sign to the unbelieving Jews next door (1:22; 14:22).  Signs belonged to Israel (Ps.74:9), but God took them away when they disobeyed Him—like when they killed Christ!  When God gave their Acts 2:4 sign of tongues to the Gentiles, their envy drove them to try to kill Paul (cf.ICor.2: 3), so the Lord assured him of his safety (Acts 18:9,10).  The “much people” He saw in Corinth were the humble kind (ICor.1:26-28).  Hearing there were “many”, Paul stayed longer in Corinth than any other city so far (Acts 18:11).

A video of this message is available on YouTube: “The Establishing Of The Corinthian Church” Acts 18:1-11