Sugar Land Bible Church

Dr. Andy Woods: Let's take our Bibles this evening and open them to Acts 18. This means we're finished with chapter 17. There is so much room in here tonight. I feel like a Southern Baptist where I could roam around and stuff. I don't know if our camera guys would like that very much, but let's go to Acts chapter 18. We're continuing our Wednesday evening, our verse-by-verse teaching through the book of Acts in that third section of the book where Jesus told the disciples you'll be my witnesses to the remote parts of the earth. We take that as Luke using that statement of Christ as an outline of the book.

We're in that third part, the witness of the church to the remote parts of the earth, chapters 13 through 28. It started with Paul's first missionary journey into Southern Galatia, then the Jerusalem Council, as we've studied, and then the part of it we're in now is the second missionary journey. We are almost finished with the second missionary journey. We're going to start the Corinthian ministry tonight. Then we just have the Ephesus ministry and then the return to Antioch, as you can see, and then that section of the book will be completed.

If you're wondering where Paul went on his third missionary journey, here is a map that shows you where he went. He has been in Athens, which is right here, and now he's moving over into Corinth. We know a little bit about the Corinthians from the Corinthian letters, but how did those churches, the Corinthian church, get started in the first place? We wouldn't know without Acts chapter 18 in our Bible.

You can take the Corinthian ministry and divide it into four. There's Paul's arrival, verses 1 through 4, in Corinth. His ministry there, verses 5 through 11. There's a legal ruling, which is huge, in chapters 12 through 17 before a man named Gallio. That's a huge ruling because they were trying to argue that Paul was violating Roman law by teaching a new religion. The Jews who brought this charge thought that because Paul was pointing towards Yeshua, which Judaism had not done, pointing to Jesus. In Rome, one people group gets one religion. You don't get two.

They tried to argue in front of Gallio that Paul's teaching a new religion and it needs to be illegal. Gallio said, "No, it's just an offshoot of Judaism." That's huge once that happens because that guarantees Christianity, what we know as Christianity, freedom of religion for a while, and it could travel freely. That's why Luke records that. This all took place at a place called the Bema seat. Does that sound familiar? There in Acts chapter 18, verses 12 through 17. Then verse 18, Paul will depart from Corinth. That's the big picture of what the Corinthian ministry looks like. Let's look here and try to cover verses 1 through 11 today. As you all know, my track record on those kind of promises has never been that good, so I'm going to do my best.

What does the arrival look like? We have the arrival in Corinth, verses 1 through 4, and it starts off with a journey. We pick it up there in verse 1. It says, "After these things," after what things? The ministry in Athens, which was described in the prior chapter. "After these things, he left Athens and went to Corinth." Here's Athens, and here's Corinth, not too far from each other. Here is another map with a big circle around the basic area where Paul was. Here's Athens right here, Mars Hill and all of that stuff. You probably can't see my writing, can you? Here's Corinth.

Basically, the two were separated by what's called the Isthmian land bridge. Are you all familiar with the concept of an isthmus? It's a narrow land bridge. What they did is they took their boats, and they put them on wheels, and they dragged them across this Isthmian land bridge. When you go across the Isthmian land bridge, guess what you don't have to do? You don't have to make this trip around the Horn like that, or vice versa. We know from Greco-Roman literature that a lot of people lost their lives going around like that.

In fact, on one of our trips, we actually did that. We went around the Horn. If some of you folks here were on that trip with us, it was a very tumultuous night, you might remember. There was a whole lot of shaking going on on that boat. I was thinking, well, that's why they had this Isthmian land bridge in Greco-Roman times. Right there on the Isthmian land bridge on this side of it was Corinth.

Essentially, what happened is there developed a word in the Greco-Roman world for corruption. Tell me if you recognize this word. It's *korinthiazomai*. Does that sound familiar? *Korinthiazomai*. In other words, this meant corruption, and it's named after what? Corinth. Corinth that we're reading about here was notorious for just total hedonism and corruption. Think about it for a minute if you are a sailor and you're going to be in town for a very short period of time because all you're doing is dragging your boat across the Isthmian land bridge. No one is there for long periods of time. No one's there to monitor your reputation. You just go into the Corinthian temple there, pagan temple, which was known for its sexual immorality.

In fact, that's how they practiced religion in Corinth. They had sex with prostitutes in pagan temples. Hey, I'm only going to be in town for a short period of time. No one's here to monitor my behavior. Corinth became known with all of these sailors coming through as really a place of corruption. It's kind of like how we use the word Vegas today. What happens in Vegas?

Guest (Male): Stays in Vegas.

Dr. Andy Woods: You guys know this pretty well. Just kidding. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. What happened in Corinth stayed in Corinth, and there was actually a word for corruption developed out of that city. This is where Paul is going on his second missionary journey. He leaves Athens and he comes to Corinth, and he meets two very important people that are going to play a huge role in his ministry. They're going to play a huge role at the end of this chapter as they're going to disciple in Ephesus a young, very eloquent man named Apollos.

Apollos was a believer, but he didn't know anything about the death of Christ, the burial of Christ, the resurrection of Christ, the ascension of Christ. He only knew about Christ up to the point of John the Baptist when John the Baptist pointed to Jesus in the early gospels and said, "Behold the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world." He was a believer because he was a disciple of John the Baptist, and John the Baptist pointed to Jesus as the Messiah. That's all Apollos knew, and he was really effective with what he knew, but Priscilla and Aquila are going to take him aside and give him the whole picture of who Jesus is. Not just up to the point of John the Baptist, but everything he did: his death, burial, resurrection, ascension, etc.

My point is Priscilla and Aquila have a big role to play with Apollos and later on in Paul's ministry. He meets them in verses 2 and 3, and they're Jews. What are these Jews doing in Corinth? Well, they got kicked out of Rome. It says there in verse 2, "And he found a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, having recently come from Italy," that would be Rome, "with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius," that's the Roman Emperor, "had commanded all the Jews to leave Rome. And he came to them."

Claudius said, "Get these Jews out of here." He kicked them out of Rome, and when they got kicked out of Rome, they providentially ended up in Corinth. Where is Rome? Here is Rome up here, here's all of Italy. They got kicked out of Rome because they were Jewish, and they ended up here in Corinth. That's where they meet Paul, and it's a strategic meeting because, as I said before, they're going to play a big role in his ministry. Why did Claudius kick the Jews out of Rome? Arnold Fruchtenbaum has this comment. He says Aquila and Priscilla were now in Corinth because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to depart from Rome. This edict of the Jews' expulsion from Rome was issued in AD 49, just a couple of years before the events of this chapter unfold.

According to the Roman historian Suetonius, Claudius had issued an edict because the Jews constantly kept making disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus, which probably was a misreading of the term *Christos*, meaning Christ. Every time Christ was preached by the church, the Jews got crazy over it to the point where they were causing disturbances. These are the unbelieving Jews I'm talking about. This got so bad that Claudius said, "Enough with these people," and just kicked them out of Rome. That's how Priscilla and Aquila ended up there in Corinth.

Fruchtenbaum says apparently a riot broke out within the Jewish community in Rome over the Messiah. The Romans, not knowing what the issues were, all the Romans knew—and you'll see this with Gallio's ruling in verses 12 through 17—is just a bunch of fighting and squabbling within Judaism. They kind of looked at this, the Romans did, as people look at a Christian denomination that's at war with itself. Are we going to immerse? Are we going to sprinkle with baptism? These kinds of things. Churches get real riled up over that and sometimes split over that. The civil authorities say, "We're not going to get involved with stuff like that. Those are internal matters."

The problem is with the unbelieving Jews and the believing Jews, it got to the point of riots. Claudius said, "Just kick the Jews out of Rome." The Romans, not knowing what the issues were, expelled the entire Jewish community from the city. Later, however, the Jews did return to Rome. Eventually, that edict was lifted because Paul from Corinth will write to the church at Rome. In Romans 16, verse 3, he mentions Priscilla and Aquila. We think that Priscilla and Aquila eventually made their way back to Rome. At any rate, these two are a very husband and wife team, really important to Paul's ministry. Paul took a liking to them right away, and they took a liking to him right away because they shared the same vocation.

It's kind of like two engineers having something to talk about. Two lawyers, when they're not fighting with each other, I guess, have something to talk about. Two doctors have something to talk about. That's kind of what happened with Paul and his gravitation towards Priscilla and Aquila because they were all tentmakers. You see that in verse 3. It says, "And because he was one of the same trade, he stayed with them and they were working, for by trade they were tentmakers."

Tentmakers, what does that really mean? The Greek actually doesn't say tentmakers. I know that's kind of disappointing because I've always thought they were tentmakers. They were tentmakers, but they did something broader than just make tents. They did something broader which included tentmaking. The Greek actually reads that they were leather workers, workers of leather, which would include a lot of different things, including making tents. This is how Paul supported himself in his ministry, and this is how Priscilla and Aquila supported themselves.

The Jews, of course, have a saying: "If you don't teach your child a profession or an occupation, you'll teach him to be a criminal." The Bible, particularly as it comes out of Judaism, is really big on manual labor, having some kind of skill or trade with which you can support yourself, support your family, and then be generous towards other people that may not be as fortunate. This idea that you kind of go around and you try to gather a following and you try to get people to give money to support what you're preaching, that's really not the Jewish model. That's more of the Greco-Greek type philosophical model.

The Jews were really big into having some kind of skill. What you'll see in the Bible is it's very blue-collar. The characters of the Bible knew what it was like to eke out a living. The ultimate example of this is Jesus himself. What was Christ's occupation? He was a carpenter. Mark 6, verse 3: "Is this not the carpenter, the son of Mary and the brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon?" Most of the disciples, what was their occupation? They were fishermen. Luke, who wrote Acts and Luke, was a physician. God, as part of the Fall, tells us that we have to work with our hands to survive.

Did they work before the Fall? Yes, they did. Adam was tilling the garden. Even before the Fall, Adam was a worker. The Fall changed things where people could no longer work just for enjoyment as they could pre-Fall, but now they had to work to survive. Labor becomes more difficult as the ground rebels against our forebears. You see this articulated in a lot of different places. Genesis 3, verses 17 through 19: "Then He," that's God, "said to Adam, 'Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and you have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you saying you shall not eat from it, cursed is the ground because of you.'" God says you rebel against me, the ground is going to rebel against you. Sarcasm of God.

"Cursed is the ground because of you. In toil, you will eat of it all the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face, you will eat bread." You survive now through labor, through toiling. Paul reiterates this to the Thessalonians who confused imminency with immediacy. Paul taught them that Jesus can come back at any time. That's called imminency. There is no sign that has to happen before the Rapture can occur. They confuse that with immediacy. Oh, he's coming back next month. He's coming back next week.

If you think Jesus is coming back next week, then why would you want to pay off your credit card bills? Waste of time. Why hold down a job? Why save for retirement? Why try to put your kids through college? Paul has to write 2nd Thessalonians to explain to them, "I never said immediacy, I said imminency," and those are two totally different things. We teach imminency here. He can come back at any moment. He can come back before this Bible study is over. Some of you could be praying for that to happen, for all I know. But it doesn't mean he will come back before this Bible study is over.

They got confused between imminency and immediacy, and so they quit their jobs. Paul, in the process, tells them in 2nd Thessalonians 3, verse 10: "If anyone is not willing to work, then he is not to eat either," because you're in rebellion against what God established at the dawn of human history with the Fall. You see Paul talking this way in 1st Timothy 5, verse 8: "If anyone does not provide for his own," meaning his own family, "especially those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever." Scripture is very blue-collar, a very manual labor sort of emphasis. That's who Paul was as he was traveling as this worker in leather, and that's who Priscilla and Aquila were. That's why they had a lot in common and why they got together.

Then Paul goes into his ministry pattern, and it's there in verse 4. Chapter 18, verse 4, it says, "And he was reasoning in the synagogue every Sabbath and trying to persuade Jews and Greeks." Why was he in the synagogue only on the Sabbath? Because every other day of the week, we're thinking he was working in his trade in tentmaking, leather making, etc., etc. This is what Paul always does. He always goes to the synagogue first and he tries to preach Jesus to the Jewish individuals. You'll notice at the end of verse 4 it says "the Greeks." The Jews and the Greeks. The Greeks would be proselytes, Gentile converts to Judaism that wanted to walk with Yahweh, and so they converted to Judaism. Those are the typical people that you find in the synagogue on the Sabbath.

Paul always goes there first because he's got common ground with those folks. They believe Hebrew Bible, what we call Old Testament, just like he does. He always tries to in almost every city he goes to. The only exceptions would be cities where there wasn't a synagogue yet built, like Philippi, for example. He always goes to the synagogue first and he tries to show them from their own Scripture that their own Scripture, what we call Old Testament, points to Jesus, which they would call Yeshua. Paul lays out this principle in Romans 1, verse 16: "I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation for everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek."

The nation of Israel is God's chosen nation and they were always given the first opportunity to respond to the Savior by way of faith. Typically, what happens is Paul doesn't fare so well with them. They end up getting mad at him, kicking him out of the synagogue after hearing him, and then he goes amongst the Gentiles and he bears a great crop amongst the Gentiles who do want to hear the message. Then the unbelieving Jews get jealous of him because he's so successful amongst the Gentiles whereas they are not, and they stir up people to cause a riot, cause problems to get him kicked out of that city. That's actually God's providence because it moves him onto the next city.

This is what Paul did in Thessalonica, you'll remember. It says, "Now when they had traveled through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica where there was a synagogue of the Jews. And according to Paul's custom," so this is his habit, "he visited them for three Sabbaths, reasoned with them from the Scriptures," that's the Old Testament because we don't even have a New Testament yet, "explaining and giving evidence that Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead and saying this is the Jesus whom I am proclaiming to you is the Christ."

It's what Paul did in Berea, the next town after Thessalonica. It says in Acts 17, verses 10 and 11: "The brethren immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea, and when they arrived, they went into the synagogue of the Jews." Now these Berean Jews in the synagogue were more noble-minded than those in Thessalonica, for they received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures. Why are they examining the Scriptures? Because Paul is using the Scriptures to point towards Jesus, showing that Hebrew Bible prophetically points towards Jesus. Examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so. Here's Paul in Corinth doing the exact same thing.

Then you go down to verses 5 through 11, and we read about his ministry there in Corinth. A lot of things happen in this ministry. First of all, Silas and Timothy report back to Paul from Thessalonica. Paul had left Silas and Timothy in Thessalonica to pastor that church that was started there a little earlier, and now Silas and Timothy have left that church and joined Paul in Corinth, and they give Paul a report on how things are going in Thessalonica. There is a reference to this in 1st Thessalonians 3, verse 6: "But now that Timothy has come to us from you," as Paul is talking to the Thessalonians, "and has brought us good news of your faith and love, and that you always think kindly of us, longing to see us, just as we also long to see you." In a book that he's about to write, he acknowledges that Silas and Timothy had come from Thessalonica to Corinth to join Paul and to kind of report on the progress of the Thessalonian Christians.

Here is Thessalonica up here, here's Paul in Corinth down here. Timothy and Silas had made that trip from Thessalonica to Corinth to visit Paul. Here is another map that shows you the same thing. The circle up top is generally where Thessalonica is located, and the circle towards the bottom is generally where Corinth is located. This is kind of the trajectory of Timothy and Silas as they came to visit Paul.

It is at this point that Paul will pen two letters called 1st Thessalonians and 2nd Thessalonians. Why is he pinning those two letters now? Because he just got a report on the Thessalonian church from Silas and Timothy. What better time to write to them than right now? You'll notice on this chart here that the only other book that Paul had written up to this point in time was Galatians. He wrote that at the end of his first missionary journey from Antioch up north, the northern tip of Israel, the very place that he launched out from for missionary journey number one. He got back from missionary journey number one and he wrote to the churches that he had built, evangelized, started on missionary journey number one.

He wrote to them because they were being steeped in legalism. A bunch of Pharisees came into their midst and said you can't really grow as a Christian unless you white-knuckle it under the Mosaic law. Legalism, and Paul wrote the book of Galatians to tell them, "No, you grow as a Christian the same way you got saved, by faith alone under the power of the Holy Spirit alone." Stay with that trajectory and you'll grow as a Christian. Don't believe what these legalists are trying to teach you. Legalists are always people that are trying to put people back under the Mosaic law. Judaizers, typically unbelieving Jewish people doing that to Paul's brand-new Christians.

That's why he wrote the book of Galatians at the end of missionary journey number one. Now we're on missionary journey number two, he hits Corinth, he gets a report from Silas and Timothy about the progress of the church he established in Thessalonica and based on that report, he writes two letters to them close in proximity back-to-back, about AD 51. Galatians was written in AD 49, the two Thessalonian letters were written in AD 51, and he's dealing with questions that they had.

This chart, and you can catch this whole talk that I did on this when we were in the very end of the book of Acts chapter 14. I think we covered the last two verses in that chapter and I laid out all of Paul's 13 letters and the order he wrote them in and why he wrote them. If you're looking for that kind of overview, we have that on record if you're interested. Basically, the way to memorize this is the mnemonic device 1-2-3-4-2-1. Easy, right? 1-2-3-4-2-1.

First missionary journey, one book: Galatians, AD 49, to try to tell the Galatians, the churches in Galatia, not to wander into legalism. Second missionary journey, which we're studying here, two books. See a pattern? One missionary journey, one book. Second missionary journey, two books. Those are the Thessalonian letters written about AD 50 to 52. Third missionary journey, which we haven't studied yet, three books: the two Corinthian letters and Romans. Romans is number six.

Yet, as you're reading your Bible, the way we've organized it as Protestants, the New Testament, Romans is the first book that you find of Paul, and yet chronologically it's actually number six. That's why the order that the Protestants have put everything in is confusing. It reveals to you nothing of this chronology. The reason we've done it that way is well, Romans is the most important book in church history, so let's put that first, and then the Corinthian books are pretty big, so we'll put those next. In reality, Galatians is the first book, and the two Thessalonian books are numbers 2 and 3.

By the way, your Old Testament is just about as messed up as the New Testament in terms of order because you would go into your Old Testament and the first prophet you would run into is who? Isaiah. Why is Isaiah first? Well, he's the biggest guy, wrote the biggest books. Let's put his book first in the prophet section. When in reality, the earliest writing prophet that we have is a little tiny one-chapter book called Obadiah. Yet you would never know that by how the Protestants have organized the Old Testament, just like you would never know Romans is number six based on how Protestant Christianity has organized the New Testament.

We really are very confused today. We don't know what to believe. We don't know who's first. Remember who's on first? That routine. We don't know who's on first, we don't have any knowledge of a chronology, and a lot of the confusion comes from how we have organized the Bible. I may do a series at some point teaching you how to put everything in chronological order. I'll do that. If you want the Pauline letters in chronological order with more details, check out the study we did in Acts in this class at the end of Acts 14 and you'll catch all of that.

My point is we're on the second missionary journey and we have two books that he wrote, the two Thessalonian letters. He wrote them from Corinth to Thessalonica. He wrote them because of what we're reading about right here, that Silas and Timothy came from Thessalonica, joined Paul in Corinth to give him a report on the status of the Thessalonian church. It's here that Paul learns about the hang-ups of the Thessalonian church. They had a lot of hang-ups. One of their hang-ups was the Rapture because Paul had taught them about the Rapture, but after Paul left, the unbelieving Jews persecuted the new Thessalonian Gentile Christians, and some of their brethren had died in this persecution.

They wanted to know, well Paul, you taught us about the Rapture, but what about our deceased loved ones in Christ? When the Rapture happens, what's going to happen to them? Paul can't say, well, why don't you just go home and read your Bible because there is no Bible. There's no New Testament other than a few books that I've already mentioned: Galatians, maybe Matthew had been written by this time, maybe James, but other than that, we don't have a completed New Testament canon. Paul can't just say, "You want to know about the Rapture and you want to know about how your deceased loved ones participate in the Rapture? Then just go home and read your Bible."

"And why don't you just enroll in a Bible class to get the information?" There's no such thing as a Bible class. If Paul had said "Bible class," they're like, "What is that?" "New Testament," what is that? "Bible college," what is that? "Seminary," what is that? The only way they're going to get an answer on this question is they've got to go to their apostle who's a direct conduit of divine revelation to them. But he's been kicked out, so what do we do now? We're going to send Silas and Timothy to get this question answered.

Once you understand that, then you understand why Paul puts into 1st Thessalonians this teaching on the Rapture. He's filling out their lack of understanding. It's not that they were dumb, it's they just didn't have all the information. They were uninformed. He says, "But we do not want you to be uninformed about those who are asleep." Who are they? Our loved ones in Christ that are dead. "So that you will not grieve as the rest who have no hope." In other words, don't—he doesn't say don't ever grieve. What he says is don't grieve as if you're never going to see them again.

When a loved one in Christ dies, we always grieve, but you don't grieve as "I'm never going to see them again" because Paul says you're going to see them again at the point of the Rapture. He says, "For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus." That's Grandma and Grandpa and your youth pastor and everyone that you loved in Christ that's now dead. Paul says you're actually, when the Rapture happens, you're going to see them again.

"Even so, God will bring with us those who have fallen asleep in Jesus." Fallen asleep is a euphemism, which is a polite way of saying something. They're dead. He doesn't say they croaked or they kicked the bucket. That would be impolite language. He just says they fell asleep. "For this we say to you by the word of the Lord," what does that mean? It means Jesus already talked about the Rapture in John 14, verses 1 through 3. This teaching is not new with Paul. Paul's reiterating what was common knowledge of a statement that Jesus made in the upper room: "In my Father's house are many dwelling places. If it were not so, I would have told you. Behold, I go to prepare a place for you. Behold, I will come again and receive you to myself that where I am you may be also." That's the first teaching of the Rapture anywhere in the Bible.

Paul is just repeating what Jesus already said, but he's explaining how the doctrine impacts their deceased loved ones in Christ. "For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, excuse me, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ," who would those be? The first time I read the "dead in Christ," I was an Episcopalian at the time. I said that's the Episcopalians, the dead in Christ. No, it's the Methodists. No, it's the Presbyterians. No, the dead in Christ are people that died as Christians before the Rapture. Absent from the body, present with the Lord, 2nd Corinthians 5:8. When the Rapture happens, that crowd that's in heaven starts to come down. They're placed in resurrected bodies and they're coming down. That's where you see them again.

"Then we who are alive and remain," that's those of us living on the earth when the Rapture happens. Let's say this happens in our lifetime. I can't guarantee that, but let's pretend it does. We will be caught up. That's the Greek word *harpazo*, translated "Rapture," where you get the word harpoon, by the way, where you stab something and yank it to yourself. "We who are alive and remain will be caught up to meet the Lord in the air and so we shall always be with the Lord." In other words, they're coming down and we're caught up, and the two groups meet in the sky and Christ's feet never touch the earth.

We all go back into the Father's house together. It's like the Rapture happens, it's like going to a reunion of some kind. You ever gone to a family reunion if you have a big family, and suddenly you're around people you haven't seen in a long time, five years, 10 years? A class reunion. It's like a shock to the system because you're seeing all these people all at once. That's what the Rapture is. Therefore, we will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. Christ's feet never touch the earth. This is not the second advent stuff at the end of the seven-year tribulation period. This is an event that will precede all of that. Therefore, what? Be scared out of your mind? No, therefore comfort one another with these words, meaning you're going to see your deceased loved ones again at the point of the Rapture.

That's why in Corinth he writes 1st Thessalonians, to deal with that issue and other issues that he had learned about that they were wrestling with from Timothy and Silas. Not long after that, he learned that they got a forged letter from him claiming that the Day of the Lord, the tribulation period, had started. Boy, if that's true, it throws out everything Paul had taught them, that they would escape the tribulation period. They thought they were in it, and part of the problem was they were being persecuted by the unbelieving Jews. The same group that persecuted Paul turned on this flock when Paul left. They thought they were in the tribulation period, which means everything Paul taught them was wrong on the Rapture, and if he's wrong there, he could be wrong anywhere.

They were, and you'll read this in 2nd Thessalonians 2:1-2, they were shaken. The Greek word there for shaken is the same word used of an earthquake. Remember the Philippian jailer and the earthquake? That's the same word used here, except it was a theological earthquake. These people were shaken to the core of their beings. When Paul learns about that, he says you're not in the tribulation period because if you were in the tribulation period, you would see five things which you're not seeing. Yeah, you're being persecuted, but it's not these five things.

Number one, there's been no departure, meaning you're still here, you haven't departed yet. Number two, you haven't seen the Antichrist desecrating the temple. They were kind of pulled into that one because there was still a functioning temple. Temple wouldn't be destroyed for another 20 years. Number three, the Restrainer, who is the Holy Spirit in us, hasn't been taken away. Number four, you have not seen the Antichrist destroyed by the breath of his mouth and the splendor of his coming. Number five, you have not seen the destruction of the Antichrist's followers. Until you see these five things, you can't say you're in the tribulation period.

These are five good things to know because there's all these people today telling us we're in the tribulation period. The events of the book of Revelation are happening. Paul is saying you ain't seen nothing yet. These are just birth pangs, but you're not in the tribulation period. So that letter that you got allegedly coming from me was not from me. It was a forgery. That's why he in Corinth writes these two letters. First letter, he's trying to fix their understanding of the relationship of their deceased loved ones to the Rapture, which they had no—they needed more information on that because he had never covered that issue with them. They were asking about it because now they had deceased loved ones that were martyrs. The second issue that he learned about is they thought they were in the tribulation period because they had gotten a letter allegedly from him saying that the tribulation period had started. This is where you put the two Corinthian letters right here in verse 5.

From there, Paul moves into Jewish evangelism. Look at verse 5 of Acts 18. It says, "But when Silas and Timothy came down from Macedonia," just real quick, where is Macedonia? It's up in that Thessalonian area. Macedonia is this big area here. Thessalonica is a city within a county, to put it in modern-day vernacular. He says in verse 5, when Silas and Timothy came down from Macedonia, Paul began devoting himself completely to the word, solemnly testifying to the Jews that Jesus was the Christ. All of a sudden, he wasn't going to the synagogue on Sabbath. He was showing up all the time.

What about his job as a tentmaker, worker of leather? You know what? He got alleviated from his menial responsibilities because when Silas and Timothy came, they brought him a financial gift which says, okay, I've got my bills paid. I don't have to hold down this job to pay my bills, so I can devote myself completely and totally to the work of teaching the word to these Jews around the clock in the synagogue. There's a reference to this financial gift in 2nd Corinthians 11, verse 9. He says, "For when the brethren came from Macedonia, they fully supplied my need." There's a reference to these kind of financial gifts that he got beginning when he was in Thessalonica. He says, "For even in Thessalonica, you," that's the Philippian church that he helped found a little earlier, writing to them in a book later called the Book of Philippians, "For even in Thessalonica, you sent a gift more than once for my needs."

So my needs are met, holding down the job is unnecessary for me at this point, and so now I don't have to show up at the synagogue just on the Sabbath, I can show up all the time and I can give myself completely and wholly and totally to the word of God. This becomes the blessing of being in full-time ministry because as people support your ministry, it frees you up to do things that you probably could not do otherwise because you're so busy working. It frees you up to study, to preach, to prepare, all of these kinds of things. Being supported in ministry, as we are here, our staff, is just a huge, huge blessing.

Without the financial support of God's people, I guess I could try to do this kind of ministry. I doubt I could do it three times a week, and I doubt I could preach and teach as long as I do. Some of you might be saying, "Well, you preach too long anyway, so we're going to hold back money this month." Well, that's between you and the Lord. But I could not study, I could not preach, I could not teach, I could not prepare the PowerPoints that Pastor Jim dutifully helps me prepare. All of those things would be an impossibility if I was anchored to a job, another job, if this wasn't my job and I had another job.

Now, is there anything wrong with having another job? Of course not. Paul himself role-modeled manual labor, as did Christ. But these financial gifts that he got allowed him to do something that he could give himself wholly to. That's what you see happening here. Of course, he's in a synagogue because his principle is to the Jew first. He's giving them the first opportunity to receive the gospel.

Then Jewish opposition. Not everybody's happy that he's doing this. That is in verse 6. It says, "But when they resisted and blasphemed, he shook out his garment and said to them, 'Your blood be on your own heads. I am clean. From now on, I will go to the Gentiles.'" The first thing that happened is the Jews that he was trying to minister to blasphemed. What does that mean? Means they rejected the one that Hebrew Bible points to: Yeshua, Jesus. Which is described here as blasphemy; you're rejecting the true God.

What does Paul do? Does he keep pleading and begging them to come to Christ? He doesn't do that. It says he shook out his garments. That's a Jewish expression that was very physical, visible, tangible, and real, where you were physically saying, okay, I'm done ministering to you. You don't want the truth, I'm done. You see Paul doing this on the first missionary journey, Acts 13, verse 50-51: "But the Jews incited the devout women of prominence and the leading men of the city and instigated a persecution against Paul and Barnabas and drove them out of their district. But they shook off the dust of their feet in protest against them." You're literally taking your sandal and you're shaking the dust off it and you're shaking it in the direction of the city that rejected your message.

Jesus taught the disciples to do this, didn't he? Matthew 10, verse 14. They were sent out to preach. Jesus gave them this instruction: "Whoever does not receive you nor heed your words, as you go out of that house or that city, shake the dust off your feet." We kind of use this as a metaphor, but I think what is happening is it's a little bit more physical, a little bit more real. Then he says something really strong against the unbelieving Jews. He said to them, "Your blood be on your own heads. I am clean."

A lot of people say Paul launched some kind of curse against the unbelieving Jews, and that's not what he's doing. He's not cursing them. He's going to explain in Romans 11 that they are, although currently your enemies, they are beloved on behalf of the patriarchs, the Abrahamic covenant. He's not cursing them the way many people will grab that and the Candace Owens sort of mentality that you see today. The Tucker Carlson mentality where people are claiming the name of Christ, but they're saying God hates the Jews sort of perspective. They'll quote a verse like that and make it sound like Paul cursed the Jewish nation. He did not curse the Jewish nation.

It's not a curse but a disclaimer of a responsibility. "I am no longer responsible because you've been given the opportunity to believe. Your blood is on your head." That's a disclaimer. That's a disclaimer of responsibility, not a curse on the Jewish people. Then also in verse 6, it says, "From now on," Paul speaking, "I will go to the Gentiles." That's a local proclamation. It's not a dispensational change. It's not saying that from this point on, as you evangelize, don't go to the Jewish people first because every time he gets into the next city, he goes to the synagogue first. What he's saying here is it's just in Corinth things have changed. This is a local change. I'm not ministering in the synagogue anymore because you rejected the message. I'm going to go to the Gentiles.

Then you drop down to verses 7 and 8, and you see his ministry results. You have the conversion of someone named Titius Justus there in verse 7. "Then he left there and went up to the house of a man named Titius Justus, a worshiper of God," meaning he was a proselyte, "whose house was next to the synagogue." He was like the next-door neighbor of the synagogue that rejected Paul's message, so Paul just went next door. Then he ministers to a guy named Crispus. Who is Crispus? Crispus is the leader of the synagogue. Crispus is the guy that organized the services in the synagogue. Paul reaches out to him. "Crispus, the leader of the synagogue," what happened to him? "He believed in the Lord with all his household."

Crispus, the leader of the synagogue in Paul's ministry, gets saved. How did he get saved? What did he have to do? There's one verb there: he believed. Faith is only as good as the object it's placed in. He believed in the Lord, so he placed his faith for his salvation in Christ alone and he got saved. That's the leader of the synagogue. Lewis Sperry Chafer says upwards of 150 passages of scripture condition salvation upon believing only, and we see evidence of it here. You know these passages that teach salvation is by faith alone. Some of the famous ones: John 3:16, Genesis 15:6, Acts 16:30 and 31.

One other group gets saved. By the way, when it says he believed with all his household, that is speaking of not the fact that God had grandchildren, but as the male leader of the home, particularly in the Greco-Roman world, the man had great authority. So when he believes in Jesus, everybody else in the family says, "You know what? I think it's okay for us to believe in Jesus too," and the barrier is removed. The kids come to Christ, the wife comes to Christ, the brothers and the sisters come to Christ, the uncles and aunts come to Christ, and Grandma and Grandpa come to Christ because the leader, and this guy must have been a leader in his family because he was leader of the synagogue, he got saved here. His name is Crispus.

The same thing was said of the Philippian jailer, Acts 16, verse 31: "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?" as Paul and Silas are talking to the Philippian jailer. They said, "Believe in the Lord Jesus; you will be saved, you and your household." That's the influence of the father in Greco-Roman times. The same thing is happening with Crispus. Then one other group gets saved, and that's other Corinthians. This is how the Corinthian church that we read about later on in the New Testament started. Verse 8: "And many of the Corinthians when they heard were believing and being baptized."

Notice when they heard. Paul is doing oratory, teaching the word of God, and they heard. Doesn't that ring a bell with Romans 10, verse 17? So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ. That's what's happening right here. By the way, look at the end of verse 8. See where it says baptized? Does baptism in just the order of the sentence, does it come before believing or after? It comes after. Baptism in the book of Acts always comes after believing. What saves someone is believing in Christ. Baptism doesn't save anybody; it's an outward confession of an inward reality.

I've given you all these verses before, but you can jot these down: Matthew 28:19, Acts 8:12, Acts 8:34 through 39, Acts 10:42 through 45, Acts 16:14 and 15, Acts 16:30 to 34, and then Acts 18:8. Every single time when someone is baptized, they have first believed. It's never get baptized first, then believe. Let's baptize you an infant, and then you get saved. No such doctrine. With all of that being said, what do you do with hyper-dispensationalism? You say what is that? These are people that believe that Paul started his own church, not a local church, they think the church started with Paul. What's happening before? Well, that's the Jewish church, they say, and it doesn't exist anymore. They baptized, but Paul's church didn't baptize. Take communion, yeah, but you don't have to be baptized to join Paul's church.

We've had people come here and want to join our church, and they say, "We don't like the fact that you, as a requirement for membership, require baptism, or you—we don't like the fact that you say baptism and communion are your two ordinances. We only believe in one ordinance; we believe in communion because that's for Paul's church. We don't believe in baptism because that's the Jewish church." Mid-Acts dispensationalism. We had a guy come here and say that, and I didn't really understand why this was such an issue to him until I figured out a little bit more about this hyper-dispensationalism. The church didn't start in Acts 2 the way we teach it; the church started with Paul, and everything else beforehand is some kind of Jewish church, it doesn't exist anymore. They baptized, but Paul's church didn't baptize. Paul's church took communion, so there should only be one ordinance and not two, and you guys are enforcing two.

Have you heard of this? Well, if that's true and Paul's church doesn't emphasize baptism, what in the world is he doing in verse 8? Isn't he baptizing people? You question them about this, and they say, "Well, Paul was just kind of growing into his understanding." I'm thinking, how long did it take him to grow? He's an apostle. Of course he baptized people. In the churches that he planted, they took communion together. He gets a divine revelation, and I have a divine revelation right now, I think we need to stop because it's 8:08. Let's pray.

Father, we're grateful for Paul's ministry in Corinth and help us to grow in these things. Break the confusion off us. Help us to rightfully divide your word in these last days. We'll be careful to give you all the praise and the glory. We ask these things in Jesus' name. God's people said, amen. God bless you guys.