WWUTT 1112 Teaching the Word of God Among Them?

There's only one thing that can change you, and that is the Word of Christ. There's only one thing that can change your church, preaching the Word of Christ. Only one thing can change the world, and that's Christ when we understand the text.

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Paul Preaches in Corinth and Testifies That Jesus Is the Christ

Thank you, Becky. We come back to our study in the book of Acts, reading about Paul's time in Corinth. And I'll read the same section today. This is Acts chapter 18, verses 1 through 17. After this, Paul left Athens and went to Corinth.

And he found a Jew named Achela, a native of Pontus, recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to leave Rome. And he went to see them, and because he was of the same trade, he stayed with them and worked, for they were tentmakers by trade.

And he reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath and tried to persuade Jews and Greeks. When Silas and Timothy arrived from Macedonia, Paul was occupied with the Word, testifying to the Jews that the Christ was Jesus.

And when they opposed and reviled him, he shook out his garments and said to them, Your blood be on your own heads. I am innocent. From now on, I will go to the Gentiles. And he left there and went to the house of a man named Titus Justus, a worshiper of God.

His house was next door to the synagogue. Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue, believed in the Lord, together with his entire household. And many of the Corinthians, hearing Paul, believed and were baptized.

And the Lord said to Paul one night in a vision, Do not be afraid, but go on speaking, and do not be silent. For I am with you, and no one will attack you to harm you. For I have many in this city who are my people.

And he stayed a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them. But when Galileo was proconsul of Achaia, the Jews made a united attack on Paul and brought him before the tribunal, saying, This man is persuading people to worship God contrary to the law.

But when Paul was about to open his mouth, Galileo said to the Jews, If it were a matter of wrongdoing or vicious crime, O Jews, I would have reason to accept your complaint. But since it is a matter of questions about words and names and your own law, see to it yourselves.

I refuse to be a judge of these things. And he drove them out from the tribunal, and they all seized Sosthenes, the ruler of the synagogue, and beat him in front of the tribunal. But Galileo paid no attention to any of this.

Now I meant to get through this entire section yesterday, but I got caught up on a history lesson talking about Claudius commanding all the Jews to leave Rome. So picking up where I left off yesterday, in verse five, Silas and Timothy caught up with Paul there in Corinth.

They came from Macedonia and found Paul occupied with the word, testifying to the Jews that the Christ was Jesus. And when the Jews opposed and reviled Paul, he shook out his garments and said to them, Your blood be on your own heads.

I am innocent. From now on, I will go to the Gentiles. And I tied this in yesterday with Ezekiel 33, where the watchman, when he sees the Lord bringing the sword upon the land, he is to warn the people.

And if the people are carried away, well, then their blood is on their own heads. But if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not warn the people, he does not sound the alarm, then the people will be carried away in their iniquity.

But their blood will be on the watchman's hands. And so this is why Paul says that your blood is on your own heads. I am innocent. And from now on, I will go to the Gentiles because Paul preached the full counsel of God.

I was just reflecting on some of the events that have happened over the course of the.

Year.

Becky and I, of course, talked about this on the podcast this past Friday. And one of the things I was thinking about was the sex abuse scandal that had broken in the Southern Baptist Convention. This was on February 10th, when the Houston Chronicle published the first of six articles that they did on a sex abuse crisis in Southern Baptist churches.

And one of the things I was thinking about was how could this crisis have been averted? And very simply, it could have been by sound teaching of the word of God, which many Southern Baptist churches don't do.

You just look at the fact that there are many churches. And I'll just expand this out to many Protestant or evangelical churches, not even limiting this to Southern Baptist churches. But many churches will have membership rosters.

It will be like 600 people on the membership roster. Meanwhile, you might have one or 200 people that show up regular attendance. Why is that? Because the church is not teaching regenerate membership.

The evangelicalism, American Christianity at large, generally believes that as long as you've prayed a prayer or you've been baptized, then you're saved no matter what you do with the rest of your life.

So they will say that they're Christians and they belong to a church, even though they never show up to that church. In fact, when I came to the church that I currently pastor, there were 1 ,100 people on the membership roster.

The sanctuary seats 190. So there were a lot of people on that membership roster and not just not just people that were still living. They were there were even some that had passed away. They were still on that membership roster so that a church could boast in its numbers.

But when we whittled it down to actual active membership over a period of a few years, because we did have some folks that walked away from our church when we were teaching soundly just because we were pursuing sound doctrine, there were people that hated that and walked away.

So when we whittled down the membership to just the active membership, it came to a number of about 70. And our regular attendance is a little over 100. That's about the ratio a church you would expect a church to fall in if they were teaching regenerate membership, meaning that a person is showing fruit in their lives that they are genuinely a Christian.

They didn't just come forward and sign a card. They didn't just get baptized and then we never see them again. But they are demonstrating in their lives regular church membership. I just actually had written a letter to another church yesterday, and this was a recommendation letter for a family that was moving their membership to another church.

They had moved. The Lord had taken them to another place. And so in this new community that they moved to, they found a new church. So that church mailed us and said, hey, were they members of your church?

And now we're writing a letter to them saying, yes, they were terrific. Here's what they did when they were in our church. We love them as brothers and sisters. They were wonderful. We hate to let them go, but with our blessing, please receive them as members into your church.

So this is the active participation of churches with one another to to keep track of each other, knowing that brothers and sisters in the Lord are are bearing fruit in keeping with repentance and they are growing with other brothers and sisters in the faith.

If we were teaching this, according to scripture, if we were teaching the reality of hell and that a judgment is coming upon mankind, if we were teaching the supremacy of Christ, if we were teaching the sovereignty of God, if we were talking about sin and repentance and what it means to truly repent, not just sin and then go to confession and then you can go sin again and God is just going to forgive you.

But we're talking about living in the grace of God. We're talking about obeying the word of Christ. And as it says in First John two, if someone says, I know him, but does not obey his word, they are a liar.

If we were actually teaching things like this, if we were doing church discipline, then problems like what had broken in the Houston Chronicle early this year regarding the sex abuse crisis in the Southern Baptist Convention, these things would be almost non-existent.

It's not that they wouldn't be existent at all because we still live in a fallen world. People are sinners. These things are still going to happen, but it doesn't develop into a kind of scandal or a crisis that leaves a scrambling, wondering what can we do?

What went wrong? How do we solve this problem? The way we solve the problem is with the word of Christ. We could have prevented the problem with the word of Christ. We solve the problem with the word of Christ.

As it says in Romans 10, 17, faith comes through hearing and hearing through the word of Christ. You are changed by the word of Christ. Therefore, your friend is going to be changed by the word of Christ.

Your neighbor is changed by the word of Christ. Can't just invite them to church and expect that that's going to change them. Share the gospel with them. Your neighborhood is changed by the word of Christ.

The world will be changed by the word of Christ. It is the work of the Holy Spirit through the preaching of the word of Christ. That's where change occurs. The Apostle Paul preached the full counsel of God.

He preached the word of Christ and the word of Christ, by the way, not just limited to the New Testament. It's also the Old Testament. Everything is the word of Christ from Genesis 1 to Revelation 22.

And OK, so the book of Revelation didn't exist at this particular time. It was not yet written by John. But the Apostle Paul preached the full counsel of God there in the synagogue. They rejected it. So because Paul withheld nothing, whatever judgment would come upon these people who heard the word and rejected it, their blood is on their own hands.

Paul is innocent of the matter. And he even declares that I am innocent as though to say, I taught you the full counsel of God. I withheld nothing. And this is something he's going to share with the Ephesians even later on in Acts chapter 20, when he's leaving the elders of the church of Ephesus for the last time.

He says that I know that on this side of heaven, I will not see your faces again. But he says to them, I taught you the full counsel of God. I withheld nothing. And so, therefore, you must teach this also to the body of Christ.

This is where real, true, genuine change comes from. This is where true healing comes from to those who have been abused, to those who have suffered in this world, who have struggled, who have been oppressed, who have been taken advantage of by those in power and have abused their power, a person who has been manipulated by, influenced by, abused by somebody else.

They are healed even by the word of Christ. That change will happen in their hearts only if they cling to Christ and the promises that we find in his word. This is where true change occurs. If we want to see the world change, we must come to the word of Christ.

This is what Paul preached and he withheld none of it. And because the Jews rejected it, he went to the Gentiles. He left there, it says in verse seven, went to the house of a man named Titus Justice, a worshiper of God.

His house was next door to the synagogue. Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue, believed in the Lord together with his entire household. And many of the Corinthians hearing Paul believed and were baptized, but not baptized by Paul.

Because as we read in First Corinthians one fourteen, Paul said that when he was in Corinth, he baptized only Crispus and Gaius. So this fellow Crispus here and Gaius, who may have been a member of Crispus household, these were the only ones whom Paul baptized and says that I baptized no one else.

Why was it in this letter that he wrote to the Corinthians and First Corinthians one? Why did he say, I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius so that none of you may say that you were baptized in my name.

There was a conflict going on in the Corinthian church. Some people were saying they had a better baptism than someone else because they were baptized by Apollos or they were baptized by Peter or something like that.

And Paul saying, well, I'm if that's the conflict that is being stirred among you, I'm glad that I didn't baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius. And apparently they were not so proud for Paul to mention their names the way that he did.

Crispus was the ruler of the synagogue, the very place that Paul just left because they opposed him. They would not listen to what he was saying regarding the message that Christ was Jesus. And yet Crispus was changed by this.

So apparently the transformation that happened by people there in the synagogue was minimal. With the exception of Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue, he believed in the Lord together with his entire household.

And many of the Corinthians hearing Paul believed and were baptized because Crispus became a Christian, it may have cost him his job. And I'll talk about that here in a moment. So verse nine, and the Lord said to Paul one night in a vision, do not be afraid, but go on speaking and do not be silent, for I am with you and no one will attack you to harm you.

For I have many in this city who are my people. And he stayed a year and six months teaching the word of God among them. It was God's will and his desire that Paul would remain in this place for a longer period of time, teaching the word of God to the people that were there.

And once again, change and effect occurs through the word of Christ and this all according to the will of God. I don't want there. I don't want you to be left with the impression that just because you preach the word of Christ, change is automatically going to happen.

If any change is going to happen, it's going to be because Christ was preached. But this doesn't mean that preaching Christ will automatically affect change, for it may not be the will of the Lord for those persons to have soft hearts and hear the message that is being spoken.

We read in John 1 12 to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

It is God's will that someone's heart be transformed from being stone cold and hardened to having a soft heart, warm and affectionate and receptive of the word of Christ. This is by the will of God that happens in a person.

I mentioned regenerate membership just a moment ago. So regeneration is that understanding that the Holy Spirit has regenerated a person's heart and changed them from a person who hates God to a person who now hates their sin and loves God, who has shown us grace and mercy through his son, Jesus Christ, so that all who believe in Christ will be forgiven their sins.

And so live and live a new life, not in the former way and practices that they were in before, but they're walking in newness of life after the image of their creator, after the image of Christ and their recreator in that sense as well.

So, again, this is something that happens by the will of God. And it was God's will that here in Corinth, this change would occur among these people that they would turn from darkness to light, though there were still many who opposed Paul and his message, many who came to faith, but many who still opposed.

Gallio Refuses to Judge Questions of Words and Names

So in verse 12, when Gallio was pro consul of Achaia, the Jews made a united attack on Paul and brought him before the tribunal. Same thing we saw with Jesus, when Jesus was persecuted by the Jews and brought before Pilate, who was a Roman governor.

So the Jews who hated the fact that they were being ruled by Rome, who did they allow to rule them? Rome, they brought their matters, brought their problems, brought their concerns to the pagans here.

You deal with this. And we've seen this happen previously with with Paul, with the people, the Jews that opposed the message instead of submitting to the authority of Christ, they submitted to the authority of their pagan rulers.

We saw it in Berea with the Greeks who were trying to stir up the women against Paul, some of the women rulers that were there. And so we're seeing that again here in Corinth, where Paul is is having the Jews bring him before the pagan rulers.

We're going to submit to our pagan rulers. We're not going to submit to Christ. We would rather submit to the ruler of this world than submit to Christ. That's, in effect, what the Jews are saying. So they brought Paul before the tribunal, saying this man is persuading people to worship God, contrary to the law.

So their argument is Paul is telling people to worship God different than we're telling people to worship God, because remember, they're saying that salvation comes by keeping the law. Paul is saying you can't keep the law.

You can only come to salvation and right standing with God if you turn from your sin and follow Jesus Christ. You cannot be saved by keeping the law. You are saved by grace through faith in Christ alone.

That was Paul's message. It's not just the message of the Protestant Reformation. That's the message of the Bible. So we go on here with Paul about to open his mouth. But then Gallio said to the Jews, if it were a matter of wrongdoing or vicious crime, oh Jews, I would have reason to accept your complaint.

But since it is a matter of questions about words and names and your own law, see to it yourself. I refuse to be a judge of these things. This is Gallio saying, it's your religion. It ain't mine. I'm not going to make some sort of judgment regarding your religion.

You take care of this yourself. In verse 16, he drove them from the tribunal and they all seized Sostenes, because remember, God promised Paul that no harm would come to him there in Corinth. So who is it the Jews seized?

They seized Sostenes. Who was Sostenes, the ruler of the synagogue? Wait a minute. I thought Crispus was the ruler of the synagogue. That's what it says back in verse eight. So how is Sostenes now the ruler of the synagogue?

It's likely that Sostenes succeeded Crispus because remember, Paul was here in Corinth for a year and a half teaching the gospel there, planting the church, growing it in sanctification as he continues to preach the word.

And in that period of time, because Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue, became a Christian, he was likely fired. He lost his job because of that. But he was willing to lose his job. He was willing to count it all for loss for the sake of Christ, his savior.

And in Crispus' place, Sostenes was put there. Sostenes, the ruler of the synagogue, was beat in front of the tribunal. But Gallio paid no attention to any of this. Sostenes was also a convert to Christianity, because why else would the Jews have a reason to beat Sostenes?

So they had outed Crispus. Sostenes took his place. Sostenes becomes a Christian. So they beat him as well. And Sostenes is even mentioned as his co-author of the first letter to the Corinthians, at least the first letter that we have in canon in First Corinthians 1.

We read Paul called by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus and our brother Sostenes to the church of God that is in Corinth. That means two rulers of the synagogue in a row became Christians and all by the will of God.

May we be so brave to continue to preach the gospel to others, even if it may cost us a reputation. It may cost us our jobs, but we count it all as loss for the sake of Christ. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word.

And we know that it is the answer and the solution to all of life's ills. How do we escape the chaos that is in this world? The answer is Christ. And we trust in our Lord Jesus Christ who will deliver us up into your eternal kingdom and give us a place with him forever.

Forgive us our sins. Keep us from temptation. Let us not be chasing after the passions of our flesh, but let us be after the business of God and the things that delight you and please you, proclaiming your kingdom where we have opportunity to do so.

Praise you for your great name in Jesus name.

Amen.

This is when we understand the text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. There are lots of great Bible teaching programs on the web, and we thank you for selecting ours. But this is no replacement for regular fellowship with a church family.

Find a good gospel teaching Christ-centered church to worship with this weekend and join us again tomorrow as we continue our Bible study when we understand the text.