Acts 18:1-17
When we left Paul last week he was in Athens and had pretty much failed to have the major impact he usually had in a city. Before this he had been illegally beaten and imprisoned in Philippi, forced out of Thessalonica with his friend Jason held as bail for him, forced by a riot out of Berea, and now arrives in Corinth alone. This is possibly the lowest point in Paul’s ministry that we have record in the Scriptures for us.
Sometimes Christians in general have the tendency to deify the people in biblical stories to the point that they almost cannot conceive of them facing the same problems that a normal person faces. Our text this week highlights one of those problems in Paul’s life, and that is how do you handle discouraging times?
Paul was not alone in facing discouragement. If we look at Moses’ prayer in Numbers 11:11-15 we see him asking God to kill him because the people he was given to rule were so horrible. Then there is the story of Elijah, he kills hundreds of false prophets in a great show of power where fire comes down from God himself to help him, and just a few verses later we read in 1 Kings 19:4 he is asking God to kill him because he cannot handle discouragement. After facing a loss early in the battle to conquer the promised lands, Joshua cries out to God telling God it would have been better that God had not blessed them with the promised land. (Josh 7:7)
So we can see in the Old Testament stories there times when the great heroes of the faith faced discouragement. Paul at this point in our reading is alone in Corinth, which at the time was among the worst of the cities of its time. It is to this city that Paul wrote 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 where he lists over a dozen different sins that they had practice before their conversion. While Athens was religious, and highly intellectual, Corinth was carnal.
We can see hints of this discouragement through Paul’s letters when he speaks of this time in his life, especially in 1 Corinthians 2:3 and 1 Thessalonians 3:7. This discouragement must have been building in Paul for a while when we come to Acts 18:6 because here we see him lash out in anger at his own people.
Paul had been preaching in the Synagogues there for sometime. He was using the Old Testament to show them that Jesus was the Messiah, and how to have eternal life through Jesus. In response the Jewish “resisted” him. The Greek word there speaks of arranging an army for battle, in other words they fought him tooth and nail over this point. This was not a friendly discussion, but an all out battle of words. These were Paul’s own people they should have known that he was right, and supported him, but instead they attacked and likely mocked him publically.
It was in response to these attacks piling on his already discouraged state that Paul shakes off his robes and says “Your blood be on your own heads! I am clear of my responsibility. From now on I will go to the Gentiles.”(Acts 18:6). This was a low down dirty and inflammatory thing to say.
When the Jews would return from a trip among the Gentiles they would shake the dust from their sandals less they bring home any of that cursed and evil dirt from the world where the Gentiles lived. Jews saw themselves as God’s chosen people and that everyone one else was inferior. Paul by shaking his robes off told these high and mighty Jews that they were as gentile dogs to him, and that would have inflamed any Jew. Paul’s statement following that is laced heavily with Old Testament imagery (i.e. Ezekiel 33:1-5, Joshua 2:19) and basically says, “I tried to warn you, now you can go burn in Hell.” This is not exactly material you would find in a book on how to make friends and influence people.
God provides some tools to deal with this discouragement, and we have those same tools today. The first tool we see God providing Paul with is coworkers and friends. Paul when he arrives in town is poor. Since all Jews at that time were required to know a trade, Paul was able to support himself by working as a tent maker or leather worker (the Greek could mean either). He still preached on the Sabbath, but during the week he worked.
It was through this job that Paul meets Aquila and Priscilla. We do not know a lot about them, but they appear to be Christians fleeing persecution in Rome. We know that they become close friends of Paul’s and we read in Romans 16:3-4 that eventually risk their lives for Paul. In addition to them, Timothy and Silas arrive in verse five with donations from Philippi, enough so that Paul can leave his job and go back to full time ministry. (1 Corinthians 11:9, Philippians 4:15) This gift, and having four friends and coworkers along side of him must have brought him a great measure of comfort.
Another thing we see here that must have brought Paul comfort is the successes he did have in face of all the problems. It says in Acts 18:7-8 that not only did a major leader of the Jewish people covert, so did his entire household. This was a major win; it would be like the leader of modern day Iran converting to Christianity and then allying with Israel and America. Surely this victory had to have bolstered Paul’s spirits.
A third tool was one of changing perspective. It is easy to get lost in the details and these details can hide the greater picture. God shows Paul this in Acts 18:9-10 where he encourages Paul by showing him the greater picture. He told Paul that while he might have had some failures so far, there was much more success to come. Paul could rest assured that he was effective and his ministry was needed by the “many more” that God had in that city for Paul to lead to God.
Along the same lines, Acts 18:15 helps to also expand the view of the situation. People in general often think that who ever their opponent is, that they get all the breaks. This verse shows a summary dismissal of the charges against Paul by his enemies among the Jews. This must have frustrated the heck out of the Jews as they saw all their legal options evaporate with that dismissal.
So next time we face discouragement we can take heart in knowing that even the great heroes of the Bible faced discouragement. We can take cues from how they faced it in order to face it ourselves. Some of the tools we have available to do this are comfort and support from friends, focusing on our successes instead of our failures and remembering the bigger picture that extends well beyond us.
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