Original Meaning
The Completion of Twelve Ephesians (19:1–7)
PAUL HAD WANTED to come to Ephesus for major ministry for quite some time, but he had to wait for God’s time (16:6; 18:21), which had now come. It was an important place because from here he could reach the entire province of Asia (19:10). He took the most direct “interior” route from Phrygia-Galatia over mountainous terrain rather than the more customary route closer to the coast (19:1). This enabled him to visit Lystra, Iconium, and Pisidian Antioch. There were believers in Ephesus when he arrived (18:27). They had probably become Christians during Paul’s earlier short ministry here, through Priscilla and Aquila, or through someone else (cf. 2:9).
Paul also found some people who are called “disciples” but who were seriously deficient in their beliefs, even though they are said to have “believed” (19:1–2). The debate will continue as to whether or not they were true believers.12 What is significant is that Paul specifically asked them whether they received the Holy Spirit when they believed (19:2). This suggests that people can really know when they receive the Holy Spirit. The response of these disciples was that they had not even heard that there was a Holy Spirit. Stott is probably correct that they would have known about the Holy Spirit through the Old Testament and John’s prophecy, but that they did not know that John’s prophecy had been fulfilled. “They were ignorant of Pentecost.”13 Bruce translates their answer, “We never even heard that the Holy Spirit is available.”14
The problem was that they had only received John’s baptism (19:3). Unlike Apollos, they had not progressed much beyond John’s teaching. Hence they needed to be told about believing in Jesus, which led to baptism in his name (19:4–5). This suggests that they were not true believers until then. How then could Luke call them “disciples” (v. 1), and how could Paul refer to them as having “believed” (v. 2)? Longenecker says, “Luke’s practice is to portray the spiritual condition of his characters by their actions without always evaluating it.” Note how Luke
speaks of Simon of Samaria as having “believed” (cf. 8:13), of the Judaizers as “believers” (cf. 15:5), of the seven sons of Sceva as exorcising demons “in the name of Jesus,” and of Sceva their father as “a Jewish chief priest” (cf. 19:13–14). . . . Here it seems, both from their own statements and from how Paul deals with them, that we should consider these men as sectarians with no real commitment to Jesus at all.15
Verses 5–6 suggest that it was after they were baptized that “Paul placed his hands on them,” resulting in the Spirit’s coming on them accompanied by tongues and prophecy.
Bridging Contexts
KEYS TO AN effective Bible teaching ministry. Apollos’s ministry reveals three features that characterize an effective Bible teaching ministry: a knowledge of the Word, skill in method, and fervency of spirit (18:24–25). Apollos acquired his basic knowledge of the Word through the instruction he received. But he himself must have diligently given himself to study the Word. The skills of accurate interpretation of the story of Jesus would have come again through instruction by the church and through his applying himself carefully to improve this skill.
But what of fervency? Is this a personality trait that only some have, which enables them to be good preachers? One’s personality may be an asset to preaching, but it is not what lies at the heart of fervency. Fervency comes from a confidence in the truth and power of what we proclaim. This, of course, is ignited by the Holy Spirit. Such confidence is necessary on our part, and it comes through lingering with the Word in trustful meditation, study, and obedience.
Paul cited this as an attitude required of all Christians when he said, “Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord” (Rom. 12:11). The same words used there for “spiritual fervor” are used in Acts 18:25 of Apollos. Such people exhibit the fervency of knowledge on fire. They become like Jeremiah, to whom God said, “I will make my words in your mouth a fire” (Jer. 5:14).16 In other words, time spent in God’s Word and confidence in the message give the knowledge, skills, and fervency needed to make a good Bible teacher.
How Bible scholars learn new truths. The learned and eloquent Apollos, who already had “a thorough knowledge of the Scriptures,” had still more to learn. Several factors helped facilitate this learning. (1) The graciousness of Aquila and Priscilla was an important element. When they saw a deficiency in his teaching, they did not publicly point it out. Rather, they took him aside privately and invited him into their home (18:26). In the warmth of that accepting environment they taught him what was lacking in his theology.
(2) Apollos’s teachable attitude must surely have helped. The truth of God is so vast that we will never plumb its depths or scale its heights. Thus, until the day we die we can be learning. Usually the more we know, the more we recognize that we have so much more to learn. At the heart of a biblical attitude to the Word is a childlike eagerness to be fed. Peter urged, “Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good” (1 Peter 2:2–3). This applies to both new and mature Christians. We are all disciples of Christ, which means we are all learners. The graciousness of the helper and the teachableness of the helpee give an environment conducive to great scholars taking the role of helpee and learning new truths.
Opening our homes to help others in need. The New Testament gives three instances of Priscilla and Aquila’s opening their home for service to God: They kept the apostle Paul in their home in Corinth (18:3), they hosted a house church in Rome (Rom. 16:3–5), and they brought Apollos to their home in Ephesus to complete his education (Acts 18:26). This latter is an important type of hospitality—bringing people to our homes to help them in a time of special need. We do not know whether Apollos lodged at this home, but we know that his theological deficiencies were dealt with in the warmth of a home. We too can use our homes to help people in need. This provides the fourth type of hospitality presented in Acts.17
Interpreting the Ephesian Pentecost. What can we make of the Ephesian Pentecost (19:6)? It seems clear that the special experience of the Holy Spirit came to these former disciples of John.18 The experience of the Spirit was a clearly distinguishable experience, not something that was accepted by faith without being felt. Through that experience they felt the fullness of the Spirit. This agrees with our conclusion presented earlier that baptism with the Holy Spirit implies a fullness, a subjective experience of the Spirit.19
But whether the baptism with the Spirit and the subjective experience of him implied in that baptism always take place at the same time or at different times is uncertain. What we insist on is that the Spirit must be experienced. Those who say that the baptism with the Spirit takes place at initiation, that it is only an objective initiation, and that it is not necessarily a subjective experience of the Spirit are missing the point behind the descriptions of the baptism with the Spirit in the Bible. We showed earlier20 that the baptism implies a fullness and that those who are not experiencing this are having a subbiblical experience.
What should we make of tongues and prophecy? They are certainly the normal signs of the coming of the Spirit in the instances described in Acts. As such we can expect them to be common phenomena today. But to insist on them as normative and essential is going beyond what Scripture permits us to say. What is important is that we have what the baptism implies: an immediacy and fullness of the Spirit, which gives power to witness and live the Christian life. This has been neglected by many evangelicals, and we are thankful for groups like the Wesleyan holiness and the charismatic movements, which have recently helped refocus attention on this.
Contemporary Significance
BIBLE TEACHING: A lost art? There have been mixed reports about the status of Bible teaching in the church today. Some feel it is a lost art, whereas others, especially in Britain, feel that a recovery of it within the church may have recently begun. With the reduction of the habit of reading, contemporary Christians have reduced the average time spent with the Word. This is true of preachers too. The thousands of study aids prepared to “take the sweat out of Bible study” may have done just that: taken away the thrill that comes from grappling with Scripture. Today’s activist generation finds it difficult to set apart quiet time simply to sit and study the Scriptures. We have developed a laziness about reading and inductive study.
The result is that much of so-called biblical preaching is not very biblical and gives evidence of shoddy Bible study. I am convinced that one of the reasons why Bible exposition has gone out of fashion today is that preachers are not willing to devote the time necessary to study in order to teach the Bible effectively. When we spend time in the Word with a heart open to hearing from God, it will begin to glow because it “is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword . . .” (Heb. 4:12). The result will be fervency.
In his classic book Power in Preaching, British Methodist preacher W. E. Sangster gives seven basics of good preaching. One of them is fervor or passion, and he entitles his chapter on it, “Glow Over it.” He writes, “The glow must be the outward radiance of some burning light within.”21 This characteristic is not limited to those whom we may describe as vibrant personalities. Sangster says, “At the point when one man declaims and gesticulates and uses the whole range of his voice (naturally and convincingly), another stands motionless, his voice almost a quiet monotone but a white heat burning at the heart of all he says.”22 As an example of this second type of intensity, he describes one of the last public speeches of British Archbishop William Temple (1881–1944), given at the Westminster Central Hall of which Sangster was minister. “Standing quite still, without a gesture and without a note, he unwound the sinuous argument which burned from time to time with a terrible intensity.”
As Stephen Neill has pointed out, there is “one notable characteristic to be found in all the greatest teachers,” whether from the East or from the West, and that is what he calls “intense seriousness.”23 There was a time when people were attracted to the gospel through the passion of the preacher. Benjamin Franklin said he often went to hear George Whitefield preach because there, before his eyes, he could watch a man burn.24
Sangster also reports on the description that a powerful Afro-American preacher gave on how he prepared his messages, which may give us a key to how our preaching can have fervency. He said that he “read himself full,” “thought himself clear,” and “prayed himself hot.”25 Study, reflection, and prayer are three keys to fervency, to having knowledge on fire.
Today, unfortunately, passion is being replaced by entertainment as a means of attracting people. Since we do not have the skills and discipline to develop informed, wise, and relevant preaching that can be passionately presented because it is true, we resort to a skill that is common in today’s world: the ability to entertain. Sometimes that medium becomes so important that the message ends up taking a back seat. We fill our pews with people who come to church for the entertainment but who are unable to overcome the powerful temptations they face, for their worldview has not been shaped by the Word. The seriousness of Christianity has not been communicated to them through passionate preaching; they do not see it as a matter of life and death. The challenge in this media-oriented age is to package the truth with such quality and intensity that people will want to come and be fed, even if they are not entertained.
Creating an environment conducive to leaders learning. Unlike what happened with Priscilla, Aquila, and Apollos, we have encountered situations of potential learning today that have gone sour. Often this is because the teachers have not been wise in the way they confronted a leader whose knowledge was defective. Unfortunately, some people are so uncomfortable with personal encounter that they prefer to resort to public denouncing or to writing letters or, worse still, writing articles, rather than talking privately with the person concerned. The result is much hurt and usually little teaching that gets through.
Yet leaders will not learn unless they are teachable. The teachable attitude we described above should be true of anyone who truly understands the nature of Scripture. On the one hand, its vastness makes us realize that our knowledge will always be limited. On the other hand, its glory makes us eager to learn whatever new thing we can. These two factors combine with the attitude of childlike faith, which is basic to the Christian life, and prepare us for a lifetime of learning. The teacher-learner distinction subsides as a result of the eagerness to learn more of God’s truth. The teacher enters into every teaching situation humbled by the realization that God’s truth is so vast that there is more to learn and that some of this learning may come from unexpected sources, such as students or simple, unlearned Christians.
Applications of the open-home principle. Just as Priscilla and Aquila opened their home to help Apollos in his time of need, so we too can open our homes to people in need. The following texts imply that this is a basic aspect of Christian discipleship.
• “Share with God’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality” (Rom. 12:13).
• “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen? . . . Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—when you see the naked, to clothe him, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?” (Isa. 58:6–7).
• “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me” (Matt. 25:35–36).
• “God sets the lonely in families . . .” (Ps. 68:6).26
Let us apply this principle of opening our homes in order to meet needs. Christian homes can be places where unwanted or abused people are welcomed and even kept for a considerable length of time. A great opportunity of welcoming aliens today is having foreign students over at our homes for a weekend or at least for a meal. I remember with great gratitude the refreshment this brought to me when I was a student in the United States. It is sobering that most foreign students in America never enter an American home before they leave for their home countries.27
In our church in Sri Lanka we try to ensure that single people who live alone are taken to the home of another member when they get sick. Just the day before I wrote this, we had a mother and her two children stay in our home for a night because her husband was seeking to harm her physically. Christian workers who work under difficult circumstances have told me of the refreshment they have received through Christians who opened their homes to them for a few days of “rest and recuperation.” How about those who come to a big city for medical treatment? Should they check into a hotel? Wouldn’t a loving Christian home help in creating an atmosphere more conducive to healing? Those under special mental turmoil especially benefit from such hospitality. George O’Carroll says, “We’ve found that the vast majority of people do not need a professional psychiatrist. They need, first of all, someone to listen to them, someone to love them, and something to feel a part of, a family in particular. This is usually ninety percent of the problem.”28
Original Meaning
Paul’s Third Journey Begins (18:23)
PAUL’S THIRD MISSIONARY journey began from Antioch with visits to Galatia and Phrygia, regions that he had previously evangelized. Galatia had been evangelized during Paul’s first journey. Phrygia is mentioned two other times in Acts: There were people from Phrygia in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost (2:10), and Paul traveled through that region during his time of uncertainty before he received his Macedonian call (16:6). In these two regions Paul “traveled from place to place . . . strengthening all the disciples.” He had done this type of strengthening ministry before (14:21–22; 15:41; cf. 9:32).
Bridging Contexts
KEYS TO AN effective Bible teaching ministry. Apollos’s ministry reveals three features that characterize an effective Bible teaching ministry: a knowledge of the Word, skill in method, and fervency of spirit (18:24–25). Apollos acquired his basic knowledge of the Word through the instruction he received. But he himself must have diligently given himself to study the Word. The skills of accurate interpretation of the story of Jesus would have come again through instruction by the church and through his applying himself carefully to improve this skill.
But what of fervency? Is this a personality trait that only some have, which enables them to be good preachers? One’s personality may be an asset to preaching, but it is not what lies at the heart of fervency. Fervency comes from a confidence in the truth and power of what we proclaim. This, of course, is ignited by the Holy Spirit. Such confidence is necessary on our part, and it comes through lingering with the Word in trustful meditation, study, and obedience.
Paul cited this as an attitude required of all Christians when he said, “Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord” (Rom. 12:11). The same words used there for “spiritual fervor” are used in Acts 18:25 of Apollos. Such people exhibit the fervency of knowledge on fire. They become like Jeremiah, to whom God said, “I will make my words in your mouth a fire” (Jer. 5:14).16 In other words, time spent in God’s Word and confidence in the message give the knowledge, skills, and fervency needed to make a good Bible teacher.
How Bible scholars learn new truths. The learned and eloquent Apollos, who already had “a thorough knowledge of the Scriptures,” had still more to learn. Several factors helped facilitate this learning. (1) The graciousness of Aquila and Priscilla was an important element. When they saw a deficiency in his teaching, they did not publicly point it out. Rather, they took him aside privately and invited him into their home (18:26). In the warmth of that accepting environment they taught him what was lacking in his theology.
(2) Apollos’s teachable attitude must surely have helped. The truth of God is so vast that we will never plumb its depths or scale its heights. Thus, until the day we die we can be learning. Usually the more we know, the more we recognize that we have so much more to learn. At the heart of a biblical attitude to the Word is a childlike eagerness to be fed. Peter urged, “Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good” (1 Peter 2:2–3). This applies to both new and mature Christians. We are all disciples of Christ, which means we are all learners. The graciousness of the helper and the teachableness of the helpee give an environment conducive to great scholars taking the role of helpee and learning new truths.
Opening our homes to help others in need. The New Testament gives three instances of Priscilla and Aquila’s opening their home for service to God: They kept the apostle Paul in their home in Corinth (18:3), they hosted a house church in Rome (Rom. 16:3–5), and they brought Apollos to their home in Ephesus to complete his education (Acts 18:26). This latter is an important type of hospitality—bringing people to our homes to help them in a time of special need. We do not know whether Apollos lodged at this home, but we know that his theological deficiencies were dealt with in the warmth of a home. We too can use our homes to help people in need. This provides the fourth type of hospitality presented in Acts.17
Interpreting the Ephesian Pentecost. What can we make of the Ephesian Pentecost (19:6)? It seems clear that the special experience of the Holy Spirit came to these former disciples of John.18 The experience of the Spirit was a clearly distinguishable experience, not something that was accepted by faith without being felt. Through that experience they felt the fullness of the Spirit. This agrees with our conclusion presented earlier that baptism with the Holy Spirit implies a fullness, a subjective experience of the Spirit.19
But whether the baptism with the Spirit and the subjective experience of him implied in that baptism always take place at the same time or at different times is uncertain. What we insist on is that the Spirit must be experienced. Those who say that the baptism with the Spirit takes place at initiation, that it is only an objective initiation, and that it is not necessarily a subjective experience of the Spirit are missing the point behind the descriptions of the baptism with the Spirit in the Bible. We showed earlier20 that the baptism implies a fullness and that those who are not experiencing this are having a subbiblical experience.
What should we make of tongues and prophecy? They are certainly the normal signs of the coming of the Spirit in the instances described in Acts. As such we can expect them to be common phenomena today. But to insist on them as normative and essential is going beyond what Scripture permits us to say. What is important is that we have what the baptism implies: an immediacy and fullness of the Spirit, which gives power to witness and live the Christian life. This has been neglected by many evangelicals, and we are thankful for groups like the Wesleyan holiness and the charismatic movements, which have recently helped refocus attention on this.
Contemporary Significance
BIBLE TEACHING: A lost art? There have been mixed reports about the status of Bible teaching in the church today. Some feel it is a lost art, whereas others, especially in Britain, feel that a recovery of it within the church may have recently begun. With the reduction of the habit of reading, contemporary Christians have reduced the average time spent with the Word. This is true of preachers too. The thousands of study aids prepared to “take the sweat out of Bible study” may have done just that: taken away the thrill that comes from grappling with Scripture. Today’s activist generation finds it difficult to set apart quiet time simply to sit and study the Scriptures. We have developed a laziness about reading and inductive study.
The result is that much of so-called biblical preaching is not very biblical and gives evidence of shoddy Bible study. I am convinced that one of the reasons why Bible exposition has gone out of fashion today is that preachers are not willing to devote the time necessary to study in order to teach the Bible effectively. When we spend time in the Word with a heart open to hearing from God, it will begin to glow because it “is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword . . .” (Heb. 4:12). The result will be fervency.
In his classic book Power in Preaching, British Methodist preacher W. E. Sangster gives seven basics of good preaching. One of them is fervor or passion, and he entitles his chapter on it, “Glow Over it.” He writes, “The glow must be the outward radiance of some burning light within.”21 This characteristic is not limited to those whom we may describe as vibrant personalities. Sangster says, “At the point when one man declaims and gesticulates and uses the whole range of his voice (naturally and convincingly), another stands motionless, his voice almost a quiet monotone but a white heat burning at the heart of all he says.”22 As an example of this second type of intensity, he describes one of the last public speeches of British Archbishop William Temple (1881–1944), given at the Westminster Central Hall of which Sangster was minister. “Standing quite still, without a gesture and without a note, he unwound the sinuous argument which burned from time to time with a terrible intensity.”
As Stephen Neill has pointed out, there is “one notable characteristic to be found in all the greatest teachers,” whether from the East or from the West, and that is what he calls “intense seriousness.”23 There was a time when people were attracted to the gospel through the passion of the preacher. Benjamin Franklin said he often went to hear George Whitefield preach because there, before his eyes, he could watch a man burn.24
Sangster also reports on the description that a powerful Afro-American preacher gave on how he prepared his messages, which may give us a key to how our preaching can have fervency. He said that he “read himself full,” “thought himself clear,” and “prayed himself hot.”25 Study, reflection, and prayer are three keys to fervency, to having knowledge on fire.
Today, unfortunately, passion is being replaced by entertainment as a means of attracting people. Since we do not have the skills and discipline to develop informed, wise, and relevant preaching that can be passionately presented because it is true, we resort to a skill that is common in today’s world: the ability to entertain. Sometimes that medium becomes so important that the message ends up taking a back seat. We fill our pews with people who come to church for the entertainment but who are unable to overcome the powerful temptations they face, for their worldview has not been shaped by the Word. The seriousness of Christianity has not been communicated to them through passionate preaching; they do not see it as a matter of life and death. The challenge in this media-oriented age is to package the truth with such quality and intensity that people will want to come and be fed, even if they are not entertained.
Creating an environment conducive to leaders learning. Unlike what happened with Priscilla, Aquila, and Apollos, we have encountered situations of potential learning today that have gone sour. Often this is because the teachers have not been wise in the way they confronted a leader whose knowledge was defective. Unfortunately, some people are so uncomfortable with personal encounter that they prefer to resort to public denouncing or to writing letters or, worse still, writing articles, rather than talking privately with the person concerned. The result is much hurt and usually little teaching that gets through.
Yet leaders will not learn unless they are teachable. The teachable attitude we described above should be true of anyone who truly understands the nature of Scripture. On the one hand, its vastness makes us realize that our knowledge will always be limited. On the other hand, its glory makes us eager to learn whatever new thing we can. These two factors combine with the attitude of childlike faith, which is basic to the Christian life, and prepare us for a lifetime of learning. The teacher-learner distinction subsides as a result of the eagerness to learn more of God’s truth. The teacher enters into every teaching situation humbled by the realization that God’s truth is so vast that there is more to learn and that some of this learning may come from unexpected sources, such as students or simple, unlearned Christians.
Applications of the open-home principle. Just as Priscilla and Aquila opened their home to help Apollos in his time of need, so we too can open our homes to people in need. The following texts imply that this is a basic aspect of Christian discipleship.
• “Share with God’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality” (Rom. 12:13).
• “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen? . . . Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—when you see the naked, to clothe him, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?” (Isa. 58:6–7).
• “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me” (Matt. 25:35–36).
• “God sets the lonely in families . . .” (Ps. 68:6).26
Let us apply this principle of opening our homes in order to meet needs. Christian homes can be places where unwanted or abused people are welcomed and even kept for a considerable length of time. A great opportunity of welcoming aliens today is having foreign students over at our homes for a weekend or at least for a meal. I remember with great gratitude the refreshment this brought to me when I was a student in the United States. It is sobering that most foreign students in America never enter an American home before they leave for their home countries.27
In our church in Sri Lanka we try to ensure that single people who live alone are taken to the home of another member when they get sick. Just the day before I wrote this, we had a mother and her two children stay in our home for a night because her husband was seeking to harm her physically. Christian workers who work under difficult circumstances have told me of the refreshment they have received through Christians who opened their homes to them for a few days of “rest and recuperation.” How about those who come to a big city for medical treatment? Should they check into a hotel? Wouldn’t a loving Christian home help in creating an atmosphere more conducive to healing? Those under special mental turmoil especially benefit from such hospitality. George O’Carroll says, “We’ve found that the vast majority of people do not need a professional psychiatrist. They need, first of all, someone to listen to them, someone to love them, and something to feel a part of, a family in particular. This is usually ninety percent of the problem.”28
Original Meaning
The Completion of Apollos (18:24–28)
THOUGH PERGAMUM WAS the capital of Asia, Ephesus (in modern Turkey) was the real seat of provincial administration. Being on the western shore of Asia Minor, it connected the Greco-Roman world with Asia Minor. In the first century it was a predominantly Greek city. It had a seaport on the mouth of the Caystar River, but it was subject to constant silting, which required dredging. Once the city diminished in importance, this dredging was not done; as a result, the site of Ephesus is now seven miles inland. The ancient harbor is now a marshy waste, though it can still be discerned in photographs.1 Ephesus was at the end of the Arcadian Way—a magnificent paved road that is still visible—which led from the center of town to the harbor. Because it does not have any modern settlements, it is, in Bruce’s words, “an archaeologist’s paradise.”2
Ephesus was the center of the worship of the Greek goddess Artemis (Roman Diana), the multibreasted goddess of fertility. It boasted a magnificent temple to Artemis, which was considered one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. In Paul’s time the city had lost some of its importance as a political and commercial center and was turning more to the temple to support its economy.3 In Christian tradition the city is associated more with John than with Paul. The second-century church father Irenaeus wrote that John went there after his exile on the Isle of Patmos and lived there to be an old man.4
A learned Old Testament scholar, Apollos, receives an important place in this narrative because he played a significant role in the growth of the early church. Luke thus interrupts his description of Paul’s journey to insert a section on the “completion” of Apollos’s understanding of the gospel. This provides the only Christian contact we have in the New Testament with the Egyptian city of Alexandria (18:24),5 which became the intellectual center of Christianity and produced some of the greatest scholars of early Christianity (notably Clement and Origen). It had a large Jewish population, which included (until about A.D. 50) the famous philosopher Philo.6 Apollos’s eloquence was surely a foretaste of things to come from that city. “He appears to have been an itinerant Jew of a type not uncommon in the first Christian century—a commercial traveler who engaged in religious teaching as well as in trade.”7
We are not told from where Apollos first heard about Jesus. The Western Text’s addition to verse 25 says that he had been instructed “in his own country,” implying that Christianity had reached Alexandria by about A.D. 50.8 It may be that disciples of John who accepted Christ as the Messiah had gone there and taught him, for we are told that “he knew only the baptism of John” (v. 25). But we cannot say for sure where he had been deficient in his teaching.
Apollos’s effectiveness as a preacher is put down to three factors. (1) “He was a learned man with a thorough knowledge of the Scriptures” (18:24b), having been well “instructed in the way of the Lord” (18:25a). (2) “He spoke with great fervor” (18:25b). (3) He “taught about Jesus accurately” (18:25c). He not only had a good knowledge of the Word, but he also knew how to communicate it accurately—that is, he had developed skills in Bible teaching. And when he taught, he did so with enthusiasm and fervency.
Into this situation Priscilla and Aquila entered (18:26). Luke has changed the order of their names from his first mention of them (18:2), giving the wife’s name first (see also 18:18–19).9 On two occasions when Paul sends greetings to this couple, he mentions Priscilla first (Rom. 16:3; 2 Tim. 4:19), while Aquila is mentioned first when they send greetings through Paul (1 Cor. 16:19). On that occasion “it is quite credible that Priscilla insisted that her husband’s name be put first.”10 Priscilla may have been the more prominent of the two.
We are not told whether Apollos lodged in Priscilla and Aquila’s home, but this act of inviting Apollos into their home is typical of the open home attitude that this couple had. Though Apollos “was a learned man, with a thorough knowledge of the Scriptures” (18:24b), he was willing to learn from his hosts when they took him home to “complete his education.” We will see that this is a characteristic of a true student of God’s Word.
We are not told whether Apollos was rebaptized, as were the Ephesian disciples whom Paul brought to a more complete knowledge of the truth (19:5). Apollos was probably a true believer in Christ with a deficient knowledge. Though there is much dispute about the status of the twelve Ephesian disciples, they had probably made less progress on the way to salvation. The believers in Ephesus sent off Apollos to Achaia with a letter of commendation. The sending of such letters was a common practice in those days (see Rom. 16:1–2).11
Luke focuses on Apollos’s ministry of apologetics among the unbelieving Jews (18:27–28). This has caused some to suggest that Apollos wrote the letter to the Hebrews; the Pauline elements in this letter are traced to the influence of Priscilla and Aquila and to the believers in Corinth. It seems apparent that the more wealthy and sophisticated members of the church were so impressed by Apollos’s eloquence that they clung to him and depreciated the ministry of Paul, who spoke in such a way that the simplest people could understand (1 Cor. 1:12; 4:6). We cannot blame Apollos for this, however. This type of unhealthy comparison still happens among those who do not understand the biblical pattern of a variety of gifts within the body of Christ.
Bridging Contexts
KEYS TO AN effective Bible teaching ministry. Apollos’s ministry reveals three features that characterize an effective Bible teaching ministry: a knowledge of the Word, skill in method, and fervency of spirit (18:24–25). Apollos acquired his basic knowledge of the Word through the instruction he received. But he himself must have diligently given himself to study the Word. The skills of accurate interpretation of the story of Jesus would have come again through instruction by the church and through his applying himself carefully to improve this skill.
But what of fervency? Is this a personality trait that only some have, which enables them to be good preachers? One’s personality may be an asset to preaching, but it is not what lies at the heart of fervency. Fervency comes from a confidence in the truth and power of what we proclaim. This, of course, is ignited by the Holy Spirit. Such confidence is necessary on our part, and it comes through lingering with the Word in trustful meditation, study, and obedience.
Paul cited this as an attitude required of all Christians when he said, “Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord” (Rom. 12:11). The same words used there for “spiritual fervor” are used in Acts 18:25 of Apollos. Such people exhibit the fervency of knowledge on fire. They become like Jeremiah, to whom God said, “I will make my words in your mouth a fire” (Jer. 5:14).16 In other words, time spent in God’s Word and confidence in the message give the knowledge, skills, and fervency needed to make a good Bible teacher.
How Bible scholars learn new truths. The learned and eloquent Apollos, who already had “a thorough knowledge of the Scriptures,” had still more to learn. Several factors helped facilitate this learning. (1) The graciousness of Aquila and Priscilla was an important element. When they saw a deficiency in his teaching, they did not publicly point it out. Rather, they took him aside privately and invited him into their home (18:26). In the warmth of that accepting environment they taught him what was lacking in his theology.
(2) Apollos’s teachable attitude must surely have helped. The truth of God is so vast that we will never plumb its depths or scale its heights. Thus, until the day we die we can be learning. Usually the more we know, the more we recognize that we have so much more to learn. At the heart of a biblical attitude to the Word is a childlike eagerness to be fed. Peter urged, “Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good” (1 Peter 2:2–3). This applies to both new and mature Christians. We are all disciples of Christ, which means we are all learners. The graciousness of the helper and the teachableness of the helpee give an environment conducive to great scholars taking the role of helpee and learning new truths.
Opening our homes to help others in need. The New Testament gives three instances of Priscilla and Aquila’s opening their home for service to God: They kept the apostle Paul in their home in Corinth (18:3), they hosted a house church in Rome (Rom. 16:3–5), and they brought Apollos to their home in Ephesus to complete his education (Acts 18:26). This latter is an important type of hospitality—bringing people to our homes to help them in a time of special need. We do not know whether Apollos lodged at this home, but we know that his theological deficiencies were dealt with in the warmth of a home. We too can use our homes to help people in need. This provides the fourth type of hospitality presented in Acts.17
Interpreting the Ephesian Pentecost. What can we make of the Ephesian Pentecost (19:6)? It seems clear that the special experience of the Holy Spirit came to these former disciples of John.18 The experience of the Spirit was a clearly distinguishable experience, not something that was accepted by faith without being felt. Through that experience they felt the fullness of the Spirit. This agrees with our conclusion presented earlier that baptism with the Holy Spirit implies a fullness, a subjective experience of the Spirit.19
But whether the baptism with the Spirit and the subjective experience of him implied in that baptism always take place at the same time or at different times is uncertain. What we insist on is that the Spirit must be experienced. Those who say that the baptism with the Spirit takes place at initiation, that it is only an objective initiation, and that it is not necessarily a subjective experience of the Spirit are missing the point behind the descriptions of the baptism with the Spirit in the Bible. We showed earlier20 that the baptism implies a fullness and that those who are not experiencing this are having a subbiblical experience.
What should we make of tongues and prophecy? They are certainly the normal signs of the coming of the Spirit in the instances described in Acts. As such we can expect them to be common phenomena today. But to insist on them as normative and essential is going beyond what Scripture permits us to say. What is important is that we have what the baptism implies: an immediacy and fullness of the Spirit, which gives power to witness and live the Christian life. This has been neglected by many evangelicals, and we are thankful for groups like the Wesleyan holiness and the charismatic movements, which have recently helped refocus attention on this.
Contemporary Significance
BIBLE TEACHING: A lost art? There have been mixed reports about the status of Bible teaching in the church today. Some feel it is a lost art, whereas others, especially in Britain, feel that a recovery of it within the church may have recently begun. With the reduction of the habit of reading, contemporary Christians have reduced the average time spent with the Word. This is true of preachers too. The thousands of study aids prepared to “take the sweat out of Bible study” may have done just that: taken away the thrill that comes from grappling with Scripture. Today’s activist generation finds it difficult to set apart quiet time simply to sit and study the Scriptures. We have developed a laziness about reading and inductive study.
The result is that much of so-called biblical preaching is not very biblical and gives evidence of shoddy Bible study. I am convinced that one of the reasons why Bible exposition has gone out of fashion today is that preachers are not willing to devote the time necessary to study in order to teach the Bible effectively. When we spend time in the Word with a heart open to hearing from God, it will begin to glow because it “is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword . . .” (Heb. 4:12). The result will be fervency.
In his classic book Power in Preaching, British Methodist preacher W. E. Sangster gives seven basics of good preaching. One of them is fervor or passion, and he entitles his chapter on it, “Glow Over it.” He writes, “The glow must be the outward radiance of some burning light within.”21 This characteristic is not limited to those whom we may describe as vibrant personalities. Sangster says, “At the point when one man declaims and gesticulates and uses the whole range of his voice (naturally and convincingly), another stands motionless, his voice almost a quiet monotone but a white heat burning at the heart of all he says.”22 As an example of this second type of intensity, he describes one of the last public speeches of British Archbishop William Temple (1881–1944), given at the Westminster Central Hall of which Sangster was minister. “Standing quite still, without a gesture and without a note, he unwound the sinuous argument which burned from time to time with a terrible intensity.”
As Stephen Neill has pointed out, there is “one notable characteristic to be found in all the greatest teachers,” whether from the East or from the West, and that is what he calls “intense seriousness.”23 There was a time when people were attracted to the gospel through the passion of the preacher. Benjamin Franklin said he often went to hear George Whitefield preach because there, before his eyes, he could watch a man burn.24
Sangster also reports on the description that a powerful Afro-American preacher gave on how he prepared his messages, which may give us a key to how our preaching can have fervency. He said that he “read himself full,” “thought himself clear,” and “prayed himself hot.”25 Study, reflection, and prayer are three keys to fervency, to having knowledge on fire.
Today, unfortunately, passion is being replaced by entertainment as a means of attracting people. Since we do not have the skills and discipline to develop informed, wise, and relevant preaching that can be passionately presented because it is true, we resort to a skill that is common in today’s world: the ability to entertain. Sometimes that medium becomes so important that the message ends up taking a back seat. We fill our pews with people who come to church for the entertainment but who are unable to overcome the powerful temptations they face, for their worldview has not been shaped by the Word. The seriousness of Christianity has not been communicated to them through passionate preaching; they do not see it as a matter of life and death. The challenge in this media-oriented age is to package the truth with such quality and intensity that people will want to come and be fed, even if they are not entertained.
Creating an environment conducive to leaders learning. Unlike what happened with Priscilla, Aquila, and Apollos, we have encountered situations of potential learning today that have gone sour. Often this is because the teachers have not been wise in the way they confronted a leader whose knowledge was defective. Unfortunately, some people are so uncomfortable with personal encounter that they prefer to resort to public denouncing or to writing letters or, worse still, writing articles, rather than talking privately with the person concerned. The result is much hurt and usually little teaching that gets through.
Yet leaders will not learn unless they are teachable. The teachable attitude we described above should be true of anyone who truly understands the nature of Scripture. On the one hand, its vastness makes us realize that our knowledge will always be limited. On the other hand, its glory makes us eager to learn whatever new thing we can. These two factors combine with the attitude of childlike faith, which is basic to the Christian life, and prepare us for a lifetime of learning. The teacher-learner distinction subsides as a result of the eagerness to learn more of God’s truth. The teacher enters into every teaching situation humbled by the realization that God’s truth is so vast that there is more to learn and that some of this learning may come from unexpected sources, such as students or simple, unlearned Christians.
Applications of the open-home principle. Just as Priscilla and Aquila opened their home to help Apollos in his time of need, so we too can open our homes to people in need. The following texts imply that this is a basic aspect of Christian discipleship.
• “Share with God’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality” (Rom. 12:13).
• “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen? . . . Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—when you see the naked, to clothe him, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?” (Isa. 58:6–7).
• “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me” (Matt. 25:35–36).
• “God sets the lonely in families . . .” (Ps. 68:6).26
Let us apply this principle of opening our homes in order to meet needs. Christian homes can be places where unwanted or abused people are welcomed and even kept for a considerable length of time. A great opportunity of welcoming aliens today is having foreign students over at our homes for a weekend or at least for a meal. I remember with great gratitude the refreshment this brought to me when I was a student in the United States. It is sobering that most foreign students in America never enter an American home before they leave for their home countries.27
In our church in Sri Lanka we try to ensure that single people who live alone are taken to the home of another member when they get sick. Just the day before I wrote this, we had a mother and her two children stay in our home for a night because her husband was seeking to harm her physically. Christian workers who work under difficult circumstances have told me of the refreshment they have received through Christians who opened their homes to them for a few days of “rest and recuperation.” How about those who come to a big city for medical treatment? Should they check into a hotel? Wouldn’t a loving Christian home help in creating an atmosphere more conducive to healing? Those under special mental turmoil especially benefit from such hospitality. George O’Carroll says, “We’ve found that the vast majority of people do not need a professional psychiatrist. They need, first of all, someone to listen to them, someone to love them, and something to feel a part of, a family in particular. This is usually ninety percent of the problem.”28