07-12-26 Study of Acts Chapter 18:18 19:7 From Judaism to Jesus – Apollos in Transition Part 2

➡ This Sunday Bible study focuses on the Book of Acts, which explores the history of the church and its relationship with Jesus Christ. The study emphasizes the transition from individual relationships with Jesus to a collective one as a church, using the Book of Acts as a guide. It discusses the challenges faced during the transition from old beliefs (Judaism) to new ones (Christianity), highlighting that this change is a slow process, not an instant switch. The study encourages self-assessment and continuous growth in one’s walk with Jesus Christ.
➡ This text discusses the importance of religion, specifically Christianity and Judaism, as a way of life rather than just a set of beliefs. It emphasizes that these religions are not just about attending church or synagogue, but about how we live our lives every day. The text also highlights the influence of religious teachings on our actions and decisions, which can impact generations. Lastly, it points out that God’s grace is present in both the Old and New Testaments, and that following religious teachings is not just about securing a place in heaven, but about living a meaningful life.
➡ The text discusses the concept of faith and law in the context of religion, particularly focusing on Judaism during the time of Christ. It highlights the story of a respected Rabbi who, despite his adherence to religious law, feared his afterlife due to a lack of faith. The text also contrasts this with the story of another Rabbi who claimed to have never broken a single law, demonstrating self-righteousness. The text concludes by discussing the introduction of grace by Paul, which caused a significant shift in religious understanding, and the struggle of early Christians, like Peter, in transitioning from law to grace.
➡ The text discusses a vision Peter had, where he was told to eat any animal, symbolizing the end of dietary restrictions from the Old Testament. This was hard for Peter to accept, showing the difficulty of transitioning from old beliefs to new ones. The text also talks about Paul’s journey, where he took a Nazarite vow, an Old Testament practice, after a great deliverance in Corinth. This shows that transitioning to new beliefs can take time and old habits may still persist.
➡ Paul, a Christian and a Jew, shows his gratitude to God by taking a Nazarite vow, a significant Jewish practice. He travels to Jerusalem to complete his vow, demonstrating his commitment to his faith. Paul believes that God controls not only his salvation but also his service, and he is willing to follow God’s will in all aspects of his life. This story emphasizes the importance of surrendering to God’s plan and being open to change in our spiritual journey.
➡ The text discusses a man named Apollos from Alexandria, who was a knowledgeable and eloquent speaker of Jewish scriptures. Despite not being a Christian initially, he was highly respected for his ability to communicate and teach the Old Testament. His natural abilities were so impressive that he was compared to Paul and Peter. However, his true power was revealed when he became a Christian, received the Holy Spirit, and used his gifts to teach and influence others.
➡ Apollo learned about God through teachings and repetition, not through divine revelation like the apostles. He was taught about the “way of the Lord,” a term from the Old Testament that refers to God’s rules and standards. This term later became more specific, pointing to Jesus Christ as the Messiah. Apollo accepted this teaching and recognized Jesus as the Messiah, but he didn’t know about Jesus’ death, resurrection, and the events of Pentecost. Therefore, he was not a Christian, but an Old Testament saint who was fervently seeking knowledge of Christ.
➡ The text discusses the importance of teaching religious scripture with precision and dedication, using Apollos as an example. It emphasizes that sloppy teaching is unacceptable and that the Bible should be taught exactly as it is written. The text also highlights the need for teachers to be well-prepared and committed to their role, as teaching the Bible is as serious as a doctor performing surgery. Lastly, it encourages everyone, regardless of their audience, to teach with exactness and care, just as God intended.
➡ The text talks about a preacher named Apollos who was taught more about Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection by some church members. They didn’t reject him for his incomplete knowledge, but instead helped him understand better. Apollos then used this knowledge to strongly argue that Jesus was the Messiah, using the Old Testament as proof. This story shows the importance of understanding and applying the principles of the church in our lives.

Good morning. This is our Sunday morning Bible study. We’re into the Book of Acts. We’re looking at the history of the church. And just to set this in perspective and maybe some repeat here is we’ve gone through the book of, of, of Ephesians which is the individual application associated with you as an individual applying the principles of God’s creation to how you interact with, on your individual level with Jesus Christ. And the Book of Acts is how the church, okay, interacts with, with Jesus Christ as well. And we’re going through the history very, very slowly because every, every point of this history basically is a reflection of, of today’s society and how you are being, how you have transformed or being transformed from an individual relationship with Jesus.

Your status, your position as the church and everything that is spoken about in the New Testament outside of Ephesians is about the church. So we’re studying Acts as the history of the church so that we can actually lay the foundation as we move into our next study after Acts, looking at the church itself. So we’re in chapter 18. We looked last week at this trans transitioning between Judaism to Christianity or Jesus. And we looked at Paul’s transition last week. We’re going to look at Apollos in transition this week and then we’re going to end it up next time by looking at you.

So, so you need to apply what we’re going to talk about today in your individual lives and as part of your review of your own self assessment associated with your walk with Jesus Christ. So we’re going to go through as we, as we’ve been going through the Book of Acts, I, I have had a lot of revealing being done to me and things that, things you think you know, you don’t and things that you don’t know you actually end up finding out you know. And that’s what’s going on with me as we review this book of Acts and as I studied in preparation of our discussion.

So, so we’re going to look at this from, from again from the transition because it portrays us in our transition from how you were born Ephesians 2, with a, a nature of demonic control. You are controlled by the prince of the power of the air, which is Lucifer himself. And your focus is on chaotic lifestyle until you have been called and receive salvation and that becomes your transition. So as we look at this, you’re going to see you in transition from your old self Judaism to your new self Christianity. Now in understanding this we have to understand that and sometimes this is a very slow Transition.

Many of us, when we get saved, think the light switch has gone off. Everything of old has now gone away because we take scripture literally. But we don’t understand that our human nature has to be changed because our mindset and the way we think, the way we operate has to go through a transformation process. And it doesn’t happen with a throw of a switch. It happens as you sanctify yourself in the knowledge and wisdom of Jesus Christ. Then you allow the Holy Spirit to take over those areas of your life in order so that the transformation process can get more complete.

You’re never going to be wholly transformed. If you do, you become like Enoch and Elijah. You’re no more mortal men. And so in this process, it is a continuous. It’s a continuous cycle that you go through. So salvation is not a transition. Salvation is a momentary miracle that’s instantaneous. But losing all of your trappings of Judaism. Legalist Satan’s control comes a little slower. We’ve all talked about, you know, I’m, I’m praying, I’m reading the scripture, I’m doing all of this. Why is my life not yet been completely changed? Well, this is the transition, okay? People would get saved and then find it hard to let go of everything.

And so there was and, and continues to be today, a certain amount of difficulty in making this transition from Judaism legal Satan’s control to your faith in Jesus Christ. Now, as I said last week, we find all of the processes that the Jews went through to convert from their Judaism to Jesus Christ. Remember, there is. There’s a five, five dispensation periods or processes in the Book of Acts in this transition. And so we see the same thing today. Cut. When they, when, when we actually come to salvation, we actually have difficulty in breaking our patterns that were so much a part not only of that time, Judaism, but today in your life.

And I think this is due to the fact that, that Judaism in itself is a different, distinct kind of life. Think about you, those of you who are older. I think about all of the traditions and all of the patterns that you said, even to the point when you wake up, you do the same thing. You go to bed, you do the same thing. Everything becomes like a ritual to you. Those are called patterns. And those things are very, very difficult to break. And so we could talk a long time about these, the distinctions of Judaism, but we’re not going to do that because we’re going to, we’re going to apply this as a learning tool from understanding that Jews had to go through a Transition.

And the transition they went through is the same transition you go through. So I want to apply it to you. We’re going to look at it from a historical basis, but you need to take away from this the fact that you are going through a transition and your self assessment is to see where you’re at in that transition in order to help you along the lines of what you need to work on in your individual life associated with your walk with Jesus Christ. So when we look at this from a historical basis and begin to apply it to today’s society, we see Jewish towns or Jewish cities or townships or village.

No matter whether it was centered right in the middle of a pagan country or whether it was butted up against a pagan society in another city, they maintained an amazing uniqueness. Think about yourself. No matter how much interrelation or intercourse economically or culturally and all of that stuff, it happened to have a relationship with pagans. It seemed never to be tainted, though, by paganism. There was such a unique identity around the time of Christ and the time of the New Testament. You could even enter a Jewish town or enter a Jewish village without feeling like you had almost stepped into another world.

You would get the feeling even today when you go to, to, let’s say, Israel, Jerusalem, not so much when you see the hustle and bustle of a modern city, but when you happen to be isolated with a group of Orthodox Jews who are doing what only Orthodox, Orthodox Jews do. Think about your clicks. You feel that somehow something’s off, you’re out of whack, or are there out of whack with the world. And it’s just so different and so unique. You find that it. You find that when you move to a city or town, some of the, some of the things that you’re attracted to are buildings and streets and arrangements of houses, styles of houses, just like they were then, because they were prescribed in Judaism, that you would spot a Jewish town immediately based upon the architecture.

And then when you entered the town, you would find that the rules of municipal life and the rules of religious life were prescribed. Think of you, think of your. Think of your con. Way you conduct your life. In your network of society, you would find the manners and the customs of the people so distinct. You would enter into the home and you’d find the behavior of the father and the mother and the children very unique. You would find the processes in the kitchen very unique. You would find clothing very unique. You would find so many things that are.

That are singularly unique to Judaism. Well, that’s you, you like once you like a couple of styles of clothes or one style of clothes, you like one perfume, you like one toothpaste, you, you like one type of brush, you like one type of people, you like one type of, of types of foods, the restaurants. Think about the patterns that you’re set and, and which causes influence on your belief system because you, your way of life is based upon what you believe. I want you to think about that. You can say I’m a Christian and I do all of these things but when you self assess your way of life, that’s when your true beliefs come out.

And I think the thing that you need to keep in mind is this. Judaism was not just a religion. Think about corporate church, think about its influence on you. Think about how you operate. When we think of religion today, apart from us who are Christians, we think of an idea of you. Do you want thing all week or then you go drifting into some kind of religious gig on the weekend. Remember this world. Lucifer wants you to have a, have knowledge of who Christ is, go to church on Sunday. He doesn’t want you to have a relationship because he wants you to operate in his world on Monday through Saturday.

Because it’s the deception that he uses from your knowledge of who Christ is to deceive you to operate in the world. He get all squared away and bounce out of there and start all over again on Monday morning. Back in the world. When you look at your self assessment you see the patterns of how you operate. That is a condition, as I said, of your true belief system. And that’s what religion is. It’s sort of a addendum. It’s sort of a little divine salt to sprinkle on your secular diet. And I think for most of us, we tend to look at religion in this frame of mind.

I go, I can sit in a pew or I can come and listen to a discussion and I can say yep, that sounds well and good. I got my daily dose of or my, my weekend dose of Jesus Christ. Now tomorrow when I wake up, I’m going to do things like I want to do them. But Judaism was not such an isolated creed of theology. Christianity is not an isolated creed of theology. It’s a whole way of life. It’s prevented every single human relationship. It pervaded every single attitude towards eating and drinking and clothing and all kinds of things in terms of the economy.

Not just a set of observances, not just a creed, but a way of life. And you can never just suck Jewish theology out and remove Judaism, that’s your issue. You can’t suck that which you have set in your belief system and the ways of your life out of your life just because you got saved. You can’t do that. Just like Judaism was a way of life then, so is your sinful nature your way of a life now. It’s a frame in which everything exists. And it all really began because of the Old Testament. When God laid down first of all the moral and ethical law and the Ten Commandments, he was building a nation.

He was building a group of people that he was going to call his people. And he had to set rules and boundaries. Oh, what’s your life supposed to be like today? Rules, boundaries, ordinances, obediences against what the New Testament principles of the Church. And, and God said, the basis of your ethics and the basics of your morality is this code. Well, that code that he gave to the Old Testament nation of Israel did not change when he. When Jesus Christ came and gave us the New Covenant. Dietary things went away. Yeah, but you could still take a vow of Nazarene today.

You still have that process. And if you do, you have a little law that you have to abide by. It’s all 613 laws in the Old Testament have been rolled into 700 and some, some laws today. If you go throughout the New Testament, there’s a, there’s a thousand or so identified, but there’s a lot of duplications. It’s about 750 plus in the New Covenant. But see, in addition to that, God wanted them to be a singular witness in the world. So he gave them some other prescribed things that were not so ethical. Some were ethical, but not all of them.

Some of them were just plain old visual or external, so that the world might see them as a unique people. That’s what you have, you are responsible for providing in the New Testament. And you’re going to see that uniqueness afforded by your fruits. And so these were given. And if you read the Old Testament, you’d find these also in the Pentateuch. And so there were Old Testament laws in terms of morality. There were Old Testament laws in terms of relationships, such as family, cousins, uncles, fathers, mothers, kids, parents, the whole thing. There are relationships with other kinds of people apart from their own family.

And you find those being termed in the Old Testament as foreigners. There were many prescribed rules for touching on all phases of their life. Now the thing that happened to them was so interestingly, in addition to the Old Testament and throughout the history of Israel, there have always been rabbis which means a teacher or master. And you find that when Jesus Christ was called rabbi, he was put into the two positions, either master or teacher. That’s today, by the way. And all the rabbis were teaching and interpreting and adding to scripture religion. And of course, the esteem of a rabbi was so great that what the rabbi said was often written down.

And all of these things were gathered and accumulated until today you have this monstrous set of volumes known as the Talmud. Man’s way of understanding the Torah religion. Now, it’s in the Talmud that Islam based the Koran. Well, Islam didn’t do it. The Catholic Church did it. And the Talmud is all of these rabbinical statements added unto the Bible. And you find that if you visit any rabbi who was at all involved in what he ought to be involved in as a rabbi, you would find that he was not only prescribed his life around the Old Testament, but more importantly around the Talmud, where he is following up all of the interpretations and suggestions of all the rabbis, some of which, matter of fact, most of which are unnecessary and unbiblical.

Corporate church, you see how this is now coming into our society today. In addition to that, there was the Mishnah now, which was a codified law that grew up. It was man codified. In addition to that, there were just plain traditions that just became a way of life. What do you do at Thanksgiving? Always. What do you do at Christmas? Always. So all of this stuff was just laid on generation after generation after generation. Now let’s think about that. God says that your decisions that you make are going to affect four to five generations. Why does he say that? Because you teach your children what you do, just like the Jews taught their children what to do.

So your decisions is a pattern of programming that you take through your children to their children, they take that to their children. And by the time that you get these layers out, it’s going to take four to five generations to do that. In addition to that, God had set down a standard in the very beginning and in the book of Deuteronomy, specifically chapter six, it’s called Shima, which says, the Lord our God is one Lord. Here, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord. And then it goes on to say that the truths that this implies are to be taught to your children and their children and their children.

In other words, a repetitious teaching. And they were instructed to teach when they were sitting down, standing up, walking, lying all the time. That’s what you do today. Same same process. So what happened to them? Yet all of this Prescription of life being propagated. Propagated to everyborn child. Think about you, think about your family, think about your generations. They were taught in the home, they were taught in the synagogue, they were taught in the temple. And in any town or any community were there 25 boys or 125 families, they had this. They would appoint a school master and start a school and teach these things.

Public schools, guys, come on. And so there were schools all over, everywhere. Someone said at the destruction of Jerusalem, there were between 400 and 500 such schools teaching children these basic things repeatedly. Well, you see what happens is that these things become just in pressed into the minds of people programming. No different than what the indoctrination program that Hitler set out to do, that we took up, took into our country by Operation Paperclip in creating our society. And so Judaism continued to foster this tremendous conglomerate way of living that was not isolated only in the area of theology, but it was an entire existence.

Look at you. At the core of this was the law, the ceremonies, the rituals that they had to keep. And they believed this was an Old Testament by any stretch of imagination. By the way, they believe that if they kept all of this stuff, they’d get into heaven. Think about you think about what you consider Christianity to be, what you do that you think is Christianity. That if you actually looked at the way of your life, you would actually, at the core, see your true belief system. Now, God in the Old Testament was a gracious God.

And people say, well, there’s no grace in the Old Testament. Well, you better go back and guess again. God’s is saying yesterday, today and tomorrow. He, he, he, he graciously gave his son to allow us to have a ticket home. He did the same thing with the Old Testament. Remember, Abraham was the protectorate of all of the Old Testament saints and they had to wait on the grace to come in order to go to heaven. It’s no different, guys. The process is the same. Who is partnering God like thee and who gives grace. And it goes on to talk about that, you need to read it.

It’s in the Old Testament, in many, many, many places. God says in Malachi that he had a book of remembrance in which he writes the name of those who are righteous and those who believe in him. Abraham believed in God. It was counted to him for righteousness in Old Testament. Faith is still a way of salvation in the Old Testament as it is today. And what happened was the Jews supplanted faith with law. Okay, think of you. The whole purpose of setting you up for your own self assessment is to allow you to see how legalistic you have become.

And by the time of Christ, they believe that the only way you’d get to heaven was by keeping the law. And of course the guys out in front leading the whole mob along, or the Pharisees, their government, they were hyper zealous for the law and they tended to drag everybody after them. Well, at that time and even today, this has unbelievable consequences. Let me just give you a couple of illustrations. We could talk about many angles to this and each one of them would have its own interesting point. But there was a rabbi by the name of Rabbi.

Ben Saka. S A C C A I if I pronounce that right, it was written of him that he said this at his death. And it’s interesting because he was called the Light of Israel. He lived at the time of the destruction of the temple. He was a very famous man at that time and highly esteemed. Looked out, looked up to. And he was the president of the Sanhedrin, or the ruling body of Israel. So he was not a small time rabbi, but a very important man. On his deathbed he began to weep, just bitterly and pursuingly.

And some of his students who had studied under him and sat at his feet couldn’t believe this. And they ask him how such a man who had lived as he could have such fear of death. Oh, well, that should be easy to answer. And this was his reply. And I quote, if I were now to be brought before an earthly king, who lives today and dies tomorrow, whose wrath and whose bonds are not everlasting, and whose sentence of death even is not that to the everlasting death, who can be by arguments, or perhaps brought, bought by money, I should still tremble and wait.

He goes on, he says, how much more reason have I for it? When about to be led before the King of Kings, the Holy One, blessed by he who liveth and abideth forever, whose claims are changed, whose chains are changed forevermore, whose sentence of death kills forever, whom I cannot assage with words nor bride with money, and not only so before, there are before me two ways, one to paradise and the other to hell. At this point he’s now confessing to himself the fact that he understands the two places. And I know not which of these two ways I shall have.

I shall go. How then shall I not shed tears? End quote. Well, what did Christ call the Sanhedrin? Your father is the devil. He just happened to be the president of the Sanhedrin. And on his deathbed he lived his life in pure evil and he was dying and couldn’t figure out where he was going to spend eternity. Say the man believed that there was only one way to enter heaven and that was to keep the law. What does your government teach you? And, and he knew in his connection that he hadn’t done it. And he had a fear of spending forever in hell.

You see, he had no concept of faith, no concept of grace. He was in a system that bound him. Were you in these two systems that you know exist? And if he didn’t do what the system wanted him to do, he believed he’d go to hell forever. Now when a system has that kind of grip on you, it’s very scary. You always want. I, I’ve always, and maybe you have always wondered why people who get into the Jehovah’s Witness, for example, stick with it because they’re told that if they don’t, they’ll go to hell. That’s some kind of hold on them.

Why do I bring that up is because that’s the same thing that this kind of Judaism, not biblical Judaism, but the kind of Judaism that existed in the day of Christ had on these people is still exists today. They feared for their souls. And here was an honest man. Here was a man who came to the end of his life and according to the code, he knew he couldn’t make it. And he died in mortal fear for his own soul. Now contrast that with the opposite extreme that grows under legalism, religion, legalism, not the fear. But there was a rabbi by the name of Yehuda and there was a lot of these guys.

You could probably give 25 illustrations from this kind of angle, all right? But y was about to die and in his death he lifted up his hands to heaven and told God that none of those ten fingers had ever broken one single law. Well, you can’t keep the law. The law was to provide you not with grace, but with understanding. You can’t keep the law. And for this guy, that was really awful because this is the sickest kind of self righteousness. I want you to think about your own self assessment here. See, that’s the other extreme, that terrible fear and in that sickly kind of self righteousness.

But you see, both of the those things tie those people down to the system. That’s what Lucifer wants you to do. He wants you to be tied to his system and not the system of holiness and righteous. Now watch this. Into this system comes a man by the name of Paul and he’s running around saying grace, grace forever. Forget, forget, forget all of the law. And the Jews are having culture shock. Oh, think of you. They can’t. There’s no way they can handle it. Well, that’s some of your mindsets. I can’t handle this shift of knowledge about what true Christianity is.

That’s why when he went into the synagogue, the reaction was so violent because in their own frame of reference, they just couldn’t handle it. Think of you. It’s understandable, by the way, and that’s why that you have in the Book of Acts, when people get saved, when Jews get saved, there’s a little time lapse before their physical trappings catch up with their soul. And that’s been recreated. That’s why you get a little drift in the Book of Acts between salvation and the release of obligations. In Judaism. There’s a classic example of this in Peter. Peter knew the New Covenant.

He was preaching on Pentecost in Acts 2. You men of Israel do this to be this known to you, and hearken to my words. And off he goes and preaches Jesus. He talks about the fact of what they had done to Christ. Then later on he says, you desire to murder, be released unto you. You killed the Prince of life and the Holy One. And he goes on and on and on about this. And he preaches Christ and we have no question about his understanding of salvation. Well, his understanding of salvation must be your understanding of salvation because that’s the truth.

And Peter was saved. He was really a spiritual filled man. The Bible says he was filled with the Holy Spirit. He was a tremendous guy, focused at Jewish conversion. He had all of the New Covenant feature sets. Oh, you’re Christian. I’m doing all of what I need to do in your mind to be a Christian. But when you look at the basics of your life examples, which system do you reside in? Peter was in Christ. The law was a dead issue in terms of ceremony. The moral law is still good. The law of God in terms of ethics still valid.

But all of the ceremonies and rituals and codes and all that stuff added by all of the rabbis were gone. Christ came to fulfill the law. And Peter was doing Christ and he was in, in a grace kind of operation. Think of you. And the Spirit would lead him. He didn’t need all of these rules anymore. And what happens to old Peter who’s got all of that liberty? Now you come to Acts chapter 10 and he has a little vision. He’s up on his roof and he falls asleep and he’s hungry and a Voice said, well, let’s read it so you get it right in Acts 10.

9. The next day they went on a journey and drew near the city. Peter went on the housetop to pray about the sixth hour and became hungry and would have eaten. But while they made ready, he fell asleep, he fell into a trance and he saw heaven open and a certain vessel descended onto him as if he had been a great sheet knit at the four corners and let down to earth. In other words, he saw something coming down, stretched out down towards him from heaven. And as he sees what he sees in his vision, a big sheet coming out of heaven which were all manner of four footed beasts on the earth, wild beast, creepy things that snakes, reptiles, birds, fowls in the air, so forth and so on.

And there came a voice to him, Rise, Peter, kill and eat. Now that sounds like a simple thing by the way. He sees in his vision all of these animals and the voice says, go ahead Peter, just kill them all and eat. See, in Peter’s mind he was being shown the fact that the dietary stuff in the law had been taken away. Can you imagine seeing that all of these years of your life, Think about you all of these years you like you had this ritual of things you could eat and now all of a sudden you’re being told, kill anything you want to eat.

Say Peter was being told there were no more distinction because in the Old Testament there were certain things that you couldn’t eat. And Peter had lived all of his life that way. And now in the New Covenant, Jews and Gentiles are going to be one in the church. And God didn’t want any differences anymore. There’s no difference in this world’s culture today. There’s no race, there is no cultural difference other than a culture society as to what you believe in, believe in. If you didn’t believe in this culture and the only thing you believed in the Bible, you’re one.

No matter where you go, there’s no difference. Paul made that so very clear in Ephesians as we study Ephesians, there’s no difference at all. And so he’s saying to Peter, all of the old distinctions are gone. My new body, the church, that’s the thing. One in Christ, no more distinction. Well, you think Peter could have, But he didn’t. He couldn’t handle it. Think of you in verse 14 and Peter says, not so Lord. Peter actually said, no Lord, he rebelled against what he was being told. Think of you. Now that’s a pretty flagrant disobedience, don’t you think.

This can’t be. Are you kidding me? For I’ve never eaten anything that is, is, is common or unclean in my life. I’ve never done that. Salvation or no salvation, I can’t handle it. Think of you. What are you being told to do in a transition of your life that’s visible in your self assessment that you’re not willing to give up? See, transition hadn’t caught up with him, just like it hasn’t caught up with some of you in many areas of your life. Now I like this. And the voice spoke to him in a second time. What God hath cleansed that call not thou common.

In other words, I’ve cleansed all this stuff. Now why are you telling me it’s common or unclean? Do you know how many times God had to tell him the same thing before he ever understood it? Think of you. Why am I, I’m doing all these things, but why isn’t my life changing? Well, you’re not there quite transitioned yet. See in verse 16, this was done how many times? Three times. You see, the transition process into Christianity is difficult. Look at this. Romans 14:15. See here you have Paul saying to the church, now you Gentile Christians, I know you’ve got liberties, but when you invite those new Jew Jewish believers over to your house, don’t, don’t have ham.

All you’re doing is needlessly offending them. So acknowledge he is a weaker brother and back off from your liberty. Because we have to recognize the transition. You have to recognize your own transition. Paul was so willing to do that that we find in the Book of Acts there it must be understood transitionally. That’s why the Book of Acts is the Book of Acts. It is the transition book from Old Testament to New Testament the church. If you don’t understand that there’s a state of flux here, you’re going to get all kinds of confusion into your life.

Guys. That’s why we’re studying the Book of Acts. Now a lot of people say, well, oh, we want to get back to the Book of Acts. I don’t want to go back to the Book of Acts. Not in terms of operation by any stretch of the imagination. They say we need to be the first century church. No, if God wanted us to be the first century church, would be the first century church he decided would be in the 21st century church. Another chapter of Acts. Now we want, and we should want to live by biblical doctrine, but I’m not interested in going back operationally to the first century foreign.

I’m not interesting in having trouble over what I eat, like Peter did. I’m not interested in going over to the temple in Jerusalem and making vows like Paul did and having to take a Nazarite vow and cut off all my hair and haul my hair halfway around the world so I could burn it properly in Jerusalem. I’m not interested in any of that stuff. And understanding the fact you can’t take 1st century technology and kill 21st century technology just can’t do it. I can’t take a butter knife in 1st century and kill a demon in the 21st century.

I’m not interested in all the trappings of Judaism. I’m not interested at all. And if people say we’ve got to go, just be like the Book of Acts. Well, we can lay so many things on them, they’ll confuse the issue and you won’t believe it. These people who are always in the framework of whatever you want to call it, charismatic movement, a new age, always want to adapt the Book of Acts to everything. They’re going to get themselves in a lot of trouble if they’re really honest about doing that. Now, as we’ve learned so far that the Book of Acts gives us the history of the early years as the decaying Judaism faded away and the New Covenant came into fullness.

Transition. And let me say that salvation is not a process, but the transition often is. Salvation is mo, is a momentary miracle, but the transition of your life into Christianity, your sanctification, is a transition. And as I said last week, that just because you get saved doesn’t change all of your habits. That takes time. That’s what growth is all about, Sanctification. And the same thing was true in Judaism. They were saved and then they grew away from Judaism gradually. Now, the Holy Spirit knows how important it is for us to understand this transition. He teaches us this transition.

And it’s important historically for us to get a good view of the Book of Acts and a healthy view of what God is doing. Why? Because that’s your life today. So here in verse 18, through chapter 19, verse 7, the Holy Spirit just stops in the middle of everything and shows us some people in transition. And we saw last week, the first one in transition is Paul. Now we’re going to see the second one, Apollos. And next week we’re going to see the third, which is a group of 12 disciples of John the Baptist. They’re all in transition.

Now, let’s just be reminded first of all of Paul’s transition. The first point Paul in transition. And we saw this beginning in verse 18. Paul has just finished his ministry in Corinth. It was a great ministry. It was blessed by God. He was protected, it says, and Paul after this tarried a good while. And you remember that he was Dr. He was dragged before Galio. And the Jews were going to try to get him banned from everywhere. And Gallio says, it’s your problem, not mine. I’m not going to judge in this matter. And Gallio really protected him.

The Spirit. The Spirit of God did it through Gallio. And Paul was so excited about it that he stayed in Corinth a while. Then it was time to go. And he took his leave of the brethren, sailed from there to Syria. And now we find in Syria was where Antioch was. And so he was going back to Antioch. This was the end of his second discipleship journey. About 1500 miles towards Syria. The south of Syria and Palestine is. The south of Syria is Palestine and Jerusalem. And he was going there too, but he was sailing home.

And he took with him Priscilla and Aquila, if you recall. And Paul cut his hair in Censoria, for he had a vow that was the Nazarite vow that he gave. And here you see Paul in transition and you say, what is he doing? Christians are supposed to have vows, by the way. You don’t find anywhere in Paul’s epistles where he says, go make a vow and then cut your hair. Doesn’t say that. Not at all. That’s an Old Testament thing. This is in Numbers, chapter six is. That’s a Nazareth vow. And we saw last time, what did people take a Nazareth vow for? I stated that they took it out of gratitude to God for some great deliverance.

And he had just experienced a great deliverance in the city of Corinth. Very likely took a 30 day Nazareth vow. We talked about that last time. So as you see here, he’s a. Paul’s a Christian. What is he doing? He’s also a Jew. He’s been a Christian a little while, but he’s been a Jew all of his life. And he’s saying to himself, I’m so grateful for God for what he did. And the way that I know, I know best how to show him how grateful I am is to do what all good Jews do. And at that point, the high point of their thanks is to take a Nazarite balance.

So he did what a Jew would do. Paul adjusted well to the Gentiles, but still held on to some Jewish things. He’s teaching you not Everything in your life is going to go away. As I told you last time in the Old Testament, the hair that he cut off had to be taken to Jerusalem and burned in the offering in order to complete the vow. And he’s got to hustle to Jerusalem. And he came into Ephesus. Apparently the ship stopped there, let them off a bit and he left to Quill and Priscilla to get some work going on in Ephesus.

But he himself entered again into the synagogue and reasoned with the Jews. When they desired him to tarry alonger with them, he consented, not bade them for well, saying I must, but by all means keep this feast that that comes in Jerusalem. And he had to get to Jerusalem because he had to burn his hair and he wanted to get there for the feast. See, this vow that he gave to God, self assessment was so important to him that he cut his work short there in Ephesus, at least in some part to fulfill the vow that shows character of Paul in terms of his Jewishness.

He was in transition. Think of you. Every part of sanctification is your vow to Jesus Christ. In your transition to complete it, you ask Christ to change you. You ask Christ to give you knowledge and wisdom so that you can understand what change is required. That’s a vow, guys, That ought to be important to you. Now notice what it says in verse 21 at the end. But I will return again unto you if God wills. And he sailed from Ephesus. Now it’s something interesting to keep in mind about Paul. Paul taught that you’re saved by a sovereign act of God, Ephesians 1.

He believed his salvation was sovereign. Oh, guys, you think you have sovereignty? You have. You do not have sovereignty unless you’re saved. Because God is the only one that can give sovereignty. You’re a slave to the devil in the devil system without salvation. That’s not sovereignty, you see. But you know what else he believed? He not only believed that God was in control of his salvation, he believed that God was in control of his service. He said, I’ll come back to you if God wills. See, guys, it’s not just sovereignty in the area of salvation where God is active, it is also in the area of your service.

It is also in the area of your service. God rules your life in terms of placing you in that place that he wants you to be if you yield it to Him. Let me show you what I mean. See, Paul was so conscious of the will of God that it pops up all over the place in his conversations in Romans 1:10, he writes to the Romans, making a request. I’ve been praying is what he means. And he says, by any. By any means. Now at length I might have a prosperous journey by the will of God to come unto you.

He says, I want to come to you if it’s God’s will. I don’t want to come if it isn’t. Are you listening? You want to do things your way when you want to do it, how you want to do it, and as fast as possible. And you’re not listening when God says it’s going to be done. Then in chapter 15 of Romans, verse 22, that I may come unto you with joy by the will of God in 1st Corinthians 4:19. But I will come to you shortly if the Lord will. In Philippians 2:24, you have the same thing.

But he says, but I trust in the Lord that I also myself shall come shortly. Now, Paul believed that his service was also directed by God as well as his salvation. Well, here’s the point of the rub. How in the world did he ever get to believe that? That’s a question for you. It’s a simple principle, and it’s expressed in two Old Testament passages. By the way, in Psalms 37:5, commit thy way unto the Lord, trust also in him, and he shall bring it to pass. If you commit your way to the Lord and trust him, then what happens will be what he made happen, not you.

And you have another passage similarly in Proverbs 3:6. In all thy ways what? Acknowledge him, and he shall do what? Direct thy path. When a person’s life is yielded to God, then God’s in control, and he’ll wind up where God wants him to be. And in James, there’s the most interesting passage, James 4:13, he starts out, come now, I like that. Oh, come now. Come on, you that say, today or tomorrow we will go into such a city and continue there a year and buy and sell and make money. See, he’s making plans. We’re going to go to a new town and we’re going to make a lot of money.

Next year we’re going to be there a year, and so forth and so on. He says, come on, you know what shall be on the next day? For what is your life? It’s a vapor that appears for a little time and vanishes away. See, we ought to be saying to ourselves and to others in our fellowship and ministry to the brethren, if the Lord will, we shall live and do this or that not. Oh, I’m going to go do this. You know, Christians, it wouldn’t hurt us a bit to say that a lot. Instead we say, I’m going to do this.

I would be better as a reminder to us to say, if the Lord wills, I’m going to do this. We need to make ourselves conscious of the fact that we are at all times yielded into his plan, his system. And just that little phrase somewhere plastered in the front of your brain may help you to remember that you’re yielded to Him. Don’t go making your plans without this freight. If God wills. See, Jesus operated on that basis. Matthew 29:39. Nevertheless, my will. But what thine be done? In Acts 21, another interesting incident occurs in verse 11.

Agabus was a prophet. And sometimes prophets in that day dramatized their prophecies. And Agabus did you know, you know, okay, Ezekiel did. Jeremiah did. All of the major prophets basically dramatized the prophecies. And he came unto us. Paul and his friends came into us. And he took Paul’s belt and he bound his own hands and feet. See, Agabus ties himself up and he says this. Thus saith the Holy Spirit, so shall the Jews at Jerusalem bind the man that owneth this belt, and deliver him into the hands to the Gentiles. That’s a pretty dramatic illustration. And when we heard these things, Luke says, both we and they of that place besought him not to go to Jerusalem.

Paul, don’t go. They wanted him to not to be bound. They knew that he was going to go to prison. The Holy Spirit says, you’re going to get bound if you go there. And what did Paul say now? What mean you to weep and break my heart? Why are you trying to do, making me sad? I’m ready not to be bound only but to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. And when he would not be persuaded, the people cease saying, the will of the Lord be done. But the point is this, these people had a watchful word.

The will of the Lord be done. And that’s a watchword that ought to govern our lives. Now let’s go back to chapter 18. When he landed in verse 22 at Caesarea, and he went and greeted the church. Then he went to the church in Jerusalem, finished the vow, met with the church for just a brief time, and then went to Antioch. And then there he started the next tour, verse 23. After he spent some time there, he departed and went all over the country of Galatia and Fazia in order strengthening all the disciples. And that’s the beginning of the third discipleship journey as he takes off again going to the very place, to places to teach those people that they might multiply.

Now immediately in verse 24 we meet our second point. It’s not Paul in transition, but Apollos in transition and oh, what a man he was. This was just really a thrilling thing to see when you study the details of this. Paul is on his discipleship journey. He’s over in Figia and Sicily. I’m sorry, Cecilia. Getting ready to go to Galatia. He’s moving across. Meanwhile, where did he drop Aquila and Priscilla? At Ephesus. So now the scene in this chapter shifts back to Ephesus where Quill and priscilla are. Verse 24 is the verse in which we meet an extraordinary man, a certain Jew named Apollos, born at Alexander Alexandria, which is in Egypt.

And he’s an eloquent man, he’s mighty in the Scripture and it means he’s knowledgeable about the Scriptures. And he comes to Ephesus. Now Apollos is a Jew and he’s from the city of Alexandria. And incidentally Alexandria had a great Jewish population at the time of Paul. Matter of fact, it probably had at least a million Jews. There were at least four different sections or quarter in the city where Jewish people lived. And he was a man who had been a part of the Jewish society. He was not a Jew isolated somewhere in a gentile area but.

But was a great Jewish population there. So he was weaned and raised. Teach your children, teach your children. Remember, weaned and raised and so forth on the principles of Judaism. Now notice about him some tremendous things that are that going to give you an insight into this man’s life. Listen up. This is you. He says he was an eloquent man. Now the word in Greek is very. Is a very different word. It is foreign to the Bible. Except for this verse, it doesn’t occur anywhere else throughout Scripture. And what it means is this. It combines the idea of learning and eloquence.

He not only was a fluid, most eloquent orator, but he’s his content was class A, that’s what this word means. He was a learned and eloquent man and in fact that indicates not only his knowledge, but it indicates his ability to communicate. He was probably without equal as a speaker. You might ask, was he greater than Paul? Well, very possibly he was a greater preacher than Paul because Paul said to the Corinthians in 1st Corinthians 2:1 I brethren, when I came unto you, came not with excellency of speech. And Paul never really valued his preaching ability.

I don’t know if you ever read that verse in 2nd Corinthians 2:2 2nd Corinthians 10:10. It says, his letters say they are weighty and powerful, but his bodily presence is weak and his speech is contemptible. See, Paul was a lot better writer. Danny was a body, and he was an even better body than he was a speaker. Now, that is very interesting. Little insight into the possibility that Paul perhaps was not as great an orator as was the Popes. I’m not making the comparison because I don’t want you to know the stature of this man. He was without peer as far as we could see in the New Testament as a preacher, as a speaker, an eloquent, learned man, knowledgeable in Scripture.

Now, I want you to know something else about him. If you, if. If you want to pattern your life after somebody, get a grip on a pulse. And if God’s given you all these kinds of abilities and aptitudes, you need to follow his path. He was an eloquent man, a mighty in scriptures, powerful in the scriptures. The. The Scriptures use the term donatos, which is Greek, which we get the word dynamite. The man was an exploding kind of a person when it came to Scripture. He was dramatic and dynamic. The word scripture is graphy. It was always referred to the Old Testament when it’s in the New Testament, obviously.

And he was an Old Testament scholar who could present it with absolute power. He was a powerful man in terms of teaching. Let me hasten to say that at this point, because he was transitioning at this point, his power at this point was the natural. He was not a Christian at this point, so consequently did not have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. So the power in his life was expressed really through his natural abilities, not yet having the gifts of the Spirit as we come to know them throughout the Scripture. Now, later on, when he comes to Christ and he receives the Holy Spirit and gets the gift of the Spirit in all those areas, he becomes devastating in verse 28, that he just wipes out a city practically.

But at this point, he’s in the natural. And by that I don’t mean that the Spirit didn’t touch his life, because nobody can know anything apart from the Holy Spirit in any dispensation. I’m not disqualified, disqualifying the Spirit. He had the spiritual work in his life in a very general sense, but not in a specific sense of the gift and the indwelling that The New Testament saints know. He could in his own natural ability speak and communicate and was learned in the Old Testament. And if you study him, it didn’t take him long to make an impression.

Paul writes back to first Corinthians at this time and it says just hardly at any time at all has gone by of course. And he says unto them, you’re carnal, there are divisions among you. And he says, here’s the divisions. Some say I’m of Paul, some say I’m of Cephas, some say I’m of Christ, and some say I’m of Apollos. Say in no time he was ranked right up there with Paul and Peter in terms of the esteem of people. He was dramatic, particularly a very unique man. Now if you go further in First Corinthians, you’d find some interesting notes about him.

Chapter 3, verse 6. Paul says I planted Apollos watered by God, gave him the increase. So he was really in there building on the foundation that Paul had laid in First Corinthians 4, 6 those these things brethren, I have a in a figure transferred to myself to apost for your sake. So Paul actually worked through and in Apollos Paulus is a very unusual man. Apart from the Holy Spirit, just in his own particular physical nature and the gifts in terms of abilities, he’s an unusual man. But the Bible in saying that he was a mighty man in scriptures indicates to us that he had learned the Scripture, that he had taken some natural ability and that he had refined it and honed it it by study and diligence.

He was seeking the Lord. Now if I could take a little phrase and just pull it out of the Bible, I’d like to be it to be a watchword for my life that would be mighty in the Scripture. I think that’s a such a tremendous statement. What we need today in this world, not only the church, but people you who are that mighty in the Scriptures. In so many churches we’ve got all kinds of people but people who are mighty, but people who but people who are mighty in Scripture. Always think about young men who came to a Bible teacher after he taught.

And he was so over rod by the teaching and the strength of the man that his teaching and the ability and the power and the knowledge. He said to him, I just was so thrilled by your teaching. He said I’d give the world to be able to teach the Bible like that. And the man says good, because that’s what it’s exactly going to cost you. And he’s right. You can’t live in both systems, can’t have two masters. It takes a kind of commitment. It takes a measure of dedication to be mighty in the Scripture. And we should praise people like Apollos who set that pattern.

Here was a man who hadn’t even known yet the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, hadn’t even known the gifts of the Spirit in terms of his ministry, but was operating certainly under the Spirit’s direction in general sense, but operating in his own natural abilities and his own commitment, and came to be a mighty man in Scripture. And such a holy man was he that later on when he saw the factions in Corinth, it so grieved his heart that in First Corinthians 16:12, Paul had asked him to go back. And he wouldn’t go back to court. The factions that came in court weren’t Apollo’s fault any more than they were Peter’s fault.

Paul’s fault. A Christ’s fault. But they grieved him. Well, let’s take it one step further. The man and see what kind of knowledge he had. Verse 25. This man was instructed in the way of the Lord. Now that’s an interesting statement. It’s very. It’s a very general statement, but let’s look at the word instructed. Let me show you something that I think is very important. The word instructed is the word in Greek. Now it to see it, to see if it sounds like a familiar word. Some of you who came out of the Presbyterian religion ought to get this.

It’s a verb. And I, I. I’ve tried to pronounce this all day yesterday, and it just doesn’t work for me. I’m going to spell the Greek word for you. It’s K, A, T, E, C, H, E, O, K. And it sounds like a familiar word in the Presbyterian faith. Kism. It’s that more familiar. The word catechio means to teach orally by repetition. That’s a line that you read and then you read the answer in the next line. Repetition, repetition. Some of you perhaps said in catechism classes in years gone by. Now look at this. Apollo got his information by catechized.

He was taught by oral repetition. Now, I want to point this out. There’s a difference between Apollos and an apostle. Apollos is not an apostle. Paul said this. And we’ve been studying it each Sunday now for many weeks. But listen to what Paul says in Galatians 1:11. I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which was preached by me is not after man. For I neither Received it from man. Neither was I taught it but by revelation of Jesus Christ. The information Paul had, he got directly from Jesus Christ. The information Apollos had, he got it from a school catechized.

That’s the difference between inspiration, divine revelation and instruction. Only the apostles in the New Testament error and those New Testament writers claim to have inspiration, not Apollos. He learned at the foot of somebody who undoubtedly taught him the spirit of God. Certainly in a general sense having part in the teaching. But it was different to be Apollos in learning then like Paul, to be isolated in Arabia and getting all of this information directly from God. Notice what he was instructed in because it’s really exciting. It says he was instructed in the way of the Lord. Now you know, I say the way of the Lord.

What is that? Well, that’s a little different thing to do for us to narrow down on. And I’m going to give to you for what it’s worth and see what you think about it. And I went back to Genesis 18:19 foreign. Let’s go back in time and hang on to this thought. Apollos was instructed in the way of the Lord. Now some people have said that that means he was a Christina, does that mean he was a Christian instructed in the way of the Lord? Well, it could. Does it have to? Well, he was a Jew first of all.

And if we look at the Old Testament talks. The Old Testament talks about this phrase in Genesis 18:19. For I know him. This is God and Abraham here I know him. The Lord says he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall what, Keep the way of the Lord. Now there’s the first use of that phrase in the Bible, the conversation between God and Abraham. It’s in the first book of the Bible. We’re the first person in Israel’s history. Abraham. The way of the Lord is not a New Testament term. When it says Apollos was instructed in the way of the Lord, it doesn’t necessarily mean he’s a Christian at all.

The way of the Lord is a very broad and general terms of the Old Testament instruction in the things of God. It’s very broad, it’s very general. Now let’s give you another illustration. Judges 2:22. And here God speaks regarding his nation of Israel. That through them I may test Israel whether they will keep the way of the Lord to walk therein as their fathers did, keep it or not. There you have the way of Lord. Again, it’s very general talking about the standards that God sets for any people in a particular Time, guys, self assessment. Are you getting this? Every period of time is different.

You’re. But this, but the, the constant in this is the transition. In 1st Samuel 12:23, he says, God forbid that I should sin against the Lord in ceasing to pray for you, but I will teach you the good and the right way. Now watch this. The way of the Lord is an Old Testament content. There was just a path that God had laid out with ethics, ethics codes, morality and standards. And that was the way of the Lord. A very general thing. And it goes to the Old Testament. And you can read it in Psalms 25, 8, 9, and you’ll find the same idea.

It’s in various places throughout the Old Testament. What it’s telling us is the New Testament, people outside of the apostles who were taught the gospel of Jesus Christ were instructed in Old Testament truth. But you know what happened? The way of the Lord all of a sudden started zeroing in. In Isaiah, chapter 40, verse 3, it says the prophet started to zero in on it. The funnel started getting narrower and narrower with this statement. The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, who is that? Who is that? A prophecy of John the Baptist. The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, prepare ye what the way of the Lord make straight in the desert, a halfway, a highway for our God.

All of a sudden, the way of the Lord starts narrowing down to Messiah, to Jesus Christ himself. The Old Testament, the way of the Lord is a broad system of rules and regulations, laws. The way of Lord in general, conduct starts zeroing in in Isaiah 40 toward an individual who is going to announce the Messiah’s coming. That individual came Matthew, chapter three, verse one. In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Jude, Judah and Judea and saying, be converted, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. For this is he that was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah saying, the voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare ye the way of the Lord.

Now if Apollos was instructed in the way of the Lord in terms of the Old Testament, he would have been instructed in all of the body of the Old Testament truth. And it was instructed fully in the way of the Lord. The way of the Lord focused in on the ministry of which man, John the Baptist. So Apollos then would have followed the way of the Lord all the way until it narrowed into John the Baptist. And I believe that Apollos was not a Christian, but he was a student of John the Baptist. Now, if that’s difficult for you to handle, just from that Phrase.

Look at the end of verse 25, Acts 18:25. It says that he was knowing only the baptism of what John. Now Apollos then was the truest Old Testament saint. He accepted the whole Old Testament all the way down to the fulfillment in John the Baptist. He accepted the message of John the Baptist that the Messiah was coming and he even accepted the fact that the Messiah was Jesus. Now you might say, how do you know that? Well let’s look at what the verse says. He was instructed in the way of the Lord, being fervent in the Spirit.

He spoke and taught diligently the things of Jesus. The best manuscript. The things of Jesus knowing only the baptism of John. Now here is Apollos who accepted all the way of the Lord in the Old Testament, accepted the ministry of John the Baptist, saw that John pointed to Jesus and said, behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. And he that believeth it on Jesus was the Messiah. So you might say, well then why wasn’t he a Christian? Well because he didn’t know what happened in the death, resurrection and Pentecost that followed the life of Christ.

He was pre cross. Do you know what he was doing? He didn’t know anything but the baptism of John. He didn’t know the baptism of the Holy Spirit. He didn’t know the baptism in water that follows faith. He only knew pre cross. He was still getting ready for the Messiah. Now he knew the baptism was of anticipation, not the baptism of accomplishment, self assessment. He knew the baptism of a looking forward to, not the baptism of a fulfillment. So he was an Old Testament saint in the fullest sense of the word. He had followed the way of the Lord all the way down until it got him to John the Baptist and it was being fulfilled.

He was ready for the Messiah. He was repentant. He was preaching the message that Jesus was the Messiah. He didn’t know the fullness of Jesus acts on earth or he would have understood more than the baptism of John. So by reading scripture and seeing and reading all of the scripture and seeing how Apollos and Paul described the life of Apollos, we get to the truth. He was getting ready for the Messiah. But you know, he knew a lot. Imagine what kind of a man he must have been with the kind of knowledge and eloquence and mighty in the scriptures and then add to that verse 25 and being fervent in the spirit, you take all of that knowledge and all of that holiness and all of that eloquence and you put it in a flaming heart.

And you’ve got some kind of a man self assessment. Does you know when he says he was fervent in the spirit, the literal Greek, he was boiling in it. Now I don’t think that’s the Holy Spirit at all. I think that’s the human spirit. See, I think he keeps boiling in his spirit seeking the knowledge of Christ. He’s boiling in the spirit, fervent in the spirit. And the only other time that word fervent is ever used that same boiling word is in Romans 12:11. And there Paul is talking about the Christians inward parts and it says we should be fervent in the spirit.

It’s not talking about the Holy Spirit there. It seems a foreign word to make a reference to the Holy Spirit. You wouldn’t say somebody was boiling in the Holy Spirit, but boiling inside flaming hard is the idea of the phrase. So Apollos was a great man. It’s one thing to be knowledgeable guy self assessment. You can have all the knowledge, read all the textbooks you want. But it’s another thing to know the truth doesn’t mean anything unless you apply it to the truth. It’s another thing to be eloquent about it. But you have that all in a flaming heart.

What else could you ask for? And then to be mighty in the scriptures, apostles was a great man. God gave us more like that. Tremendous. That’s what I would say. God give us more like that. A soul with a flame, with enthusiasm. He spoke and taught diligently to things of Jesus. And there’s two imperfect verbs. He was speaking and teaching. And the conjunction and which is the word kaya could be translated even in a situation like this. He was speaking, even teaching diligently the things of Jesus. I mean this guy was going everywhere teaching Jesus Christ.

Now I’m going to pull a word out of this. There’s so much to say about this man in these two verses. Matter of fact, it’s staggering. I’m going to look at the word diligently. Now. In my studying for this, I. I had a little fun with the Lord and we had the greatest time thinking about this word, researching the word and whatever. And I found a new word that I kind of like Eos in the Greek. Do you know what it means? It’s a terrific word. It means exactness with exactness. Now watch this. He taught with exactness the things of Jesus Christ.

The truth. You know, just to give you a little footnote, there’s one thing that I really can’t stand and you Guys get are getting to know me better and better each and every time and all that good stuff. But it just bugs me more than anything. It’s sloppy teaching. What do you mean by that? I mean sloppy teaching, sloppy exposition of scripture where you just mean mediader through and you don’t really prepare so that you can really teach accurately. So when Apollos not only had eloquence and knowledge and a flaming heart and all that information, he believed in his own heart.

But on top of that, when he taught, he was careful to teach with exactness, truth. Well, today’s religion has so much sloppy teaching going on, it’s just unbelievable. I read a lot and some books I read in print that are absolutely horrible in their interpretations of scripture. I’m not setting myself up as a judge. I’m simply saying some people don’t even follow the basic patterns of instruction there. Believe me, there’s a verse that goes over and over in my mind pretty much every week that I study the Bible. And it’s this study to show yourself approved on under men.

No, it says unto God. I don’t see how anybody can come out and teach the Bible knowing that God is hearing every word and that is should be approved by God unless he has been diligent to the very nth degree to be sure that he’s accurate and faithful to the text. Don’t interpret the text in the manner by which you want to interpret it because it’s not going to give you the truth. It’s only going to give you your truth. You know, the sloppy, sentimental devotionalizing of all the scriptures just doesn’t get at the issue. You need to teach.

All of us are teachers. You need to teach with exactness. That’s why I believe that there’s no nothing more important than a teacher of the word of God having the education and the tools to carefully heal with scripture. I mean, if you got sick and you needed major surgery and you go to the doctor, you want to know that the guy knows what’s he doing with a scalpel, don’t you? You may get some information from one doctor and you may wait to check a few other sources. And when you get on that table and they shoot you with that stuff and knock you out, you’re just lying there and people are doing all kinds of stuff to you.

Don’t you want to know somebody knows what they’re doing? Well, who do you look to for truth about your salvation? You know, I know that physicians really work at their trade and I know they work at it because it’s a matter of life and death. And I’ll tell you something. A person who teaches the Bible, if you can get so serious as a doctor about the physical life, a person who teaches the Bible shouldn’t be one wit less serious about dealing with spiritual reality. I try to be just as careful in my teaching and discussions of the word of God with you as a physician is with a scalpel when only a thread exists between life and death.

That’s the kind of exactness that this book demands. That’s why I say it’s critical that men only not only have a commitment to that kind of exactness, but have the proper tools to bring it about. Now, the best investment. That a church, this group, this body can make is in the preparation of its people, you for the teaching of the Word of God in their preparation may take some time, but it’s worth every penny if we can get that accomplished. Concludes. I don’t know. He’s on what I’m getting feedback. The greatest investment you’ll ever make. Because exactness in the Word bears fruit.

And Apollos was an exacting teacher. There’s no other way to teach the Bible than that. Guys, If you’re teaching a five year old, seventh graders, seniors, individuals in college or elderly in the church, you need to teach with the exactness of the things of God. God went to a tremendous expense, right, to get his revelation down to this world, his son, and to get it communicated. He wants to be sure that it’s communicated in the way that he designed it to be communicated. And all that means is that you commit yourself to care and diligence and preparation, sanctification.

Guys, you have to commit to yourself. And that is so basic. Everything God does is with exactness. In Luke 1, when Luke was getting ready to write the book of Luke, he says, it seems good to me also having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first. That’s Revelation, guys. Luke could write this down because God gave him absolute understanding of everything. And he says first to write unto thee with exactness. This Bible is exactly what God wanted us to have. It’s exactly what God wanted us to have. Exactly. Luke says, I can tell you exactly with perfect understanding what God wants me to say.

And that’s the way we’re to teach it. That’s the way you’re to discuss it. We can’t go to this Bible that God spent so many, many pains for getting across every word properly and foul up the words. Now there’s another angle in this word it’s used one at a time in Ephesians 5:15, which would be helpful. Say Paul says, see that you walk right. You walk to your calling, right? That’s what Paul taught us, worthy of your calling. He uses the same word acrobus with exactness. The Christian should live his life with the same kind of preciseness that we imperate the scripture with the same kind of preciseness that God wrote it.

God didn’t give us a sloppy revelation. God doesn’t want us to stop slop up with his revelation. And God doesn’t want us to slop up our lives either. Same word in all of these areas. Apost knew only of the baptism of John that was preparation for Messiah. And read it In Luke 1, the angel says what he’ll do. Verse 16, many of the children of Israel return to the Lord their God. And in verse 17 he shall make ready a people prepared for the Lord. You see, the Jews were coming to John and they were coming by multitudes and they were saying the Messiah is coming, the Messiah is coming.

And they were saying we better get it right. Self assessment our hearts better get it right. Part of the Messiah is coming. And they were all saying we repent of our sins and we want to be ready for the Messiah. And they were being baptized as an outward sign of their inward change of behavior. And so they were getting ready for the Messiah. And that Apollos, he was ready for the Messiah. He didn’t know the Messiah had come, died, risen and gone. So Apollos was an Old Testament saint and when he came to Ephesus. Now I want you to show you the last few verses real quickly here.

You’ll see, you’ll see, you’ll see it right away. And he began to speak boldly in the synagogue. He arrives and he preaches there. You got to love this. He began to speak boldly. What else from such a man? He began to speak boldly in the synagogue. Who? Whom? When Priscilla and Ecola heard, oh, it’s interesting that equivalent Persona were attending the synagogue. They were still in transition themselves, you see, when they heard, they took him under them and expounded unto him the way of God more, more perfectly. You got to love this. They heard him preach and he got all them, all the way up to the edge of the cross and quit.

And they went and invited the preacher home for dinner and they said now Aus, did you enjoy that dinner? Wasn’t that terrific? Apost, we got a few things we’d like to share with you. You know what happened after you finished your sermon and they told them the story of Jesus’s going to the cross, his death, his resurrection, and that the Holy Spirit has come and the new age has been born. And all this they explained the way unto him more perfectly. Here you go again. Exactness. They also communicated with the exactness, the only way. And so they took him from there.

And I like the fact that they didn’t write him off as a heretic. You know, so many people who are in the fundamental areas like to get up in their little fundamental ivory tower with their little rifle and just shoot everybody who doesn’t agree with them. Corporate church today. Oh, we’ll get him that kind of thing. Instead of if someone doesn’t have full information, instead of at least going and seeing if they’re open to that. Well, Apollos was such a saint. He’d come all the way of God, narrowed it down to Jesus. He wasn’t going to quit.

Now they gave him the truth of Jesus Christ. They explained a way more perfectly. The way narrowed down to John the Baptist, prepare ye the way. And Jesus came along and said in John 4, 14, 16, I’m. I’m what? I’m the way. And Christianity is called in Acts 9:2, Acts 19:9. The way they told him the fullness of the facts regarding Christ. Oh, can you see the conversation of Apollos right there in those verses? Your life, guys. And the Spirit doesn’t say much about it. Why? Because it wasn’t much of a change. He was already a saint.

Verse 27. And when he was disposed to pass into a country, he. The brethren wrote the. They sent a letter. The brethren sent a letter exhorting the disciples to receive him that he was a bonafide teacher. Teacher. And who when he was come help them much who had believed through grace. Oh, those last three words incidentally are the Methodist salvation. Believe through grace. See? Not through faith. Through grace. I told you to go search out church doctrine. You’ll find whether or not it’s scriptural based or not. This is in Methodist church charter. But look what happened when he got to Corinth.

He helped them much believe. The reason I know, I got to say between the time he arrived at Ephesus and the time he arrived at Corinth is this. If he hadn’t, he wouldn’t have been able to help the church. You see, he would have. It would have had been behind. He got saved. He helped the church much. But in verse 28 the Miley convince the Jews. And the Greek word there is so interesting Mightily means vehemently. It’s translated in one of the Old Testament passage in the Septuagint. Very, very loudly. He just came on like a gangbuster and he loudly convinced the Jews publicly showing by scripture that Jesus was the Messiah.

He took the Old Testament and just proved that Jesus was the Messiah. Now I want you to notice that the word convince you can translate the Greek word, it has a double compound. It’s a double compound word. And when the Greeks did that, they really wanted to get something across to you. What were they actually saying? It really translates this way. He mightily argued them down all the time. He has crushed them by his arguments. They couldn’t handle it. He totally refuted them at every point. Exactness. Well, Apollos was a very complete man. Not only did he help the body of believers in verse 27, but he just destroyed the unbelievers with the power of his preaching in verse 28.

Well, there you make the two transition, Paul and apostles. It’s amazing to examine history and see how exciting it is to see what God is doing in their lives and how grateful we are that the spirit of God brought about the transition that might have influence on us. Why? Because it is you with that we have just went through the transition of Apollos. Questions? Comments, points? Anything? All right, let’s pray. Father, thank you again for a morning of coming into your word worshiping. You understanding more truth about the church. Understanding how the church in is exactness applies to our lives today as the church.

More importantly, how it influences the importance of understanding the application of your principles so that we can actually operate in truth of the church. Thank you for gathering this body together. Those that are faithfully in this family and just want to give you honor and glory for that. Because you’re the only one that can provide that. God continues to work with us to show us revelation of your word. Give us the wisdom and knowledge associated with that revelation to apply it to our belief systems in changing that roadmap that is exhibited in self assessment of our lives.

Father, we give you all the glory. We want to thank you for your son, resurrection, ascension and we just want to honor you and all that we do. We ask all these things in your son’s name.
[tr:tra].