Day 28: Acts 18:1-22

When Paul came down from Athens to Corinth, he found a Jewish couple that had been run out of Rome when Claudius purged the Jews from Rome. He stayed with them since they were in the same tent-making trade like Paul. He would go into the synagogue daily and reason with the Jews there about Jesus. When Silas and Timothy came down from Berea and joined him, he spent all his time testifying that Jesus was the Messiah. The Jews in the synagogue were so outraged at this that they began blaspheming the name of Jesus. So Paul said, “your blood is on your own hands, I am clean. From now on, I will go to non-Jews.”

So he went next door to the house of a man named Titus Justus who wasn’t a Jew, but worshiped the God of the Jews. During this time, the leader of the synagogue, Crispus, believed along with his household.

The Lord spoke to Paul in a vision at night and told him not to be afraid anymore, but to go on speaking and not be silent. He told Paul He would be with him and no harm would come to him. He also ensured Paul that many people in the city would come to Him. Paul settled there for a year and a half.

The Jews were angry and brought Paul before the Roman Governor, Gallio. They claimed Paul was encouraging people to worship God contrary to the law. Gallio saw right through this and did not consider it a civil matter, but a religious matter among themselves and dismissed the case. In the meantime, Sothenes had succeeded Crispus as head of the synagogue. The other Jews beat Sosthenes up in front of Gallio and Gallio did not seem to be concerned. Perhaps they blamed Sosthenes for even bringing the matter before the Governor.

Paul later sailed back home to Syria and took Priscilla and Aquila with him. He stopped in Ephesus first and entered the Synagogue to reason with the Jews. They asked him to stay longer, but he left telling them he would return if God wills and went on to Jerusalem to greet the church there and then went home to Antioch.

As one first reads this, they might think that Paul is living his life by accident just rolling with the punches. However, if you look deeper, you will find a man that was deeply committed to living out the life that God had set before him. A new life’s journey that he had been on since that day, the Lord Himself, had blinded him on the road to Damascus. The life he now lived was not his own, but a new life totally devoted to God’s purposes and under the direction of the Holy Spirit that now lived inside him. That did not mean that he faced no struggles, but it meant that God comforted him before going into the Governor’s court, that no harm would come to him. Let us not walk according to the way we used to, but in the newness of life, the life that God gives us to live each day.