Scripture: Acts 18:10 “I will be with you, and no one will harm you. I have many people in this city who believe.”
Title: God has not promised skies always blue.
Acts 18:1 Paul left Athens
and journeyed westward to the city of Corinth. 2 He became friends with a man
named Aquila who was originally from the region of Pontus, on the southern
shore of the Black Sea. He and his wife, Priscilla, had recently left Rome
during the reign of Claudius who expelled all of the Jews from that city. 3
Paul and Aquila were both tent makers by trade so Paul stayed with them and
worked alongside Aquila. 4 On the Sabbath he would go to the synagogue and
reason with the Jews and the Greeks about the teachings of the Scriptures and
the coming of the Messiah.
Seutonius, a Roman historian, writing
around 100 AD, reported that all Jews who were not Roman Citizens were
commanded to leave Rome in 49 AD because “they were constantly rioting at the
instigation of Chrestus.” It is not known if there was a person named Chrestus
who was stirring up the Jews or if this is a reference to some upheaval caused
by the good news coming to Rome. Either way, it made for a great opportunity
for Aquila and Paul to become friends.
Since
Aquila was a tent maker, something Paul did as well, the two became friends in
Corinth and worked together. Of course, the also had their faith in common.
It is fascinating to think about how people
meet. I have heard stories over the years of people traveling thousands of
miles across the United States at very early ages in their lives and arriving
in the West where they met the person they would marry and spend the remainder
of their lives together. Are these experiences happenstance or are they the
direct hand of God working in our lives? When my father left the Air Force, he
could have moved anywhere. We moved to Santa Barbara. When I went to college, I
could have gone to any school I wanted to go to, I stayed in Santa Barbara. At
the city college, I met Linda. Not in a class but because someone asked me to
be a Yell Leader for the school, something outside my nature as an extreme
introvert. Are these coincidences? The answer to that question lies in our
faith. I call these coincidences, “miracles” or “divine appointments.” What do
we believe God does and does not do in our lives? My experience has led me to
believe He is more active in directing my footsteps than Him being a passive
God. Solomon says, “We can plan all we want to but
Yahweh orders our paths.” (Proverbs 16:19 EBV)
Acts 18:5 When Silas and Timothy arrived from Macedonia, Paul
stopped making tents and devoted himself fully to talking with others about
Jesus, the Messiah. 6 Some resisted his teaching and others said that he was
blaspheming, Paul shook out his clothing in a gesture of shaking off the bad
influence and said to them, “I have done all that I can to tell you of the
Messiah. You do not want to listen, so, I am now going to take this message
from the Lord to the other nations.” 7 He left these Jews and went to a house
owned by Titius Justus. 8 There was a synagogue next to his house and the
leader was a man named Crispus. He became a believer in Jesus as the Messiah.
This led many others in the town of Corinth to believe and become baptized. 9
Jesus spoke to Paul in a vision one night, “Have no fear, do not be silent
about these truths, 10 I will be with you, and no one will harm you. I have
many people in this city who believe.” 11 Paul enjoyed eighteen months of
fellowship in this place, teaching regularly about the word of the Lord.
We
know from 1 Cor. 1:13 Paul baptized a man named Crispus and we assume that he
is the leader of the synagogue mention in verse 8. This was just the beginning
of the growing
number of believers in the city of Corinth. Years after this event Paul wrote
letters to these people helping them settle disputes and grow in their faith.
During this time Paul receive two
nudges in a great direction. The first, because of his frustration with the
Jews and their unwillingness to see that Jesus was the Messiah, he felt a need
to start speaking more to the Non-Jews about faith in Jesus. So, making this
commitment public, Paul told the Jews his new plan and he stopped meeting with
them, moved to another house, and met up with Crispus who accepted Jesus as his
Lord.
The other nudge was actually a vision
from God where He encouraged Paul to keep on sharing the good news with people
in this city, saying, “I will be with you, and no
one will harm you. I have many people in this city who believe.” (1 Corinthians 18:10 EBV) This
spurred Paul on to share with more and more people in Corinth over the next 18
months.
An interesting question arises with
the phrase, “I have many people in this city who
believe.” Does this mean that Jesus has touched a lot of people in
the city with the words that Paul has been sharing or is there a definition of
faith we do not know about? Could there be people who believe in a loving
caring God but don’t yet know about Jesus? This question has come up many times
over the course of my 50 some years of ministry. Can there be people who love
God but do not go to church and do not believe in Jesus yet? Are there devote
believers in God in the midst of other faith traditions? A strict Evangelical
Christian answer would say, No! If a person does not turn their heart over to Jesus,
they cannot be saved and enter heaven’s gates. But is that the only choice God
has to welcome a person into His eternal kingdom?
Fear of people, the things they say,
and the way they treat us, has caused many a Christian to stop being vocal
about their faith. It is so easy to explain away the divine guidance in our
lives because we know the people we are around would not like to hear us talk
about God and Jesus. It appears that even Paul began to have some fear of
preaching. Why else would God speak to him saying,
“Have no fear, do not be silent about these truths, I will be with you?” This vision comes to Paul in a time when he deeply
needs God to help him work through some obstacle. Whether it was just his mind
playing tricks on him or the devil putting evil thoughts in his head, we know
that Paul needed God’s uplift at this moment in his life. And he got it.
The Bible is filled with God speaking
through prophets and angels reminding us to not be afraid, for God is always
with us. (Isaiah 43:5; Jeremiah 1:8) Paul lived a life of persecution after his
conversion to faith in Jesus as the Messiah. In the midst of his list of
persecutions he includes, “I have been in prison more often
than others, beaten more times than I can count, many times been on the brink
of death. I have received the thirty-nine lashes from the Jews, five times in
my life. I remember three times when others beat me with rods, and one time I
was stoned and given up as dead. I have been shipwrecked three times and spent
one whole night floating alone in the sea. I can go on,” (2 Corinthians
11:23-26 EBV) And through
it all he learned to trust in Jesus, that He was always near by and always
around to protect him from any harm the enemy might choose to do.
The trouble many people have with the guidance of
God, is that He often leads us through the difficult persecutions of life as we
see Paul having experienced a variety of things. We want the guidance of God instead
to always keep us safe and happy, rather
than allowing us to go through fires, pandemics, and the struggles other people
might bring our way. God does not promise us smooth roads to travel all the way
through our lives. But as Annie Johnson
Flint said in her poem God’s Kind Care “God hath not promised, skies
always blue,” … but He has promised rest and strength and grace and help to
take us through.
I bless you in the name of Jesus with eyes to
see the handiwork of God weaving your life into a beautiful piece of artwork.
And I bless you a nudge from God, either from your own awareness or from a
verbal divine message. And I bless you with a confidence to speak the good news
of Jesus without fear, knowing that God is always with you.
Edd Breeden
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