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Thursday 1 July 2010

Acts 18:19-28

Paul left Corinth, and Priscilla and Aquila went with him. It is perhaps notable that Priscilla's name comes first, maybe she contributed more than Aquila. The churches gave to each other, both financially, spiritually, and in terms of people. The Greek churches gave money to the Jerusalem church, Jerusalem gave spiritually to all the churches, and various churches gave people to the mission.
Paul went to the synagogue in Ephesus and reasoned with them. He seems to have had quite a good reception, as they wanted him to stay with them. For some reason Paul declined, probably because he had other places to go to.
Next he went to Caesarea and then to Antioch. After that he went on to Galatia and Phrygia,
We then read about Apollos, and we see that Paul was not the only one helping the church spread. Apollos knew about the Lord and used his knowledge of Scripture to expound the gospel, but he had not received the Holy Spirit. Priscilla and Aquila explained about the Holy Spirit to him, and Apollos went on to soeak even more boldly and was an encouragement to the churches.
We can learn various things from this. First, although Apollos spoke accurately about Jesus, he still needed the Holy Spirit, and was even more effective after he was filled with the Spirit. Conversely, we should note that even before he had received the Spirit he was effective and taught accurately. We must not despise people who are not "filled with the Spirit", though we should also encourage them to be so.

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