Acts 18:9-11 - Do not be afraid, keep on speaking

18:9,10

Paul was facing increasing opposition, and it would be no surprise if this was having an effect on him. None of us are immune to the pressures we may face in difficult situations. We may think we just have to keep on going, to overcome the fears or the stress in our own strength. However, God thinks differently. As Ps 103:14 says “He knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust”. So the Lord speaks to Paul in a vision. He tells him to keep on speaking, and assures him that He is with him. He also tells him that no one will “attack and harm” him, because God is with him. Perhaps most importantly, God tells Paul that He has many people in the city. 

18:11

As a result, Paul stayed in the city for eighteen months, teaching the word of God. This was God’s mission, God was involving Paul in what He was doing. It was not a matter of God getting involved in what Paul was doing. We often get this wrong in our own lives. When we are doing something in our own strength we will ultimately fail. When we know we are working with God, rather than Him with us, it puts a whole different complexion on things.

Judges 15:6-10 - Who did this?

15:6

Not surprisingly, the Philistines are none too pleased about the situation and want to know who was responsible. They found out that it was Samson. Note that the woman is still referred to as his “wife”, and Samson as “the Timnite’s son-in-law”. So they take revenge on the Timinite and his daughter. The whole episode is one of endless destruction. One cannot but help seeing some parallels with the Israel-Palestine situation (without wanting to press the similarity too far).

15:7-10

One act of wanton destruction begets another, and so it continues. Samson now vows to get further revenge against the Philistines, and so slaughters many of them. After this he goes and hides in a cave. Meanwhile, the Philistines go and camp in Judah. Samson’s actions are a one-man crusade, and the Judeans want  to know why the Philistines are camping against them.

Acts 18:5-8 - Many who heard believed and were baptised

18:5,6

SIlas and Timothy arrived from Macedonia. They may well have brought a financial gift from the church at Philippi (2 Cor 11:9), so Paul was able to devote himself exclusively to preaching the gospel. His focus is on presenting Jesus as the Messiah to the Jews. However, we now reach a pivotal point. The Jews oppose Paul (see earlier comments on the Jewish expulsion from Rome), and abusively so. Paul then “shook out his clothes”, see Matt 10:14. He now seems to accept that the Jews, on the whole, have rejected the gospel. So now he will devote himself primarily to preaching to the Gentiles. We should note that this does not mean that he ignored the Jews completely. Also, Rom 9-11 shows that he had not given up hope for the Jews.

18:7,8

However, Paul did not go far. He went next door! Titius Justus lived next door and was a worshipper of God. According to Bruce his full name may have been Gaius Titius Justus and he could be the Gaius mentioned in1 Cor 1:14. Crispus was the synagogue leader, he and his whole household believed. So there were some Jews who had not rejected the gospel. Many believed and were baptised.

Judges 15:1-5 - I will really harm them

15:1,2

We now come to more of Samson’s antics. He seems to be in denial about the situation with his wife-to-be, or ignorant of the fact that her father gave her to someone else. So the father would not let Samson go in. He then explained to Samson that he thought Samson now hated the woman, and so gave her to another man. He then offered Samson her younger sister, saying she was actually more attractive.  We need to appreciate that marriage customs were very different in those days.

15:3-5

Samson seems to have accepted the situation, or seen it primarily as an excuse to exact more vengeance on the Philistines. This time he collects three hundred foxes, ties them together in pairs, and ties a torch to each pair. After that he lets them loose on the Philistines fields, thus unleashing wanton destruction.

Acts 18:1-4 - Paul left Athens and went to Corinth

18:1,2

Corinth was about 46 miles from Athens and was the major city in Achaia. We know from the two Corinthian letters (and there were probably a total of four letters) that Paul’s relationships with the Corinthians were not easy. Aquila and Priscilla were to become key figures in Paul’s ministry (Rom 16:3,4). They had been forced to leave Rome, along with all the other Jews. The reason for this was that the gospel had caused trouble in the synagogues in Rome, and so the Jews were expelled as troublemakers. We do not know how the gospel got there, but while Paul was a key figure (to put it mildly), there were other routes through which the gospel was spreading. This expulsion of the Jews helps to explain some of the hostility of the Jews towards Christians. The expulsion happened in AD 49, though they were allowed to return a few years later.

18:3,4

Paul had another bond with Priscilla and Aquila in that they were also tentmakers. Paul used his tent making skill as a source of income to fund his missionary work, so he worked with them. At this point Paul was still starting his preaching activities in the synagogue, where he reasoned with the Jews and Greeks (presumably God-fearers). Note again that Paul “reasoned”, this is an important part of spreading the good news. Do note, however, that he also did signs and wonders (2 Cor 12:2), but they are not recorded in Acts. Sometimes people use the decline in the number of miracles recorded in Acts as the narrative progresses as an argument for saying that signs and wonders are not for today. This is a fallacious argument.

Judges 14:12-20 - Let me tell you a riddle

14:12-15

It was also traditional to tell a riddle. So Samson tells one related to the lion and the honey. He gives them seven days to solve the riddle, with a forfeit depending on whether they get it right or not. The men agree to the riddle. Having got nowhere, the men decide to go to the wife-to-be to get her to get the answer out of Samson. They also issue a threat if she fails to do so. 

14:16,17

The nameless wife of the previous chapter comes out of things very well. This nameless wife-to-be is a far less attractive figure, though she is under considerable duress. Anyway she uses emotional blackmail to get the answer out of Samson, and he eventually gave up the answer to the riddle.

14:18-20

The men then confront Samson with the solution, but he knows how they had come to “solve” it. At that point “the Spirit of the Lord came powerfully upon him”, and he went and wrecked mayhem on the people of Ashkelon. Samson had enormous strength because of the Lord, but it was his own warped character that led to the situation. His wife-to-be was immediately given to someone else. So he did not get the wife he desired.

Acts 17:29-34 - Since we are God's offspring

17:29-31

Again Paul states what should be obvious, but “the fool says in his heart there is no God” (Ps 14:1). Conversely, “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Prov 1:7). We were created by God, so to think that some image, whether gold, silver or stone, is anything like God. The gospel is a command from God, and a command to the whole world, to repent. For there is a day of justice. The gospel is not an offer, it is not a suggestion, it is a command.And Jesus is the One to whom judgement is entrusted. There are some who think repentance is no part of the gospel, such people know nothing at all. And the resurrection is the proof that Jesus is the Son of God, the appointed judge.

17:32-34

The mention of the resurrection caused many to sneer, for such a thing is impossible, humanly speaking. But others wanted to hear more. Some people became believers. There are some who regard Paul’s sermon here to be a failure, but the evidence for that is scant, and the Bible makes no negative comment on it. Unless one regards 1 Cor 2:2 as Paul having learnt a lesson from his Athens experience. However, this is a rather dubious claim. There are a couple of interesting post here and a lengthy one here.