18:1 After these things he departed from Athens, and came to Corinth. 2And he found a certain Jew named Aquila, a man of Pontus by race, lately come from Italy, with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to depart from Rome: and he came unto them; 3and because he was of the same trade, he abode with them, and they wrought; for by their trade they were tentmakers. 4And he reasoned in the synagogue every sabbath, and persuaded Jews and Greeks. 5But when Silas and Timothy came down from Macedonia, Paul was constrained by the word, testifying to the Jews that Jesus was the Christ. 6And when they opposed themselves and blasphemed, he shook out his raiment and said unto them, Your blood be upon your own heads; I am clean: from henceforth I will go unto the Gentiles. 7And he departed thence, and went into the house of a certain man named Titus Justus, one that worshipped God, whose house joined hard to the synagogue. 8And Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue, believed in the Lord with all his house; and many of the Corinthians hearing believed, and were baptized. 9And the Lord said unto Paul in the night by a vision, Be not afraid, but speak and hold not thy peace: 10for I am with thee, and no man shall set on thee to harm thee: for I have much people in this city. 11And he dwelt there a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them

Discouragement is dissatisfaction with the past, distaste for the present, and distrust of the future. It is ingratitude for the blessings of yesterday, indifference to the opportunities of today, and insecurity regarding strength for tomorrow. It is unawareness of the presence of beauty, unconcern for the needs of our fellowman, and unbelief in the promises of old. It is impatience with time, immaturity of thought, and impoliteness to God. – William Ward.

Dr. Karl Menninger, the famous psychiatrist, once gave a lecture on mental health and was answering questions from the audience. Someone said, “What would you advise a person to do if that person felt a nervous breakdown coming on?”

Most people thought he would say, “Go see a psychiatrist immediately,” but he didn’t. To their astonishment, Dr. Menninger replied, “Lock up your house, go across the railroad tracks, find somebody in need, and help that person.”

Paul did not escape the throes of discouragement. The opening of Acts 18 finds him at a low point in his grueling ministry. His second missionary journey had been arduous. After traveling through Asia Minor “strengthening the churches” (Acts 15:41), he crossed the Aegean Sea to the Greek mainland. His healing of a demon-possessed girl in Philippi sparked a riot, and he and Silas had been beaten and thrown into prison.

After being released following a devastating earthquake, he was forced to leave the city (16:39–40). From there he went to Thessalonica, where his ministry enjoyed great success (17:4). Persecution forced him to flee to Berea (17:10), where many also responded to his preaching
and teaching (17:12). When persecution followed him there from Thessalonica, Paul was again forced to escape danger (17:14). He arrived alone in the great city of Athens, where his brilliant speech in defense of Christianity had largely been ignored (17:19–32). He then left Athens and went to Corinth, a fifty-three mile walk.

In Paul’s day Corinth had replaced Athens as the leading political and commercial center in Greece. Corinth enjoyed a strategic location on the isthmus of Corinth, which connected the Peloponnesian peninsula with the rest of Greece. Nearly all traffic between northern and southern Greece passed through the city. Because it was a 200-mile sail around the peninsula, some ships were put on rollers and pulled across the 4-mile bridge of land. In A.D. 67 Nero began work on a canal, but one was not completed until 1893.

Corinth was a wicked city. Towering some 1,500 feet above Corinth was the Acropolis, on top of which was the temple of Aphrodite, the goddess of love. Each evening the temple’s one thousand priestesses, who were ritual prostitutes, would descend into the city to ply their trade.

Later, when Paul writes the two letters to the Corinthian church, all of this worldly influence is seen in the problems he has to deal with. It was a wicked place, and it had a bad influence on the church there.

William Ramsey said that characteristically, churches take on the characteristics of the environment in which they exist culturally.

We have seen that come to pass here in America in the last two years more than in our history, as many of the churches and leaders have bought into the liberal and hellish Woke thinking.

As he arrived in Corinth, Paul felt greater discouragement.

Paul later wrote to the Corinthians, “I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling” (1 Cor. 2:3). He also spoke of his trial in his first letter to the Thessalonians, written from Corinth. In 1 Thessalonians 3:7, Paul wrote, “For this reason, brethren, in all our distress and affliction we were comforted about you through your faith.” Their faith was a beacon of hope in his darkness. Besides his discouragement, he may have been physically ill, perhaps from the lingering effects of the ill-treatment he had received in Philippi (16:22–24).

But the “God of all comfort” (2 Cor. 1:3), who “comforts the depressed” (2 Cor. 7:6), did not leave Paul in his downtrodden condition.

When Paul arrived in Corinth, he had really had it, He’d been chased halfway around the world and had suffered greatly.

It’s at that point that God moves in to encourage him. And it is from the Corinthian experience, he wrote to the Thessalonians and says, “Brethren, be not weary in well doing.”

Corinth was a provincial capital, which meant that the proconsul of Rome stayed there, and the headquarters were there.

Now, if you believe Philippians 4 is true: My God shall supply all your needs, and if a believer needs to be encouraged, God will encourage them.

God Encourages Paul with Friends

Paul’s struggle was made more intense because he had to bear it alone. God knew Paul needed someone else to help him shoulder the formidable burdens he carried.

In 1 Corinthians 2:3, he says this, and I think this is indicative of his spirit. He says, “I was with you in weakness and in fear, and in much trembling.”

Paul found that desperately needed companionship in a certain Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to leave Rome.

In Corinth Paul first met this husband and wife team who were to become two of his closest friends, even eventually risking their lives for him (Rom. 16:3–4

Following Tiberius, Claudius, in 39 A.D., banished all Jews from Rome altogether; every one of them had to go. We know a little about Claudius, about 70 years after the edict, it was written about 120 A.D., Suetonius wrote about Claudius. Suetonius was a historian, and he got all the information on Claudius, and he wrote about his life. And one of the statements that Suetonius makes in his life of Claudius is this: “As the Jews were indulging in constant riots—listen—at the instigation of Chrestus, Claudius banished them from Rome.”

The Greek Chrestus is only one letter different than the Greek Christis, which is Christ instigation of Chrestus. It is most likely, Suetonius thinks that Chrestus is some guy who lived then in Rome. Remember, he was writing 70 years later, so it’s easy to see how he could’ve made that simple error. They were probably rioting over the issue of Christ. We have seen in the book of Acts, the Jews could cause a big stir when Jesus was preached.

Aquila and Priscilla were probably already Christians when Paul met them. They had come from Rome, where a church already existed (Rom. 1:7–8

Paul, of course, did not neglect his ministry. While working alongside Aquila and Priscilla during the week, he was reasoning in the synagogue every Sabbath and trying to persuade Jews and Greeks.

The God of all comfort met Paul’s need by providing two new friends and also by bringing back two familiar ones.

The arrival of Silas and Timothy from Macedonia no doubt greatly encouraged him.

For that which was lacking to me, the brethren who came from Macedonia supplied. And in all things, I have kept myself from being burdensome.” 2 Cor 11;9

The brethren who came from Macedonia brought him some financial aid

God Encourages Paul with Converts

Just when he really needed it, these guys came with the money. They freed him up. He was free to give himself totally to the Word, Verse 5: “He testified to the Jews that Jesus was Messiah.”

Paul began devoting himself completely to the word, solemnly testifying to the Jews that Jesus was the Christ. And when they resisted and blasphemed, he shook out his garments and said to them, “Your blood be upon your own heads! I am clean. From now on I shall go to the Gentiles.” And he departed from there and went to the house of a certain man named Titius Justus, a worshiper of God, whose house was next to the synagogue. And Crispus, the leader of the synagogue, believed in the Lord with all his household, and many of the Corinthians when they heard were believing and being baptized. (18:5b–8)

The generous gifts from the Macedonians (2 Cor. 11:9; Phil. 4:15) brought by Silas and Timothy allowed Paul to cease leather working and begin devoting himself completely to the word

God Speaks to Paul Directly

And the Lord said to Paul in the night by a vision, “Do not be afraid any longer, but go on speaking and do not be silent; for I am with you, and no man will attack you in order to harm you, for I have many people in this city.” And he settled there a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them. (18:9–11)

The many new converts brought intensifying opposition from Corinth’s Jewish community—to the extent that Paul was struggling with whether he should continue to preach at Corinth.

To encourage Paul at the highest and most strengthening level, the Lord Himself said to Paul in the night by a vision, “Do not be afraid any longer, but go on speaking and do not be silent.” This is one of six visions Paul received in Acts (9:12; 16:9–10; 22:17–18; 23:11; 27:23–24), all coming at crucial points in his ministry.

The supernatural vision provided four reasons for him not to give up proclaiming the gospel in that city.

First, God commanded it specifically when He said “go on speaking.”

Second, God reminded him, “I am with you.” He gave a similar revelation to Joshua when he assumed the leadership of Israel after Moses’ death: (Josh. 1:5, 9)

Third, God promised Paul that “no man will attack you in order to harm you.” Those under God’s protection will survive ( Isa. 54:17; Rev. 11:5).

The fourth reason, God gave Paul to keep preaching was that He had many people in this city. All those in Corinth who “had been appointed to eternal life” had not yet “believed” (Acts 13:48).

The truth of election expressed in verse 10 balances the truth of human responsibility in verse 6. As always, Scripture presents those two inscrutable truths without attempting to harmonize them. Both are true, and there is no real contradiction between them.

Here it is clear that some people belong to the Lord who are not yet saved, and they will not be saved without the preaching of the gospel.

God had to make sure that the gospel was preached by Paul in order for those to be saved. There is no salvation without the sharing of the gospel.

Concerning election and predestination, If a man goes to hell, it is his own responsibility for rejecting Christ. If he goes to heaven, it is because he was chosen before the foundation of the world.

If you want to come to Jesus, you come. How God fits that into His sovereignty is His problem. He’ll do it, and you don’t need to worry about it. I don’t understand all of what God does, but I don’t have to. God, “If I understood God, I’d be God. And if I was God, we’d be in lots of trouble.”

God Encourages Paul by Frustrating His Enemies

But while Gallio was proconsul of Achaia, the Jews with one accord rose up against Paul and brought him before the judgment seat, saying, “This man persuades men to worship God contrary to the law.” But when Paul was about to open his mouth, Gallio said to the Jews, “If it were a matter of wrong or of vicious crime, O Jews, it would be reasonable for me to put up with you; but if there are questions about words and names and your own law, look after it yourselves; I am unwilling to be a judge of these matters.” (18:12–17)

Paul’s Jewish opponents had watched in frustrated rage as more and more people came to faith in Christ. Finally, in desperation, they tried to get the Roman authorities to put a halt to Paul’s preaching.

The Jews with one accord rose up against Paul and brought him before the judgment seat. The Jews thought that Christianity should not receive the toleration from the Romans that Judaism did.

Had Gallio ruled in the Jews’ favor, Christianity could have been banned not only in Corinth but also throughout the Empire. Gallio, however, was not to be so easily duped. As Paul was about to open his mouth to defend himself, Gallio cut him off. The proconsul refused to meddle in what he viewed as an internal dispute within Judaism.

The angry Jews who vented their frustration by taking hold of Sosthenes, the leader of the synagogue, and beating him in front of the judgment seat. However bad that was, Paul was not harmed this time, God had told He would protect him.
God gives strength to the weary, and to him who lacks might He increases power. Though youths grow weary and tired, and vigorous young men stumble badly, yet those who wait for the Lord will gain new strength; they will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not get tired, they will walk and not become weary.

That same comfort and encouragement is available to all who faithfully serve our Lord.

In most cases in our lives, God wants to use us to encourage those who are thinking about giving up. Let’s submit to God’s leading and allow Him to use us to make a different.

The fields are white and ready for harvest, but the workers are few.