Acts 18, 19 (selected passages)
Lessons in Discipleship (part 2)
February 27, 2022

CLEAN-UP: Discipleship is not 2 hours a week with a person…that is a beginning.

Key ingredients to discipleship?

• If we are supposed to make disciples and we are.
• Since we are supposed to produce fruit, that is, people who love Jesus and are trained in the application of his teachings.
• Then how are we supposed to do discipleship?
• What does it look like?
• Some of the answers to that question are found in our text today.

PRAY

First 5 Discipleship principles from chapter 18 of Acts:

• Principle # 1: Disciples Work (vv. 1-5)
• Principle #2: There is a time to walk away from people and focus on others who are ready to hear. (v. 6)
• Principle #3: Disciples produce fruit (vv. 7, 8)
• Principle #4: At times, Disciples may be afraid (vv. 9, 10)
• Principle #5: Discipleship takes time (v. 11)

Principle #6: Disciples Need Follow-up

22 When he had landed at Caesarea, he went up and greeted the church, and then went down to Antioch. 23 After spending some time there, he departed and went from one place to the next through the region of Galatia and Phrygia, strengthening all the disciples.

Strengthening:

• People have problems
• Life happens - no applicational knowledge
• Relationships must continue for some time.
  • 1 1/2 to 2 years BUT still followed up!

Paul was well equipped for the ministry God called him to:

• Studied the OT.
• Taught in it by the best teachers of his day.
• Continued to be a student his whole life. (cf., 2 Timothy)
• Received instruction in the gospel directly from the Lord Jesus. (Galatians 1:11-12)
• Brought up in strict, conservative Judaism
  • (this caused some problems for him).
  • Paul seemed to have the most clarity on how the Law was supposed to be handled post cross:
  • I.e.: Jerusalem Counsel

People coming to faith needed strengthening because they had much against them:

Think about the Gentiles:

• Paganism
  • Gentiles were susceptible to doors of darkness.
• Worldview issues
  • Many struggled with sinful tendencies due to the nature o their culture.
• Limited knowledge of the OT Scriptures. The entire Bible of their day.
  • No NT

Think about the Jews coming to faith:

• in many ways, had the traditional baggage of the Pharisees and the Sadducees.
• What do we do with the OT?
• with the rabbinic laws?
• Struggled with the idea that the OT was being replaced.

All the new converts were susceptible to syncretism creep

• adding Christianity to a set of pagan beliefs
• adding Christianity to Judaism

What does it look like to us?

• Surrounded by indifferent and Christians that will not study the Bible.
  • a lack of competence in the Scriptures is killing the Church.
• Legalism
• License
• Cultural pressure
• Wicked entertainment
  • Knock on wood
  • Lucky socks
  • Horoscope
• OT Problems

You and I need strengthening.

• Easy to drop out of discipleship.
• We need to be strengthened by the Pauls of our day.

ILLUSTRATION:
Monte discipled men: some are walking with the Lord, some might be doing a serious narcotic.

APPLICATION:

• We have subtle drifts that turn into life train wrecks!
• Slow fade—until it’s not!
• Keep an eye on the people you have helped. Stay involved in their lives.

Principle #7: Discipleship helps us to overcome theological gaps and errors.

24 Now a Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria, came to Ephesus. He was an eloquent man, competent in the Scriptures. 25 He had been instructed in the way of the Lord. And being fervent in spirit, he spoke and taught accurately the things concerning Jesus, though he knew only the baptism of John. 26 He began to speak boldly in the synagogue, but when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately. 27 And when he wished to cross to Achaia, the brothers encouraged him and wrote to the disciples to welcome him. When he arrived, he greatly helped those who through grace had believed, 28 for he powerfully refuted the Jews in public, showing by the Scriptures that the Christ was Jesus.

This is Apollos’ first introduction in Acts

To Corinth, Apollos was a rock star.

• They held him in too much esteem.
• He’s mentioned 7 times in 1 Corinthians due to Paul having to refocus the church’s attention from Apollos back to Christ. (cf., 1 Corinthians 1:12, 1 Corinthians 3:4-6, 1 Corinthians 3:22)

Why did Corinth esteem Apollos too much?

• Our passage on Apollos:
• v. 24, Apollos was an eloquent man.
• v. 24, He was “competent in the Scriptures.”
  • WHY was he competent?
    • v. 25 “Apollos had been instructed in the way of the Lord.”
    • He had been discipleship in the Scriptures.
• Apollos was fervent in spirit
  • Passionate when he spoke of the Lord.
    • Not necessarily outwardly passionate–that’s personality stuff
    • But all of our spirits ought to have a fervency about the Lord in them!
    • We all ought to have passion for our Lord, His will, and His work!
• Apollos was a good teacher and a good thinker.
  • v. 25b, 28, Apollos spoke and taught accurately the things concerning Jesus

HICCUP: v. 25c: "Apollos knew only the baptism of John."

• Apollos had a theological gap—A BIG ONE!
• He had an important theological gap in his understanding of baptism; he just didn’t know about being baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit at the time.
• We see corrective action in this passage with Apollos.
  • v. 26, when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately.
  • The conversation involved additional teaching.

Discipleship teaches us important theology that we have not been exposed to.

APPLICATION:

• If one does not think accurate, one cannot communicate accurately.
• The more eloquent a person is, the more people may believe him / her.
• In Jesus are the treasure boxes of wisdom and knowledge.

Principle #8: Disciplers protect others from false teachers

• Chapter 19:8-following

8 And he entered the synagogue and for three months spoke boldly, reasoning and persuading them about the kingdom of God. 9 But when some became stubborn and continued in unbelief, speaking evil of the Way before the congregation, he withdrew from them and took the disciples with him, reasoning daily in the hall of Tyrannus. 10 This continued for two years, so that all the residents of Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks.

Three months Paul reasoned in the Jewish synagogue.

• Luke presents three problems with some of the crowd in v. 9: 1) became stubborn, 2) continued in unbelief, 3) spoke evil of The Way publicly.

BECAME STUBBORN:

• Root word = "The GK. σκελλω (skello) means to dry up or parch,

  • we get the English word … shallow. Like when a river … dries up it gets shallow." (Abarim)

• Stubborn (ESV more modern, less accurate) = better “were hardened” (NASB, KJV, NKJV)

  • = action in past time; the subject receives the action instead of performs it; which describes a situation that actually is. (Abarim)

• What hardened them? We may conclude:

  • NT:
    • From Tradition, teachers, leaders, works based theology
  • We cannot forget too, what Paul told the Roman church was a a “mystery:” “brothers: a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.”

CONTINUED IN UNBELIEF

• They were staunchly against Jesus and they grew in their staunchness.
• The longer we hold out something to be true the harder we will defend it.
• Utley said, “The gospel is so radically different from the exclusivism and performance-oriented mind set of Judaism that there was no common ground possible if the basic tenets of the gospel were rejected.”

Jesus + nothing / or one is outside the faith

SPOKE EVIL OF THE WAY

• Speaking evil of The Way, of Jesus
• They became false teachers and worse: blasphemers!
  • One cannot get worse that to speak evil of God.
  • If God is blasphemed—leave.

The disciples had dealt with all kinds of false teaching.

• From the unbeliever in our passage.
• From the saved
  • False teaching came from Peter (Cephas).
  • Galatians 2:11-13, Barnabas was let astray by Peter. His hypocrisy with eating then not eating wit the Gentiles; this confused the believers.

False teaching can come from us.

• Much false teaching comes from the ignorant of the Scriptures.
• Some Christians, however, may possess great dignity, authority and scholarship.
  • I have seen false teaching taught by elders, deacons, pastors, and other overseers.

Results of false teaching

• False teaching destroy work quickly and shake the faith of even the committed.
• Can result in years of the wrong direction.

How do I protect myself from false teaching?

• Scripture alone
• Value the word of God

ILLUSTRATION:

• Lunch at Wataburger in Willis
• 90 days through the Bible
• “I need to know the Bible better!”

ILLUSTRATION
TBN

APPLICATION
What did Paul do in response to the false teaching?

• Look at verse 9 again: “he withdrew from them and took the disciples with him, reasoning daily in the hall of Tyrannus.”
• Paul had to balance trying to win the lost with the protection of the saved!
• People being discipled go out and discuss theological points with others.
• Often, they don’t own those truths themselves.

The world is full of people who think they are saved but are not. Most—if not all—of these people are surely some type of false teacher in the Church.

Principle #9: Discipled people are drawn to the holiness of God

19:18 Also many of those who were now believers came, confessing and divulging their practices. 19 And a number of those who had practiced magic arts brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all. And they counted the value of them and found it came to fifty thousand pieces of silver. 20 So the word of the Lord continued to increase and prevail mightily.

Saved as adults

• The honeymoon
• Holiness of God come flooding into a person’s life.
  • Burned books. Not sold to others!
• For these Acts Christians, the public was a witness to the conviction of the new Christians—and it had an impact: look at v. 20

ILLUSTRATION

• First saved
• That zeal waned.

APPLICATION

• Discipleship too involves us ridding our lives of worldly things.
• CAUTION: Instead of going for more holiness we may become complacent.
• Continue on to holiness.
• No free passes for sin.

EVANGELISTIC PAYOFF:

• When people see us moving towards a genuine—God driven—holiness, it becomes visible to the world.
• Our faith is proved genuine to the world and our witness becomes powerful.

Principle #10: Disciplers point disciplees to The Way

• THE WAY—Acts 19:9, 23
• THE WAY—One of many names of Jesus
  • Acts 19:9, 23
  • The Way, The Truth, The Life
  • HE IS THE WAY therefore, HE KNOWS THE WAY
• “the way” Acts 18:25, 26
  • Acts 18:25, 26
  • Implied discipleship / learning
  • Theological accuracy leads us to changed minds and hearts.
    • Theological accuracy leads us to the correct paths to God.

Two Quotes:

• … observe that expression for Christianity, ‘the Way,’ which occurs several times in the Acts. The Gospel points the path for us to tread. It is not a body of truth merely, but it is a guide for practice. Discipleship is manifested in conduct. (MacLaren)

• One of the commonest titles in Acts is: “The Way” … , and that title shows us at once that Christianity means not only believing certain things but putting them into practice. (Barclay)

• When we walk in the way, we walk in the truth, we walk in the life.

• Walking in the path of God is where you find life. Man does not live by bread alone but by every word that come from the mouth of God. Jesus is the Logos (the word made flesh). Jesus is the Living Word; He is The Way.

• To give up our way and adopt and trust God’s way.

• We see our conduct line up with Christ when we desire selflessness to greater degrees and follow The Way.

ILLUSTRATION and APPLICATION:

• I-Hop
• Church and discipleship
• How may we turn the tide?
  • Did Jesus made disciples?
  • Does the Scriptures explain how He made disciples?
  • Are we commanded to make disciples?
• Start with yourself.
• Grab another person.
• Keep doing that the rest of your life.

PAYOFF: The same Love—namely Christ—which displays His power in all of creation, eternally binds Himself to us to satisfy our lives with fulfilled desires. (Adapted from MacLaren, Psalm 145)

• Turn our lives over to God’s will and ways we find deep fulfillment.
• Young man, do you want to be satisfied? Do you want to see holiness? You shall be satisfied in these in Jesus alone.
• Young woman? Do you want to be satisfied? Do you want to see holiness? - Kids, middle-aged?
• Humans can only be satisfied in God alone.
• All of have a common path marked out for us. The path of the way.

Bibliography and Notes

Abarim Publications. “σκελλω.” Aug. 24, 2021 version, https://www.abarim-publications.com/Meaning/Bethlehem.html.

Barclay, William. William Barclay’s Daily Study Bible [NT]. “Acts 18 & 19,” https://bibleportal.com/commentary/chapter/william-barclay/acts/18 and https://bibleportal.com/commentary/chapter/william-barclay/acts/19.

Constable, Thomas. "Notes on Acts.” 2021 ed., https://planobiblechapel.org/tcon/notes/pdf/acts.pdf.

Scripture quotations [unless otherwise noted] are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), Copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

MacLaren, Alexander. Expositions of Holy Scriptures. 1826-1910. Public Domain. Cf. From Bible Portal, https://bibleportal.com/commentary/alexander-maclaren-s-expositions-of-holy-scripture.