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Rev Graham Harrison           Sunday July 18th a.m. 1999

Apollos - 1 Corinthians 3

ëAnd Paul after this tarried there yet a good while, and then took his leave of the brethren, and sailed thence into Syria, and with him Priscilla and Aquila; having shorn his head in Cenchrea: for he had a vow. And he came to Ephesus, and left them there: but he himself entered into the synagogue, and reasoned with the Jews. When they desired him to tarry longer time with them, he consented not; But bade them farewell, saying, I must by all means keep this feast that cometh in Jerusalem: but I will return again unto you, if God will. And he sailed from Ephesus. And when he had landed at Caesarea, and gone up, and saluted the church, he went down to Antioch. And after he had spent some time there, he departed, and went over all the country of Galatia and Phrygia in order, strengthening all the disciples. And a certain Jew named Apollos, born at Alexandria, an eloquent man, and mighty in the scriptures, came to Ephesus. This man was instructed in the way of the Lord; and being fervent in the spirit, he spake and taught diligently the things of the Lord, knowing only the baptism of John. And he began to speak boldly in the synagogue: whom when Aquila and Priscilla had heard, they took him unto them, and expounded unto him the way of God more perfectly. And when he was disposed to pass into Achaia, the brethren wrote, exhorting the disciples to receive him: who, when he was come, helped them much which had believed through grace: For he mightily convinced the Jews, and that publickly, shewing by the scriptures that Jesus was Christí [Acts 18:18-28].

ëFor it hath been declared unto me of you, my brethren, by them which are of the house of Chloe, that there are contentions among you. Now this I say, that every one of you saith, I am of Paul; and I of Apollos; and I of Cephas; and I of Christí [1 Corinthians 1:11-12].

ëAnd these things, brethren, I have in a figure transferred to myself and to Apollos for your sakes; that ye might learn in us not to think of men above that which is written, that no one of you be puffed up for one against another. For who maketh thee to differ from another? and what hast thou that thou didst not receive? now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it?í [1 Corinthians 4:6,7].

ëAs touching our brother Apollos, I greatly desired him to come unto you with the brethren: but his will was not at all to come at this time; but he will come when he shall have convenient timeí [(1 Corinthians 16:12].

ëBring Zenas the lawyer and Apollos on their journey diligently, that nothing be wanting unto themí [Titus 3:13].

But Apollos is the man that I want us to think about this morning. There in that eighteenth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, towards the end of the chapter, we have perhaps the most extensive treatment that is afforded of him anywhere in the New Testament. It tells us who he is, what he was, where it was that he came from. He was a Jew, he was born at Alexandria and obviously he had become a Christian, possibly at Alexandria, possibly somewhere else, we do not know ó but now he seems to have been travelling, preaching the gospel. He came to this city of Ephesus; there was not really a church at Ephesus. The Apostle Paul who had been evangelising over in Greece and had fairly recently left the city of Corinth, where by the grace of God he had been able to establish a church, had brought with him across the Aegean Sea to the city of Ephesus the two people that he had been lodging with while he had stayed in Corinth ó this married couple, Priscilla and Aquila. When Paul left Ephesus, he had openly stayed there a brief time, he had reasoned in the synagogue, as was his custom. They wanted him to stay longer but he could not because he had an appointment to keep in Jerusalem. So he left Priscilla and Aquila behind him there in Ephesus and off he went to Jerusalem and then to Antioch and worked his way gradually back through Turkey until once more he came to Ephesus.

But it was while Paul was absent and Aquila and Priscilla were worshipping in the synagogue in Ephesus, they heard for the first time this man, Apollos, a Jew from Alexandria, an exceptional man. He is called here in the Authorised Version ëan eloquent maní. The authorities are a bit divided as to what it means. Some of them say it means learned, some of them say it means eloquent, some of them try to bridge the both of those and they say he was a cultured man, who could speak well. That probably describes him; he certainly was able to argue his case. He was brought up to know the scriptures; Alexandria was a great Jewish centre. The historians tell us that it was divided into five parts and two of those parts were populated by Jews. Two or three centuries before the birth of Christ a very famous translation of the Old Testament, one from the Hebrew into the Greek, and the one that is used in many of the quotations in the New Testament from the Old Testament, the Septuagint translation, that was actually made at Alexandria. It had a very great library, the greatest library in the ancient world, it was a centre of learning and philosophy. A great university was there and that was where Apollos had been brought up. Obviously he was a highly educated man, a man well able to speak, a man who was deeply instructed in the word of God and somewhere along the line he had become a Christian.

Now you notice that there is a qualification put in there as he is described to us. It tells us that he : ëtaught diligently the things of the Lord,í then here comes the qualification ëknowing only the baptism of Johní ó obviously referring to John the Baptist. In fact in the next chapter there are twelve people there in Ephesus that Paul encounters when eventually he arrives back in Ephesus and in some sense they are in the same condition. Probably what it means is this ó he had a basic knowledge of the gospel, but it was not a full knowledge of the gospel. Somehow or another he had come under the influence of John the Baptist, or the disciples of John the Baptist, and there is a sense in which he was still looking forward. He had not realised the fullness of what had happened in the actual coming of Jesus into the world and all that was accomplished through Him. It was not that he believed error, or taught error, what he taught was true, but his state of understanding still needed to be improved and to be completed.

This became apparent to Aquila and Priscilla as they heard him. They were greatly impressed with his knowledge of the Scriptures, they were greatly impressed with the way in which he was able to open the Old Testament and prove from the Scriptures that Jesus was the Christ. They took him into their home and they began to help him. It is a remarkable thing that it happened because when you think of the contrast between him on the one hand and that couple on the other, it was an enormous contrast. There he was, shall we put it in modern terms and say he was a graduate of the university of Alexandria, a brilliant man ó and who was he being instructed by? Well he was being instructed by a tent maker and his wife ó in actual fact it is probably Priscilla that seems to have taken the active part in this, played the active role as far as the pair of them were concerned. That takes grace on the part of Apollos to be instructed by people who intellectually must have been leagues below him ó yet they did a good work as far as he was concerned. As we read there at the end of the chapter: ëhe mightily convinced the Jews, and that publickly, shewing by the scriptures that Jesus was Christí. They sent him across to the city of Corinth and that was what happened there. He was able to argue with the Jews ó not in a merely controversial way in order to humiliate them, but to show and to convince them that their own scriptures promised them that Christ was coming ó the Messiah, that is what the word Christ means ó and that Jesus was the Messiah, the Christ. He was able to prove it to them from the Scriptures and what is more he did it publicly. I am sure the unbelieving Jews did not like that and probably never forgave him for it. But he was able to do it very effectively, really as the result of this further instruction he had from Aquila and Priscilla.

So there he was across the Aegean Sea back in the church in Corinth and the Christians in the church they were tremendously impressed with him. You can understand why, he must have had great oratorical gifts. He was not the sort of preacher that you went to sleep when he was preaching, he kept your interest, he was fascinating, he expressed things very, very well and he was the sort of man that you would say: ëCome along to our place next Sunday and listen to the man preaching. You have never heard anything like it!í That really would have been the case there in Corinth. Then things began to go wrong. Some people began to say things like this: ëAh, you know this man Apollos, he is a preacher, is he not? I suppose Paul was alright, he started things off ó but he is not in the same league as Apollos! Did you ever hear a sermon like we heard last Sunday from Paul? Paul, well perhaps he is alright for the Sunday School, but not really for the church.í

They began to build this man, Apollos, up in what they were saying about him and so something inevitable happened. There were some that began to react against this and they said, ëYou know that is not fair, Paul was a good preacher. Where would we be today if God had not sent the Apostle Paul here and he preached so boldly and fearlessly and God used his preaching? We are Christians now and we would not have been Christians but for the grace of God that came to us through the ministry of the Apostle Paul.í So the church was falling apart. There was an Apollos party, there was a Paul party ó and apparently there was a Cephas party, a Peter party, as well. What had at one time been a gloriously united church, there it was being divided. This is one reason why Paul writes the first letter to the Corinthians ó a message has been sent to him:

ëFor it hath been declared unto me of you, my brethren, by them which are of the house of Chloe, that there are contentions among you. Now this I say, that every one of you saith, I am of Paul; and I of Apollos; and I of Cephas; and I of Christí. Is Christ divided? was Paul crucified for you? or were ye baptized in the name of Paul? I thank God that I baptized none of you, but Crispus and Gaius; Lest any should say that I had baptized in mine own name. And I baptized also the household of Stephanas: besides, I know not whether I baptized any other. For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel:í [1 Corinthians 1:11-17].

ëFor ye are yet carnal (fleshly): for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men? For while one saith, I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos; are ye not carnal? Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers (servants) by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man? I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase. So then neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase. Now he that planteth and he that watereth are one: and every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labour. For we are labourers together with God: ye are God's husbandry, ye are God's building.[1 Corinthians 3:3-9].

Well you might say that is not a very auspicious background against which we are to understand this particular person. But sometimes it is true that a man cannot always be blamed for what his followers say about him ó and I think that was the case there in Corinth. You do not find Paul criticising Apollos, he does not slip in even the slightest hint of a suggestion ëWhat was Apollos doing in feeding this divisiveness, this party spirit?í No, none of that! He obviously believed that Apollosí hands were clean and it was these foolish Christians there in the church at Corinth that had caused the trouble, being stirred up as they had been by Satan.

 Now I want us to look at this man, this morning, I want us to look at some of the peculiar temptations to which he was exposed. I want us to see some of the remarkable spiritual qualities that obviously he demonstrated. Some of them are listed for us, some of them, I think, we can infer from the descriptions that are given to us of this man and of his reactions. I think if you were to ask me, ëWhat is the first thing that comes to you about this man?í I would say, he must have been a humble man ó humble to be willing to be instructed by this very ordinary couple, Aquila, the tent maker, and his wife, Priscilla. Think of it again ó here is this high-flying graduate from the university of Alexandria, a man who is sweeping everything before him. Nobody is able to resist the persuasiveness of the case that he is advancing. Yet here is this couple, I do not know how they did it, I do not know if in those days you stood in the door of the synagogue and shook hands with people on the way out and perhaps one or two people made comment and perhaps Priscilla and Aquila they said to him, ëWell, thank you very much for the sermon this morning ó and indeed the last few sermons on the Sabbaths that you have been here. Perhaps you would like to come home ó there are one or two things we would like to discuss further with youí. Then when they got him home, perhaps they began to question him and they said, ëLook! We were very impressed with what you said and with how you said it. It was true but did you realise that óí. Then they would go on to tell him perhaps about the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ, who died on the cross, had risen from the dead, that almost two months after His death and resurrection the Holy Spirit had been poured out by the Lord Jesus Christ on the assembled church, there at Jerusalem ó and there had been this great equipment by the Holy Spirit of the church. And the man lapped it up. He was not insulted, he did not adopt the attitude: ëWho do you think you are teaching somebody like me! Do you not realise my credentials? Do you not realise I am a university man and all that you are, you have got a leather workerís shop! You make tents ó do you think that you have anything to teach me!í No, there was something very humble about this man. Actually in Acts 18:25 it is described like this: ëbeing fervent in the spirit, he spake and taughtí and the Authorised Version says ëdiligentlyí ó literally it is ëaccuratelyí. Then when you come on to the end of the next verse: ëwhen Aquila and Priscilla had heard, they took him unto them, and expounded unto him the way of Godí and again the Authorised Version says ëmore perfectlyí and literally it is ëmore accuratelyí. So they are taking him on in the things of God. He is a very enthusiastic man, ëfervent in the spirití ó it is literally ëboiling in the spirití. So here is a man who had great not just physical but spiritual energy and that cam across as he was preaching. My word, what God was able to do with this man, with the equipment that God had bestowed upon him. So there he is taught by this simple couple.

Let me quote to you something from one of the commentators:

It was providential that this valuable man came to Ephesus just at this time. The teachers he needed to complete his education had also been providentially brought to Ephesus just at this time. Paul was not there and would not get there for some time. Not even a congregation was found there. Only a humble tentmaker and his equally unpretentious wife were there to take Apollos in hand. But would this eloquent, able university graduate condescend to go to school to a tentmaker, a common artisan, and to his wife who had never attended a university? Ö The best university training Apollos ever received was given him in this tentmakerís shop, and the best professor Apollos ever had was this tentmakerís wife, Priscilla. And among the greatest services these two ever rendered the Lord was what they did for Apollos. In the whole story of Acts there is no picture that is more ideal than this of Apollos and Aquila and his wife. Lenski, The Acts of the Apostles (p.770)

It was a delicate undertaking to take Apollos to themselves and to set forth to him more accurately the Way of God. Who were these humble people to teach a university graduate, this orator schooled in the Scriptures? But they managed it perfectly with all tact. Ö Equal credit belongs to Apollos. He accepted the invitation of Priscilla and Aquila. He must have been a man of deep spirituality not to let his superior education, ability, and standing assert themselves and prevent him from going to school to such lowly teachers. He is an example for all the high and mighty men of education today and for the green beginners for whom a little learning is already a dangerous thing. They scorn the old faith, look down even upon godly parents who cling to it and on the church that keeps the sacred fire burning. Apollos shall judge them at that day! Lenski, The Acts of the Apostles (p.774f)

You know that there are many instances in history of great men being instructed by people who could not hold a candle to them when it came to their understanding and indeed when it came to their subsequent usefulness. Spurgeon used to ever thank God for the cook in the school where he was an usher:

The first lessons I ever had in theology were from an old cook in the school in Newmarket where I was an usher. Ö Many a time we have gone over the covenant of grace together, and talked of the personal election of the saints, their union to Christ, their final perseverance, and what vital godliness meant; and I do believe that I learnt more from her than I should have learnt from any six doctors of divinity of the sort we have nowadays.

a faithful old servant Ö known Ö as ëcookí. Ö Spurgeon, when under deep religious convictions, had conversed with her, and had been deeply impressed with her views of Divine truth. He explained Ö that it was ëcookí who had taught him his theology. Ö It is no discredit to the memory of a great man that he should be willing to learn from the humblest sources. (C.H Spurgeon The Early Years 38-41)

It is a great thing to be humble and to be willing to be taught by anybody that chooses to use in order to lead you on farther in your understanding. So when he goes across the Aegean Sea to Corinth and he reasons there in the synagogue and mightily convinces the Jews, and does it publicly, shewing by the scriptures that Jesus was Christ, well humanly speaking you could trace so much of that back to the instruction that he had been given by this godly and sincere couple, Aquila and Priscilla. So there he is in Corinth and God is going to use him very greatly and very wonderfully there.

But you know that whenever God works, Satan tries to frustrate what God is doing. He takes what God has done and he will try and spoil it ó and that is exactly what he did there in Corinth. God had done this remarkable work in what really was a sink of iniquity, that was the sort of place that Corinth was, and yet here was this beautiful church ó I was going to call it a beautiful little church but I do not think it was a little church, certainly not by our standards. The Apostle Paul, you remember, was encouraged by the Lord standing by him one night and saying ëI have much people in this cityí Acts 18:10]. So God had done a great work there and that angered Satan and he wanted to destroy it. The way that he set about it was to cause division and dissension and the way that he went about that was by taking these great men of God, Paul, Apollos and letting some of the Christians misuse the blessing that had co me form them and twist perhaps some of the things that they were saying and doing what Paul and Apollos would never have tolerated them doing, in their presence at any rate, using their names to form parties and to compare the one with the other ó adversely as far as the other was concerned. It is something that you can always predict will happen from Satan ó when God is at work you can expect a counter attack from Satan. It may come in this way, it may come in other ways, it may come through persecution, it may come through physical suffering, it may come through illness, it may come through moral iniquity coming into a church ó all sorts of things. Satan will seek to stir up and his great object is if he cannot undo the work of God, he will work might and main to somehow spoil it and to bring confusion in place of the clarity ó and that is what he did there in Corinth.

The answer to that of course is 1 Corinthians. I want us before we look how God dealt with it, I want us to consider the sort of temptations to which this man Apollos was open. Perhaps you think that he is such a spiritual man, surely he would have been above such things as temptation. Well that is ridiculous, even the Lord Jesus Christ ëwas in all points tempted like as we areí [Hebrews 4:15] and the man or woman who assumes that he or she is of such superior spiritual understanding that they are never going to be tempted, or if they are tempted the temptation will be just a push-over as far as they are concerned, when they try to cope with it, well they are on the high road to failure. What sort of temptations would this man have been open to?

Well I suspect that he would be open to flattery. When people come to you and tell you how you are and how much they have been blessed by what you have done and how really there is nobody else in the whole Christian world just like you and how favoured they are to have had you sent to them by God, etc., etc. ó it may all be true in one sense and yet it can be flattery, and we all like to be flattered, do we not? We do not like to be put down, we like to be raised up. There is something, you might say, instinctively within us that responds to that when people tell us how good we are how really there is not anybody else in the whole universe quite of our calibre. We think, well that is a person of discernment, is it not? When they do the opposite and when they start putting us down, we say, ëWell, there is obviously something sinful about that! They must be biased, they are not looking at things fairly!í It is the sin within us. Please do not think that this man Apollos would have been immune to that temptation of flattery. He must have felt its power and by the grace of God he was enabled to resist it and overcome it. He triumphed over it, he got the victory over the flattery. He did not depend on his intelligence, he did not depend on his university record ó he knew that he depended upon God. And what people were saying to him by way of flattery, I think went in one ear and out the other ear as far as Apollos was concerned.

What about the people there in Corinth because certainly if Apollos was going to be the object of temptation as far as Satan was concerned, well it is manifestly obvious that the congregation, the Christians there in Corinth were going to be exposed to temptation. The temptation was so to idolise this man that instead of giving the glory to God, they were giving it to him. Then, of course, they began to compare him with the other great man of God that God had sent to them, the Apostle Paul. They began to make adverse comparisons between the one and the other. That was the sort of temptation and then they began to form parties. They undoubtedly began to speak in exaggerated ways and they were using the name and the reputation of this man. It was not that he countenanced it, or approved it at all but they were just using him. I do not know that it was the first but it certainly has not been the last time when Christians have done that sort of thing with great men of God who have been a mighty blessing to them and to many others. They have taken from God the glory and they have put it on the man and then they have used the man as a sort of party symbol. So what becomes important is not that you are a Christian, but that you are that special sort of Christian and you call yourself by the name of that man. Not a Pauline Christian, an Apollos Christian ó you can fit other names into it today. It is the way in which Satan so often has created havoc in so many churches. Those temptations are always to be resisted because they do not come from God, they come from Satan.

What Paul makes clear when he deals with this problem in the third chapter of 1 Corinthians is that anybody who is in the service of God is dependant, utterly dependent upon God. ëWho thení, he says, ëis Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers (literally servants) by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man? I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase.í It is a very simple illustration, is it not? A gardening illustration, a farming illustration ó ëI came along and put the seed in, that was my task. Along comes Apollos with the watering can, he waters it. But you know that neither the planting of the seed nor the watering of the plant will do any good unless God gives the increase. And that is what happened: ëGod gave the increase.í That is what the Apostle Paul argues there. Then he draws the consequence: ëSo then neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase.í

Have you ever pondered the method of God? This is always Godís method. whenever God uses one of us in whatever way it happens to be, all that we are links in a chain. Now you know that this is something really so obvious that it is amazing that we ever forget it. Take the clothes that you are wearing, the dresses the ladies are wearing, the coats, the suits whatever it is that the men are wearing. How do you account for those? Well it is a very complex story, is it not? Probably in the case of somebody you have to go right back to the sheep that were on the hills, that were looked after by the shepherd and were taken to the slaughter house and killed but the wool was taken previously. Eventually it went to a woollen mill and it was made into cloth, went to a factory, there was a designer involved and it ended up on your back. All of those were links in the chain and indeed any one of those links you could say that there were innumerable other links that enabled them to perform the particular task that they were doing. It is something that happens in the natural world and it certainly is something that happens in the spiritual world. God, yes he sends a Paul, plants the seed. Then he moves Paul on and he sends an Apollos and Apollos waters the seed. Then Apollos moves on ó but the increase is from God. It does not matter what particular part we play in the process, as long as we play the part that God has appointed for us.

You get something very similar you know in the Gospel of John after that woman of Samaria has been dealt with by the Lord Jesus Christ. His disciples come back to Him and He speaks to them:

ëSay not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest. And he that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal: that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together. And herein is that saying true, One soweth, and another reapeth. I sent you to reap that whereon ye bestowed no labour: other men laboured, and ye are entered into their laboursí [John 4:35-38].

I want to apply that in two ways. First of all it is the antidote to all self importance. Perhaps you are the final link on some occasion and that seems to give you a bit of glory. No, it does not really. ëI have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase. So then neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase.í So this truth is the antidote to all pride, to all self importance. When God graciously uses you be careful to give Him the glory, do not steal it for yourselves. But then the opposite thing is true as well. You see there is sometimes a privilege in being a non-entity. I am sure that when Aquila and Priscilla invited this man Apollos to their home there in the city of Ephesus, they never realised the full implication of what they were doing. Probably all they thought was, ëWell, here is a fellow believer, what he says is true but clearly he needs more instruction. We have had the privilege of sitting under the ministry of the Apostle Paul for some considerable time, we will pass on to him what Paul has taught us!í That is probably all that they thought and who would have thought that there was going to be such blessing from that very simple, very humble thing that they did. The privilege sometimes of being a non-entity. Who knows what it is that God will accomplish through some insignificant little thing that you have done in the service of God. You will have to wait until you get home to heaven to know and to learn about that and to hear the Lordís ëWell done thou good and faithful servantí.

In one sense it is perhaps a bit amusing but this was brought home to me many years ago when I was a student working in the steel works in the long vacation digging trenches. The man that I was working with was a bit older than me, he had been involved in the second world war ó although I do not think he had fired a shot in anger right through that war. But I realised as day after day I was digging trenches with him and listening to him, I think he talked a lot and that meant that he did not dog too much, I realised that here was the man on whom the allied victory in the second world war really depended. He told me his story and he was very proud of it. He had come up through Italy as part of the eighth army ó well I am old enough to remember that, I can still remember the second world war and seeing the maps and the progress of the eighth army up through Italy, so he got me hooked when he said that. I thought that he was going to tell me about all the battles that he had been in and the perilous situations ó but no! Do you know what he was? He was a member of the mobile bath unit of the eighth army and the nearest he ever got to the front line was about four miles behind the front line. Units that had been active on the front line periodically they would be pulled out for refreshment, recuperation, they would come back and he had to see to providing them with a bath and a clean-up. I am sure that they felt a lot better for it ó perhaps some of the men here were the recipients of his work. But obviously they had done a good job on this man because I am sure that he thought that he was as important as general Montgomery in the winning of that war. A non-entity and yet he had a little part to play and I am sure that many of the troops that had come out of the horrors of the front line fighting they were glad just to get back and be refreshed even if it was only for a brief period of time through the ministrations of this man and others like him. It may be that in the service of God we humanly speaking are as unimportant as that ó and yet who knows what eternity will declare as to what God accomplished through non-entities. The little links in the chains that nobody had ever thought about and yet were vital to the outcome of the purposes of almighty God.

I read to you one or two other texts, one from the end of 1 Corinthians, which convinces me that whatever the Corinthians had been saying about Apollos and him heading up a party, Paul did not believe it. Paul knew that Apollosí hands were clean because he actually mentions there in that sixteenth chapter: ëAs touching our brother Apollos, I greatly desired him to come unto you with the brethren: but his will was not at all to come at this time; but he will come when he shall have convenient timeí [(1 Corinthians 16:12]. If you thought that here was your rival and you were sending him right back to the place where a party had been formed in support of him, would you send him? But the Apostle did! Why? Well because he knew that Apollos was above all this. Apollos had not stooped down to that party spirit; Apollosís hands were clean. So he says ëour brother Apollosí and he wanted to send him back to Corinth. Then at the end of the epistle of Paul to Titus ó probably these two men Zenas and Apollos are the men carrying the letter to Titus: ëBring Zenas the lawyer and Apollos on their journey diligently, that nothing be wanting unto themí [Titus 3:13]. No estrangement, no suspicion, no suggestion ëWell, I have got to see to it that this man is kept out of the lime-light, because all that he is going to do is steal my position!í No, nothing of that, the apostle Paul is not afraid of Apollos. The eyes of the apostle are upon the Lord and he knows that is the same focal point as far as Apollos is concerned.

What an example he is to us! A man who was greatly gifted, greatly blessed with both natural and spiritual abilities ó greatly used of God ó but he gives God the glory. He does not go along with the sin that men try to make of the blessing that he is and there is no breach of fellowship between him and Paul. A humble man; a spiritual man. A man to be our example.

Amen
 
 
 

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