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Rev Graham Harrison           Sunday June 20th a.m. 1999

Priscilla and Aquila - Acts 18

ëAfter these things Paul departed from Athens, and came to Corinth; And found a certain Jew named Aquila, born in Pontus, lately come from Italy, with his wife Priscilla; (because that Claudius had commanded all Jews to depart from Rome:) and came unto them. And because he was of the same craft, he abode with them, and wrought: for by their occupation they were tentmakers.í
ëAnd Paul after this tarried there (that is in Corinth) 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.
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 Christ.í [Acts 18:1-3, 18-19, 24-28]

ëGreet Priscilla and Aquila my helpers in Christ Jesus: Who have for my life laid down their own necks: unto whom not only I give thanks, but also all the churches of the Gentiles. Likewise greet the church that is in their houseí [Romans 16:3-5].

ëThe churches of Asia salute you. Aquila and Priscilla salute you much in the Lord, with the church that is in their houseí [1 Corinthians 16:19].

ëSalute Prisca and Aquila, and the household of Onesiphorusí [2 Timothy 4:19]

May be that is so but this is the couple that I want us to think about this morning. The most extensive information that we are given is there at the beginning of the eighteenth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, the portion that I read to you. The Apostle Paul has come from the city of Athens, he has had a difficult time there, it ended up with almost all the learned philosophers laughing at him when he spoke of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ and the coming Day of Judgment. There were some that believed and Paul left Athens and made his way down to Corinth. When he comes to Corinth, as far as he knows there is not such a thing as a Christian there. Paul was a Jew and his evangelistic strategy always seemed to be that if there was a collection of Jews, particularly if there a synagogue in the city to which he was coming, he would begin there because he worked on the basis, well, if anybody is likely to believe the promises of God concerning the Messiah, surely it will be Godís historic people, the Jews. That is the strategy that Paul adopted when he came to Corinth.

He seems to have found this Jewish couple, Aquila and Priscilla, his wife and he took lodgings with them. It so happened as well that they had the same trade that he had. It is mentioned there at the end of verse three: ëby their occupation they were tentmakers.í You will know from the first and the second Epistle to the Corinthians that Paul makes the point more than once that while he was in Corinth, he did not take any financial support from the Corinthians, he did not want the Gospel to brought under any suspicion and he knew that there were people who were waiting to pounce and say that he was in it for the money and so he would not take any money from the Corinthians. In fact he worked at his trade as tentmaker, or a leather worker (possibly it was that) and Aquila and Priscilla they had the same trade. So it was natural, you might say that he gravitated towards them.

How they came to the city of Corinth is explained to us in that second verse: ëa certain Jew named Aquila, born in Pontusíó if you think of that part of Turkey that borders on the Black Sea, the North coast of Asiatic Turkey, that is the Roman province of Pontus. Aquila had come from Italy, from Rome and it is explained why it was that he had come from Rome ë(because that Claudius had commanded all Jews to depart from Rome:)í.Claudius was the emperor of Rome from about 41-54 AD and there was obviously some sort of insurrection amongst the Jews. There is a later Roman historian, Suetonius, he mentions this and it is not quite clear whether Christians were involved in it, or not. In Latin the word for Christ is Christus and Suetonius speaks of Chrestus and the scholars tell us that Christus and Chrestus probably would have been pronounced in the same way, so what Suetonius had said is that there had been insurrection because of Chrestus. The possibility is that there in the Jewish community some of them had become Christians and some of them had not become Christians and there was a bit of antagonism. Rather than let the trouble spread into Rome Claudius hit on the idea of getting rid of all the Jews from Rome. Apparently there were twenty thousand Jews living in Rome and he expelled them.

Priscilla and Aquila leave Rome and they come to this city of Corinth and they are there presumably when Paul arrives on the scene. Now that I suppose tells us something that is quite remarkable. We were singing in our second hymn, perhaps some of you were wondering why I chose it; it is a hymn about the providence of God.

Great providence of heaven
What wonders shine
In its profound display
Of Godís design:

But I am sure in later life they praised God for it ó they thanked God for His providential care of them. The way in which He used even this secular decision of this Emperor Claudius to expel them from Rome with the result that they were there in Corinth when this travelling preacher, the Apostle Paul comes and actually takes lodgings with them, he has the same trade as they have and so he is able, in a sense, to enter into a little partnership with them and he is able to earn sufficient money to keep himself there in Corinth, while he is getting on with preaching the Gospel. A remarkable instance of the providence of God. Maybe that will help some of us as we look back over our lives. Maybe there were things that we wished had not happened, things that, well, if we had been God we would not have planned it like that. At the end we will be able to see that it all has fitted in to Godís perfect pattern. He makes no mistakes, He sovereignly watches over us, He works His purposes out and eventually we will see that all the pieces of the Jigsaw fit together perfectly ó and then you understand and you admire the picture. Well that was the case with Aquila and Priscilla.

He was a Jew ó his wife? Well perhaps she was a Jewish convert. Here name, Prisca, or Priscilla, apparently it is the name that comes from quite a high-ranking Roman family. They have records that indicate that this was a woman from the patrician class, which was the sort of nobility in Rome, which may be one reason why I think in four of the six instances this couple is mentioned in the New Testament, Priscilla comes before Aquila. It may be that some recognition is being given of the higher social class from which she comes. That is one possibility, others say, ëOf course, it was not quite like that. She seems to be a woman of considerable spiritual talent and ability and that is why she comes first. Well, maybe that is something of an open question.

I want to call your attention to them this morning for this reason ó let me give you a quotation: They furnish the most beautiful example known to us in the apostolic age of the power for good that could be exerted by a husband and wife working in unison for the advancement of the Gospel. (A.C.McGiffert, A History of Christianity in the Apostolic Age, p.428) There they are a couple, Mr and Mrs Aquila, and wherever they go they seem to have become a centre of spiritual activity there in Corinth. Once the Apostle Paul comes and gets hold of them and presumably they are converted, they give him that home that he is able to stay in, they travel with him across the Aegean Sea to Ephesus. He leaves them there and when he comes back he is able to stay in their home in Ephesus. Sometime they go back to Rome; when Paul writes the letter to the Romans, they are there in Rome, and Paul says some very commendable things of them and mentions the church that is in their house. Then in that last letter that he writes, the second letter to Timothy, he still mentions them. So it is as if wherever they went, they went as a Christian couple. Their home became a centre of Gospel witness and enterprise and as that quotation puts it: ëThey furnish the most beautiful example known to us in the apostolic age of the power for good that could be exerted by a husband and wife working in unison for the advancement of the Gospel.í

Maybe there is another point that one ought to make ó these were obviously friends of the Apostle Paul. Whenever he could, he stayed with them. He did it there in Corinth, and I call your attention to the last letter that Paul wrote, that letter that he is writing when he is awaiting execution, and he has a special mention for Aquila and Priscilla. You might say that there the friendship stretching over all those years, it was something very special and very precious as far as the Apostle Paul was concerned. It does set before us, does it not, the importance of the home and the Gospel. I wonder if you have thought of what an important place your home could be, as far as the gospel is concerned.

I was thinking of something that we read first of all in the Old Testament. Do you remember in the second book of Kings you get that prophet, Elisha, and you have the Shunammite woman and she provides him with a place where he is able to stay in her home. Or if you think of the Gospels and the Lord Jesus Christ, whenever he went up to Jerusalem, it seems that he used to stay at that little village just outside Jerusalem, Bethany, in the home of Lazarus and Mary and Martha. What a blessing it must have been for the Lord Jesus to know that when he went to Jerusalem he would not have to scrape round for somewhere to get a bed and breakfast, but he knew he could go to that home and be welcome and it is almost as if he made it his base whenever he went up to Jerusalem. Well, you might say in a lesser sense, this is what happened with the Apostle Paul. First in Corinth, then in Ephesus, again and again the Apostle is able to rely upon this couple and their home becomes a centre of spiritual activity.

This is speculation but it is interesting, is it not, that no children are mentioned in connection with this couple. Most of the commentators, I think, would suggest that it probably indicates that they did not have a family. Maybe there is a point that is worth making there. You might argue that normally married couples are blessed with children ó but not always so. Perhaps sometimes when a married couple do not have children they can turn in on themselves and they can become bitter, even twisted in some cases. Yet it ought not to be the case. I remember hearing of a missionary couple who married and wanted to have children but were not able to have them. The woman was able to say again that the recognised the providential care of God and they realised that in His wisdom and in His care God had something else for them to do than to bring up children and that their home was going to be a place that perhaps would be able to be used for the Gospel to a degree that might not have been possible had they, perhaps I can put it like this, encumbered and cluttered about with children. In the providence of God, what He designs for one is not what He designs for another. But He makes no mistakes and thank God for Aquila and Priscilla who, whether they had or did not have children, made their home a centre of godly activity.

So this is a remarkable couple. Yet in one sense they are a secondary couple. You never read of them preaching, you never read of them being prominent in the sense of being great leaders of the people of God. No, there is something almost subordinate about them. All that they do is done, as it were, at a lower level. It is not drawing attention to themselves, they are providing hospitality for the Apostle. Very possibly the sort of trade that they had as leather workers, tentmakers, meant that they had quite spacious premises. I suspect that they probably were not on their beam ends, financially. They possibly were quite well to do and yet they used their wealth, they used their home for the church. That is why on those two occasions in the Epistles the ëchurch that is iní their house is mentioned ó in Corinth and again in Ephesus it seems that the church used to gather probably in their rather spacious dwelling place. Remember there would not be church buildings such as we are used to in our day and so a Christian perhaps who had quite a large house, well, that would have been very useful as far as the church was concerned and they would naturally be able to gather there. You would not get pagans wanting them to meet in their houses, so if you had a Christian couple with a large house, well, what a blessing and an advantage it is for the church ó and that seems to have been the case as far as Aquila and Priscilla were concerned.

But one of the most significant things that they did is mentioned here at the end of this eighteenth chapter of the book of the Acts of the Apostles. You remember what the chapter tells us; it begins in Corinth and then it moves on. Paul has been about eighteen months or so in Corinth, establishing the church, teaching them the basics of the Scriptures, the will of God. Then he decides that he has to move. He wants to go back to Jerusalem, he wants to be there in time for one of the feasts, and so he sails across the Aegean Sea but he takes with him Aquila and Priscilla. Now perhaps by this time the Apostle had realised what an advantage it was to have a couple like this. Presumably with their trade they were able to move and come to another new city and set up business in that city ó and that is what they did in Ephesus. Perhaps Paul had in mind ultimately coming back to Ephesus. It was one of the very great cities of the ancient world and he wanted the gospel to be established there. He knew that it was strategically placed and from it you would be able to reach out into all the Roman provinces round about and that in fact is what happened. So he takes Priscilla and Aquila with him across the Aegean Sea and stays for a little while in Ephesus, goes into the synagogue, reasons with the Jews and they want him to stay longer ó but he will not do it. He wants to keep the feast at Jerusalem but he says, ëI will return again to you if God will!í and he sails from Ephesus. But he has left Aquila and Priscilla there in the city of Ephesus.

Along to the synagogue comes this rather strange character, Apollos, a formidable character, obviously an intellectual, a man that had come from Alexandria ó which was one of the great intellectual centres of the ancient world. ëAn eloquent maní, a very good speaker, ëmighty in the scripturesí, and he comes to Ephesus and he has obviously got some knowledge of the gospel. He was, so we read in verse twenty five, ëinstructed in the way of the Lordí and not only that but ëbeing fervent in the spirití. Literally it is ëbeing boiling in the spirití so here you might say is a man who is eloquent, he is learned and he is full of zeal for the Lord. And he ëtaught diligently the things of the Lordí ó but he has got a limitation ó ëknowing only the baptism of Johní. There is obviously a limitation in the knowledge and understanding that he has of the gospel. He is ëinstructed in the way of the Lordí but not perfectly. So here are Aquila and Priscilla, they are there in the synagogue, they are greatly impressed with Apollos. They hear him preaching, they realise that basically he has got hold of the truth ó but he needs help. So what they do is ëthey took him unto themí. They did in effect what had happened to Paul; they opened their home and let him stay with them. He was not a tentmaker, or anything like that, but he came and he stayed with them. Then this is what happened; they ëexpounded unto him the way of God more perfectlyí.

How long it took them we do not know but you can imagine the scene. There they would be, perhaps they would be discussing the sermon that he preached that Sabbath day in the Synagogue and they would commend the bits of the sermon that were correct and then perhaps delicately and tactfully they would suggest that here and there he should have put it like this. Or did he realise this truth about the gospel? And, did he not see how all that fitted together? And this man, Apollos, he must have been a very humble man because there is no doubt he must have been miles above this couple as far as his intellectual ability was concerned. Yet he was teachable and they approached it in such a way that he received their wisdom and their correction. They ëexpounded unto him the way of God more perfectly. And when he was disposed to pass into Achaia,í that is back across the Aegean Sea to Corinth, ëthe 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 Christ.í So when Apollos goes across the Aegean Sea to Corinth, he preaches in this amazing way ó but all the deficiencies have gone, he is able to explain the word of God, not with the inconsistencies and the inadequacies that he had manifested when Priscilla and Aquila heard him there in Ephesus, but those had been sorted out. He has been corrected, he has been instructed in the way of the Lord more perfectly ó and now, you might say, he is let loose upon those Jews in Corinth. And ëhe mightily convinced the Jews, and that publickly, shewing by the scriptures that Jesus was Christ.í

The important thing is this that under God it was this couple, Aquila and Priscilla, or actually Priscilla and Aquila, that is the actual order in the Greek, who instructed him more perfectly. Now you know that tells us something very important, does it not? It tells us first of all that it is a good thing to help somebody who needs instruction. A man may come and he may speak and he may be in error, or what he is saying perhaps could be better expressed ó and if there is somebody who can come to him and take him aside and correct him, do it tactfully, do it lovingly and carefully, what a blessing it is. Not just to that man ó but think what a blessing it was to these Jews in the city of Corinth who now heard this man Apollos, now that he had been straightened out and instructed in the way of God more perfectly ó think what a blessing it was to them.

I suspect that they never knew the part that Aquila and Priscilla had played in helping and instructing and spiritually educating that man. They were not concerned about that. They did not give instructions to Apollos saying, ëYou be careful whenever you preach a good sermon to give us that tribute for having put you straight on those doctrinal points where you were not all that clear. No, no, they did not want the prominence they were happy in the background. They were there serving God and if they could help this brother in Christ they were glad to do so. The interesting thing is that both of them were involved in it. Aquila and Priscilla. And as I say in the Greek it is Priscilla that comes before Aquila at this point. So there is nothing wrong in women instructing men and correcting men. Now I do not know what I am letting myself in for when I put it like that but there is a way of doing it. You see some people come to this and say, ëAh yes! Of course it is all right for women to preach!í

Nonsense! The Scriptures do not contradict themselves. The Scriptures make it quite clear that the public preaching of the word of God is something that is to be done by the men that God raises up for that purpose. The same Apostle Paul speaks about the women being silent and suffered not to teach or to usurp authority over the man. and certainly Priscilla was not usurping authority over the man. She was there in the home helping, discussing the teaching and even correcting Apollos ó but it was done in that informal more private way and that is perfectly acceptable and therefore you see that this woman she was probably a more dominant character that her husband. Again, it often is the case, is it not? You can quake before the woman in a way that you would not before the male half of the family. Well I am not suggesting that she was some sort of an ogre that you fled away from but perhaps she was the dominant half of the partnership.

Listen again to how one of the commentators puts it:

ëWe conclude that Priscilla was the moving spirit, that she was by nature more gifted and able than her hus-band, also spiritually fully developed due to her having had Paul in her home for eighteen months while residing in Corinth. Aquila seems to have been a gentle, quiet soul, who was genuine in this unobtrusive way. It seems that the couple was childless. The beauty of Priscillaís character lies in the fact that she never thrust herself forward, never asserted herself, or made her superiority felt. She was loyally true to Paulís teaching that the husband is the head of the wife. Aquila had found a pearl among women. Priscilla is the direct opposite of Sapphira.
(Remember Sapphira and her husband, their tragic story is told earlier in the Acts of the Apostles.)
The one stimulated her husband to all that was good, the other helped her husband on to his destruction. Priscilla is the example our women need so much today when so many thrust themselves beyond their proper sphere and often do not know where to stop. 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.
The beauty of Priscillaís character lies in the fact that she never thrust herself forward, never asserted herself, or made her superiority felt. She was loyally true to Paulís teaching that the husband is the head of the wife. Aquila had found a pearl among women. Priscilla is the direct opposite of Sapphira. The one stimulated her husband to all that was good, the other helped her husband on to his destruction. Priscilla is the example our women need so much today when so many thrust themselves beyond their proper sphere and often do not know where to stop.
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.
Luke surely wants his reader to understand that Priscilla was the main teacher. The ancients, too, knew about a number of most superior and talented women. Priscilla was not like these. She had no more education than her husband. Her great treasure was the gospel, and her ability was that she could impart it with all lucidity and force. She helped to teach Apollos in all propriety. Since this was private teach-ing, it in no way conflicted with the apostolic principle that women are to remain silent in the church. Humble people though she and her husband were, they were not abashed before Apollos.
One tries to picture the three sitting together and going into the great gospel story. Apollos must have asked many questions, Paulís name must have been mentioned often. Little had Priscilla and Aquila thought, when they had learned from Paul in Corinth to what use they would have to put their instruction. Apollos eagerly absorbed all they could teach him. Suppose you, wife and husband, had been in their place, how would you have acquitted yourselves? We here see how in the apostolic age so many churches started in places to which no apostle came. The Chris-tians themselves were the missionaries. So well did the apostle ground them in the faith that they them-selves were ready always to give an answer to every man that asked them a reason of the hope that was in them, with meekness and fear (I Pet. 3:15). (R.C.H.Lenski, The Acts of the Apostles, p775)

In other words what that commentator is saying is this was a lovely and a beautiful Christian home and wherever they went Christ was the centre of their home. They never had a prominent part to play, it was always secondary, it was always unobtrusive ó but what a blessing their home was! the last part of that quotation that I have just given to you puts it to us. It really comes as a challenge to us, does it not? Our homes ó what are they like? Are they centres of Christian influence? Are they places of hospitality? Are they places where we are able to help other Christians to grow more in knowledge and understanding of the truth? Are they places where unbelievers can hear, yes, and see the difference that the Gospel makes? Aquila and Priscilla as far as we know they never wrote any great letters, certainly none that have come down to us.

They never preached any sermons ó but they did something that was infinitely more valuable, and in the will of God was such a blessing to the Apostle Paul. So that when he is there in Rome, waiting execution ó he is able just to mention them: ëëSalute Prisca and Aquilaí [2 Timothy 4:19]. And when he has written to the church in Rome ó by this time they had gone back to Rome, Claudius had died in AD 54 and the decree of expulsion had died with him ó this is what he says: ëGreet Priscilla and Aquila my helpers in Christ Jesus: Who have for my life laid down their own necks: unto whom not only I give thanks, but also all the churches of the Gentiles. Likewise greet the church that is in their houseí [Romans 16:3-5].

What they had done and when they did it, we do not know. But obviously there had been one occasion when they had intervened at risk of their own lives in order to deliver the Apostle Paul. Maybe it is the incident that he refers to at the beginning of 2 Corinthians: ëFor we would not, brethren, have you ignorant of our trouble which came to us in Asia, that we were pressed out of measure, above strength, insomuch that we despaired even of life: But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead: Who delivered us from so great a death, and doth deliver: in whom we trust that he will yet deliver usí [2 Corinthians 1:8-10]. Maybe that would have taken place in Ephesus and maybe it was on that occasion that this couple was used risking their own lives in order that the Apostle might be delivered. So when he comes almost to the end of his life, he has got a special mention for this couple who meant so much to him over the years and for whom he was able to thank God.

They are an example; an example in unobtrusiveness; an example in spirituality ó an example for all of us to follow ó Aquila and Priscilla.
Amen
 
 
 

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