Meet Apollo(s) the man not the spacecraft Saturday, 6th Week of Easter- Acts 18:23-28

In order to fully understand this text I suggest you begin your reading from verse eighteen. Paul leaves Corinth and travels towards Antioch in Syria. He takes with him his new found companions Aquila and Priscilla who had fled the persecution of the Emperor Claudius in Rome and who had pitched their tent ( literally for they were tent makers) in Corinth.

It is in Ephesus ( Modern day Turkey) that Paul makes a brief stop and leaves Aquila and Priscilla to minster, for he is received well and even though the members of the synagogue ask him to stay, he moves on to Jerusalem via Caesarea and then to Antioch in Syria. It is in this place that they were first called Christians.

Verse 23 signals the beginning of Paul’s third missionary journey. This journey is more a ‘review and renewal’ of the Churches he established on his first missionary journey, for Paul strengthens the disciples in these Churches. It is also a journey where he makes a long stop of three years in Ephesus. (Acts 20:31), the longest he has ever stayed in any place.

For some reason, St Luke, the author of the Acts, chooses to give us a snippet into the Church of Ephesus even before Paul sets foot. Perhaps he wants to lay the background to the Church in Ephesus. We know that Paul left Aquila and Priscilla to minister in Ephesus. We are now told that in the very synagogue a Jew by the name of Apollos arrives from Alexandria.

In order to get a clearer understanding into the mind and ministry of Apollos we need to look at where he came from. Alexandria, situated on the bank of the Nile in Egypt, was in the NT a flourishing city with one third of its population being Jews. The city was culturally sought after for it had its famous library, university, lighthouse and even a museum.  This is the city that gave us the translation of the Bible from Hebrew to Greek (Septuagint)

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