From Gallio to Antioch to Apollo
Acts 18:12-28 · Vern Peterman · May 20, 2018
Acts (2017-18), No. 63
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261910157303

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Good morning, and welcome to Holyoaks Bible Church. We will be stepping into this passage, Acts of the Apostles, chapter 18, verses 12 through 22, as Joe just read for us here. First, I just want to remark that the last week or two has been very eventful for us, and I'm sure, as I find out from some of you as well, the Randy Peterman household is discovering that they wish houses came with backup lights. And by that, I mean sewer backup lights, like the sewage is backing up.

Anyway, so I've had that kind of fun adventure. Our youngest grandson, Decker, turned five this last week, and my dad the next day turned 92. So rather amazing. And I told Nancy, I said, Nancy, we should have been married a long time ago. And I said, well, that's right, we did. It's been almost 45 years now.

So we'll step into this passage here. You have on the top of your handout this map, at least I sure hope so, this map which shows Paul's second missionary journey and just kind of the upper left or northwest part of that journey. And it talks about Corinth here and Ephesus. And we'll be looking at those two locations initially, later moving a little farther on in the rest of this journey and the completion today of Paul's second missionary journey.

As we showed before, here's the site of ancient Corinth. These are the ruins, of course, and you had during the time of the New Testament, Corinth was a rather large city. And what you see here as ruins was actually a bustling, very busy, well-developed city. Up on top of the mountain above it, the Acropolis as it's called, they had a defensive fortress up there and now what you see of course are just the ruins of that.

Here's an arduous rendering of what a portion of Corinth may have looked like, including kind of the perimeter wall, and you see rather the marketplace there in the center. and give you an idea what Paul and his companions stepped into as they went into Corinth. This would be a computer rendering of Corinth with the perimeter defensive wall and the city in the foreground in the middle and then the defensive fortress up at the mountaintop above it there.

This is the chronology that we've been going through, the sequence of events in Paul's second missionary journey. What we're looking at for last Sunday's passage, and this Sunday, basically chapter 18 up to verse 22, shows this last half of the events. The events in Corinth and as he went through Ephesus, and then Jerusalem on the way back to Antioch, which is his home or ascending church. Acts 18, 12, and 13, which would be in the last part of July approximately, 52 AD, so while Galileo was proconsul of Achaia, the Jews with one accord rose up against Paul and brought before him the judgment seat, saying, This man persuades men to worship God contrary to the law.

And so you can imagine all these Jews piling into one accord, not a civic accord. Anyway, they rose up against Paul and brought him before this judgment seat. I can see Roger shaking his head. Oh, no. Terrible, awful jokes, you know, really bad groaners. Anyway, so we'll try to improve that as we get along here. So this man persuades men to worship contrary to law.

So let's ask this question, which law are they talking about? As we'll find out, contrary to law means contrary to the law of Moses. One of the things we've mentioned, and maybe you've picked up on, there are 613 individual laws in the law of Moses in the Old Testament. It includes everything from the Ten Commandments that everybody knows about, to all sorts of things, that you typically would overlook, like you may not eat an apple with a worm in it. That was against the law of Moses. Also, how many of you like some kind of fish, shellfish, crab, lobster, things like that? Can't have that. Not if you're Jewish. You've got to wait for some other lifetime or something.

So here's Galleo and Claudius. Galleo, who served as a proconsul in Corinth, and an emperor Claudius, who had ordered the Jews to leave Rome, provide for us short windows of time for these events, confirmed by secular sources. We know a very tight time window, and some would even put it less than a year, but it would be about a year when Galileo served as proconsul, that was one of the various titles they had, it was basically equivalent to a governor. And Achaia was the area, the southern part of what we now call Greece. It's that southern peninsula. He served there during a fairly narrow window of time.

Prior to that, as we saw earlier in going through Acts 18, Emperor Claudius had ordered the Jews to leave Rome. He took office in 41 AD as emperor. And guess what? He really didn't like the Jews. The term we have is antisemitic. He really didn't like them. He immediately put out an order that the Jews could not meet in their synagogues.

Can you imagine that? And the Jews, of course, ignored that as much as they possibly could. And it was almost impossible to enforce. But he gives you an idea. He just didn't like the Jews. And finally, in 49 AD, he said, all the Jews have to get out of Rome. So he sent them all out. So between those, we have some very tight time windows and we work back through the history. Guess what?

Working backwards from these two points in history in confluence with other pieces of information that provide more historical confirmation that Christ was crucified and buried on April 3rd, 33 AD. Isn't that amazing? And was raised on April 5th, 33 AD. at a specific date. Just this year I've come across five different things that further confirm that Christ was crucified and buried on April 3rd, 33 AD. Additional things that I hadn't known about last year.

Now here's the Galileo inscription. You might look at it and say, well that's a really lousy mosaic. And yes, you would be right. What this is is an inscription that contains Gallio's name, and it's in Greek capital letters, and it's pieces of the inscription that they put together. It was found over a century ago, 1910, in Greece. And so what we'll do is look right in there and come a little closer, and in capital letters, this would be the name Gallio. So that's where his name is in there. He also is recorded in four different Roman historian records, and so he's very well confirmed in addition to what's in the Bible. So we have very good historic confirmation. We know a lot about him. He was appointed by Claudius, who was anti-semitic.

So guess what? The Jews are coming up against Galileo. Does he like the Jews or not? He does not like them because the guy who appointed them does not like the Jews, right? So the Jews coming up against Galileo is not going to be very good for them. So, question. Here's Paul. He has been brought up on various kinds of charges before. Sometimes the Jews have brought some kind of an action against him and it has turned out very, very badly. Should Paul start getting concerned and upset at this meeting that he's brought before Galilee? Should he? Should he start worrying how this is going to turn out? Should he? Well, remember last week, Acts 18, 9 and 10, And the Lord said to Paul in the night by a vision, Do not be afraid any longer, implying that he was afraid before, but go on speaking and do not be silent, for I am with you.

No man will attack you in order to harm you, for I have many people in this city." So is this confrontation of the Jews before Galileo going to turn out okay? Yes, it is. We're soon going to see that here. Acts 18, 14 through 15, but when Paul was about to open his mouth, Galileo said to the Jews, If it were a matter of wrong or a vicious crime, O Jews, it would be reasonable for me to put up with you.

But if there are questions about words and names in your own law, look after it yourselves. I am unwilling to be a judge of these matters." Translated, that is, I'm not giving you guys the time of day. Get out of here. Right? That's basically what he told them right off. This is an official pronouncement. Don't bother me. Get out of this place.

Acts 18.16, and he drove them away from the judgment seat. I doubt he personally did, but what he did was command his soldiers, because being a Roman governor, he would have Roman soldiers there in the courtroom, and he would have others available, as many as thousands available at his command. He had them driven away from the judgment seat. While they're being driven away, here's the next part, Acts 18, 17.

And they all, that is all the Jews, took hold of Sosthenes, the leader of the synagogue, and began beating him in front of the judgment seat. But Galileo was not concerned about any of these things. Now, we've got a few different questions. One, Sosthenes is the leader of the synagogue. Earlier in the chapter, we read that Crispus was the leader of the synagogue.

Which one is correct? They're both correct. What happened, Crispus was the one, 1 Corinthians chapter 1, Crispus was the one who became a believer and was even baptized personally by Paul. One of the few that were baptized by Paul and named. But, having become a believer, are the rest of the Jews happy that Crispus has become a believer? No, he's out of there. And so they put somebody else in place. And there's one other thing. In the Roman Empire, the culture was such that if you lose, you're going to be in trouble. Anything. If you lose, you're going to be in trouble.

You know, we have our Olympics, right? And our Olympics are not like the Greeks had their Olympics. First of all, they only had 10 events. By the way, in 12 BC, Herod the Great, who wasn't all that great, volunteered the Jews to pay for the Olympics. That's okay, I'll just tax them some more. So that's what they did. So when they had their Olympics, did they have gold and silver and bronze? No. You got gold or you got beat up. So that's what you see happening here. In the culture of the day, you either win or you really lose bad.

That's what happened to Sosthenes. He was the replacement for Crispus. replaced because Crispus became a believer, but what typically happened is if you lost an athletic competition or a court case, you were going to get beat up, right? So that's what happened to Sosthenes. And so Galileo thought nothing of it because that's what they always do when somebody loses, right? And so because he didn't win, he just was not concerned. Galileo was not concerned about Sosthenes here.

So we have that. Now, Acts 18.18, this is the first part of September, 52 AD.

Paul, having remained many days longer, took leave of the brethren and put out to sea for Syria. Now, so there's a few things we have to talk about here. One, we'll talk about many days. He took leave of the brethren, that is those who are fellow believers in Christ, and they put out to sea for Syria. Now, did they go directly to Syria? No. That's where they are eventually headed. That is where Antioch is located and where Paul will end up.

So this is on the way. One more thing, and with him were Priscilla and Achilla. We explained last week, Priscilla and Achilla were a pair of Jews who were also, like Paul, tent makers. We're going to talk about that again here shortly. Tent makers. And they had joined with Paul starting here at Corinth And Paul was going to have them go with him to Ephesus to help raise up the church there. And so that was going to happen next. And then something else to take a look at, Paul and Aquila and Priscilla, we call them tent makers plus.

As a matter of fact, one way you could translate it and it would be kind of full sense is that they were leather workers. Did they make tents? Yes. Did they make lots of other things? Yes. Example, if you wanted a leather belt, could they help you? Yes, exactly. They would make leather belts and other various pieces of clothing that people wanted made out of leather. Leather purses, okay, you would be another example of the kind of thing they would do.

How about if you were to write shorter documents, you would oftentimes use papyrus. And I'll have a couple of samples here so you can see what those are like, which would be made out of a reed and they would have kind of cross-grained structure in them, and you'd use that to write letters, and that's probably what Paul's letters were all written on, at least initially, is written on this papyrus, which is their equivalent of paper. But larger books like, for example, all the scrolls that the Jews had, all their Bible books on, right? So you'd have, like, here's the Isaiah scroll, and here's the Daniel scroll.

All those scrolls were made out of sheep or goat skin, and who would put those skins together and sew them and trim them and make sure that they were all according to the right specifications? You'd hire somebody like Paul and Achilla and Priscilla to make those kinds of things, because they knew how to do it right, right? And so that would be among the kinds of things that they would do. So Paul, having remained many days longer, took leave of the brethren, put out to sea for Syria, and with him were Priscilla and Achilla. In Senchria he had his hair cut, for he was keeping a vow. Now we're going to talk about that haircut thing.

First of all, let's talk about many days. Many days and not many days are terms, interestingly enough, in the Bible, only Dr. Luke uses those terms. In the Gospel of Luke, one place we have referenced there, and from the book of Acts, all the way from the first chapter, all the way to the second to the last chapter, and including this one.

So, what the pattern is, not many days was ten days in Acts 1.5, and it was 40 days in Acts 13.31, and the rest of the time we don't know. But, so we shouldn't try to be precise and nail it down to a specific time because it doesn't mean that, but about 40 days is a good rough estimate here for the time, you know, plus or minus, okay? So after about 40 days, and it could have been some days less and some days more, Paul left Corinth with Aquila and Priscilla. And they went from the eastern port of Corinth there all the way into Ephesus.

Now, how about Paul keeping a vow? Why would Paul, the apostle of grace, make and keep a vow that had to do with his hair? It would be real easy for me to do if I were inclined to such things, right? Since before we were married, Nancy has always cut my hair. Once in a great while, I have to ask her to cut the other one. So it's real simple to do, right?

But what you see here, Paul is keeping what's called the Nazarite vow. Numbers chapter 6 verses 1 through 21 describes all the ins and outs. That's what Paul was doing. And you might ask, well why is Paul doing that? Isn't he telling people you're not under the law and all that?

He writes to the Corinthians later, after he leaves Corinth. He writes to them and he writes, to the Jews I became as a Jew so that I might win Jews to those who are under the law as under the law, though not being myself under the law, so that I might win those who are under the law. So why did he take a vow and first not cut his hair and then cut his hair? In order to win the Jews.

That's it. It's the same reason that he circumcised Timothy, who had a Jewish mother, but a Greek father. So he wasn't circumcised. He only circumcised Timothy. Why? Not to keep the law, but so that he might win the Jews. That's it. Here's Acts 18-19.

They came to Ephesus and he left them there. Now, he himself entered the synagogue and reasoned with the Jews. So he came to Ephesus. Ephesus was this large city. We'll talk about it briefly in a minute here. Really large city. And what does he do? He enters synagogue. And he reasoned with the Jews. So here's the theater at Ephesus. As we get into chapter 19, we're going to see this theater becomes a big deal. So here's the theater.

Ephesus is one of those ancient cities that is an archaeological park, so to speak, and it's been fairly well restored and things cleaned up. A lot of times as things are found, they're not in great shape, but this is one that has been restored in some degree. And so this theater is here in the foreground. You see a street that goes off at an angle, and then off in the distance is the old harbor, which has been filled in with silt in great part. And so we'll take another look at this the next time through on Paul's third missionary journey.

Here is the theater looking up into the theater from the street there, and you see it's a fairly substantial theater, which in those days that would hold a lot of people. Then here's the library that is the front of it, what's left. This used to be a very substantial library, one of the greatest libraries in the Roman Empire. But what you see there remaining is restored the front and then off to the right are some gates that were dedicated to emperors. And so you see that gives you an idea. This used to be a place of very grand structures and a very high society. It's probably the third or fourth largest city in the Roman Empire. So, this carries out the principle that the Apostle Paul had all the way through. We've seen it before.

He goes to the Jew first. This is just like they already covered in the Romans elective. To the Jew first, as Paul has done city after city, he goes to the Jews first, typically looking for a synagogue. In some places he didn't find it, but where there was a synagogue, that's where he went first. And what he'd do there, he reasoned with the Jews.

We find that as a consistent pattern. He doesn't scream and yell at them. He doesn't try to manipulate them emotionally or appeal to their emotions. He appeals to scripture using reason. So it wasn't just an exercise in logic either. He reasoned from the Scriptures to show that Jesus was the Christ.

What do we mean by that? That He was the long-promised Messiah who came to die for all of our sins and was buried and rose again. And a key place to look for that is Isaiah chapter 53. A very key passage. Christ, the Son of God, the Messiah, died for our sins and was buried and rose again. See, Isaiah said it. And you would look at other passages, of course, on top of that. But to the Jew first.

Acts 18, 20 and 21. When they asked him to stay for a longer time, he did not consent, but taking leave of them and saying, I will return to you again if God wills. And he set sail from Ephesus. It's interesting, he doesn't give a long and lengthy account here at this part of Acts. We'll find out when we get to chapter 20 that he spent all totaled a good portion of three years in Ephesus between this visit and the next one that we're soon going to be reading about when we get there.

And here's something that's different. As he went to Thessalonica, the Jews wanted him to what? Be dead. They didn't ask him to leave. They didn't ask him to stay. They wanted him to be dead. Right. And so the Jews responded in various ways, starting there. And then the Jews from Thessalonica went to Berea and things got rough.

Paul went way far south down to Athens and then to Corinth to get away from them. What you find here is an amazing difference. In Corinth, he met opposition, but they couldn't sustain it because of Galileo saying, no, I'm not listening to you guys. And then to Ephesus where Paul was welcomed.

Can you imagine that? What a variety of responses. I imagine him going into Ephesus and kind of wondering, I wonder how they're going to react here. Will I get stoned? Will they try to kill me? Will they bring me up before the Romans under false charges? They asked Paul to stay, and he said he had to go. Be back if God willed it. What's amazing, other places they want him dead, other places they want him to leave. Here they say, please stay. He says, I got to go.

So, Acts 18.22, which closes out the Apostle Paul's second missionary journey.

And when he had landed at Caesarea, so Caesarea is primarily a Roman military port city. In our military, we have a navy that is separate, and we've got an air force, which they didn't really have. And then we've got forces that deal with things on land. In the Roman military, there was no division of here are the ones who handle things on the sea, and here are the ones who handle things on the land. It actually had no division like that. So they had a port city. It was essentially a Roman military colony. but it had quite a port structure. It was initially constructed under Herod the Not-So-Great, and so here you see a kind of a reconstructed aerial view of Caesarea.

And then it says he went and greeted the church, but it doesn't tell us what church. You know, there's a bunch of churches. In truth, there were likely other believers, and those we'll find out, there were in fact other believers at Caesarea. About Philip and his four daughters, we'll find out at the end of his third missionary journey. And we're going to find out, we also read about in Acts chapter 10 in Caesarea, was the house of Cornelius that Peter had introduced to the gospel. So there were other believers there. But he greeted the church in Jerusalem, the founding church, went back to there. And we'll read some more detail about that at the end of Paul's third missionary journey as he gets to Jerusalem.

What's very interesting is we are able to say with a high level of certainty what is the exact day Christ died, April 3rd, 33 AD. The exact day he was resurrected, April 5th, 33 AD. We can say that the day of his ascension was May 14th, 33 A.D., and the day, excuse me, yeah, the day he was ascended was May 14th, and the day of Pentecost is May 24th, 33 A.D. We don't come up with an exact date until we see, again, an exact date until Paul meets with Jesus' half-brother, James, in chapter 21. That's the next time we come up with an exact date. And for the next couple of weeks after that, we have exact dates for when things took place.

So he greeted the church here, which meant he talked to the other apostles who had stayed there in Jerusalem, probably a great many of them, and other leaders, including James and other brothers of Jesus, half-brothers, if you will. And then he went to Antioch. And notice, he went up. And then he went down to Antioch. And why is that? Because Jerusalem is about a half mile up. Here we are at Denver, we're the mile-high city, right? Jerusalem's about a half mile up, and in that area, that's pretty high.

And Courtney and Ingrid, Nancy and I found that out when it snowed. So, they went up to greet the church in Jerusalem, and then went down from there to Antioch, which was much closer to sea level. And so this would be a reconstruction looking down, artist reconstruction looking down at the city of Antioch. So this would be the big picture map. We don't have a copy this week in your handout, but we have, instead we're going to zero in on this part of that map and look at this. This is on, at least I sure hope so, it's on page three here. And so it shows them coming into Caesarea, going up to We would say down, right, because it's heading more in a southerly direction, but no, it's up elevation-wise to Jerusalem and then down elevation-wise to Antioch.

So that would be the last of Paul's second missionary journey in that travel. Paul headed back to the home base. He landed first at Caesarea, where he may well have taken the time to greet Philip. We know that he, in fact, does at the end of his third missionary journey.

Philip, the evangelist, and also he may have taken the time to meet the House of Cornelius and other believers who had gathered there. Then he went up to the leaders and founders of the church there in Jerusalem. We see in Acts 15 names like Peter and James, Jesus' half-brother, and probably other apostles and church leaders there. And then finally, I'm reporting all that had taken place to the church leaders and founders in Jerusalem. Then he would head back to his home and sending church.

That's where he began. his second missionary journey there in Antioch. So we want to get some kind of lessons out of looking through what Paul's been through in the second missionary journey. So I'd like to ask you to follow along with me on a few different verses and passages here.

So one, we want to ask, does this verse promise that God will not put you through anything you can't handle? Have you ever heard that? I don't know about you, but I get on Facebook. Some of you, I'm sure, want to stay away from that. But anyway, I get on there and I'll see that. God won't put you through anything you can't handle. Is that true? Not true. As a matter of fact, there isn't any promise that God won't put you through anything you can't handle. This verse has to do with temptation. Specifically temptation.

It says, no temptation, 1 Corinthians 10.13. has overtaken you, but such as is common to man. And God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but will with the temptation provide a way of escape, so that you will be able to endure it." The temptation. It doesn't mean that every trial is going to be something you can handle. It's talking about temptation. When we talk about temptation, Let's look at these.

1 Corinthians 6.18.

Before you come to the temptation, 1 Corinthians 6.18 says, flee immorality. We're not talking about those things that bite you and make you itch. This is flee immorality.

1 Corinthians 6.18. 1 Corinthians 10.14, flee idolatry. 1 Corinthians is the book with the fleas. So, it has fleas.

1 Corinthians 6.18, flea immorality, flea idolatry. So what is that talking about? It's the first thing of dealing with temptation is not to put yourself in the middle of it. God is not promising in this verse, if you put yourself in the middle of temptation, He's going to take care of it and you'll always be able to handle it. That's not what He's saying. He's saying, as a preventative measure, don't step into it. especially knowingly step into it.

One of the reasons I'm really glad they've got the elective on Romans is they'll get to 6.1 through 11. And one of the things that we'll talk about is reckon yourself dead unto the sin nature. Dead to the sin nature is the key point there in Romans 6.11. But the other half of that is alive to God. Does it help to reckon yourself dead to the sin nature and not reckon yourself alive to God? No. How good is it to be just dead? Not so good. The life to God part is just and even more important.

2 Corinthians 12.9. The one thing is my grace is sufficient for you. People love to sing amazing grace a lot of times because they don't understand grace. They think, oh, grace means God just is not as uptight about sin as he used to be. No. Grace is sufficient for you. Grace is a sufficiency for things. A sufficiency.

Paul saw all these things as he was going through there, as well as all the others who were ministering with him. Next, some bad things happened to Paul along the way on his second missionary journey. Some of it was even what we would say is life-threatening, especially early on in their Thessalonica and in Berea. If bad things happen to me, does that mean that God is mad at me? Am I doing something wrong?

And the answer is, God's not mad at you. As a matter of fact, God won't punish a believer in Christ. He doesn't do that. Romans 8.28-30 is key. God works all things together, including the things that you can call really, really bad. Works all things together for good. Does that mean that we have to pretend that everything's good? No, it does not. He works all things together for good.

To what end? To the end that we're being conformed to the image of His Son. Even if things along the way, you might look at them and say, that was really, really bad. And we're free to say that. Is God going to make good of that really, really bad thing? Yes. And the good is you're being conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. Secondly, James 2 through 4.

Rejoice when you encounter various trials. As a matter of fact, that word means consider it ultimate joy. Now, what do you think of as an ultimate joy? You might say, oh, gee, wow, it's an ultimate joy. Maybe a wedding or having a baby or something like that. Do you get all that excited when a trial comes along? Maybe not. But that's what the perspective is urging. Consider it all joy. when you encounter various trials.

Hebrews 12, 4 through 11, this is one that talks about discipline. There may be trials that are not there just simply to make you grow, but because the Lord has you under discipline. What's the intent of discipline? To restore you to a path where you can grow. you will grow through the discipline.

That is God's intent. Am I doing something wrong? Might be if the Lord's disciplining you. But God is not mad at you. And if bad things happen, it may be exactly what God intends for you because that's what you need. One way to look at it is we need what's happening to us. We need what's happening to us.

Now, there'd be a lot of things in life that if somebody would say, hey, looking back on it, would you sign up for this? Uh-uh. No way. Would you like to go through this? You know, I can look back at different things. I had Lyme disease for about 30 years, right? Would you sign up for that? No, not even close, right?

But, but, I know. that God is going to use that for the good that I'm conformed to the image of the Son. I know that God has a purpose in every single trial. God never gives us a stupid, senseless trial. It doesn't happen. It doesn't happen. Even if there's discipline, God isn't sitting there saying, take that! See what you do with that!

As Paul went along, he left people in place to teach and encourage and strengthen the churches. As a matter of fact, we're going to see that again in Paul's third missionary journey. Because he knew God had a direction of growth for them. Ephesians 4.11-14 says this, and he gave some, that's Christ, gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, and the book of Acts actually talks about all of those.

We think about these as spiritual gifts, and we tend to think of these are gifts that God gives to a particular person, and in fact that's true as well. But this passage here says that people gifted in these ways are gifts from Christ to the church, okay? That's a different message. the Ephesians elective is going to be getting here, and that's really cool.

That's really neat. It says, For the equipping of the saints, for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness and deceitful scheming.

This passage is just fantastic. And the reason it's fantastic is, of course, the Lord inspired it. That helps an awful lot. But aside from that, this passage is fantastic because it tells church leaders and everybody else involved in the church, this is what he's doing. When we gather here this morning, what's he doing? As a matter of fact, what I had to cut off because I just didn't have time or room was the next couple of verses, so sorry we can't get there. But those are great too.

What you see here is the role of these people, pastors and teachers, here in this church body is for the equipping of the saints. And by the way, that equipping is a military equipping of the saints for the work of service. So am I in the ministry? No. You are. So that's a key perspective here. It's equipping the saints for the work of the service to the building up of the body of Christ. And who's that? Us. The body of Christ. The entire body of Christ, not just an individual believer here and there. Until we all attain to the unity of the faith.

Can you imagine that? Ever heard of a church split? You ever hear that? Kind of an ugly combination of words, isn't it? That's not what this is talking about. This is aiming for the unity of the faith, the set of teachings of the apostles, and to the knowledge of the Son of God. So this isn't just until we all sign up for the same doctrinal statement. Okay? You see that? It isn't just, here's a set of things and we're all signed up for that doctrinal statement. Isn't that great? You're done. But, it's personal. Ever heard that said, don't take this personally? Well, that's not for this. Take this personally.

And that's you and us, all having a knowledge of the Son of God, Jesus Christ. A knowledge of Him. To a mature man, Christ and the body, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ, Maturity is Christ centered in him personally. Now, verse 14 is really cool, but it actually applies to not just the church body, but also parenting and all those associated with people who are parenting and even kids. That's why we've got kids heading off to our Sunday school. As a result, we're no longer to be children.

One of the things that Randy and I have talked about, as a matter of fact, Nancy asked me one time, Vern, in your heart of hearts, how many kids do you want? And I thought for a minute, and I said, six. And she never asked me again. And then there was the time she got a kidney stone. And that was really bad. I mean, it was really awful. I just would never want to see that expression on her face.

But I actually got excited after that because she said, boy, you know, before I have another kidney stone, I'd have a hundred kids. You would? Well, so kids are great. I just love little kids here. But no longer to be children. Spiritually speaking, we would love little babies. At least I sure do. Love little babies, but it's growing away from that immaturity, is what he's talking about here.

Tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine. So this is a shipping analogy. By the trickery of men, and what's hidden behind there, this word trickery, is trick dice. Trick dice is the word that's used, kubeia. and by craftiness and deceitful scheming. You can imagine here some guy walks off the ship and walks into the port there at Ephesus and one guy gets his attention and distracts him on one side while the other guy takes his money bag. That's the deceitful scheming.

Children are, and I love kids, but they're vulnerable. So one of the things this points to is the Apostle Paul wanted those in his church not to be spiritually vulnerable. So this has lessons for us to think about. This has lessons for us in the church body. It has lessons for church leaders. It has lessons for husbands, lessons for fathers, lessons for parents. There's something to think about here. There's something to think about here. Where am I heading my kids spiritually as parents? Where are we heading our children spiritually as a church body? What part do all of us have in that? And we do.

So the Apostle Paul puts some great truths together. We just saw a brief introduction to the church at Ephesus. And we're going to see this church show up again and even more significantly in Paul's third missionary journey. But great lessons here in these passages and follow on from scripture about Paul's second journey. And so I'm looking forward to our going through this third missionary journey to see what new insights and understandings we can have from it.

Let's pray. What a wonderful set of truths that you've laid out in your word. What a wonderful set of truths you've illustrated through the life of the Apostle Paul and those who are with him. And we thank you for those things. We pray, Lord, that these lessons will be brought home to our hearts in whatever roles you've put us in here in the church body or within the family.

And so we look to you in that. We look to you to teach us lessons and to give us understanding and insight in a world that, much like the time of the Roman Empire, certainly is full of all sorts of spiritual hazards and dangers. We look to you, Lord, and thank you for your faithfulness. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.