Acts 18 - Invest and Encourage

Paul now moves on to Corinth and is preaching to the Jews there, and finally we see him just getting fed up with their response, with their lack of faith, and with their blasphemy against God. He decides to move on and begin to preach to the Gentiles, and he makes a bold statement that speaks to me this afternoon. He says: “Your blood is on your own heads! I am innocent.” While that sounds like he is just giving up on them, which he is to an extent, I think it’s important to know why he could say what he said, and why I can’t say that to very many people. Paul was able to essentially leave the “blame” on them because he did everything he could to show them and teach them the way and give them a chance to respond. He spoke the words of truth to them and lived out what it meant to be a follower of Christ. He did everything he could do and they still chose to not believe that Jesus was the Messiah, so he was going to move on. I think, for me anyways, there have been people that I have sort of written off and said well fine, you haven’t made the choice I know you need to make so I am moving onto someone else. But, the difference between Paul’s position here and mine is that I have not typically done all I can. What I mean by that is not that I should be doing more, but what I have done has not been done well. Have I really preached the message of the cross and allowed God’s words of truth to speak and convict, or have I tried to convince someone to believe what I want them to? Have I lived out my life as a Christian in a way that is God-honoring and in a way that promotes the cause of Christ? Now obviously I am going to mess up, but when I have did I fess up to it and seek forgiveness and share those struggles with others, or did I hide it, acting like everything was fine? If I have not shared the gospel message with someone and have not lived it out in front of them, I am in no position to write them off and “move on” to someone else.

Now, if those things are true, if I have done what I can and have done what I needed to do and a person chooses not to respond, I need to avoid getting frustrated and upset that the person doesn’t “get it”. God asks different people to fill different roles in helping someone grasp who He is and my role could be planting the first seed. I have to trust that God’s will is going to be done and I have to be faithful in doing what He asks me to do as a part of that will. Anything less, and even anything more, is outside of His will and won’t be productive. Paul understood that he was supposed to preach to the Jews, and God used the refusal of the Jews to accept the message he was sharing as the catapult to his ministry to the Gentiles.

I’ve always wondered what Paul was thinking or praying about on the night he received the vision from God that encouraged him to not be afraid and to keep on preaching. Was Paul afraid? Was he contemplating the possibility of not preaching anymore? I think it is easy to put Paul up on some sort of pedestal because he wrote half of the New Testament and because of his bold defense and proclamation of the gospel, but we must remember that he is a human, just like me. While he might have had less fear, he still was afraid. While he might have had less worry, he still worried. While he might have struggled less with answering God’s call on his life, he still wrestled with it. Paul is a human just like I am, and that doesn’t go through my mind in an effort to bring Paul down to my “level”, but rather it is a reminder that the same God that empowered Paul to do incredible things for His kingdom can do the same things through me, if only I’ll let Him.

Father your servant Paul was an incredible man that served you faithfully and shared your message with thousands and thousands of people. The Kingdom was greatly impacted by Paul and his work is still affecting the world today. That is the legacy that I want to leave as well, that I would have a great impact on the Kingdom that would last many years after my physical body gives out. Again, not for my glory or my praise, but for yours. Help me to give myself over to you, every day, like Paul did. I am yours!

The last thing that stuck out to me in chapter 18 is Paul’s travels and what he did on his trips. Paul was an incredible preacher and spoke to many unbelievers and helped many people who did not know about Jesus come into a relationship with him, but that isn’t all he did. He didn’t swoop in, give a stirring message, and move on to the next town. No, instead it says that he moved from town to town, strengthening the disciples. He spent time with them. He prayed with them. He encouraged them. Paul was a guy who invested in people, who shepherded and disciple people, and that is a role that I need to step it up big time. Whether it is my family or my friends or my youth group leaders or my connection group members, I need to make sure that I am encouraging and strengthening those in my close sphere of influence. It’s easy in ministry, at least in my opinion, to get so caught up in all the tasks that have to be done to forget about, or at least temporarily overlook, the people. Paul didn’t do that. He didn’t start a church then never check back in with them. He didn’t help convert a believer then never speak to them again. He invested in lives, and the word invest brings so much more meaning than what I do with most of the people around me. To invest in something means you buy into it, you sacrifice and you pour into it, you pay attention to it and you check on it often. It doesn’t mean you say hi once every couple weeks as you are passing the person by in church. It doesn’t mean you send an email or a text every once in a great while to check in on somebody. It means time and energy and effort and prayers, it means a whole lot more than I have giving very many people right now, and that needs to change!