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GREAT IS THY FAITHFULNESS      ACTS 18:1-17
 
            This morning, I want us to be reminded of one of the great attributes of God.
And that attribute found in the Bible is that “God is Faithful” (1 Cor.
10:13).
When we seriously think about the subject of faithfulness we realize that it is a rare commodity.
We know from experience that people who we consider most trustworthy can let us down.
In fact, we may consider ourselves to be pretty faithful, but have found times where we have let others down.
But God is always faithful.
Now there are times where it may seem that God has let us down, but God is never unfaithful.
People may let us down, but God is always faithful.
God’s faithfulness has been proven time and time again in Scripture.
I want to give you a few examples of it before we look at our passage.
God proved to be faithful to Moses and the people of Israel when he delivered them from the bondage of Egypt.
He rescued them from their enemies, provided for them in the wilderness, and brought them into the Promised Land just as he promised.
He was faithful to David in making him King of Israel.
Remember David defeated the giant Goliath as a young man with a slingshot and stone.
He kept him save from Saul and a couple of his sons who tried a coup against him.
He was even faithful in helping David prepare his son Solomon to build a temple for him.
God’s faithfulness was shown to Daniel when he ended up in captivity by allowing him to have favor in the eyes of Nebuchadnezzar.
He delivered Daniel from the mouths of the lions when Darius through him in the lion’s den because of his uncompromising ways for the Lord.
He proved himself faithful to Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego when they refused to bow down to a idol made to the king and they were thrown into the fiery furnace.
In fact, he showed in the midst of that fire and kept their hair and clothes from even being singed.
God’s faithfulness was proven over and over again to the disciples even have they lacked faith in him.
He had kept his promises to them throughout their entire ministries.
God’s faithfulness was seen in the promise he made to our first parents Adam and Eve in the promise of the Messiah in Genesis 3.
            Jeremiah, who experienced all kinds of heartaches in the ministry, wrote these words, “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning, great is your faithfulness” (Lamentations 3:22-23).
In our passage, we will notice God’s faithfulness to the Apostle Paul in the midst of a difficulty.
In fact, we can learn that in the midst of our troubles that God always promises to be faithful.
I remind you that we serve an encouraging God.
So let this passage speak to you the next time you find yourself in a difficulty.
If I ask you to describe the Apostle Paul to me in one word, what word would you pick?
Most of us would pick words like “determined,” “brave,” “fearless,” or “courageous.”
J. C. Ryle, a 19th century Anglican bishop, would have used the word zealous.
In his book /Practical Religion/, he wrote:
            “A zealous man in religion is pre-eminently a man of one thing.
It is not enough to say that he is earnest, hearty, uncompromising, through-going, whole-hearted, (and) fervent in spirit.
He only sees one thing, he cares for one thing, he lives for one thing, he is swallowed up in one thing; and that one thing is to please God.
Whether he lives, or whether he dies, whether he has health, or whether he has sickness, whether he is rich, or whether he is poor, whether he pleases man, or whether he gives offense, whether he is thought wise, or whether he is thought foolish, whether he gets blame, or whether he gets praise, whether he gets honor, or whether he gets shame, for all this the zealous man cares nothing at all.
He burns for one thing; and that one thing is to please God, and to advance God’s glory.
If he is consumed in the very burning, he cares not for it; he is content.
He feels that, like a lamp, he is made to burn; and if consumed in burning, he has but done the work for which God appointed him . . .
This is what I mean when I speak of “zeal” in religion.”
Well, that definitely is a word that describes the Apostle Paul.
But that is not how Paul would describe himself as he enters the city of Corinth.
Paul described himself as “weak,” “afraid,” and “trembling” (1 Cor.
2:3).
In fact, Paul in his early days at Corinth said he was “distressed” (1 Thess.
3:7).
Why?
Well, if you recall since Paul had arrived in Europe: he was beaten and jailed in Philippi, run out of town in Thessalonica and Berea, and scorned and mocked with very little harvest in Athens.
He left his partners Timothy and Silas in Berea, while he was alone in the intellectual center of the world.
After leaving there, he made a fifty mile journey by himself to Corinth where he was out of money and in a city known for its immorality.
Today, we would call it Vanity Fair because everything under the sun went on in this city.
Corinth was a key city in Greece.
If you recall from geography class that Greece was cut in two by the sea.
On one side you have the Sardonic Gulf and the other side had the Corinthian Gulf.
And between the two was a neck of land about five miles across, in which stood Corinth.
It was the “market place of Greece.”
There was traffic that went north and south through this city, as well as, traffic that went east and west across this five mile stretch.
Sailors would put there cargo on carts and walk across the land rather than making the dangerous sail around Malea.
            Corinth was the home of the Isthmian Games second only to the Olympic Games.
It was a wicked city.
And the Greeks had a verb “to play the Corinthian or Corinthianize” which meant a life of lustful debauchery.
Also, the Greeks were known for their plays and they would depict a person from Corinth as drunk.
Corinth was dominated by a hill called the Acropolis, which a temple to Aphrodite was built.
In its heyday it hosted a thousand temple prostitutes, who came down every evening and make their trade in the city streets.
It had become a proverb, “Not every man can afford a journey to Corinth.”
This is the city that Paul lived and worked for a year and a half.
So you can imagine what Paul was experiencing in his heart when he arrived there.
But God proved himself faithful during this time in Paul’s life.
I believe the heart of the message is found in verses 9 and 10 of this chapter.
Here was Paul who had just gone through culture shock in Athens and now moral shock in Corinth.
You can sense in your heart that Paul was thinking here we go again.
R. Kent Hughes, in his commentary, wrote, “Paul may have felt like a football that had taken the right bounces and refused to be fumbled, and yet every time his team scored he was spiked to the turf mercilessly and then kicked the length of the field.
In fact, the better he performed, the more he was spiked and kicked!”
Well, God proved himself faithful to Paul in this difficult time in life.
How?
He brought companions, comfort, converts, and counsel.
First, let us look at the companions that Paul had.
 
Companions – 1-4
            In these verses, Paul meets a Jewish couple named Aquila and Priscilla.
We are not sure whether they are saved or not at this point, but they were definitely a source of companionship for a lonely apostle.
Aquila was a Jew from Pontus and we know that some Jews from Pontus were in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost when Peter preached and some were saved.
His wife, Priscilla, was from a well to do family and this might have been the reason why when they are mentioned in the Scriptures that see is mentioned first.
Luke says that they were in Italy until they were asked to leave because of an edict given by Claudius, who expelled all Jews from Rome.
Suetonius (a.d.
69=140), a biographer of Roman emperors, described what may have been the occasion for such a decree.
In his /Life of Claudius/ (25.
4) he referred to the constant riots of the Jews at the instigation of Chrestus.
Possibly the name Chrestus is a reference to Christ.
So Aquila and Priscilla leave Italy and travel to Corinth to live.
Here Paul meets the couple who happen to be of the same trade as Paul, a tentmaker.
According to Jewish practice, rabbis must have a trade.
And if you recall Paul was rising quickly within the ranks of Judaism through the Pharisees.
He was a rabbi (teacher of the law).
For rabbis were to take no money for preaching or teaching, but were to make their own living.
The Jews glorified work.
They said, “Love work, he who does not teach his son a trade teaches him robbery.”
So rabbis followed respectable trades and Paul was a tentmaker.
In the ancient economy, people of the same trade did not compete with one another as they do today.
They usually lived together in the same part of town and formed trade guilds.
Their trade guilds normally adopted a patron deity, and they ate sacrificial food at their regular banquets together.
This cultic orientation of trade guilds would exclude practicing Jews from the fellowship, making Jews delighted to find other Jews of their own trade.
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