Introduction

Overcoming adversity is a necessity in life. Though I think most of us would prefer a life where things come easy, valuable things often come hard. Mastering new skills from sports, to art to craftsmanship, is hard. Relationships test our communication skills and often our patience. But persevering through difficulties often gives us the tremendous sense of accomplishment.

It’s not just in our personal and professional lives, our spiritual lives often require that same stick-to-itiveness. Learning to quiet our minds as we pray, learning to make a regular habit of reading the Bible, despite it’s strangeness. ,earning to forgive the failings of others so we can live in peace as Jesus instructs us, all of this takes perseverance.

And We face difficulty from the disciplines of faith, but sometimes, we must also overcome the adversity of opposition to our faith. Not everyone is on board with our vision of God’s kingdom, such people might actively work against us. But Jesus (who knows a thing or two about opposition) stands with us as we face opposition. If we respond well, we may see him work wonders. Today I want to look at an example of how Paul faced opposition keeping Jesus in his sights during his missionary journeys.

Earlier this year we did a sermon series entitled “Adventures in Mission,” looking at Paul’s missionary Journeys.I moved on to other things because spending too long discussing one book might cause people loose interest, but now that about 6 months have passed, I want to come back and pick up where we left off. When we left Paul, he had departed Athens, and we pick up the story as he arrives in Corinth.

Paul’s Ministry in Corinth

¹ After this, Paul left Athens and went to Corinth. ² There he met a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had ordered all Jews to leave Rome. Paul went to see them, ³ and because he was a tentmaker as they were, he stayed and worked with them. ⁴ Every Sabbath he reasoned in the synagogue, trying to persuade Jews and Greeks. 

⁵ When Silas and Timothy came from Macedonia, Paul devoted himself exclusively to preaching, testifying to the Jews that Jesus was the Messiah. ⁶ But when they opposed Paul and became abusive, he shook out his clothes in protest and said to them, “Your blood be on your own heads! I am innocent of it. From now on I will go to the Gentiles.”  ⁷ Then Paul left the synagogue and went next door to the house of Titius Justus, a worshiper of God. ⁸ Crispus, the synagogue leader, and his entire household believed in the Lord; and many of the Corinthians who heard Paul believed and were baptized. 

⁹ One night the Lord spoke to Paul in a vision: “Do not be afraid; keep on speaking, do not be silent. ¹⁰ For I am with you, and no one is going to attack and harm you, because I have many people in this city.” ¹¹ So Paul stayed in Corinth for a year and a half, teaching them the word of God. 

¹² While Gallio was proconsul of Achaia, the Jews of Corinth made a united attack on Paul and brought him to the place of judgment. ¹³ “This man,” they charged, “is persuading the people to worship God in ways contrary to the law.” 

¹⁴ Just as Paul was about to speak, Gallio said to them, “If you Jews were making a complaint about some misdemeanor or serious crime, it would be reasonable for me to listen to you. ¹⁵ But since it involves questions about words and names and your own law—settle the matter yourselves. I will not be a judge of such things.” ¹⁶ So he drove them off. ¹⁷ Then the crowd there turned on Sosthenes the synagogue leader and beat him in front of the proconsul; and Gallio showed no concern whatever (Acts 18:1-17, NIV).

Context

Today when we think of major Greek cities, we think of Athens, but in Paul’s day the largest, most important Greek city was Corinth.

Corinth was a major commercial and transportation hub, the fifth largest city in the empire, and it also served as the seat of Roman Authority in the region of Achaia (the southern portion of modern-day Greece). It’s here that Paul invests a large chunk of this missionary journey.

Paul’s encounter with Priscilla and Aquila in Corinth was the consequence of a recent event. The text mentions that Pricilla and Aquila are in Corinth due to the recent expulsion of Jews from Rome. That happened in 49 AD, and Paul arrives in Corinth around 50 or 51 AD. The Roman historian Suetonius explains that Emperor Claudius cast out Rome’s Jews for “indulging in constant riots at the instigation of Chrestus. Most scholars believe this was Suetonius’ mishearing of the word “Christos” – The Christ. It seems likely that the Gospel in Rome sharply divided the Jewish population and led to such discord among the Jews that Claudius exiled them all in order to restore the peace. This recent history probably shapes the Jews’ reaction against Paul in this story.

In our story today, we see Paul having some success, but I want to focus on the opposition that he experiences. From this story, we see an example of Paul’s tenacity while he faces opposition. From Paul we learn that being faithful involves standing firm and adapting in the face of persecution, and doing so with trust that God is with us.

Opposition 1: Economic Hardship

Paul’s Perplexing Shortfall

At the beginning of the story, we read how Paul began to work with Pricilla and Aquila. They shared a common trade: tent maker. Because Paul had been raised to become a Rabbi, and Jewish Rabbis were expected to teach Torah for free, he would have developed a trade. In the case of Paul, he learned tent making (likely he would have also made sails, curtains and other things made from leather). 

To this point in Paul’s story, we don’t see examples of him needing to work to support himself. But now he does. We can see that this isn’t his ideal, because when Silas and Timothy arrive from Macedonia, bearing a gift from the Macedonian Church (See 2 Co. 11:9) Paul stops his day job to devote himself to full-time ministry. This passage isn’t telling us that all people who do ministry need to do it bi-vocationally, but what it does show is that Paul is not willing to let adversity stop his work.

This detour into manual labour seems to have borne positive fruit for a few reasons: First, It built his strong relationship with Pricilla and Aquila (who would go on to become important ministry partners for Paul) But it also kept Paul from placing himself under the authority of the church in Corinth. The church in the city is easily the most problematic church Paul has to deal with (not surprising, since Corinth was widely regarded as an especially immoral place). If Paul had accepted their financial support, they would have assumed that he owed them. That would rob Paul of the authority he needed to correct the Corinthian church. So he made a point of not accepting anything from them, even though he readily accepts support from other churches.

As Paul explains to the Corinthians in 2 Corinthians:

⁷ Was it a sin for me to lower myself in order to elevate you by preaching the gospel of God to you free of charge? ⁸ I robbed other churches by receiving support from them so as to serve you. ⁹ And when I was with you and needed something, I was not a burden to anyone, for the brothers who came from Macedonia supplied what I needed. I have kept myself from being a burden to you in any way, and will continue to do so. (2 Corinthians 11:7-9, NIV)

Finding Blessing in Want

Some Christians want to make the point that if we follow God, God will always give us financial blessings. There are times when God does bless us financially. There are also seasons where we don’t experience that blessing. God doesn’t always follow a predictable script, but he has reasons for doing what he does. In the short term Paul might not have understood why God’s provision was in short supply, but looking back later, he undoubtedly saw why God had allowed him to experience the temporary lack.

There are going to be times in our lives when we don’t feel as adequately supplied as we think we need. Like Paul, we might need to get inventive in order to keep doing what God has called us to, trusting that God has a blessing in mind. When our financial ducks aren’t in a row, it’s not a sign that God has abandoned us or that we haven’t properly discerned the direction God is leading us. God may be working to deepen our trust in him, or he may be putting us in a place to build important relationships. Whatever reasons we experience a seeming-interruption in financial provision, it very well might be that God is using the experience to provide important things for us in other areas of our lives.

Opposition 2: Religious Adversity

Paul Encounters Religious Opposition

Silas and Timothy bring gifts from the church in Macedonia allowing Paul to teach and preach full-time. Is this the end of the opposition he faces? Nope. Paul’s message stirs up passionate opposition against him.

Paul’s strategy involved preaching in synagogues. Jews had a built-in hope the Messiah’s coming so the message about Jesus had a hook with a Jewish audience. But the message divided the Jewish audience. Jesus, after all, wasn’t the kind of Messiah most Jews were expecting or hoping for. For people who felt God’s blessing on them was contingent on them keeping the law, Paul’s message that appeared to marginalize the law seemed like a recipe for God’s judgment on them. So despite the Jews’ messianic hope, they proved not to be a very receptive audience for Paul’s message.

Eventually things became violently contentious, so Paul had to adapt his strategy. Paul cared deeply for his own people and wanted them to acknowledge Jesus as their Messiah, But in Corinth, that door seemed closed. Persisting to preach in the synagogue wasn’t going to win any new converts

Paul sees in the opposition, not a sign that he should give up, but a signal that he should adapt. After warning the Jews in the synagogue that their blood was on their own heads (a statement that mirror’s Jeremiah’s warning to Judahites of his day) he changes his focus to Corinth’s Gentiles. He sets up shop next door (talk about rubbing salt in the wound) to the synagogue in the home of Titius Justus a God-worshiper Titius Justus would have been a Gentile who revered God but who hadn’t gone through with the surgery to become a full-fledged convert to Judaism. No doubt the success of Paul’s outreach to the Gentiles would have bred resentment among his opponents, but nevertheless, it proved successful.

When We Encounter Religious Opposition

As we reach out into our community in mission, not everyone is going to be pleased. The opposition isn’t necessarily a sign that we’re doing the wrong thing. But neither is it proof that we’re doing the right thing. For example the infamous Westboro Baptist Church that picketed funerals of dead American service members with placards proclaiming God’s hatred of the LGBT community were opposed. In their case, the opposition was because their behaviour was hate masquerading as godliness. On the other hand, Christians often face opposition from people who see the world differently.

When we encounter opposition, we should read it neither as legitimation of what we’re doing, nor of a sign that we’re doing the wrong thing. Instead, we should seek discernment from God. We can humbly pray that God would reveal if we are being opposed because we’ve gotten off track or are we being opposed by people who misunderstand what we’re trying to do or who oppose the message of Jesus’ upside-down kingdom? If we’re following Jesus, we can push through. In Paul’s case Jesus appears to him to reassure him.

Sometimes opposition signals a need for us to adapt. In Paul’s case, the violent opposition that he faced in the synagogue meant that his ministry there wasn’t going to be productive. If every time you speak, there’s a brawl, there’s not really much of a chance for their to be constructive dialogue. While Paul’s overarching goal (proclaiming Jesus’ reign) stays the same, his approach to that goal adapts to his reality. Like Paul, we need an unchanging goal for our ministry: to be a faithful church who proclaim’s Jesus’s lordship by demonstrating the love and power of God at work among us. While our goal is unmoving, the way we approach our goal needs to be nimble.

The pace of social and economic change in our world today is greater than at any time in the past. So to make the most of the opportunities we have, we need to be willing to adapt quickly. This means we need to be willing to give up on things that were fruitful in the past, but have stopped working. I’ve heard stories about how in the past, our church would host bean suppers to reach out to students at Northern College. It was a great idea that met a need at the time. But if we decided to try it today, I don’t imagine it would be as successful. There are fewer students and many of them are are international, so would be looking for different food. We could insist that we need to keep doing bean suppers, but maybe that effort would be better spent in other places.

Old ways don’t work forever, so we need to be open to new ways. New ways means fresh ideas, often coming from fresh places. If you see an opportunity and have ideas about how we can use it, feel free to share it. Ideas don’t need to originate from people in places of formal leadership. Churches often default to a posture that says, “That’s not how we’ve done it before” But I want us to discipline ourselves that when new ideas pop up, the first questions we ask are “How can we make the idea even better?” and “How can we help you get it done?”

Opposition 3: Legal Opposition

Charges Against Paul

In the final part of our main passage today, we see Paul facing legal opposition. Paul’s religious opponents, angered by his success with Gentile converts, try to bring legal charges against Paul. This might boggle our minds – why do they think they could get the secular authority to rule on religious disputes? It might seem to us like a protestant suing a Catholic because of what Catholics believe happen to the bread and wine during the Eucharist. But there are some issues here that are different form our context.

The Roman State isn’t secular There is an official religion that all people are expected to participate in. While Roman religion isn’t exclusive (The Roman authorities don’t mind you worshiping your own gods) it does demand that you participate.

Jews, however, have an exemption from participating in Roman state religion. Over centuries of occupation, the occupying powers have realized it’s too much trouble to try to force the Jews to go along. This was especially true in military service (Jews wouldn’t fight on Sabbath) and in offical Roman (they refused to worship other gods). Administratively, these exemptions weren’t a big problem, because Jews were a small percentage of the population, and the demand that men converting to Judaism get circumcised (in days before anesthetic) meant that it was always going to stay a small percentage of the population.

Since Christianity started as a sect within Judaism, the authorities considered Christians to be Jews, so same exemptions applied to Christians. But because Christians didn’t require circumcision and because it was proving so appealing to Gentiles, it became a threat to Jewish privileges. If anyone can get out of serving in the army by claiming to be a Christian (and therefore entitled to Jewish exemptions) that might make the authorities more likely to just scrap the Jewish exceptions.

So the Jews who are making charges against Paul are saying Paul’s teaching puts him outside of Judaism, Instead, he’s practicing an unrecognized religion that shouldn’t entitle him to exemptions. They’re asking Gallio, the Roman Governor, to unrecognize Christianity as an accepted religion.

This group of Jews may also fear that Paul’s preaching will cause such an uproar that the Jews will be forced to leave Corinth as they were forced to leave Rome. While they’re the ones causing the uproar, they no doubt feel that responsibility would be Paul’s because he’s the one rocking boat.

In many places in Acts, Paul gets to make a speech defending the faith, but not here. Gallio refuses the hear the case, and the Christians can go on using Jewish religious exemptions for about another 10 years.

The story ends with the crowd turning on the Jewish synagogue leader—Sosthenes—whose beating Gallio ignores. Gallio seems to be an anti-semite who doesn’t feel he needs to be concerned for the wellbeing of the Jews under his charge.

God’s Protection of his Church

While we sometimes complain about Government’s handling of faith, historically speaking, we have it pretty good.

Our government has no interest in forcing a type of religion on to us. For the most part, they let us practice our faith in peace. This is a tremendous blessing, and an historical aberration, that we often take for granted. So in trying to apply this section, I’m not going to talk about how to respond the next time you’re dragged into court for your religion.

But in this passage we can see how Jesus protects his people in unexpected ways. The Lord had appeared to Paul and reassured him that he was looking out for him. We might expect God putting angels around Paul to protect him, But we can also see Jesus using the negative qualities of some —Gallio’s antisemitism—as a tool he can employ to keep Paul safe. This doesn’t mean Jesus approves of Gallio’s prejudice. It just means he can use it for his purposes.

Certainly Paul wouldn’t have expected government antisemitism to protect him, but in this case it does. It shows us how God’s sovereignty works in the world: the bad things we encounter can still be a part of God’s plan. We see this in Israel’s story with Babylon. God allows the Babylonians to take Judah into exile. The Babylonians are arrogant, proud and brutal, and eventually God judges them for that. But God is able to harness their will to dominate other nations. Judah discovers there are consequences for disobeying God but the exile results in a scattering of the Jewish population. This Jewish diaspora community becomes the launching pad for much of Paul’s later mission throughout the Mediterranean world. So God put the Babylonian’s wickedness to use in a way that allowed for a blessing in the future.

As we try to faithfully follow God, there will be good stuff and bad stuff that happens. The bad things might lead us to question God’s faithfulness, but we can see how God may be using it to plant the seeds of a later blessing. But the opposition we face might be setting up circumstances where the gospel can be proclaimed. The opposition might help to cultivate perseverance. As Peter, toward the end of his life writes:

⁶ In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. ⁷ These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed (1 Peter 1:6-7, NIV).

We can face opposition in the knowledge that God goes with us. He doesn’t promise that everything will go easily as we follow Yet we can see that he is faithful. He uses the experiences of opposition as a way of furthering his work.

If God is calling you to a closer walk with him (and you can bet that he is) know that it will not be without its costs. But also know that no matter the unexpected twists or turns our journey takes, no matter what forces are arrayed against us, he is with us, watching over us working through the opposition and proving himself faithful. So let’s not be discouraged because whatever we face, we face it with our faithful Lord by our side.