From Accurate To MORE ACCURATE S5e117 Acts18:26

Apollos is such a good speaker and leader that it eventually causes a bit of hero worship in Corinth, "I follow Apollos..." Today, we see, besides his natural gifts of eloquence, boldness, and competency a very admirable quality. He is Competent in the Scriptures. He starts ACCURATELY. But when a more mature man and woman in Ephesus fill in his theology he gets MORE ACCURATE.

This is what it means to be competent in the scriptures.  Start with Accuracy.  Move every day to MORE accurate.  

Please follow on Facebook, subscribe at bewithme.us and/or bewithme.us@gmail.com . Be like Apollos and be more competent tomorrow. 7 minutes attached to something you do every day that also takes 7 minutes.  Maybe set the table.  Maybe let the dog out. Maybe take your shower.  Maybe get dressed.  Event stack this podcast in your life to seek to be MORE ACCURATE tomorrow.

Transcript

Michael Smith: 0:00

Good morning, my brothers and sisters Welcome to Episode 117 of be with me in the book of Acts. I'm going to title today from accurate to more accurate, we're going to feature a guy named Apollo system as we get to him, but we've got hundreds of miles of Journey to go before we get to him, we are concluding the second missionary journey and starting the third missionary journey to verses talk about literally 1000s of miles of real estate. And maybe a year's worth of time. Let me start with this. This is Paul finishing his second missionary journey, and going to his third missionary journey after a little bit of a rest. I'm going to start in Acts chapter 18. I'm going to start in Ephesus because that's where he leaves. That's like his last big stop on his second missionary journey. And he's going to get there in about two verses on his third missionary journey. So at this point in the story, he's leaving Ephesus, at the end of the second missionary journey, and heading back to Jerusalem and then Ania he's going to rest in Antioch for a little while, and then make a beeline to back to Ephesus. So feel this little circle that we're drawing here. This is verse 21. But on taking leave of them the Ephesians he said, I will return to you if God wills we talked about that yesterday, and he set sail from Ephesus and he landed at Cezary. Back in Israel. He went up in greeted the church, presumably in Jerusalem, and then went down. It's actually north, but it's downhill to Antioch, the port town. And that's where he started the second missionary journey. And this concludes the second missionary journey of 2500 miles or something like that. Sorry, 3050 Miles 3000 mile journey. After spending some time there, that is an Antioch he departed. So he's leaving again, this is 52 ad, maybe six months or 18 months, some of them something like that. He departs and went from one place to the next through the region of Glacia in Phrygia. So remember, Glacia is not a town, it's a region it's a whole, maybe 100 or 150 square mile region in central turkey. So he goes from Antioch on the eastern end of Turkey basically walks the distance of Turkey. He walks through central Turkey going through the region of Galicia and Phrygia strengthen, strengthening all the disciples. In meanwhile, he's going to head to Ephesus and the rest of the story today is about what has been happening to Ephesus. Listen here, verse 24. Now a Jew named Apollo's a native of Alexandria came to Ephesus, he, he was an eloquent man competent in the scriptures, he'd been instructed in the way of the Lord and being fervent in spirit he spoke and taught accurately. The things concerning Jesus though he knew only the baptism of John, he began to speak boldly in the synagogue when Priscilla and Aquilla, who Paul had left there in Ephesus heard him they took him and explained to him the way of God more accurately so he went from accurate, more accurate, and when he wished to cross to Acacia bed that is back to Greece. The brothers encouraged him and wrote to the disciples to welcome him when he arrived, he greatly helped those who through grace had believed for he powerfully refuted the Jews and public showing by the scripture that the Christ was Jesus. Alright, so let me talk about Apollo's first of all, he comes from what country he comes from Egypt. Remember, Egypt has been the traditional enemy of Israel for 4000 years. And so what is it that we have this remnant believer, this devout guy coming from Alexandria, Egypt, and coming in then they get this incredible description. He's eloquent, he's competent, he instructs, he teaches accurately, he's bold. He read, he received explanation from the man Priscilla, and the woman Akula in a, you know, private teaching session and became more accurate, then he's a great helper of the churches and he shows by the scriptures, that the Christ was Jesus. So First Corinthians, remember the statement in First Corinthians, the problem with with the Corinthians is they they were kind of like People worshippers a little bit and they were fans of my pastors better than your pastors and the line in in grid Theuns is I follow Paul, I follow Apollos and so in other words that there's this like division based on the personality of the teachers where you can see why people follow Apollo, this is the Apollo's that Corinthians talks about this eloquent competent, instructed more accurate guy, competent the scriptures alright. So, let me define what I think competent in the Scripture means and that is, take what Scriptures gives you and then in Apollo's cases, he starts from accurate, and then he goes to more accurate. So, the, the second point is, after take what Scripture gives you is keep taking what Scripture gives you that is go from accurate, to more accurate. So we find in in the story today, what is happening at Ephesus is that these faithful people, this Jew, guy, a, Priscilla, and Aquilla make this other guy, this enemy Egyptian guy more accurate in the Scriptures by taking them side and teaching him more about the baptism not just of John which was one of repentance, but that of the Holy Spirit. So this is kind of the back of the ranch story. Using Ephesus while Paul goes 800 miles back to Jerusalem and back to Antioch and then marches 800 mile journey to Ephesus. So my my big point today is and this is something I think all of us have is let's start with accurate start with the scriptures. And then let's go to more accurate so get up tomorrow and let's be more accurate and then get up the next day and be more accurate. Let's be like Apollo's maybe we can't be as eloquent and competent as instructed but we can we can move towards accuracy with the scriptures. I'll see you tomorrow more accurate day. Thanks