Bible Study With Jairus - Acts 18

As we mentioned last time, Paul met Aquila and his wife Priscilla. They were Jews coming from Rome to Italy. Paul had already left Athens and they all came to meet in Corinth. I’ve said before that their meeting was a turning point in Paul's spiritual life. Why do I say that? We usually think that Paul is an apostle, so he is always better than others and there is no need for him to learn from others. This isn’t the case. All of us have a learning process. Even when the Lord Jesus was on earth, He needed to learn to grow in the grace of God and man. Similarly, Paul also went through a learning process. In our study on Acts 17 last time, we mentioned that Paul may have made a mistake of being rash in Athens. He may have been influenced by the environment possibly having a negative rather than positive effect on evangelism. But in Acts 18, it shows the process by which the Holy Spirit further led and perfected Paul through the circumstances.

Let's take a closer look.

The Holy Spirit patiently leads us into God's will for our lives.

The Lord Jesus said that, “Everything is in the hands of the Father. No two sparrows will fall to the ground without His consent.” (Matthew 10:29). Aquila and his wife Priscilla had just left Rome to Corinth because Claudius had ordered all the Jews to leave Rome. Paul also came to Corinth from Athens. Is it accidental that they met there? No. Everything is arranged by the sovereignty of God. The purpose was to let Paul be further perfected and receive help from others in his ministry.

There is some deeper insight here that the Holy Spirit allowed me to see while reading the Bible. It takes time for a person to completely follow the Lord and walk on the predestined path that He has laid out for us. However, often at the beginning we might not have a clear idea about what God’s will is or how to obey it; so we spend our time and energy following another path and are unable to unleash the gift that God has given us. For example, If you are called to minister in music but you spend all of your time learning to paint because you didn’t follow your heart, it results in failure and has very little effect for the kingdom. When you finally understand that music is your gift and you throw yourself into it, you will find that God has opened all the doors. Another example would be if God called you to be a cartoonist but instead you studied finance because your parents wanted you to be able to support yourself. When you realize that there is no joy in finance and you return to the industry you love, things will flow and you will be successful in the end. There are many examples like this.
Read More: jbwm.org/acts/