Acts 18:18-23 - Homiletics

The concise narrative.

The grain of mustard seed becomes a great tree, and the fowls of the air lodge in its branches. Could we unfold all that is covered under these few words, whole volumes of surpassing interest might be evolved. The occasion and motives of Paul's vow; the first visit to the capital of Proconsular Asia, to be afterwards the scene of such great events; Pentecost at Jerusalem; the interview with James and the elders of Jerusalem; his thoughts in the metropolis of Christianity, in the stronghold of Judaism, about the aspects of the Church, and the relations of his Corinthians converts to the believing priests and Pharisees at Jerusalem; the execution of his vow, and the state of his feeling towards the temple and its services: his return to Antioch, the metropolis of Gentile Christianity, the new Rome, as it were, of the Christian world; his meeting with old disciples; his narratives of God's work in the new world of Europe, just conquered for the God of Israel; his possible meeting again with Barnabas there, and their tearful reconciliation, and the binding up of the old wound so painful to two good and loving hearts; and then the long and wearisome journey, full of labor and peril, through Phrygia and Galatia; the aspect of old friends and old enemies; the new conquests for Christ, the new triumphs of the gospel, perhaps fresh disappointments from the fickleness of the Gaulish character; were all this told, and the skeleton verses before us filled in with all this life and action, what volumes we should have! But it has pleased God to seal up all these books, and hide them from our eyes. It is our part to be thankful for what we have, and to draw the lesson that the silence of Scripture is as surely ordered as its revelations are, anti that we must read, not to satisfy our curiosity, but to edify our souls.