Acts 18:28

CONVINCED FROM THE SCRIPTURES

‘For he mightily convinced the Jews, and that publicly, shewing by the Scriptures that Jesus was Christ.’

Acts 18:28

‘He convinced.’ But what was the process which he took to convince? You find it in the following chapter, as Paul used it—‘Disputing and persuading.’ ‘Disputing’ in the Greek shows exactly what is meant—it is reasoning—‘reasoning and persuading.’ First there was the explanation of the passage, then there was the exhortation to adopt it. First his address was to the human intellect, and then the address was to the human heart. This was the reasoning he adopted, and which St. Paul adopted too.

I. Reason is not ignored by Christianity; reason is honoured by the Christian faith. Your sceptic and your rationalist and your atheist, when they talk of reason, say that we ignore it, misjudge us. We ignore reason as the foundation. We say it is not the foundation. Just as Bacon did in the principles of philosophy. Before Bacon’s day reason was supposed to be the foundation of philosophy, but he showed that the foundation was really the laws of nature, the discoveries of natural science, and reason was the builder and operator upon those discoveries. And so precisely in Christian ethics; reason is not the foundation, because I am a fallen man.

II. Truth is the foundation, and the glorious facts of the redemption revealed by Jesus Christ, and reason builds upon these the superstructure of Christian faith. Thus it is, you see, St. Paul and Apollos convinced. Well, there is need to convince now. Never was a time since the Ascension of Christ that Jesus was more passionately adored than at the present moment; but there never was a time when he had to bear the glare of hatred and defiance of man more than he has at the present moment; and between these two poles of contemplative thought, brought to bear upon the person of the Master, there are varied shades of thought and feeling, and these shades in some cases detract from the fullness of the trust in the work He did. And thus you find there is need to go forth to-day, to convince and show out of the Scriptures that Jesus is the Christ.

III. There is reason for all things when you come to reason out of the Scriptures. When you and I travel farther on than Apollos travelled, and come to Jesus Himself, we see Him and His marvellous life, and see, moreover, the wonderful miracles He wrought; we see Cana of Galilee, how the water blushed to see its Maker and turned into wine, and when you come to think of Holy Writ, those beautiful Scriptures out of which he pled, I ask you, what is the Bible? Can you tell me it is nothing but human wisdom that was transfigured, that the water of human thought was transfigured by Divine inspiration until the human mind of the writer gave forth the beautiful language of Divine inspiration? And then you come to the miracle of the twelve baskets. Here you have the rays of His divinity poured forth. You see the man, but there shines out from time to time those marvellous miracles of His, and those miracles were the manifestations of divinity, for the fullness of the Godhead was in Him. No wonder that Apollos convinced them. No wonder the mind of man, oscillating between doubt and difficulty, became convinced and settled, because he was pleading with those who believed that the Old Testament Scriptures were given of the inspiration of God, and were profitable for doctrine, correction, reproof, and instruction in righteousness.

—Rev. Dr. Concannon.

Illustration

‘Apollos was instructed in the way of the Lord. That of which the early teaching of John in the baptism of repentance was the opening up, the teaching which he received when he was brought to the house of Aquila and Priscilla perfected, as he was taught in the way of the Lord, and the great dawn of the morning of Christianity that shone on his soul ripened into the splendour of the meridian light of the full Gospel. It was precisely the same thing with the celebrated Erskine, of Scotland, He knew what I call a confused gospel. There are some men whose minds are not clear, and if you do not know a thing clearly, you cannot convey it clearly. But it happened that on a Sunday morning that his study window was open, and his brother Ralph Erskine, a distinguished Christian, was talking to the wife of Mr. Erskine, both of them enlightened, and as he listened he found they possessed a secret he did not, and the consequence was that he came as Apollos did to Priscilla and Aquila, and he communed with them and the Spirit blessed it; and he came to know what I hope you know, the fullness of the blessing of the Gospel of Christ.’