Actes 18:1-28

And he went through Syria and Cilicia confirming the churches.

Paul as a model for all gospel ministers

He recognises the importance of--

I. Establishing new converts in the faith. In this visit he does not break new ground, but goes over the old scenes. Who that remembers the treatment which he met with at Lystra can fail to admire his magnanimity and dauntless heroism in entering this place again? Note in relation to his confirmatory work--

1. The method (Actes 16:4). He carried with him wherever he went, and expounded, the apostolic letter from Jerusalem (Actes 15:23).

2. The success (Actes 16:5). Here was--

(1) Moral increase--“established in the faith.” Their views became clearer; their principles struck a deeper root; their attachment to Christ attained a greater strength. Their religion passed from the region of theories and feelings into their heart and life.

(2) Numerical increase--“increased in number daily.” Let Christians improve in character, and converts will multiply daily. This confirmatory work is preeminently the work of Christians in this age and land of ours. A reconverted Church is essential to the conversion of the world.

II. Enlisting true coadjutors in the work. Off the page of history stands there a man more brave, mighty, self-dependent than Paul. Yet he needs a companion. He lost Barnabas, and he “chose Silas,” and took with him Timotheus. Christ knew our social needs, and hence, in sending out His disciples and apostles, He sent them in twos. One supplements the deficiencies of the other; in the breast of one there lies a spark to rekindle the waning fire of the other’s zeal. He selected the best man as his social helper. In a great work, link not yourselves to spiritually common men when you may get moral peers and princes.

III. Accommodating himself to public sentiment. The Jews believed in circumcision. Although the rite was no longer binding, it was not yet a moral wrong; and hence Paul, in accommodation to the popular sentiment, circumcises Timothy. His fixed line of procedure was to act on the cities through the synagogues. But such a course would have been impossible had not Timothy been circumcised (Actes 21:29). The very intercourse of social life would have been almost impossible, for it was still “an abomination” for the circumcised to eat with the uncircumcised. In all this Paul was consistent with himself, with his own grand axiom, “I am all things to all men, that I might save some.”

IV. Yielding to the dictates of the Divine Spirit (Actes 16:6).

1. There is a Divine Spirit, and that Spirit has access to the human spirit.

2. If we are the true ministers of Christ, His Spirit, according to tits promise, is with us--“Lo, I am with you always.”

(1) The will of that Spirit must be obeyed: to oppose that is sin, weakness, ruin.

(2) The will of that Spirit is knowable: He gives indications by impressions within and by events without. (D. Thomas, D. D.).