Apollos Preacher Man

Imagine you are lecturing at a colloquium at one of the Ivy League universities. You are a postdoctoral fellow and are poised to become the next Einstein of your field. After your lecture, a janitor approaches you and firmly but kindly lists several points that were incorrect in your presentation. What would you do?

Apollos was a Jewish contemporary of the apostle Paul. Described as “eloquent” and “mighty in the Scriptures” (Acts 18:24), he was a powerful teacher, studied, astute, and talented, who had traveled many miles to Ephesus. Crowds gathered in the synagogue to hear this gifted preacher. However, after he had finished speaking, a couple of tentmakers approached him. Their names were Aquila and Priscilla, a man and his wife who were faithful Christians in their own right.

In private, they told Apollos that there were some important facts missing from his vast array of knowledge (v. 26). While Apollos was a devout student of the Scriptures, he had been taught only up to the preaching of John the Baptist (v. 25). He, like John, believed that Jesus was the Messiah, but he was ignorant of the full meaning of that statement, how Jesus’ death and resurrection meant salvation offered freely to all men, how Jesus had given us the gift of the Holy Spirit, how the gospel was to go to the whole world.

This meeting with Aquila and Priscilla was a massive turning point for Apollos. It was as though he were holding a single candle up to a portrait before Aquila and Priscilla drew back the curtains and flooded the entire room with the noonday sun. This was the answer he had been searching for, the complementary half of the message he had been preaching. Apollos was not too proud nor too stubborn to be a teachable teacher. With joy he accepted the good news and continued on as a true evangelist. Welcomed into the Christian church, he worked in tandem with Paul as a missionary, bringing many others into the faith (vv. 27, 28; 1 Corinthians 16:12; Titus 3:13).

Reflect: Have you reached a point in your faith where you think you know it all? Are you complacent about your knowledge of God? Humbly seek a closer walk with the Lord and ask for a deeper understanding of His will for your life.

Key Bible Texts

Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be yet wiser: teach a just man, and he will increase in learning. (Proverbs 9:9 KJV)