A summary of the sermon preached at this evening’s celebration, on...


Acts 18:24-28

Moving up a gear spiritually


Twice in quick succession, in Acts 18 and 19, we encounter people who have a rudimentary faith, but of both it is said that they only know the baptism of John – Apollos in 18:25 and the twelve disciples that Paul meets in 19:1-6.


To say that they knew only the baptism of John means that they knew the basics of Christian faith – that they had come to believe – but that they were not yet living in the fullness of Christian life, of life in the Spirit.


The fact that Luke gives us these two accounts one after the other shows that he wants us to take seriously the fact that some people have this kind of rudimentary faith – and he wants us to know that they can move up a gear spiritually, and enter into the fullness of real Christian life.


So let’s start by saying two very important things about both Apollos and the Ephesian twelve.


1. They were genuine believers


Look at the things said about them. “[Apollos] had been instructed in the way of the Lord” (18:25)... he taught accurately about Jesus” (18:25). The twelve are called “disciples” (19:1) –Paul asks them whether they received the Spirit “when you believed” (19:2) – he accepts them as believers.


Their faith was rudimentary – but it was real. These people are not unsaved – but they are still not living in the full reality of Christian life.


There can be a danger of assuming that someone who is not living in the fullness of the Spirit is simply not a believer – well, Apollos was, and the Ephesian twelve were.


Faith in Jesus is real and saving faith – we’ll come in a moment to spell out what the essence of that basic faith in Jesus is. But it’s the foundation, not the fullness.


The fact that they have only basic, rudimentary faith is never criticised – they are not dismissed or “put down” because they are still in first gear spiritually.


But that leads us to the second thing about them – they were genuine believers – but, second...


2. They were willing to move on


They did not assume that they were alright as they were. They didn’t say, “It’s OK – I believe in Jesus – that’ll do!” They were open to be helped to the next level.


In the case of Apollos in particular, that demonstrates a remarkable grace. Apollos was a very learned and educated man (18:24), but he was willing to be taught by Priscilla and Aquila, who were much more like “ordinary” people (18:3).


These disciples in first gear were ready to move up a gear – they didn’t resent the suggestion that they had only rudimentary faith – they wanted more. They were teachable – they were not like those believers who seem to stay at the same level year after year.


Those two facts need to be held on to – they were real believers – but they were eager to grow into more of the fullness of Christian life.


So we’ll look this week at what they had – then we’ll come next week to what they lacked – and at how they moved on.


What they had


As we said, these people were believers – but in a rudimentary sense.


It’s important to note that the Bible never raises the question whether or not they were saved in “heavenly” terms – in other words, whether, if they had dropped dead before Aquila and Priscilla or Paul had started helping them to the next level, they would have “gone to heaven”.


That’s not how the Bible normally thinks – but it’s usually the only way our culture thinks – “have they crossed the line, are they going to heaven or hell?”


It’s a real question, and salvation is about being rescued from hell and judgement – but it’s not how the New Testament normally thinks. It is far more interested in the quality of life that people are living – whether they are living in the fullness of the Spirit.


When Priscilla and Aquila meet Apollos, their concern is not to question or debate whether or not he is “saved” – they know he is – but that his understanding of what it means to live a saved life is still at a fairly basic level.


The same word – translated “accurately” – is used twice in verses 24-28 – in verse 25 it says that he taught “accurately” about Jesus – he had a real level of understanding of who Jesus was and what he had come into the world to do – he did not have a distorted or heretical view of Jesus – but then in verse 28 the same word is used in the comparative form, when it says that Priscilla and Aquila taught him the way of God “more accurately” – in other words, his faith and understanding were good as far as they went, but they could go further – and Priscilla and Aquila helped him to move on to the next level.


Priscilla and Aquila’s approach was not “you’re wrong – we’ll put you right” – it was, “you’re right – so now we’ll help you to discover even more of what it means to be right”.


Many modern evangelicals would want a simplistic answer to the question, was Apollos already saved: yes or no?


If you really demand an answer, the answer is “yes” – but Aquila and Priscilla’s concern is to build him up to a fuller and richer quality of discipleship.


So what did Apollos and the Ephesian twelve have that made it clear that, however rudimentary their faith and understanding, they were Christian converts?


The phrase that is used of both of them is that they knew the baptism of John (18:25, 19:3) – in other words, they had responded properly to John’s message – had believed it properly, and had been baptised properly on the basis of it.


That means that there are two essential elements in their faith – and these need to be the elements that define for us whether or not someone is a Christian – they need to be the basis of baptism.


1. Repentance


John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance, as Paul points out in 19:4 – John preached, “repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand”.


To “repent” means to turn or change – to change direction, to do a U-turn – to turn to God.


There are a number of strands to properly understanding repentance.



John the Baptist refused to baptise some Jews who thought that the mere fact that they were born as Jews meant they were already acceptable to God – on the contrary, he says, God is quite capable of raising up children of Abraham from the stones lying around on the ground.


Repentance begins when we recognise and acknowledge that, as we are, we are not acceptable to God – that whatever our background, culture, lifestyle, virtues, we are sinners who have fallen short of the glory of God.


If I am to be acceptable to God and accepted by God, something has to change.



Not only am I going the wrong way, but if I continue to go along the same way, it can lead only to God’s judgement and condemnation of my sins. John warned people to “flee from the coming wrath” (Matthew 3:7). Paul in Ephesians 2:3 says that all people are by nature “objects of wrath” – that is, we face the righteous judgement of God for our sins.


Repentance starts when we recognise that we are on the wrong track – that we are heading for judgement...



Third, repentance has to mean a recognition of the need to turn to God, and to God’s way of life.


We sometimes speak of becoming a Christian as asking God to be part of your life – but that can give the impression that your life is the same as it was before, only now it’s got God in it – that God is added onto the life we already have, like the icing on the cake.


It’s not just that I need God in my life – it’s that I need to change the life I have and that I live.


The changes that are involved can be summarised under two headings: changes in your mindset and changes in your morals.


In mindset – we need to start to think differently – to stop thinking like our world and our culture do, and try and slot belief in God into that mindset – rather, we need to start to think with God’s mindset – to see things as he sees them, to think with the worldview of the Kingdom of God.


We no longer live as part of this world, but just with a new belief in Jesus and better morals – rather, we now live for the Kingdom of God, which requires us to do a complete U-turn in our thinking about life, the universe and everything – about what’s right and wrong, about how we make decisions, about how we relate to people.


One reason why many people find trying to live a Christian life so frustrating is that in fact they are still living the same life they had before, except that they now have God to help them – but they haven’t changed the whole framework of their lives – they haven’t, in that sense, “repented”.


In morals – we need to be ready to change the way we live so that it conforms to God’s righteous standards – and that will invariably challenge us.


You know those puzzles which show two similar pictures, but in which there are differences – and you have to spot the differences – that’s what we have to do if we are to repent – there are two “pictures” – our lives as they are – and the perfect life of God’s Kingdom, as we see it lived in Jesus and described in the Bible – and we have to “spot the differences” – and having spotted them, we then need to change so that out lives match those of God’s perfect template.


That’s repentance – we see the need to change.


And the fourth element in repentance is...



It’s not enough to see the need to change – or to want to change – or to wish you could change.


To repent means to choose that you actually will change.


It’s not a matter of wanting to – like the person who says that he needs to give up smoking, as he lights up another cigarette – the fact is, he hasn’t repented of tobacco!


Many people will say that they cannot change, just as the smoker will say he can’t give it up – that’s actually not true.


Anything God wants you to change – you can change – because God will always enable you to turn from what you need to turn from.


“I can’t” is a lie that you need to reject – anything God wants you to turn from, he will give you the ability to turn from.


So – the first element in “first gear” faith is repentance – recognising that my life will not do as it is – that I face God’s judgement – that I need to turn to God – and choosing so to turn.


Hand in hand with that first element of repentance is also a second...


2. Faith


Apollos and the Ephesian twelve had believed – Apollos had accepted the basic truths about Jesus, because, we are told, “he had been instructed in the way of the Lord... he taught accurately about Jesus”.


Paul reminds the Ephesian disciples that John’s ministry was to teach people to believe in Jesus (19:5).


So what kind of “faith” are we talking about, that is the necessary beginning of “first gear Christianity”?



As Paul says, John the Baptist told people to believe in Jesus.


Not just general belief in God – but faith in Jesus.



Faith in the Bible never means simply believing things in your head – it always means trusting a person with your life, trusting Jesus to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves.


That brings us to the next thing about faith...



Faith does not mean believing things about Jesus – it means asking Jesus to save you and help you.


Imagine a lifeboat – it is possible for someone to say they believe a number of things about a lifeboat – they believe that it made of such and such a material, and that it will carry so many people, and that it will float (!)


But faith in the New Testament sense is the faith that, recognising that the ship is sinking, gets into the lifeboat.


And faith in Jesus always means getting on board with Jesus, because he’s the only one who can save us.



Many people ask God to help them with day to day issues – to look after their children, to heal their illnesses, to protect them, etc.


It’s perfectly right to ask God for help with life issues like that – and he will – but faith in the New Testament sense means the faith that looks to Jesus for salvation from sin, death and hell.


It’s faith that asks for the gift of eternal life, not just for a better life.



Jesus is not a quick fix. There are a number of conditions that require a short course of treatment, and when the treatment is done, that’s it – you never need bother with it again. And there are people who will treat Jesus like that – when I’m under pressure, when I’m in need, I call out to the Lord – then, when I’ve got over the present crisis, my interest in Jesus takes a back seat – at least until the next crisis!


But that’s not faith – biblical faith is the faith that becomes the deciding factor in our lives.


If we regard our lives as an old-fashioned wheel with lots of spokes and a hub in the middle, many people decide that they would like Jesus to be part of their lives – to become one of the spokes – but faith means that Jesus becomes the new hub of the wheel – he is the centre of everything, the one who shapes everything else in our lives.


And finally...



This is part of Christian first-gear faith. To be baptised expresses the fact that we have come to the faith that asks Jesus to wash us clean from our sins – and that wishes to be identified with Jesus as the one for whom we now live.


In baptism, God plugs our lives into the new, resurrection life of Jesus.


That is basic faith – rudimentary faith – “first-gear” faith. That’s the faith that Apollos and the Ephesian twelve already had when Priscilla and Aquila, and Paul, first met them.


But they were lacking something – they were still in Christian first gear – it was time for them to move up into second gear.


We’ll come next week to look at what second-gear faith is like, and how we move up a gear.


But just before we close for today, we need to say a word about what “first-gear faith” is not – if the repentance and faith are what is necessary to be “in gear” at all, rather than spiritually in neutral, then we need to be clear that other things might be missing from somebody’s life, but it doesn’t mean that they’re not yet a Christian.


For example, Apollos knew about and believed in Jesus, but he was not living in the reality of a relationship with Jesus through the Holy Spirit – that would be part of what Priscilla and Aquila would explain to him “more accurately”.


There are those who would say, if someone is not living in that close personal relationship with Jesus, “Oh, well, that means they aren’t really born again!” Be careful! – that’s where Apollos was, and he is treated by Priscilla and Aquila, not as an unbeliever needing conversion, but as an immature Christian needing nurture.


Or the Ephesian twelve say that they know nothing of the Holy Spirit – and there are those enthusiastic Christians who would say that anyone who isn’t filled with the Spirit simply isn’t a Christian – isn’t born again.


Again, be careful! – that’s where the Ephesian twelve were, but Paul calls them believers – they are however lacking the fullness of what faith should always lead to.


There are believers who have not got hold of important aspects of what it means to live as a Christian – things like prayer – or thinking in Kingdom terms about how you see your role at work, or in the family, say.


That is part of what Aquila and Priscilla would call explaining the way of the Lord “more accurately” – it’s part of the greater fullness which is the Christian norm – but not having it yet doesn’t mean someone isn’t born again.


The essential basis of faith – what distinguishes the Christian from the not-yet-Christian – is repentance and faith – recognising one’s sin and turning from it, and trusting in Jesus to save us from it.


That isn’t the end – that is just the beginning – it’s moving spiritually into first gear – but if you have a life-long journey to pursue, you don’t want to do the whole thing in first gear!


So we’ll come next week to look at moving into second gear – the greater fullness that Priscilla and Aquila explained “more accurately” to Apollos, and that Paul introduced the Ephesian disciples to.