Acts 18:5-11 meaning

Paul is finally reunited with Timothy and Silas in Acts 18:5-11.

Paul had relocated from Athens to Corinth during his missionary journey in Greece. In Corinth, he found a room in the house of a married couple of tent-makers, Aquila and Priscilla. Also a tent-maker by trade, Paul began working alongside them during the week. Then every Sabbath (Saturday), Paul goes to the Corinthian synagogue to preach and persuade that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah.

At long last, Silas and Timothy come to Corinth:

But when Silas and Timothy came down from Macedonia, Paul began devoting himself completely to the word, solemnly testifying to the Jews that Jesus was the Christ (v. 5).

Silas and Timothy had remained in the city of Berea in Macedonia while Paul sailed down to Athens (See Map).  The Thessalonian Jews who were hostile to the gospel had followed Paul and company to Berea and were “agitating and stirring up the crowds,” so Paul left Berea to prevent escalation (Acts 17:13-14). Silas and Timothy were apparently not attracting the same amount of aggression as Paul had, so they were able to remain in Berea and continue to establish the new church there.

Paul had sent word to them to “come to him as soon as possible” (Acts 17:15). While it was good that Silas and Timothy were allowed more time in Berea to form the young church there, it likewise added a hardship to Paul’s ability to preach. He did not preach for financial gain, but worked to support himself and not be a burden to anyone (1 Thessalonians 2:9, 2 Thessalonians 3:7-8, 1 Corinthians 9:12, Acts 20:33-34). We learned in the previous section that Paul earned his living from making tents (Acts 18:3).

Since he has been on his own, most of Paul’s time has been spent working as a tent-maker to pay for his upkeep. In Corinth, he has only been able to preach once a week at the synagogue.

But now that Silas and Timothy have come down to Macedonia, Paul is able to preach full-time. Part of Silas and Timothy’s function in Paul’s ministry team was apparently to work jobs and bring in enough income to live on. Though their needs were few and simple, someone had to earn money to meet those needs.

Now reunited with his co-ministers, Paul began devoting himself completely to the word (v. 5). He was able to completely focus on spreading the word, the message, about Jesus. Paul now is not only preaching in the synagogue on Sabbath, but during the week. He is probably also teaching in the marketplace.

The marketplace in the first century was a bustling hub of activity and conversation, not just a place to exchange goods for products. Luke specifies that Paul’s objective is to preach exclusively to the Jews and Jewish converts at this point, so that he was solemnly testifying to the Jews that Jesus was the Christ (v. 5).

In all his mission trips, Paul typically goes to the Jews first, and if they reject him, he extends the message to the pagan Gentiles. Here in Corinth, he is first solemnly testifying to the Jews. This phrase solemnly testifying is used many times in the New Testament, often in describing the serious manner in which the gospel was being preached (Acts 2:40, 8:25, 10:42, 20:21, 20:24, 23:11, 28:23).

Elsewhere it is translated as “solemnly charged” or even “solemnly warned” (1 Timothy 5:21, Luke 16:28, 1 Thessalonians 4:6). It has the tone of a most serious claim. A warning that must be heeded. It is the most important thing Paul can tell his audience and the most important thing they will ever hear in their lives. It is a deadly serious matter. There was a particular urgency for this first generation of Jews to repent and believe (Acts 2:40).

Paul preaches this fervent, weighty message to the Jews, teaching them that Jesus was the Christ. Every Jew, whether in Israel or Corinth, Greece, knew about the promise of the coming Christ (or “Messiah,” “anointed one”). The Hebrew scriptures were full of prophecies spoken by God to His people that He would send someone to save them (Daniel 7:13-14, 9:24, Psalm 16:9-11, Deuteronomy 18:15-16, Jeremiah 31:31).

Paul is telling the Jews in Corinth that they don’t need to wait for the Christ. He already came. He was and is Jesus, and He died for the sins of the world and was resurrected by God. He has ascended to Heaven to sit at the Father’s right hand as King of the world (Philippians 2:5-11). All that is required to be saved from sin and death is faith in Jesus (John 3:14-16).

But the majority of the Jews in Corinth reject Paul’s solemn testifying:

But…they resisted and blasphemed (v. 6).

These Corinthian Jews did not believe that Jesus was the Christ. They had no use for a messiah who was murdered by the Romans. Rome was still in charge of Israel. Rome was still the world power. Paul’s message that they needed to believe that God had brought this Man back to life and that He then ascended to Heaven was not what these Jews wanted to hear.

Perhaps they had no use for any sort of messiah at all. Many of them may have been content to live the life they were currently living, in the prosperous and beautiful city of Corinth. They resisted the gospel; they pushed back against it. They blasphemed as well. To blaspheme means “to vilify” or “to defame.” It is to speak evil of someone or to speak an evil thing.

Jesus was often accused of blasphemy because He claimed to be God, which the Jewish leaders viewed as evil, defamatory speech toward the Holy God. They would have been right if Jesus were really just a mere man. But Jesus proved through His works time and again that He was the Son of God (Matthew 3:16-17, 17:5, Mark 2:5-12, John 9:33, 11:38-44).

Notwithstanding, the Jews in Corinth resisted and blasphemed God’s own message. They fought against God and spoke evil of God’s good news. Their resistance could have included slandering the messenger who spoke the gospel. At this moment, Paul gives up on the Jews in Corinth. Their hearts are closed to God’s word. They are not receptive. They oppose the gospel. They are like the seed in Jesus’s “Parable of the Sower” which fell by the road and was carried off by the birds (Matthew 13:19). Their hearts were dull and they had shut their eyes (Matthew 13:15). There is nothing more to do for them.

So when they resisted and blasphemed, Paul shook out his garments and said to them, “Your blood be on your own heads! I am clean. From now on I will go to the Gentiles” (v. 6).

Jesus commanded His disciples to shake the dust off their feet to whomever did not listen to their gospel-preaching (Matthew 10:14-16). Paul is doing something similar here. By shaking out his garments he is illustrating how he is clean. He is clean because he delivered the message of Jesus Christ to them. That was his calling. Paul is a messenger. If the message is rejected, Paul has still obeyed God’s calling. By shaking out his garments, Paul is saying, “You made your decision, I am moving on.”

It is up to every individual person to either receive the gospel by trusting it is true or resist it. Each person chooses for themselves. Paul tells these men that their blood is on their own heads, meaning they are accountable for how they will fare on the day of Judgment. They heard God’s message, they heard of God’s Son whom they could believe in and through whom receive eternal life, and they have said, “No thanks.” They were fully informed and decided “No,” so Paul is not accountable for their rejection.

Paul cannot make them believe, nor can he believe on their behalf. Their blood is on their own heads; they are responsible for not believing in the message which would have saved them from sin and death.

Paul tells these resistant Jews he is clean, his conscience is clean, he has done good by them and they have rejected it. Since the Jews have rejected the gospel, Paul declares, From now on I will go to the Gentiles. For the rest of his time in Corinth, Paul will no longer preach in the synagogue to the Jews, but will preach exclusively to the Gentiles.

A similar event happened years earlier in Pisidian Antioch, where the Jews “began contradicting the things spoken by Paul, and were blaspheming” or slandering him (Acts 13:45). He and Barnabas replied that they would turn to the Gentiles, in fulfilment of Isaiah 49:6, where it is foretold that God’s Messiah would bring salvation to not just the Jews, but the nations (Gentiles).

However, while the majority of the Jews in Corinth rejected the gospel, some of the Jews and proselyte Jews put their faith in Jesus. After Paul disavows the synagogue, he moves next door:

Then he left there and went to the house of a man named Titius Justus, a worshiper of God, whose house was next to the synagogue (v. 7).

It seems that not only was Paul now staying at the house of a man named Titius Justus, but that he also preached in his house, forming a house-church. The connection between how Paul left the synagogue and immediately went to the house of a man named Titius Justus implies that this is where Paul’s preaching would continue, since he was now through with preaching in the synagogue.

It is also likely that Paul took up his residence in this house for the remainder of his time in Corinth. He had stayed in Lydia’s house in Philippi, and the Philippian believers gathered there to hear him bid them farewell (Acts 16:40). The church may have continued to meet in Lydia’s house. It seems possible that it was the same case with Titius Justus’s house.

Luke, the author of Acts, describes Titius Justus as a worshiper of God, which is a term used elsewhere in Acts to designate Gentiles who worshipped the God of Israel, Yahweh, but who were not necessarily proselytes who had converted to Judaism. Titius Justus appears to have hosted Paul as well as the budding Corinthian church. The fact that Paul now lived next door to the synagogue and continued to preach about Jesus no doubt frustrated the Jews who opposed the gospel.

But some of the Jews, even from among their own leadership, put their faith in Jesus:

Crispus, the leader of the synagogue, believed in the Lord with all his household, and many of the Corinthians when they heard were believing and being baptized (v. 8).

Paul’s announcement in the synagogue that he would go to the Gentiles as he shook out his garments seems to have gotten through to some of the Jews. The leader of the synagogue, a man named Crispus, believed in Jesus. He may have lost his position as the leader of the synagogue because of this. Not only did he believe in the Lord as the Messiah, but all his household also believed—his family and possibly his employees.

There were many other Corinthians who also believed in Paul’s preaching. Luke tells us that when they heard the gospel they were believing and being baptized. The grammar here indicates an ongoing increase of Corinthians hearing the message, believing, and being baptized. The Corinthian church is growing.

Thus far on Paul’s missionary journeys, he has not been able to stay very long in each town he visits. Usually he has only time enough to preach and plant a church of new believers before a mob of disbelievers chases him out of town. But Jesus wants Paul to remain in Corinth for a significant period of time. He speaks to Paul in a dream:

And the Lord said to Paul in the night by a vision, “Do not be afraid any longer, but go on speaking and do not be silent for I am with you, and no man will attack you in order to harm you, for I have many people in this city” (vs. 9-10).

That the Lord first tells Paul Do not be afraid any longer indicates that Paul has up until now felt afraid. Paul usually does not get to stay very long in any given city while preaching the gospel. Paul may be wondering when his time in Corinth will be up. He may be thinking, “It’s only a matter of time now. My enemies are plotting to get rid of me.”

The fact that Paul led Crispus, the leader of the synagogue, to faith in Christ has probably created division and conflict in the Jewish community in Corinth. Paul knows he is blamed by many for this social upheaval. He may fear imprisonment, like when he was imprisoned in Philippi (Acts 16:23); he may fear a mob assaulting one of the new Christians, as happened in Thessalonica (Acts 17:6).

Based on what Jesus says in verse 10—no man will attack you in order to harm you—Paul feared physical violence. He had already been stoned almost to death once before, and although God sustained Paul’s life, it was still a traumatic experience (Acts 14:19). Just as recently as Philippi, Paul endured a beating with a wooden rod (Acts 16:22).

Of course, Paul is dedicated to preaching the gospel no matter the earthly cost. He often writes about putting on the perspective of Christ, that all temporary suffering is nothing when compared to the rewards which await God’s obedient children in the next life (Romans 8:18, 2 Corinthians 4:17). But Paul is still a human. It is natural to be afraid. It is natural to want to avoid physical pain. Jesus tells Paul to dismiss this fear. He does not need to feel afraid any longer.

Jesus commands Paul to go on speaking the message of the good news about the Messiah, to not be silent. Paul is safe in Corinth. Jesus assures him, “I am with you.” This is why Paul need not be afraid. Christ is putting His protection over Paul, so much so that no man will attack him in order to harm him. Christ’s protection over Paul will be manifested through other men and women: Jesus declares for I have many people in this city. There are many people in the city of Corinth who belong to Jesus Christ, and they will look after Paul. Paul will not have to leave town just yet, not for a while anyway.

Paul’s ministry in Corinth is permitted to last a full year and a half:

And he settled there a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them (v. 11).

Corinth was a large, important city in Greece and in the Roman Empire. It was the capital of the province of Achaia. It was full of pagan worship, sexual perversity, and wealth (1 Corinthians 8:1-6, 5:1-2, 6:18, 2 Corinthians 9:6-8). There were many lost souls there for Paul to continue teaching the word of God to, as well as many who had believed whom Paul could continue teaching, so that they would mature in the faith (Colossians 2:6-7, Hebrews 5:12-14).

Paul was able to live settled there a year and six months, probably in the house of Titius Justus, who seems to be one of the many people in this city whom Jesus promised to work through so that Paul would know that “I am with you,” that no man would attack or harm Paul.

So Paul, Timothy, and Silas are able to make a temporary life in Corinth as ministers of the gospel. During this time Paul is believed to have written the letters to the Thessalonians (1 and 2 Thessalonians) to encourage them since his time with them was so brief. He also took each letter as an opportunity to answer questions the Thessalonians had and to clear up misconceptions. During the year and six months which Paul lived in Corinth, Timothy was able to make journeys to Thessalonica to deliver Paul’s letters and bring word back to Paul about how the Thessalonian church was doing (1 Thessalonians 3:2).