The sermon by Peter Allison, titled 'Apollos & the Defense of the Faith,' explores the story of Apollos as presented in Acts 18:24-28. Apollos, a learned and eloquent man from Alexandria, was well-versed in the Scriptures and spoke boldly in the synagogue. Despite his incomplete understanding of the gospel, his teachings were accurate, and he was open to learning from Aquila and Priscilla, who explained the way of God more accurately to him. The sermon emphasizes the importance of absolute truth and the dangers of relativism, drawing parallels to modern-day challenges within the church and society. Apollos' story illustrates the value of combining knowledge, eloquence, and fervency in spirit for the effective defense of the gospel. The sermon also highlights the significance of instructing others in the way of the Lord through catechism and leading by example, as seen in the lives of faithful figures like Apollos and Abraham. Ultimately, the sermon calls for a commitment to teaching and defending the truth of the Scriptures in today's world.

Acts chapter 18. Begin reading at verse 24. It's one of the few sections in this part of Acts that doesn't deal directly with the Apostle Paul and his ministry. Hear God's word. Acts 18, 24.

Now a certain Jew named Apollos, born at Alexandria, an eloquent man and mighty in the Scriptures, came to Ephesus. This man had been instructed in the way of the Lord, and being fervent in spirit, he spoke and taught accurately the things of the Lord, although he knew only the baptism of John. So he began to speak boldly in the synagogue. And when Aquila and Priscilla heard him, they took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately. And when he had desired to cross to Achaia, the brethren rode, exhorting the disciples to receive him.

And when he arrived, he greatly helped those who had believed through grace. For he vigorously refuted the Jews publicly, showing from the Scriptures that Jesus is the Christ. May Jehovah open our eyes that we may see wondrous things out of His law. Heavenly Father, please open our eyes that we might behold the wonders of Your Word, and that its truth might be impressed upon us, and that you would grant us zeal to obey. And I ask that you would sanctify and cleanse my sinful lips this morning as they proclaim Your truth, and that You would preserve me from error.

In Jesus' name, Amen. The first president of the World Health Organization, Dr. Brock Chisholm, wrote in a peer-reviewed article in 1949 saying, quote, "...for many generations we have bowed our necks to the conviction of sin. We have swallowed all manner of Poisonous certainties fed us by our parents and pastors, Sunday school teachers, and politicians." Poisonous certainties. See, that's not an unveiled attack on what is true and what is false, not just on that.

It's actually an attack on the very idea that there could be certainties, that there could be absolute truths. And though most people today are not that explicit in their language, many symptoms in our culture and even in the evangelical church are the fruit of these ideas. That there are no certain absolute truths, right and wrong, saved or unsaved. And these ideas, to varying degrees, have infected the thinking of many, many people around us. Of course, this battle for the truth is not unique to our day or to Brock Chisholm's day in the close of World War II.

It goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden where the serpent who was craftier than the other creatures challenged the certainty of the truth that God had told Adam and Eve. Well from this little text, this little short interlude between Paul's second and third missionary journey, gives an introduction to a man who is one more faithful, or example of a more faithful man who is a part of that great cloud of witnesses, who by faith have won great victories over the enemies of the cross in the defense of the truth of the gospel against error and against compromise. And so that's what we want to examine this morning. Apollos' training, his background, his gifting, and his steadfast commitment to defending the truth and refuting those who deny the truth. So what does this text say about this man?

He says he was a Jew, and that means he grew up in the church. And he would have been familiar with the Old Testament Scriptures. He says he was named Apollos. Now for Jewish parents to name their son after a pagan Greek god indicates a huge degree of compromise and corruption of the faith of that either that family or that whole Jewish community It's it's not a bad reflection. It's not a poor reflection on Apollo's He didn't pick his name, but it does speak volumes.

I think about the family His parents and the synagogue into which he was born. Now he was born in Alexandria, Luke says. Alexandria, the city named after its founder, Alexander the Great, was a very important city and an influential city. It was an influential cultural, intellectual, and commercial city in the ancient world. It was a very large city.

Their wealthy Ptolemaic rulers sponsored many scientific endeavors making Alexandria, or ancient Alexandria, equivalent of one of today's technology corridors like we have or did have in the San Francisco Bay area or in Austin or in Charlotte or these other places where these tech corridors have sprung up. Alexandria was the equivalent of that in the ancient world. Alexandria housed one of the largest, if not the largest, library in the ancient world. A vast collection of works from all over the world and all different religions and philosophies were found in this library in Alexandria. Some have said half a million, others said closer to three quarters of a million volumes in these libraries.

There was also a very large Jewish population there. I think as a city, its stability, its longevity, its scholarship attracted a lot of people from around the world, and there was apparently a lot of Jews there. Some have said it's the largest collection of Jews, the city of Jews, or outside of Jerusalem. But as we have noted earlier, these Alexandrian Jews had syncretized the Scriptures with the pagan Greek culture of the city around them. Philo, an Alexandrian Jew, had mingled pagan Greek philosophy in his interpretation of the Scriptures.

And the Jewish community there had acclimated themselves to this Greek culture, even to the point of naming their children after their idols. But coming from such a city, Apollos was very likely highly educated in at least classical Greek learning, kind of like Moses in that sense, learning, being instructed in the wisdom of Egypt and growing up as a son of Pharaoh. So while Apollos couldn't control his own background, he took what it did give him, and he used it for good. And one of the gifts that he had, probably acquired in his educational background, is eloquence. He was eloquent.

He was an eloquent man. He was able to speak in ways that attracted people, that held their attention, that convinced them of the position that he was defending. Eloquence has been defined as logic on fire. And like fire, eloquence can be used or misused. Fire with wrong logic will lead people astray.

And the fire of rhetoric can be used to obscure the fallacies of logic. The fire, somebody's rhetoric, somebody's ability with words can be used to obscure that their logic is faulty. On the other hand, rhetorical fire with no logic are just random words emotionally delivered, today better known as a word salad. But like wealth, eloquence is not necessary to use mightily by God. God doesn't need great wealth.

And He doesn't need eloquence. Paul, like Moses, apparently did not have great eloquence. But they were mightily used by God. They were mighty in the Word. Because the Lord desires humility, He desires joy and truth in the inward parts, he desires patience and tribulation and steadfastness and prayer and fervency and spirit and diligence and service.

That's what the Lord desires. He never desires eloquence, but he gives it and he uses it. It's a gift of the Lord. And if one has that ability, it should be used to the Lord's service. And Apollo's had it.

He developed his gift and he used it to great effect for good, this passage tells us. Eloquence can easily be misused for personal gain or to lead people astray. Many people peddling the gospel or other ideas have used it that way. Charisma is captivating and that's why it can be so dangerous. So be very careful in either using charisma and eloquence, or be careful when it's being used on you.

Don't be captivated by it. Rather let the eloquence drive you to focus on the content and the message that is being communicated. Whitefield is another more recent example of a preacher with great eloquence. His eloquence was even envied by actors such as David Garrick, who said he would give a hundred pounds to say, oh, like George Whitfield could. And Benjamin Franklin who was not a Christian and didn't profess to be loved to listen to him and even praised his preaching.

Writing, the multitudes of all sects and denominations that attended his sermons were enormous. I observed the extraordinary influence of his oratory on his hearers and how much they admired him and respected him. But eloquence didn't save Ben Franklin despite his great appreciation for it. And it didn't save anyone else. Whitfield was an outstanding preacher who was mightily used by the Lord because of his genuine love of people for the lost, his fervent desire to see the Gospel come to them, his passion for preaching that's born of a fervent heart that loved the Lord.

I think it's also helpful at this point to mention that the Greek word for eloquent here can also mean learned, scholarly, erudite. And that is what the word means in it, apparently, in its modern usage. Now, almost all, not quite, but almost all translations opt for eloquence. But the note in the net Bible explains that this is more of an exegetical translation than a grammatical one. Apollos, I think, was a learned man.

He was a scholar. And that fits very well with the rest of the description that Luke gives us about Apollos, especially his being mighty in the Scriptures. That's the next characteristic. Apollos was mighty in the Scriptures. And this is more than just being familiar with the Old Testament Scriptures from growing up in the church and hearing God's Word preached every week, which He probably did.

This is more than just being learned or scholarly. Luke has already said that he's learned, He's eloquent. And He's not repeating that. We get our word dynamite from this word for mighty. So not only was Apollos a man of the Word, someone who is thoroughly familiar with its doctrines and the content of the scriptures, but His preaching had power in it.

He spoke knowledgeably, and He spoke with authority that comes from that knowledge and from the Holy Spirit. There are many experts who are very knowledgeable about their field, but who don't speak very powerfully about it. You can ask them a question, and you can get very detailed explanations that are always couched with, we think, it seems, the data is inconclusive, and you can sometimes leave as uncertain as you came, at least as unconvinced. But they have great knowledge. They're very learned, they're very erudite.

The Jewish rabbis spoke like this, and the people noticed the difference between their teaching and the teaching of Jesus. He taught with authority. The Talmud, the parts that aren't openly satanic, reads a lot of times like this. It lacks power. Paulus reasoned logically.

And he was able to bring many different Scriptures to bear in his argumentation, and he taught with power. He was mighty in the Scriptures. He was able to bring all of the different doctrines together, gather them from the different Scriptures, put together logical arguments, and present them in a powerful way. Luke then says, he adds, how Apollos came to be this eloquent man mighty in the Scriptures. Because he says in his earlier years, he had been instructed in the way of the Lord.

What a testimony to faithful teachers. We're not told whether his instruction came from his parents, or from a tutor, or from a pastor in the church, but the disciples of John, it seemed, had reached Alexandria, and he had been in some way instructed. And this is a significant phrase that he was instructed in the way of the Lord. Instructed in the way of the Lord. It's more than just knowing the Scriptures.

Luke has already said that he knows the Scriptures. This is not just an academic instruction. It involves living a life of righteousness and justice. Living a life. So God said of Abraham in Genesis 18, for I have known him in order that he may command his children and his household after him that they keep the way of the Lord to do righteousness and justice, that the Lord may bring to Abraham what he has spoken to him." It says, I know Abraham that he will command his household and his children after him, that they keep the way of the Lord, which is to do righteousness and justice.

See, in this conversation that the Lord had with Abraham on the way to Sodom, the Lord equates the way of the Lord with doing righteousness and justice. And doing what is righteous and just requires training of the heart. It requires bringing the will under the lordship of Jesus Christ. We are born with a will that's opposed to the Lord. And it takes the supernatural work of God to change that will.

And the Lord works through the commands of faithful parents and teachers and pastors in the lives of people to accomplish that. Abraham was to command his household in the way of the Lord. Eli is the classic example of what happens when children are not trained to cheerfully and promptly follow parental commands. God said to Eli, for I have told him I will judge his house forever for the iniquity which he knows, because his sons made them vile, and he did not rebuke them." He didn't restrain them. Even David failed in his duty.

1 Kings 1.6 tells us that David never rebuked Adronijah and held him accountable for his actions. He never said, why have you done this? And there's a very strong movement today called gentle parenting. And while not everything they say is completely wrong, there are a couple things they get right. It's a very dangerous movement because they abhor commanding their children.

Just exactly what Abraham was told to do. The children decide what they will do and what they won't do. And all the parents do is wring their hands and beg and bribe or manipulate them to comply. See, children need structure. They need to be commanded in the way of the Lord.

Parents have to direct their children, even in their times of play. They need direction in what to play, and how to play, and when to play, if they are to be instructed in the way of the Lord. Children need continual training. There's never a time when this training and this commanding ceases. Although there are times as parents as a part of the training, we might take our hand off the wheel for a moment to see how well they are following the way.

But the second component of this instructing in the way of the Lord is that our commands should be commands to follow us. To follow. God said Abraham will command his household after him. And this example of walking in the way of the Lord is just as important as the commanding. Commands without the example produce angry People.

Homes that look good for a while but eventually explode like a plugged up pressure cooker. An example without commands, produce people that are deficient in self-discipline. See, as parents, we and any teacher, we instruct our pupils in the way of the Lord by leading them down the way as we go down the way of the Lord ourselves. We do, and then we bid them to copy us. We don't command them to do what we don't do.

We want them to respect authority. Do we respect authority? We want them to be fervent. Are we fervent? We want them to memorize the Scriptures.

Are we memorizing the Scriptures? And so forth. You see, you can't make a good copy from a bad original. Now Proverbs 10 tells us that the way of the Lord is strength for the upright. And Apollos was a strong leader.

He followed Paul as a teacher and a preacher at Corinth, where he became very influential in the city there. He was one of the men that the party spirit people of Corinth were following. Remember Paul said, may of Paul or of Apollos or Cephas and so on. Now I don't think this was due to anything he did wrong. The Scriptures never give any indication that he encouraged or was responsible for this party spirit.

But Paul does recognize in the first four chapters of 1 Corinthians, his influence and his strong leadership and the regard with which he was held in the Corinthian church. Another indicator of Apollos' strength is that even Paul was not able to persuade him to comply with Paul's wishes. He said to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 16, Paul said, I strongly urged him to come to you with the brethren, but He was quite unwilling to come at this time. However, he will come when he has a convenient time. There's a man of strength.

He didn't even let Paul, and Paul, you know, was a very passionate man himself. Paul directed people all over the New Testament church and all over Asia and Greece. He would tell people, go here, come there. But Apollos wasn't so easily directed. He had some strength about himself.

Now the last thing I want to say about this word instruct is that this is the word we get, our word catechize or catechism from the Greek word behind this instruct. This word means to catechize. It means to instruct. It means to teach by word of mouth. To catechize is to break down a subject into tiny pieces and dispense it line by line.

One author defined this word instructor catechize as to resound to re-echo to teach by repeated dinning into the ears to teach orally by word of mouth and ear. That's the essence of what catechetical instruction is. And this is exactly what Isaiah 28 describes. For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little, there a little. All the repetitions are in the text, Isaiah 28, 10.

Look it up. And This type of teaching is very hard to do in a school setting where there are 20 students and one teacher. See, there's no cramming in the school of Christ. Every day counts. Every hour counts.

It's line upon line, line upon line. Precept upon precept, precept upon precept. This is hour by hour, day by day, instruction. You see, instruction in the way of the Lord is like painting a house. You have to cover every square inch or it just doesn't look right.

You have to do it stroke by stroke. You can't just take a bucket of paint and toss it on the wall and have it look right. See, it's stroke by stroke over every square inch. And that's the way you have to paint. There isn't any other way to do it.

You can put an air gun in your hand instead of a brush, but it's still stroke by stroke over every square inch. That's what instruction in the way of the Lord is like. And doesn't that sound a whole lot like Deuteronomy 6? And these words, and he's referring to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. These words which I command you today shall be in your heart, and You shall teach them diligently to your children.

You shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes, and you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. Every square inch of your life is covered. Every moment of the day as you rise up, as you lie down, and as you walk by the way, hour by hour, day by day, line upon line, precept upon precept. Whether Apollos was instructed as a child or as an adult, we don't know, but either way, instruction in the way of the Lord entails these elements.

And this is how Jesus instructed His disciples. He catechized them as they walked side by side with Him throughout His three years of ministry on the earth. He asked them questions like, Who do you say that I am? Who do the people say that I am? He tested them.

Remember when they were looking at the 5, 000, as they looked out over the 5, 000 people before Him, He asked Philip, He goes, where do we buy bread to feed these people? Now, the Lord knew what He was going to do. He asked that to test Philip. And so this, brothers and sisters, is why Apollos was mighty in the Scriptures and could speak boldly in the synagogue. He could speak accurately the teachings of the Lord because he had been instructed in the way of the Lord.

But he's also, Luke says, he's fervent in spirit. And this means to be emotionally moved, to be passionate, to be zealous, literally to boil. He wasn't dry. He was passionate for the truth. There was fire in his bones that drove him.

He had a very strong sense of the inward call, of His inward call to this labor. And this is what the disciples saw in Jesus, a similar fervency in spirit. When they watched Him drive out the money changers, He said they thought of the psalm, the zeal for your house has eaten me. And that's Apollos. He's the guy on fire for the truth.

He had a zeal that was according to knowledge. He combined heat and light. And we need both. We do. Paulus was also bold.

Boldness is a willingness to take risks in the service of what's too important to compromise. Boldness is a willingness to take risks in the service of what is too important to compromise. It's a principled risk-taking. You see, boldness without principle is just recklessness. Taking risk without, I shouldn't say boldness, taking risk without principle is just recklessness.

But principles without boldness to advance them or to live by them is cowardice. Boldness puts them together. Apollo spoke boldly in the synagogue. There was a risk that the Jews would kick him out and treat him like they did Paul. The risk of being unpopular, being ostracized, and so forth.

But his Greek background enabled him to fit into this predominantly Greek city and adapt his message to the needs of the people. Now we all have weaknesses. And In this case, Apollo, though he was a great defender of the faith, he knew only about the baptism of John. He or his family had probably been reached by some of the disciples of John. Now given the significance of Christ's death, and how significant that was in the city of Jerusalem, you remember the disciples on the way to Emmaus exercised shock when there was somebody there that hasn't heard of it.

I find it hard to believe he didn't know about Christ's death. Acts 2 tells us that there were Egyptians in Jerusalem at Pentecost. But in some way, Apollos had not been instructed in the significance of Christ's death, His resurrection, His ascension, and the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost in some way. And I really don't... I'm not sure exactly in what way, but what is significant is that Luke says that despite this gap in his understanding, he spoke and taught accurately.

He spoke and taught accurately. It doesn't say he was inaccurate. And I think that's very significant. We don't have to know all there is to know. We don't have to be the best expert in the world to teach the truth accurately.

And I think that should be a huge encouragement to all of us. There is always more that we can learn. There is always something we don't know. There are things that we haven't studied yet. But that doesn't mean that we can't be accurate teachers in the things of the Lord where God has given us that opportunity and called us to that.

We should not let incomplete knowledge or what we perceive to be incomplete knowledge or less gifting than Someone else has keep us from teaching what we do know. And Apollos was humble about what he didn't know. He was willing to learn from Aquila and Priscilla. And we talked a lot about Aquila and Priscilla last week, I believe. But just briefly, we see Aquila and Priscilla.

And if you have a modern translation, they have the names backwards. They have Priscilla and Aquila. That's a very small percentage of the Greek manuscripts have Priscilla first. The vast majority have Aquila first. And that's what the majority text is.

And we talked about why Aquila is sometimes first and why Apollos is other times first. And In this case, Aquila is mentioned first because this is a time of passing on information to Apollos. But first of all, Aquila and Priscilla, notice they listen to him. They listened to him. They didn't interrupt him.

They didn't turn on him. They didn't start a campaign to have him removed. They listened to his preaching, they listened to it respectfully, and then afterwards, they took him aside privately, invited him to their home, we don't know, But they took him aside privately. This wasn't a public thing. They didn't stand up in the assembly and say, no, that's not right.

This is right. He was teaching accurately. He was teaching accurately in what he taught. There was just a gap in what he knew. And so they give him this helpful information.

They explain to him the way of God more accurately. He had already been instructed in the way of God. They add to that in a very appropriate way. It's a lesser word than teaching. It's the word for explaining something.

It's the word for the passing along of information. And Priscilla is very prominent in this. She was the intellectual leader in that marriage. And as we saw last week, she was still in complete exercise, complete submission to her husband, even though she was superior in gifts to him. And so Luke mentions Aquila first.

He took the lead here, even though probably many of the things that he was saying may have been pointed out to him by Priscilla, and she may very likely joined in that conversation they had with Apollo in private. Now what are the fruits then of this man's ministry? Well, we see One, the church in Ephesus helps him in his next move. When he had the desire and felt the Lord calling him to Corinth, the church gets behind him and they write letters of commendation to the saints there. That's saying that this church in Ephesus received His teaching.

They recognized His gifting and His calling to be a preacher, and they confirmed that call with what we call the outward call. And they do that by helping him, writing him letters of introduction and endorsement. That's a fruit of that ministry. He then goes to Achaia, and it says that he greatly helped those who had believed through grace. He's able to minister to Jews like himself who had believed, or other people who had believed through grace, but were maybe experiencing doubts about the faith.

He greatly helped these Corinthian churches. And that's one of the great uses of apologetics. Apologetic Debates rarely change anyone's view. But what they do do is help the believers, those who have already believed by grace. They help strengthen that faith and confirm it and build it up.

And it says that he vigorously refuted the Jews publicly vigorously refuted that is is talking about the Refutation of things that are not true and that Assumes presupposes that there is an absolute truth to be defended and to be asserted. And that there is error that's contradicting that truth that needs to be refuted. And I think this verse, this sentence here, refutes the very popular idea that Christianity is a relationship and it's not a doctrine or religion, and that doctrine divides and love unites. Yes, Christianity is a relationship, but it's not apart from dogmatic truth. It is based upon propositional truth.

It is based upon absolute truth. Jesus is the truth. And we're not Christians, we're not faithful Christians, if we are unwilling to defend the truth. These ideas that Christianity is a relationship and not dogmatic truth, I think these ideas lead to what we saw expressed in Brock Chisholm, the denial of absolute truth. Let me just give one example of how these ideas can work their way out in our culture in ways that are sometimes very hard to track down.

John Dewey, who's called the father of government education, attacked propositional truth, and he attacked the idea that the Scriptures were the truth. And So how did he do that? He developed a completely different way of learning to read from phonics. It's called the look-say method. You see, language communicates propositional truth.

Letters are combined according to the rules of grammar and syntax to produce words. The letters are the grammar. Words are combined according to the rules of syntax and rhetoric to state a truth in a proposition called a sentence. Sentences are then combined according to the rules of rhetoric and logic to produce paragraphs that make arguments supporting the truth. See, look, say is an attempt to undermine all this.

It says don't worry about the letters. They're not important. Really, don't even worry about the words. They want children to look at a page without caring what the letters are that went into the words or even what the words really are, and what does it say to you? That's what's important.

What does it mean to you? And in teaching people to read in this way, he has fundamentally undermined the idea that language conveys propositional truth that is absolute, that is right or wrong. See, it was an attack on the Scriptures. And you see, this kind of thinking has infected people's understanding of the Scriptures today. And Apollo comes along and says, no, error must be refuted by the propositional truth of the Scriptures.

This is not just a semantic debate about educational models. John D. Rockefeller sent his children to the Lincoln School, which was a school founded in New York City on the basis of these ideas, knowing that he would have to supplement their understanding of phonics for them to learn to read. He understood that. He sent them there anyways because this wasn't about just mere educational models.

This was an attack on the propositional truth of the scriptures. And you know at that time in this country that was under heavy attack. And the Presbyterian Church, the Bible-believing Presbyterian Church was wrestling with this within their own midst right at this very time. So, Apollos comes, and he mightily refutes the errors of his day with the truth of the Scriptures. He was a mighty defender of the faith.

May the Lord use His example to encourage us, all of us who are in places to teach and to train, may He use His example to give us diligence and faithfulness in instructing in the way of the Lord. And may his example also be a great encouragement and a motivation that we need more mighty men who are mighty in the word and mightily able to defend the faith against the errors of our day. May it be so. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the sufficiency of your word for every area of our lives. We thank you that it is the truth.

We thank you that you are the truth and that we can know You, that we can have a relationship with You, that we can love You because You have taught us how to love You. You've shown us how to love. You have first loved us in giving Yourself for us. We thank you Lord that you are the way and the truth and the life. We ask that you may raise up in your church and even from our midst men who are mighty in the scriptures and who can vigorously refute the errors of our day with the truth of Your Word.

We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.