Acts 18:1-22
Nobody noticed a plain man walking along the streets of Corinth, one day, travel-stained and weary. Yet his coming into Corinth meant more for that city than the entrance of any other man in the city’s whole history. He brought the gospel there, and the gospel is the power of God wherever it goes.
There was a Hand guiding his steps that day. As he went about seeking employment, he came upon two persons who from that time proved good friends to him and helpers also in his work. He “found … Aquila … with his wife Priscilla.” It was a happy providence that brought these people together. It gave Paul a lodging place and a home in the great city. It furnished him also an opportunity to work and support himself while he was engaged as a missionary. Then, no doubt, his influence upon them was also very great. The other day one friend wrote to another, “You have the power of bringing to the surface the very best that is in my nature, and of making me try to live up to my highest possibilities.” Like power Paul seems to have had over Aquila and Priscilla. There was in them much that was good, and it needed only Paul’s coming to them to bring out the good, to wake up the possibilities of beauty and strength that were in them.
The emperor had expelled the Jews from Rome. No doubt Aquila and Priscilla thought it a great hardship to be driven from their home in Rome. But in the end blessing came to them and also through them to the Church of Christ from this hardship. Being in Corinth, they had the opportunity of knowing Paul and of having him as an inmate of their own home for many months. Thus rich blessing came to them from him, and they in turn became a blessing to him and to the Church. By and by they went back to Rome, carrying with them all they had received from their contact with the apostle. Even the hard things of our lives over which we grieve at the time, if we commit them all to God, will prove in the end full of blessing to us and to others.
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