Speak - Acts 18:7-17

Paul is in Corinth working as a tentmaker with Aquila and Priscilla and preaching the gospel to those Jews and believers in the synagogue on the Sabbath, until his companions show up and then he bears a powerful witness to his audience that Jesus is the Christ. Those who believe follow Paul, but most do not and Paul shakes off his coat to them, releasing his accountability for their rejection of the gospel. From there Paul and his companions leave “and entered into a certain man’s house, named Justus, one that worshipped God, whose house joined hard to the synagogue.” Justus must have become acquainted with Paul on one of Paul’s Sabbath teachings along with Crispus, “the chief ruler of the synagogue” who “believed on the Lord with all his house; and many of the Corinthians hearing believed, and were baptized.” There were many people in Corinth who were ready to accept the gospel, and by going to the synagogue first, Paul was able to find those who were already strong in the Judaism faith and were prepared.

One night the Lord came to Paul in a dream saying, “be not afraid, but speak, and hold not they peace: for I am with thee, and no man shall set on thee to hurt thee: for I have much people in this city.” Reading this statement by God to Paul 2,000 years after it happened can give us the impression that Paul was bring a coward and not preaching the gospel the way that he should of. But let’s think about this for a second, is that the Paul that we have come to know and love? That man was whipped repeatedly, imprisoned and tortured, rejected, scorned, and mocked more times than we can probably count, so I think to read this one statement that was meant as personal revelation and deem Paul a coward is incredibly dismissive of him as an Apostle.
Let’s look at some of the ways that Paul might have been restraining himself in preaching the gospel while keeping his courage in mind. First, I think the obvious answer is that he was a little gun shy after being tortured repeatedly by those who rejected the gospel. And I don’t necessarily think it was a “I don’t want to get hurt again” conscious decision, but whenever there is violence against the missionaries, the whole Jewish/Christian society gets turned upside down.
 Let’s consider where he had been in the last several months, he had traveled with his entourage to several cities where they were both widely received and widely rejected, sometimes with not only violent consequences for them, but also for those who just accepted the gospel. My guess is that Paul came to Corinth and instead of coming in guns a-blazing, he decided to take a quite, and more reserved approach. Yes, he had testified of Jesus boldly in the synagogue, but not until his companions showed up to complete the witness. He had probably spent much time preaching in regular places during the week, but did a lot of vocational work to earn his keep as well.
The second reason that Paul might have been trying to stay on the down low is because of the effect that opposition has on the remaining believers. After the missionaries come and preach the gospel to a city, those who believe are baptized and a branch is established. Sure, the missionaries might be persecuted to such a degree that they aren’t welcome there anymore, but they can just leave the city, while the new believers have to stay. He might have been trying to find believers without the public coming to the knowledge of his overall movements so that if there was opposition, the members might not be so severely impacted. Maybe he was trying a word of mouth campaign vs a grass root guerilla strategy, and just seeing what happens.
Once the other missionaries get there, and they have been rejected in the synagogue, the Lord comes to Paul and says, “hey, it’s time for you to do what you do best,” and Paul obeys and he continued there a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them.” It’s telling that he was able to stay there for a year and a half without being expelled from the city. To me that shows that there were many people sympathetic to Paul’s message and for those who didn’t want to accept it, they probably weren’t hard hearted enough to try and kick him out of the city.
The next verse implies that another reason why Paul was able to stay in Corinth as long as he did was because the Roman magistrate at the time wasn’t interested in all the religious drama that the rejecters  brought to him to try and get the missionaries kicked out of the city. Either the deputy of Achaia Gallio was appointed to the post after Paul had been there fore 18 months or this was his reaction when “the Jews made insurrection with one accord against Paul, and brought him to the judgment seat. After being accused “the fellow persuadeth men to worship God contrary to the law” Paul wasn’t even allowed to answer before Gallio basically said, “I’m not interested” and “he drave them from the judgment seat.” He told them, “this isn’t a Roman matter, it’s a Jewish one, figure it out with your own laws.”
It appears that the Jews take Gallio’s answer and say, “ok fine, we’ll do it our way,” and “took Sosthenes, the chief ruler of the synagogue, and beat him before the judgment seat. And Gallio cared for none of those things.” Just a few verses earlier, in verse 8, the chief ruler of the synagogue is named “Crispus” and here his name is “Sosthenes” I’m not exactly sure what this means, if it’s the same guy with a different name or two different ones, I’m not sure. I thought that maybe by the term “Greeks” it might have meant that those who had ascribed to Judaism without conversion took the new Jewish synagogue leader and beat him up, but looking at the Wikipedia page for “Sosthenes” it says that in the oldest manuscripts, the group is described neither as Greek or Jews, so that was added in later. My guess is that the complainants took the guy who was in charge of the synagogue and beat him up in front of the Roman deputy, who was not at all interested in what was happening.