(We had guests at LWCC last weekend and this week we celebrate 25 years as a local church. I am going to take the week off from blogging, but I thought I would share something from February of this year. I believe that God wants all of us to be extraordinary.)
Acts 18:24(NKJV) 24Now a certain Jew named Apollos, born at Alexandria, an eloquent man and mighty in the Scriptures, came to Ephesus.
This week we have been looking at the idea that God desires Christians to be extraordinary not ordinary. I am always amazed when I counsel Christian people and they tell me they just want to be normal. We are not called to be normal or ordinary. Jesus has given us something called abundant life. Abundant life is many things, one of which is extraordinary or beyond ordinary.
We found that Moses was did extraordinary things after he spent 40 years in what looked like a very ordinary situation. As a younger man he was raised in Pharaoh’s house, was well educated and influential. By all outward indicators he was what we would consider extraordinary today. He was a celebrity. However, that did not enable him to do what God needed him to do. He became truly extraordinary when he learned to walk in Godly character and to trust in God and not himself.
We have also learned that a major key to being extraordinary is faith in the Word of God. When we walk by what we see, we will always be ordinary. It does not matter if we are rich or poor, famous or obscure we will be limited by outward circumstances. When we choose to see through the Word of God we step beyond ordinary possibility and step into the “all things are possible” dimension.
I want to end our time this week by looking at two more people from the Bible. One of them, named Apollos, is mentioned in today’s scripture. We do not know a great deal about Apollos. We know that he was born in Alexandria. We also know that Apollos was eloquent and mighty in the scriptures. He was fervent in spirit but if we continue in the chapter, we find that he needed instruction from Priscilla and Aquila, local pastors, to more fully understand the ways of the Spirit.
There is nothing to indicate that there was anything at all wrong with Apollos. It never says he caused problems or strife. However, as we read about him in Paul’s letters it seems that he has developed quite a following.
1 Corinthians 3:4(NKJV) 4For when one says, “I am of Paul,” and another, “I am of Apollos,” are you not carnal?
It seems that there were those who were “fans” of Apollo while others were “fans” of Paul. Paul makes it clear that neither is good and the only one who really matters is God. However, it is worth noting that Apollos was impressive enough that he became a rival of Paul in the minds of people if not in the minds of Paul or Apollos themselves.
Although we must read between the lines, most bible scholars would say that Apollos was a well-and outwardly impressive preacher. I have heard that he was handsome, although it would be difficult to prove. People placed him on the same level as Paul and many saw Apollos as the greater one of his day.
Once again, I want to say that there is nothing to indicate that Apollos did anything wrong. Paul even called for him later in his life, however, what do we know about what Apollos preached? Who follows his teaching today? The answer is no one.
You see although Apollos was good at what he did, there was another preacher of his day that has a very different testimony. If you compared Apollos with this other preacher, you would say the other preacher was ordinary at best and not very good at worst. Apollos was the “golden boy” of his day, so to speak. Who was the other preacher?
He was a short man by all accounts. He was not exactly the “matinee idol” type. It was said of him that his letters were powerful, but his preaching, not so much. He tended to offend people easily. He was not in fulltime ministry as we might define it because he still worked for a living most of the time.
The Jewish believers did not like him because he tended to discount the importance of keeping the Jewish law. He did not even think everyone needed to be circumcised. On the other hand, the gentile believers were not sure they could trust him either. After all, he was still a Jew himself.
He was not afraid to confront either group when he thought they were wrong. He pointed out Peter’s hypocrisy when he would not eat with Gentiles once Jews came to Antioch. He also criticized the Corinthian church for not throwing out a man who was sleeping with his stepmother.
We never hear of Apollos going to Jail, but this other preacher ended up in jail a number of times. The Romans put him in prison, and the Jews in Jerusalem had him arrested. He ended his days in a Roman prison and was finally beheaded.
From what we can gather about him, he was a bit moody. He tended towards depression. He was a little arrogant and prideful. He was tormented by either illness or just the attacks of the devil. He probably experienced both at one time or another. In every way that we would judge today, this man was unsuccessful. As a pastor, it is doubtful that I would be thinking of having him in my church. His name was Saul, but it was later changed to Paul.
Apollos was a good preacher and probably extraordinary in his own way. However, Paul wrote two thirds of the New Testament. Every believer in the world knows Paul. We base much of our theology on what he taught. He had an insight into the Old Testament scripture that no one else had. Yet if we compared them today, Apollos would probably be on TV and Paul would be somewhere on the mission field struggling to get by.
I am not saying that those on TV are bad. If they are doing what God has given them to do, they are extraordinary. However my point is more that Paul would not be seen that way by our standards, yet he was possibly the most extraordinary believer of all times. Without him, Christianity as we know it would not exist.
It is not for us to judge another man’s servant. We are all servants of God. However, we must not judge our own lives by a standard that God does not use. If we are doing what God asks us to do, we are extraordinary. If you are a husband who is leading his family in the things of God, you are extraordinary. If you are a mother raising godly children, you are extraordinary. If you are doing your best to live for God in everyday life, you are extraordinary.
What is the legacy of an extraordinary person? In the case of Apollos, we do not know. However, we do know Paul’s legacy. Even if you labor all your life in the local church and no one knows you name, you will have a legacy if you choose to be extraordinary in God’s eyes. Even if you do nothing that is written in books or finds its way to TV, but you do the will of God, you will leave a legacy that will honor God and touch people.
As we close this week, choose to pay attention to what God is asking of you today. Do your best to live for him and be a testimony. If you do that, you will be remembered. You may not be remembered by the world, but those you affect in life will remember you. More important you will have a legacy before God that will be yours for all eternity.
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