Share Jesus with those you spend the most time with!
Our jobs are for the purpose of supporting our family and our ministry.
June 27
Paul lived and worked with them, for they were tent-makers just as he was.
Acts 18:3
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Share Jesus with those you spend the most time with!
Paul’s journeys bring him to the city of Corinth. This is the city that will soon have a church that will often struggle with the temptations of the world. Paul will write two letters to this church that end up in our Bible, First and Second Corinthians. While here Paul meets a Jew by the name of Aquila. He is one of the Jews that ended up in Italy when the nation of Israel was dispersed by God hundreds of years earlier because of their unfaithfulness.
Claudius Caesar had all the Jews kicked out of Rome and so Aquila and his wife Priscilla end up in Corinth. Aquila probably met Paul in the synagogue and invited him to stay with them while he was in town. It is not clear whether they were believers in Christ when Paul met them but by the end of this chapter they leave with Paul as he continues his journey.
Aquila and Priscilla were tent-makers. According to our verse for the day, so was Paul. This is the first mention of Paul’s former occupation. There are many important aspects to this verse. Paul had been called to be an apostle and to take the gospel of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles in far-off lands. Paul seems to have abandoned everything that he was before to fulfill God’s call on his life. But we see here that he still made tents. In one of Paul’s letters he tells his readers that he worked so that he wouldn’t be a burden on them.
What I wonder about is what it must have been like to live and work with Paul. Paul was a Jew just like Aquila and Priscilla. He was also a believer in Jesus Christ. Paul regularly preached in the synagogue that Jesus was the Messiah and worked to convince the Jews of that through their own Scriptures which he knew very well.
Imagine what it must have been like to listen to Paul in the synagogue and then spend the evening with him in your home and all the next day at work. Paul was in Corinth for a year and a half. He wasn’t living with Aquila and Priscilla the whole time, but you can easily imagine the effect that concentrated exposure to Paul might have had.
Only a few in the church are called to be supported by the church. Everyone else must work at a job to support themselves. Paul is a great example of a man that was not hesitant to work to support the ministry that he was called to do. All of us should have that same mind; our jobs are for the purpose of supporting our family and our ministry. We should find no other real purpose in our jobs; they do not define us.
Our jobs should also be a place where we can have a tremendous influence on other people. If you are like most people, you spend more time with the people you work with than you do almost anyone else. That is a great opportunity to share the truth of the Scriptures and about Jesus with them. Look for the opportunities to share small amounts of God’s truth and love with them. Over time it will have an effect. Jesus, help us to patiently share You with those people we spend the most time.
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