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The Apollos Problem |
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by Ralph I. Tilley
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| In just the past few weeks, several Christian lay people have shared with me similar stories that, sadly, are all too familiar. The individuals who spoke with me are not cantankerous saints; they don’t have a reputation for being difficult people. And each of them has maintained a long-term commitment to his respective local church. For the most part, each has served in a leadership role for many years.
What is their similar refrain? It is this: “Our pastor is a wonderful person and he preaches a good sermon, but he has no power.” No power! Each of these pastors is seminary trained. Each came to his church highly recommended by church leaders, ministerial colleagues and seminary professors. Each one has devoted hundreds of hours to the study of the Old and New Testament Scriptures. They have meticulously studied the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. They have read and re-read the Book of Acts. And yet, years later, the complaint of some of the godliest people in the pews is: “Our pastor doesn’t preach with power!” No Holy Spirit power! How is it that a man can have earned a Bible college or seminary degree and not preach with power? How is it that a man can know the Scriptures from cover to cover and not preach with power? How is it that a preacher can possess oratorical and homiletical skills and not preach with power? How is it that a pastor can have an excellent command of his native tongue, deliver a sermon with choice illustrations, and not preach with power? A Powerless Preacher The answer? It is found in Acts 18:24-28. This passage is a brief historical account of a preacher by the name of Apollos, who was preaching without the power of the Holy Spirit. Apollos possessed superb ministerial credentials; Providence was kind to this preacher. Having been born into a Jewish home in the city of Alexandria—a city with a Jewish population of some one million in that day—he was surrounded by expert Torah scholars. Because of his disciplined training, he would later be “useful in convincing the Jews, for he would be able to find Christ all over the Old Testament and to prove to them that the Old Testament looked forward all the time to his coming.”(1) Not only was this man mighty in the Scriptures, he later came to faith in Jesus Christ and was “instructed in the way of the Lord;...”(2) We don’t know anything about the occasion or circumstances surrounding his conversion, but having been raised and educated in a deeply Jewish environment that was rich in tradition, his conversion to Christ had to result in much personal suffering. Following his conversion, Apollos preached with passion, for Luke says he was “fervent in spirit.”(3) This Alexandrian-educated preacher, preached with great emotional and physical energy. His listeners never had to think twice as to whether or not this man was convinced about his subject matter; he passionately communicated his new-found discoveries to all who would listen. No one fell asleep while Apollos preached. Furthermore, Apollos’ preaching didn’t lack substance. His sermons were not all heat with no light. Luke says that “he was speaking and teaching accurately the things concerning Jesus.”(4) His was not a zeal without knowledge. No apostle could fault him for not having done his homework. He was convinced that Jesus was the one spoken of by the prophets, and he preached accordingly with all his oratorical eloquence. Only John’s Baptism But there was something definitive lacking in this preacher’s manner and delivery. Not everyone detected it. But there were two who did. While listening to him, Priscilla and Aquila discerned that this mighty expositor lacked the power of the Holy Spirit. Following the sermon, this husband and wife discreetly approached the preacher and asked for a private audience. They inquired as to Apollos’ biblical and experiential knowledge. He acknowledged that he was “acquainted only with the baptism of John.”(5) Only with the baptism of John! When this Spirit-filled couple heard that, they knew they had their answer. Apollos had been baptized with water but lacked the baptism with the Holy Spirit. What were Priscilla and Aquila to do? Luke says they “explained to him the way of God more accurately.”(6) And what was the result? He was filled with the Holy Spirit. How do we know that? Because of the larger context. In the very next chapter we have Paul coming into Ephesus and finding some followers of Christ. One of the first questions he put to these converts was, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when [it can also be translated “since”] you believed?”(7) What was their answer? “No,...” Then Paul asked, “Into what then were you baptized?” Their answer? The same answer Apollos gave to Priscilla and Aquila: “Into John’s baptism.”(8) To those who might argue: “Yes, but since the Ephesians had only experienced John’s baptism, Paul went ahead and baptized them with water in the name of Jesus—and that’s what they lacked.” But that’s only half of the story. Verse 6 says, “the Holy Spirit came upon them,...” As necessary as water baptism is, all the water in the world will not enable any preacher to preach in the power of the Holy Spirit. It was the original Baptizer himself—John the Baptist—who announced, “As for me, I baptize you with water for repentance, but He who is coming after me . . . He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.”(9) The sad fact of the matter is that most preachers and Christians have only experienced one baptism—water baptism. They have never experienced the Spirit coming upon them. They have never been endued with power from on high. I can hear someone remonstrate: “I believe all Christians are baptized with the Holy Spirit at the point of their conversion.” Granted, every Christian born from above does receive the Spirit of adoption and is enabled to call God his Father.(10) Every Christian is indwelt by the Holy Spirit.(11) And all Christians have been baptized into the body of Christ—the Church of the living God.(12) But not all Christians have been baptized with the Spirit. Not all Christians have been filled with the Spirit. If this were true, all preachers would be preaching in the power of the Spirit, and all Christians would be walking in the power of the Spirit, and all of our churches would be enjoying apostolic fruit. But every honest person would have to acknowledge that this simply is not the case. And why not? Because of our doctrinal prejudices; because of uninformed pastors and preachers; because our fleshly tendencies keep us from seeing the reality of this biblical truth and experience. Some are so prejudiced against any message or ministry that honors the Holy Spirit, that they are grieving the Spirit. Some are so afraid of fanaticism and emotionalism—as I am, too—that they sleepily embrace a kind of sterile, metallic brand of Christianity that is powerless to raise a spiritually dead Lazarus. Some biblical terms carry a stigma with Christians in some church circles: words like “Pentecost,” “filled with the Spirit,” “gifts of the Spirit,” “holiness,” “baptism with the Holy Spirit,”—even “Spirit” or “Holy Spirit.” These words are avoided like the plague. And could it be that they are avoided because such individuals have never experienced a mighty baptism with the Holy Spirit? Our Greatest Need The church has relied too long upon academic credentials, ecclesiastical machinery, and the efforts and ingenuity of the flesh instead of the blessed Holy Ghost. And the results? A skilled, professional clergy who know only John’s baptism. And since the pastor cannot lead his people where he himself has never gone, our pews are populated for the most part with sincere people who may have been born from above, but who know nothing of the power of the Holy Spirit in their own lives. I’m convinced that most churches would be content to have an Apollos as their preacher—one who has never been baptized with the Holy Spirit; one who never preaches in the power of the Spirit. Why do I say that? Because—and let’s be honest here—this is the present pathetic state of the average church. There is a famine of Spirit-filled preachers. I say this with an aching heart. I don’t delight in writing this. What is our greatest lack? The Holy Spirit. What is our greatest need? The Holy Spirit. Who is the missing Presence? The Holy Spirit. Oh, for preachers like the venerable Baptist, Charles Spurgeon, who when ascending to his pulpit every Sunday morning and evening, prayed at each of the 13 steps, “Come, Holy Spirit.” Is it any wonder that the Lord honored his ministry with much fruit as he preached in the power of the Spirit to London’s masses? The saintly English Methodist, Samuel Chadwick, in writing on this subject said, “Pentecost transforms the preacher. The commonest bush ablaze with the presence of God becomes a miracle of glory.... Indifference to religion is impossible where the preacher is a flame of fire.... The only power that is adequate for Christian life and Christian work is the power of the Holy Spirit.”(13) Listen to what Martyn Lloyd-Jones, the late renowned pastor of London’s Westminster Chapel had to say on this subject: “The church has fallen into the error of thinking that a man can get this knowledge by academic teaching and learning. I am not here to decry these things; [he was a medical doctor when God called him to preach].... But they are not all-important, and the tragedy of the last hundred years has been to put a premium on such things, men boasting of their degrees and diplomas ... and so on. That is all very well, but it is not the way to know God more fully. It is through the Spirit, through the baptism of the Spirit that one comes to this fuller knowledge.”(14) Thomas Aquinas was one of the Roman Catholic Church’s greatest theologians. In 1879 the Pope officially proclaimed him to be, in effect, the theologian and teacher of the entire Holy Catholic Church. His famous theological work, The Summa Theologica, has been regarded ever since the twelfth century as the standard work of the Roman Catholic Church. Aquinas was regarded as one of the greatest thinkers and philosophers. And yet, he taught that it was impossible for a mortal man to have any kind of direct experience with God. After spending his entire life teaching that man could have no contact with immaterial reality, shortly before his death he had such an overwhelming experience of God that he could write no more theology. In responding to a friend who urged him to finish his great work, The Summa Theologica, he replied, “I can do no more; such things have been revealed to me that all that I have written seems as straw, and I now await the end of my life.”(15) Amazing! Here was a man who had written volumes of theology and was recognized by his church as being its foremost theologian and teacher, but upon having a personal divine encounter with the Spirit of God, he laid his pen aside saying that everything prior to this experience was like straw. Thus it will be with the man who has experienced what Apollos did, after being carefully instructed by two Spirit-filled lay people, Priscilla and Aquila. All he has ever preached and done before will seem like nothing but straw to him after he has been baptized with the Holy Spirit. Ask the apostles Peter and Paul if this is not so. Ask George Whitefield and John Wesley if this is not so. Ask D.L. Moody and Blaise Pascal if this is not so. Ask Evan Roberts and Robert Murray McCheyne if this is not so. Ask A.W. Tozer, A.B. Simpson and Martyn Lloyd-Jones—as well as a myriad of lesser lights, if this is not so. It is so. The New Testament affirms, and a host of hungry-hearted men and women can testify to the reality of the blessed experience of the baptism with the Holy Spirit. No denomination or movement has any copyright to this experience. The halls of church history are replete with Baptists and Mennonites, Episcopalians and Presbyterians, Methodists and Wesleyans, Lutherans and Nazarenes—men and women who finally tired of living a powerless life and were led into a life of power in the Holy Spirit. The Apollos problem is not only a preacher problem—it is a pew problem as well. However, God has called preachers to lead the way. But where they don’t, blessed is that preacher who has a discreet Priscilla and Aquila who will humbly show him the way. No power? Try Pentecost! ? – Soli Deo Gloria – All Scripture quotations are taken from the New American Standard Bible. 1. The Acts of the Apostles; William Barclay, p. 139 |
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