Priscilla and Aquila Instruct Apollos (18:23–28)

Prepared and preached by Pastor Steve Rhodes for and at Bethel Friends Church in Poland, OH on Sunday, October 12, 2025

Do you believe the whole Gospel? I am not asking if you understood the whole Gospel, but do you believe the whole Gospel? Sometimes we step out into faith.

I once read an article asking if I am preaching the whole Gospel. What does that mean? Often, we stop our teaching and preaching at “just believe.” We never tell people they must follow Jesus. However, many people believe but do not trust or really do not even believe in Jesus.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German Theologian killed by the Nazi’s in World War II. There is a great biography about him. He was a brilliant man who would not cave to the Nazis. Many other German churches were going along with Hitler’s anti-Semitic comments, but he would not. He was trying to organize churches that stayed true to Scripture. There was a time when he came to New York City to pursue his studies. His impressions of our American church were not good. He wrote:

By this time, Bonhoeffer is in his lower twenties and has almost, if not, completed his PhD.

[The Union students] talk a blue streak without the slightest substantive foundation and with no evidence of any criteria . . . They are unfamiliar with even the most basic questions. They become intoxicated with liberal and humanistic phrases, laugh at the fundamentalists, and yet basically are not even up to their level.[1]

On another occasion, he wrote:

In New York they preach about virtually everything; only one thing is not addressed, or is addressed so rarely that I have as yet been unable to hear it, namely, the gospel of Jesus Christ, the cross, sin and forgiveness, death and life.[2]

You see, Bonhoeffer came to the U.S. soon after a pastor in New York City made some waves. His name was Harry Emerson Fosdick. Listen to what Eric Metaxis writes about him:

Fosdick had been the pastor at New York’s First Presbyterian Church when in 1922 he preached an infamous sermon titled “Shall the Fundamentalists Win?” In it he laid out a kind of Apostate’s Creed in which he expressed his serious doubts about most of the historic assertions of the Christian faith, including the virgin birth, the resurrection, the divinity of Christ, the atonement, miracles, and the Bible as the Word of God. This sermon was the opening salvo in a battle that would rage particularly hotly through the 1920s and 1930s. The local presbytery immediately conducted an investigation, but as a son of the moneyed East Coast WASP establishment, Fosdick had little to fear. His defense was conducted by another establishment scion, John Foster Dulles, who would serve as Eisenhower’s secretary of state, and whose father was a well-known liberal Presbyterian minister. Fosdick resigned before they could censure him, and he was given the pastorate of the fashionably progressive Park Avenue Baptist Church, where John D. Rockefeller was a prominent member, and whose foundation’s philanthropic arm was run by Fosdick’s own brother.[3]

So, their Gospel was incomplete. Their teaching was incomplete, and it was on purpose. They needed to be corrected.

I want to look at a passage where a brilliant man was teaching and speaking, but he was incomplete in his understanding. So, he is corrected. Let’s look at the passage.

Acts 18:24–28 (ESV)

²⁴ Now a Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria, came to Ephesus. He was an eloquent man, competent in the Scriptures. ²⁵ He had been instructed in the way of the Lord. And being fervent in spirit, he spoke and taught accurately the things concerning Jesus, though he knew only the baptism of John. ²⁶ He began to speak boldly in the synagogue, but when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately. ²⁷ And when he wished to cross to Achaia, the brothers encouraged him and wrote to the disciples to welcome him. When he arrived, he greatly helped those who through grace had believed, ²⁸ for he powerfully refuted the Jews in public, showing by the Scriptures that the Christ was Jesus.

1. First, let’s talk about the passage. Meet Apollos.
   1. Apollos was a Jew, and he was by birth an Alexandrian.
   2. We are familiar with Alexandria, and we know that it was an area in Egypt that was highly sophisticated, boasting a very large library. The library would later have a fire, which was unfortunate because we lost a lot of good literature and history. Later, many noble theologians and church fathers came from Alexandria.
   3. He was an eloquent or a learned man. Apollos was a Greek Jew. Alexandria would have had the largest Jewish population outside of Palestine.
   4. Apollos will be referenced much more:
   5. 1 Corinthians 1:12 (ESV) ¹² What I mean is that each one of you says, “I follow Paul,” or “I follow Apollos,” or “I follow Cephas,” or “I follow Christ.”
   6. 1 Corinthians 3:5–6 (ESV)
   7. ⁵ What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. ⁶ I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.
   8. You can also see 1 Cor. 3:22; 1 Cor. 4:6; 1 Cor. 16:12; and Titus 3:13.
   9. Apollos is used much more in the New Testament, especially in Corinth.
   10. In verse 25, Apollos was instructed by the Lord. He was fervent in Spirit. The Bible even says that he spoke and taught accurately the things concerning Jesus. But he was only acquainted with the things concerning John. In Acts 19:3, there is another instance where people were only familiar with John’s teachings. Or John’s baptism. The Bible says that he was boiling in Spirit, and this means that he had fire within him. So, he was very passionate.
   11. But his message was incomplete. He only knew the things of John. Apollos only knew John’s baptism.
   12. But it does say that he was competent in the Scriptures and had been instructed in the way of the Lord. The passage says he spoke and taught about Jesus.
   13. It sounds to me like he was yet to know what God had been doing since Pentecost.
   14. He was likely saved in an Old Testament sense, or pre-Pentecost sense.
   15. So, in the next verse, Priscilla and Aquila take him aside and explain the Gospel more fully.
   16. Notice that after this, verses 27 and 28 show Apollos going to Corinth (Achaia would be the region around Corinth) and powerfully refuting the Jews in public, demonstrating by the Scriptures that Jesus was the Christ.
2. Apply:
   1. It is vitally important that we understand a complete Gospel. Jesus was crucified, died, was buried, and rose again (1 Cor. 15:3).
   2. We must understand that Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to us (Acts 2; Romans 8:9).
   3. We must recognize, as Jesus said, that believing in Him means following Him.
   4. But what else? We must do our duty just like Priscilla and Aquila did. We must explain the Gospel more fully when people do not understand.
   5. What did Priscilla and Aquila do? They took him aside and explained the full Gospel to him. Again, we do not know all the details, but he knew Jesus, although perhaps not the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
   6. Are you willing to do that? Are we willing to explain the complete gospel?
   7. Notice also that they did not correct him in the open; they followed the Jesus model. They took him aside and, in private, corrected him. That is based on Matthew 18:15-17.
   8. Everyone here who is a believer in Christ must be concerned with incomplete Gospel teaching. That means you must be prepared for the possibility that Jesus may use you to correct someone.

Remember Bonhoeffer? Later, Metaxis writes:

Bonhoeffer’s observations on American churches, especially in New York City, were closely related to his views on Union:

Things are not much different in the church. The sermon has been reduced to parenthetical church remarks about newspaper events. As long as I’ve been here, I have heard only one sermon in which you could hear something like a genuine proclamation, and that was delivered by a negro (indeed, in general I’m increasingly discovering greater religious power and originality in Negroes). One big question continually attracting my attention in view of these facts is whether one here really can still speak about Christianity, . . . There’s no sense to expect the fruits where the Word really is no longer being preached. But then what becomes of Christianity per se?

In New York they preach about virtually everything; only one thing is not addressed, or is addressed so rarely that I have as yet been unable to hear it, namely, the gospel of Jesus Christ, the cross, sin and forgiveness, death and life.[4]

What about more recently? In 2013, the Presbyterian Church, USA, sought to remove the phrase “The wrath of God was satisfied” from the song “In Christ Alone.”[5] They tried to take out part of the Gospel. The Getty’s held the copyright and would not allow it.

In Christ Alone:

In Christ alone, my hope is found
He is my light, my strength, my song
This Cornerstone, this solid ground
Firm through the fiercest drought and storm
What heights of love, what depths of peace
When fears are stilled, when strivings cease
My Comforter, my All in All
Here in the love of Christ I stand

In Christ alone, who took on flesh
Fullness of God in helpless babe
This gift of love and righteousness
Scorned by the ones He came to save
‘Til on that cross as Jesus died
The wrath of God was satisfied
For every sin on Him was laid
Here in the death of Christ I live, I live

There in the ground His body lay
Light of the world by darkness slain
Then bursting forth in glorious Day
Up from the grave He rose again
And as He stands in victory
Sin’s curse has lost its grip on me
For I am His and He is mine
Bought with the precious blood of Christ

No guilt in life, no fear in death
This is the power of Christ in me
From life’s first cry to final breath
Jesus commands my destiny
No power of hell, no scheme of man
Can ever pluck me from His hand
Till He returns or calls me home
Here in the power of Christ I’ll stand

Do you know Jesus?

God created us to be with him. (Genesis 1-2)

Our sin separated us from God. (Genesis 3)

Sins cannot be removed by good deeds (Gen 4-Mal 4)

Paying the price for sin, Jesus died and rose again. (Matthew – Luke)

Everyone who trusts in him alone has eternal life. (John – Jude)

Life that’s eternal means we will be with Jesus forever. (Revelation 22:5)

Pray

[1] Metaxas, Eric. Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy (p. 99). (Function). Kindle Edition.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Metaxas, Eric. Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy (p. 102). (Function). Kindle Edition.

[4] Metaxas, Eric. Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy (p. 106). (Function). Kindle Edition.

[5] Presbyterians’ decision to drop hymn stirs debate; USA Today; Bob Smietana, August 5, 2013.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/08/05/presbyterians-decision-to-drop-hymn-stirs-debate/2618833/