Unconvinced

After staying in Antioch some time, Paul left and traveled in orderly sequence through the Galatian country and Phrygia, bringing strength to all the disciples. A Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria, an eloquent speaker, arrived in Ephesus. He was an authority on the Scriptures. He had been instructed in the Way of the Lord and, with ardent spirit, spoke and taught accurately about Jesus, although he knew only the baptism of John. 

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. And when he wanted to cross to Achaia, the brothers encouraged him and wrote to the disciples there to welcome him. 

After his arrival he gave great assistance to those who had come to believe through grace. He vigorously refuted the Jews in public, establishing from the Scriptures that the Christ is Jesus. (Acts 18:23-28)

Luke, speaking for Paul, again tells a story about the Jews not believing that Christ – meaning Messiah – was Jesus. Luke, or Paul, actually had a Jew named Apollos be an eloquent speaker/spokesman for belief in Jesus as the Christ.  He was coached and encouraged to spread the Way of God – Jesus – to other Jews in the synagogue and in locations such as Achaia in Western Greece in the northwestern part of the Peloponnese peninsula.  That likely was a fool’s errand.  

According to Klinghoffer (Why The Jews Rejected Jesus): “One thing that Jews could agree with Christians was that the generation of Jesus had not been outstandingly righteous.  They had witnessed the destruction of the Temple, after all, a sorry reflection on their moral condition.  To a Jew, it would have been clear that the Messiah had not come in the first century.”

Many Jews did follow Jesus the Jew, but the gap between Judaism and Christianity widened for numerous reasons. There may have been many Jews like Apollos, but the attractiveness of this alternative to Judaism greatly dimmed for Jews unconvinced that their Hebrew Scriptures revealed that Christ was Jesus.  

Deacon David Pierce