SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/25/2018 10:01 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-2 “Intro
to Acts 18:1-17”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Acts 18:1-17
Message of the
verses: Please refer to the
Spiritual Diary dated 05-24-18 to see the verses that go along with this SD.
We continue to look at the introduction to this section
in the book of Acts in our SD for today.
We have been discussing some of God’s servants, both from the OT and the
NT who have gone through some difficult times as they served the Lord. Paul certainly was in this group as he
suffered much for the cause of Christ.
Paul left Athens and took the 53 mile walk to Corinth to continue to
serve the Lord there in that very ungodly city.
In Paul’s day Corinth actually replaced Athens as the leading political
and commercial center in Greece as nearly all traffic between northern and
Southern Greece passed through Corinth.
John MacArthur writes “Because it was a 200-mile sail around the
peninsula, some ships were put on rollers and pulled across the 4-mile bridge
of land. In A. D. 67 Nero began work on
a canal, but one was not completed until 1893.”
Corinth was a city whose population was mobile, as many
sailors lived there when they were not on the sea, and so not they were there
much of the time. It is because of this
mobile population that Corinth was one of the most debauched cities of
antiquity, “R. C. H. Lenski writes
‘Corinth was a wicked city
even as larger cities of the empire went at this period. The very term ‘Corinthian’ came to mean a
profligate Korinthiazomai, ‘to
Corinthianize, meant to practice whoredom; Korinthiastes
= a whoremonger; Korinthia kore (girl)
= a courtesan.’
John MacArthur continues his description of Corinth
“Towering some 1,500 feet above Corinth was the Acropolis, on top of which was
the temple of Aphrodite, the goddess of love.
Each evening the temple’s one thousand priestesses, who were ritual prostitutes,
would descend into the city to ply their trade.
In sharp contrast to the sedate (by comparison) intellectual and
cultural center of Athens, Corinth was undeniably a pip-roaring town where
‘none but the tough could survive.’”
Into this city Paul arrived and actually spent a considerable
amount of time there, but as he entered the city I am sure that he had similar
feelings about it as when he was in Athens.
Although the situation was different in each city, sin ran rampant in
both cities. We will now finish with a
final quote from MacArthur’s introductory commentary in order to understand the
outline that we will be following in the coming days.
“But the ‘God of all comfort’ (2 Cor. 1:3), who ‘comforts
the depressed’ (2 Cor. 7:6), did not leave Paul in his downtrodden
condition. He encouraged His struggling
servant through four means: the
companionship of friends, the blessing of converts, the fellowship of God, and
the frustration of his enemies. These
are the very blessings any depressed servant of the Lord can cling to for encouragement.”
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: I am thankful
that the Lord, through His Word, and through His servant Paul, gives a
wonderful recipe for overcoming times of when I am depressed.
My Steps of Faith for Today:
Trust the Lord as He deals with some
trials in my life, that all will be done to bring glory to the Lord.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “Jesus” (Matthew 1:21).
Today’s Bible
question: “Who said, ‘He that comes
after me is preferred before me; for He was before me’?”
Answer in our next SD.
5/25/2018 10:29 AM
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