Priscilla, Aquila, and Apollos, 2025
Circuit Pastors’ Meeting
Text: Acts 18:24-28
Title: Correct Correction
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Apollos was eloquent, competent, and fervent. But he was also wrong. Not just wrong on some minor issues of church practice, but on baptism. Baptism is a big deal.
Enter Priscilla and Aquila.
When they hear of Apollos’s error, they take him aside and correct him privately.
And Apollos actually listened to them.
Wouldn’t it be great if we still acted like that in our churches today- we correct error privately and we are open to being corrected.
Instead, what do we do when we learn of error?
We attack one another publicly on social media, or privately to our chosen circle of like-minded friends, rather than taking aside the brother who is in error.
Or we just ignore error, put our heads down and act like our congregation is an island.
And when we are the one being corrected, are we willing to listen and receive correction, or do we get defensive and fire right back?
That’s often the case, whether we’re talking about church matters or just about anything. We don’t give or receive correction well.
The book of Proverbs has much to say about how we respond to reproof. For example, Proverbs 10:17 reads, “Whoever heeds instruction is on the path to life, but he who rejects reproof leads others astray.”
As pastors we are expected to have all the answers. And too often we convince ourselves that we actually do.
As Christians, though, we realize that we are sinful and fallible. And that goes for your favorite sem prof, your favorite podcaster, and your favorite church father.
The Lord is the only inerrant one.
But thankfully, He’s given us His word.
And He’s given us other pastors and faithful Christians to serve together in His church.
Sometimes this means support and encouragement, as the brothers in Ephesus did for Apollos when they sent him off to Achaia.
Sometimes this means rebuke and correction, as was the case with Priscilla and Aquila.
But it is always done in love, and as much as possible in private, for the good of the one being corrected, and for the good of the church as whole.
Because, in the end the church is not about you. And it’s not about me. And it’s not even about eloquent, competent and fervent Apollos.
It’s Jesus’ church, and He is the one ultimately at work in it.
Remember what Paul wrote to the church in Corinth:
4 For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not being merely human?
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. 7 So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. 8 He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. 9 For we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field, God's building. …
21 So let no one boast in men. For all things are yours, 22 whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, 23 and you are Christ's, and Christ is God's.
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