There is something in human nature that likes to settle. Once we get comfortable — comfortable with what we know, comfortable with what we've experienced, comfortable with how we've always done things — we begin to assume there's nothing left to discover. And as Sunday's message from Acts 18 pointed out, the longer we walk with God the easier that becomes.
Many of us have heard hundreds of sermons. We've read a lot of Scripture. We've had seasons where we watched God answer prayer, where we experienced His presence in absolutely amazing ways, where He brought us through things we never thought we'd survive. All of that is real. All of that matters. But as it was put from the platform Sunday: yesterday's encounter with Jesus should be your foundation, not your ceiling.
The Four-Wheel Drive We Forget We Have
The message opened with a family story. A steep, unpaved, potholed mountain road on the way to a mountain lake, with two boys — Gabriel and Ezekiel — bouncing all over the truck. The road was treacherous enough that more than once their dad called back, boys, you better hang on, because I don't know if we're gonna make it.
Then nine-year-old Ezekiel, the kid who had read the entire truck manual cover to cover, said: dad, you have four-wheel drive. That answer — I know, son — wasn't good enough for him. So he unbuckled his seatbelt, dove into the front of the truck, reached over, and shifted it into four-wheel drive. Instantly they went from I'm going to turn this thing around and go home to this is a whole lot of fun.
The point wasn't the truck. As we heard it: there was something available in that truck that I had access to that I wasn't thinking about. That's the question Acts 18 puts to us spiritually. Not chasing a new fad. Not doing something new simply because we're tired of what's old. Just maintaining a heart that says, Jesus, if there's something You want to teach me, teach me.
More to Learn: The Man From Alexandria
Luke introduces Apollos as a native of Alexandria — not an incidental detail. Alexandria was one of the intellectual centers of the ancient world, founded by Alexander the Great, home of the famous library, known for learning, philosophy, and literature. It's the ancient equivalent of naming one of America's most prestigious universities. It also had a large, influential Jewish population that studied the Scriptures deeply while engaging a Greek-speaking culture. So when Luke tells us Apollos was from Alexandria and immediately calls him eloquent and competent in the Scriptures, those descriptions fit together.
This was not an uneducated man stumbling into Ephesus trying to figure out what he believed. He was learned, well-studied in the Old Testament, fervent in spirit, and teaching accurately about Jesus. And Luke still adds: though he knew only the baptism of John.
You can be gifted and still need to learn. Sunday's warning was direct — sometimes we mistakenly think spiritual maturity means reaching a place where nobody or anything can teach you any longer. That's not maturity. That's pride. The illustration landed: the greatest athletes in the world still have coaches. The athlete runs faster than the coach ever did, throws farther, is stronger — and there's still someone on that field teaching them. Because you can still be exceptional at what you do and still miss what somebody else sees.
More to Become: Taken Aside, Not Shown Up
Priscilla and Aquila heard Apollos preaching boldly in the synagogue and recognized God had something more for him. They could have interrupted. They could have stood up mid-message and announced his error to the room. They could have made a spectacle out of what he lacked. Acts 18 says instead that they took him aside.
Godly correction does not mean that you have to humiliate somebody to help somebody. Condemnation says you're the problem and we can no longer help you; correction says there's something God wants to change in you, let's move forward together. And when the Holy Spirit convicts us, our reflex is often to assume He's angry. Sunday reframed it: God does not expose what you lack to embarrass you. He reveals it because He wants to increase you. He will shape and mold you until you take your last breath.
The message also paused on Priscilla and Aquila themselves. They're mentioned together six times in the New Testament, and in four of those the manuscripts list Priscilla first — unusual in Greek, though not a grammatical rule about who leads. What the text does show is partnership: the word translated explained is plural. They explained. Not one teaching while the other watched. There is something beautiful about Aquila not being threatened by his gifted wife and Priscilla not competing with her husband. As it was said Sunday, headship does not cancel partnership, and partnership does not cancel headship.
More to Receive: Paul's Question in Ephesus
The story continues in Acts 19. Apollos heads to Corinth, Paul comes to Ephesus, and there he finds about twelve disciples. His question is telling — not have you heard of Jesus, but did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed. They answer that they were baptized into John's baptism. Exactly like Apollos.
These were believers. Romans 8:9 makes clear that anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to Him — so they had the Spirit. What they lacked was the empowering baptism. The baptism of the Holy Spirit is not a better salvation. It doesn't make you more saved. It doesn't make the blood of Jesus more effective. It's about becoming empowered for the life and mission Jesus has for you.
Which leads to the sentence the whole message hangs on: salvation is not the finish line of everything God wants to do in your life. Salvation is the starting place of a spirit-filled life.
Wherever you find yourself — saved for decades but never having received, or filled thirty years ago and running on the memory of it — the invitation is the same. The Spirit-filled life is meant to be a lifestyle, not a memory. The question isn't only did you believe. It's did you receive, and are you receiving?
Watch the full message from Acts 18 at theriverag.church.