“People to meet in heaven: Crispus”
Acts 18:5-11
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus.
In an article entitled, “For Heaven’s Sake: A Jewish Astronomer’s Odyssey,” author and professor Dr. David Block writes: “The year was 1969. The event had been advertised on the radio again and again. I arose at four o’clock in the morning and watched a blazing comet with utter awe, as its tail stretched across the eastern skies. My love affair with astronomy had begun.”
Not long after, his father bought him a four-and-a-half inch reflector telescope—no small thing for a teenager. And with that instrument, he could view planets like Saturn and watch as stars were born.
He was raised by Orthodox Jewish parents with roots in Lithuania, who kept all the traditions of their fathers. He attended synagogue school on Friday nights and Saturdays. He observed Passover. He fasted on Yom Kippur. He celebrated his Bar Mitzvah. He did everything expected of a good Jewish boy.
Then when he attended the university in Johannesburg, South Africa, he became friends with Lewis Hurst, a professor of genetics and medicine. And week after week, they sat around the table and discussed the complexities of the universe—about stars and black holes and quasars.
And he asked, “Are we, as Shakespeare said, just a ‘fleeting shadow to appear and then disappear’? What is our purpose for living, the reason we are here? Is there a Designer out there?”
Hurst answered, “David, there is an answer to all your questions.” And he said, “I know you come from an Orthodox Jewish family—but would you be willing to meet with a dear friend of mine, the Reverend Mr. John Spyker?”
And as he sat down to talk with Pastor Spyker, that’s when it all became clear to him—that Jesus had fulfilled all the Messianic prophecies in the Hebrew Scriptures, that He was the Messiah, that He is the Messiah. And on that day in October of 1976, he surrendered his heart to Jesus.
He said: “I gave Judaism a chance and I accepted Him who is fully, fully Jewish. Paul, before he believed in Jesus, was a student of the great rabbi, Gamaliel. He was a Hebrew of the Hebrews. He had studied. He had examined. Yet, when Paul met the Master face to face, the Master mastered him.” And he said, “The Master mastered me as well.”
David Block is one of many Jews who became Christians. Rabbi Michael Solomon Alexander came to faith, then taught Hebrew and Rabbinical Literature at King’s College in London. Alfred Edersheim not only became a minister, he wrote a book called, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah. Solomon Ginsburg became a missionary. And long-time professor and philosopher at the University of Chicago, Mortimer Adler, became a Christian when he was 84 years old. He said, “Christianity is the only logical, consistent faith in the world.”
And in our text for today, we meet one more—a man named Crispus.
If you would, please turn in your Bible to page 1179 as I read the words of our text. I’ll start at chapter 18, verse 1, where it says, “Paul in Corinth.”
“After this Paul left Athens and went to Corinth. And he found a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to leave Rome. And he went to see them, and because he was of the same trade he stayed with them and worked, for they were tentmakers by trade. And he reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath, and tried to persuade Jews and Greeks.”
“After this,” it said in verse 1. After what?
Back in chapter 17, Paul had just visited places like Thessalonica and Berea. Then he went to Athens and spoke before the Areopagus, Mars’ Hill. And as it says in verse 34: “But some men joined him and believed, among whom also were Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris and others with them.”
And now, as it says in chapter 18, he left Athens and went to Corinth, some sixty-five miles away.
So what do we know about Corinth? Actually, we know quite a lot! But not much of it is very good.
Not only was it a major metropolitan area with a population of close to a million, it was the capital of the Roman province of Achaia, the fifth largest capital in the world. Also, it was known for its agora, or marketplace, the largest in all of Greece. It’s amphitheater seated more than fourteen thousand! It was a beautiful, modern, industrialized center of business, religion, and art.
But as beautiful and as luxurious as it might have been, it also had a rather unsavory reputation. At the highest point of the city, there was a temple for Aphrodite, the goddess of beauty and love and, frankly, pleasure too. Her one thousand priestesses “plied their trade” in the city below.
In Paul’s day, even the word “corinthian,” came to mean, “one who lives in drunken and immoral debauchery.” A Greek historian wrote than whenever a Corinthian was depicted on stage, he was always a drunk.
Yet it was there that Paul came to preach the gospel. As he wrote in I Corinthians chapter 2: “When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.”
Then as it says in verse 4, while he was there, “He reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath, and tried to persuade Jews and Greeks.”
But things didn’t go quite as well as he had planned. Look at verse 5: “When Silas and Timothy arrived from Macedonia, Paul was occupied with the Word, testifying to the Jews that the Christ was Jesus. And when they opposed and reviled him, he shook out his garments and said to them, ‘Your blood be on your own heads! I am innocent. From now on I will go to the Gentiles.’ And he left there and went to the house of a man named Titius Justus, a worshiper of God. His house was next door to the synagogue.”
It’s funny if you think about it. Since no one would let him speak in the synagogue anymore, where did he go? He went right next door.
And what did he preach right next door? We can only guess. Maybe he said something like this: “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male or female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” He said: “Where is the wise man? Where is the teacher of the Law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” And he said, “I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.”
And what happened when he preached? Look at verse 8: “Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue, believed in the Lord, together with his entire household. And many of the Corinthians hearing Paul believed and were baptized.”
Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue, it says. The leader, the chief administrative officer, the one who cared for the building, its contents, and its worship, came to Christ and believed.
And by the grace of God, we can meet him in heaven.
Donald Grey Barnhouse, former pastor of a church in Philadelphia, was a much-loved author and speaker. Of him, U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop once said, “His authoritative voice held my attention, his physical appearance was arresting, and his preaching was teaching of the highest intellectual order.” He said, “I always marveled at the simplicity of the faith of this very intelligent and learned man.”
And in one nationwide radio address, Barnhouse speculated on what would be the most diabolical strategy that Satan could conspire against the church in years to come.
To the astonishment of those who listened, he imagined that all of the bars in Philadelphia would close. Prostitutes would no longer walk the streets. And all the streets would be clean and all the neighborhoods would be led by law-abiding citizens. All swearing and cursing would be gone. Children would respectfully say, “Yes, sir,” and “No, ma’am.” And every church in town, he added, would be full, packed to overflowing.
So what’s the problem with that?
Barnhouse then said that the deadliest, most diabolical danger of all would be that, in every one of those filled-to-capacity sanctuaries, Jesus Christ would never be preached.
In those pulpits, he said, there would be much religious talk, but nothing said of the supreme authority and saving work of Christ on the cross. There would be mention of morality, but none of Christ. There would be expressions of political commentary and cultural concern, but nothing of Christ. There would be positive thinking and inspirational stories, but no Christ.
He said, the most diabolical ploy of Satan would be for churches to bulge at their seams, but no proclamation of Christ and Him crucified. And with that deadly silence, people would never learn of Christ. They would never know Him or follow Him.
And that would be the greatest tragedy of all.
Over this past year-and-a-half, we’ve talked about quite a number of those we’ll meet in heaven, like the very first two people Adam and Eve, a prophet named Nehemiah, a queen named Esther, a convicted criminal named Barabbas, a disciple named Matthias, a high priest named Hilkiah, and a Roman centurion named Cornelius.
But you know, there’s One more every one of us longs to meet—and that’s our Savior Jesus. As Dr. S. M. Lockridge once wrote in his sermon, “He’s my King,” “He’s enduringly strong. He’s entirely sincere, He’s eternally steadfast. He’s immortally graceful. He’s imperially powerful. He’s impartially merciful. He’s God’s Son. He’s a sinner’s Savior. He’s the centerpiece of civilization…He’s the miracle of the age…He heals the sick, He cleans the lepers, He forgives sinners, He discharges debtors, He delivers captives, He defends the feeble, He blesses the young…He always has been, and He always will be…There was nobody before Him and there will be nobody after Him…the glory is all His.”
And why do we want to meet Him? Because He’s our Savior, our Redeemer, and Lord.
As Peter once preached in the book of Acts: “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).
We thank You, Father, for the great gifts You give, for life, and health, and peace. But we thank You most of all, for our Savior Jesus, our Rock and our Redeemer, as we pray in His name. Amen