God has many people

When reading Scripture, it is possible to understand and interpret a passage correctly and apply it inappropriately.  The result is that while we may be “encouraged,” we are encouraged by a wrong idea or by a right idea in a wrong way.

For instance, one might read God’s words to Paul in the vision in Acts 18 — “I am with you, and no man will attack you in order to harm you, for I have many people in this city” (v. 10) — and wrongly conclude that our own evangelistic efforts will be successful and without persecution because the Lord desires men in our city to trust in Christ.

Those words were a promise to Paul, not us, and we cannot assume that all our efforts will result in conversion and that we won’t face opposition or that the opposition won’t result in persecution or physical harm.

Yet there still is other encouragement for our evangelistic efforts in this verse.  Consider these three universal truths that apply to us as well:

The Lord is with us. The promise to Paul that the Lord would be with him was not unique to Paul and not unique to His evangelistic efforts.  The omnipresent Lord is always with — and because of the indwelling Spirit, always in — His people (cf. Heb. 13:5-6).  And that includes when the believer evangelizes (Mt. 28:18-20).

The Lord is sovereign over salvation.  Notice that God does not tell Paul that Paul has converts, but that God has many people (converts) in Corinth.  The people belong to the Lord and the Lord is the One who brings them to salvation.  While conversion is dependent on someone speaking (Rom. 10:14), the conversion itself is the work of God through His Spirit (Jn. 3:6-8; 6:37, 39-40, 43).  While not everyone who hears the gospel from us will respond in faith, we can rest in the truth that all whom the Lord has called to salvation will respond in faith to the gospel.

The Lord saves many different kinds of people.  God told Paul that He had “many people” in Corinth.  And this chapter (Acts 18) not only reveals a significant number of converts, but it also reveals many different kinds of converts.  Consider these people:

• Priscilla and Aquila (v. 2) — they were Jewish converts, and evidently Priscilla had some measure of significant social standing, for her name is mentioned before her husband’s name in most of the NT references to them.  They also traveled with Paul (later in this chapter they are ministering in Ephesus and later they are evidently back in Rome), indicating their willingness to sacrifice the comforts and stability of home for the sake of gospel ministry.
• Timothy (v. 5) — this young man who was like a son to Paul was a convert from the home of a believing mother and an unbelieving father (Acts 16:1ff).  He would later become prominent in the Ephesian church as its pastor.
• Crispus (v. 8) — the leader of the synagogue was one of the least likely converts, and yet, Crispus trusted Christ — undoubtedly creating much unrest among the Jews.  Was this the reason they attempted to have Paul and condemned by the Roman courts as a violator of Roman law about proselytizing?
• Many converts (v. 8) — though unnamed and unidentified, there were a significant number of Gentiles who responded in faith and were willing to identify themselves with Christ through baptism.
• Sosthenes (v. 17) — perhaps Sosthenes took over the leadership of the Jewish synagogue after Crispus’ conversion (while it’s unclear how the transfer of leadership took place, it does seem that Sosthenes has replaced Crispus by the time of Paul’s appearance before Gallio).  And because of the failure of the Jews to have Paul silenced, Sosthenes is beaten by the Greeks (perhaps because they were agitated over his attempts to create unrest in the city?).  What is known, however, is that sometime later Sosthenes also converted to Christ (cf. 1 Cor. 1:1).  Like Paul, he was dogmatically opposed to Christianity, and yet he too trusted Christ.
• Apollos (vv. 24-28) — he knew of the testimony of John the Baptist and accepted that testimony, but did not yet know of Christ.  So when Priscilla and Aquila explained Christ to him, he also became a Christian.

These are among the many people God had — prominent Jews and masses of Gentiles and converts from homes of mixed faiths and converts from John the Baptist.  In other words, God has his people in many different kinds of circumstances and in many kinds of places, and we can be encouraged that we too will see people converted from many different kinds of walks of life and stations of life.

So, we can’t directly appropriate the promise that God made to Paul and assume that He will do exactly the same thing for us.  But we can say that whatever happens in our evangelistic endeavors, God will be faithful to accomplish salvation in all those whom He has chosen, and that we can expect that salvation to take place in many different kinds of people.