SPIRITUAL
DIARY FOR 8/19/2025 10:14 AM
My
Worship Time Focus:
“The Faithful Old Friends”
Bible
Reading & Meditation Reference: 2 Timothy 4:19-20
Message of the verse: “Greet
Prisca and Aquila, and the household of Onesiphorus. Erastus remained at Corinth, but Trophimus I
left sick at Miletus.”
Well we are
getting closer to the end of Paul’s very last letter found in the Word of God,
and like many of his other letters he writes greetings to a number of his
friends, and even some who have turned away from the Lord.
As
we look at this list we can see that Paul did not fail to remember old
friends. Paul had meet Prisca and Aquila at Corinth on his
second missionary journey. This couple
had fled Italy when the Emperor Claudius ordered all Jews expelled from Rome as
seen in Acts 18:12. What Paul had in
common with this couple was they were tentmakers, as Paul stayed at their house
while “reasoning in the synagogue every
Sabbath and trying to persuade Jews and Greeks, (1 Cor. 18:4). When he and his party left Corinth, he
took along this devoted couple and left them to minister in Ephesus (vv.
18-19). Now it was while there,
Priscilla (which is the longer form of Prisca)
and Aquila met a fellow “Jew named Apollos, an Alexandrian by
birth, an eloquent man [who]…was mighty in the Scriptures” (v.24). Now when they realized Apollos’s understand
of the gospel was incomplete, then they lovingly took him aside “and explained to him the way of God more
accurately” (v. 26). It was in his
letter to the Roman church, a church that Paul had not visited yet, the apostle
greeted “Prisca and Aquila, who were his
fellow workers in Jesus Christ” (Rom. 16:13), indicating that these two
special friends were again living and ministering in Rome.
John MacArthur
writes “Earlier in this letter, Paul expressed appreciation for the household of Onesiphorus, who ‘often refreshed me, and was not ashamed of
my chains” (1:16). Because the household is mentioned in both places,
it is obvious that everyone in it was a Christian, perhaps led to Christ by Onesiphorus himself. Such a household
would have included not only family members but also servants and friends
who lived with Onesiphorus.
“The Erastus [who] remained at Corinth probably
was ‘the city treasurer’ of Corinth,
who sent greetings through Paul to the church at Rome (Rom. 16:23). He also may have been the man whom the
apostle sent with Timothy to minister in Macedonia (Acts 19:22).
“Trophimus was a native of the province
of Asia, specifically the city of Ephesus, and had accompanied Paul from Greece
to Troas (Acts 20:1-6). He probably
helped carry the offering to the church in Jerusalem, where he was the unintentional
cause of Paul’s arrest for presumably bringing a Gentile into the temple (Acts
21:29). On his trip to Rome, Paul sadly
had to leave him sick at Miletus.”
Now
let me just say that the Church was older at this time, and my point is that
the miracles of healing seems to me had gone by the wayside as in his earlier
ministry Paul, through the power of the Holy Spirit had cured different people
from sickness. I can say that God cures
all believers up until the last time they become ill and then they go to be
with the Lord.
“It
is important to note that Paul made no effort himself to heal Trophimus, who, incidentally, was
present at the late-night service in Troas when the apostle miraculously
restored life to Eutychus, a young man who went to sleep during the sermon and
fell out a window to his death (Acts. 20:9-10); cf. v.4). The sign gifts were coming to an end. There is no evidence that any of the
apostles, including Paul, performed miracles of any sort during their later
years. As more and more of the New
Testament was revealed and made available to the church, God’s Word no longer
needed the verification of miracles.” I
just love it when MacArthur agrees with what I write.
Spiritual
Meaning for My Life Today:
It is good to have good friends in the Lord for those good friends will
always be with you in the next life, and that life never ends.
My
Steps of Faith for Today:
I continue to trust the Lord to use the different supplements that my
wife is taking to curtail any cancer that may have remained after her surgery.
8/19/2025 10:45 AM
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