Who are the people in your Neighborhood?

Note: This month I’m posting a series of devotional thoughts from Acts. Many of these are reposts, some are new. I’m “working out the kinks” for submission to a compilation of short, pastoral writings in Acts to be published later this year. If you have suggestions, corrections, or comments, please let me know!

“After this, Paul left Athens and went to Corinth. There he met a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had ordered all Jews to leave Rome. Paul went to see them, and because he was a tentmaker as they were, he stayed and worked with them.” Acts 18:1-3

Though Aquila and Priscilla would become key leaders in the Acts church, it strikes me that nothing is mentioned about their Christian faith when we first meet them in the initial verses of 1 Corinthians 18. More than likely this couple ended up becoming Christians early during Paul’s ministry in Corinth.

If this is true, we can learn something about personal evangelism here:

1. Paul connected with a common culture. Here Paul was in a Gentile city where it would have been easy to find other Jews. Based on this passage, it was culture and religion that was one of the chief reasons Paul even found Aquila and Priscilla in the first place. When you share a background with someone, you understand them more easily; you know the same joys, the same challenges, the same idiosyncrasies, and the same inside jokes.

2. Paul connected with a common trade/interest. We call it jargon—the special language that is spoken among those who share a vocation. If you work at Starbucks and meet another “partner”, there are instantly words, stories, and common experiences that give you a better chance to connect on a personal level. The same would have been true for tent making, and Paul had instant rapport in this context.

3. Paul connected through a common neighborhood. This is where Paul lived, and aside from the once-a-week preaching he did, this was the context for the day in and day out life he would have lived in front of Aquila and Priscilla. It’s one thing to preach the gospel in front of hundreds on Sundays, but it’s quite another thing altogether to live out that gospel with your actions in front of your roommates or neighbors who observe how you function the rest of the week.

There are times when people will find God through our official “ministry” or our preaching, as happened to Paul regularly. However, that does not take away our responsibility to keep an eye out for personal encounters that may open up the door to evangelism. Connections through common neighborhoods, cultural backgrounds, interests, or vocations are some of the best ways to identify with others. As relationship forms over those things, the real life of the Spirit will be given opportunity to flow through you and draw others to Christ.

What I love the most about this story is that these people became some of Paul’s dearest friends and closest ministry allies. What started with a natural affinity carried on to long-term relationship in Christ and for His Kingdom.