Acts 18:1-3
Because he was of the same craft
Paul finds a couple expelled from Rome and moves in to work. The mission is funded by tents for the length of his stay in Corinth.
People of the Bible
Priscilla and Aquila
Ran a tentmaking business, moved cities three times, and kept a church in whatever house they were renting.
They arrive in Corinth because Claudius has expelled the Jews from Rome, so the marriage enters the New Testament as a refugee household. Paul finds them, joins the business because he is of the same craft, and stays. They are never mentioned apart. Four of the six times they are named, Priscilla is named first, which in that era is unusual enough that readers have argued about it for centuries and which the text simply does without comment.
Scroll down to the storyThe movements, in the order the text gives them.
The story of Priscilla and Aquila
- 01
- 02
Acts 18:18-19
They came to Ephesus and he left them there
They sail with Paul and are left to hold a city he only passes through. The work in Ephesus starts with them, not with him.
- 03
Acts 18:24-26
They took him unto them
Apollos is publicly impressive and privately incomplete. The correction happens in a house, by two people, and costs him no standing at all.
- 04
Romans 16:3-5
Who have for my life laid down their own necks
Paul greets them back in Rome, says all the churches of the Gentiles thank them, and greets the church that is in their house.
Why it matters
They leave Corinth with Paul, settle at Ephesus, and there they hear Apollos, an eloquent man mighty in the Scriptures who knows only the baptism of John. They do not correct him publicly. They take him unto them and expound unto him the way of God more perfectly, and the man goes on to water what Paul had planted. The church in their house is greeted in two different cities in two different letters, which means they did it again wherever they moved.
The music
The music
Every song in the catalogue whose passage falls inside these chapters.
No song in the catalogue reaches these chapters yet.