The sad truth is that everyone’s not going to believe in Jesus. No matter how clearly we may present the truth of His Resurrection, no matter how clearly we may show the same sort of self-sacrificial, unconditional love He showed to us on the cross, there are some people who just don’t want to receive His grace.
And this is not somehow determined by race or culture. After all, some of the Jews to whom Paul preached the word believed, and some did not. Titius Justus was a Gentile, but he believed in the God of the Old Testament Scriptures, as did many other people in the city of Corinth, populated as it was by people from all over the Ancient world.
And trusting in Christ is not a matter of education or lack thereof. Crispus was the ruler of the synagogue, so he knew a lot about the Old Testament. He and all his household believed what Paul said, even while other equally learned Jews refused to accept the truth that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah the prophets predicted would come.
No, we simply cannot predict whose heart God will open to respond to Jesus’ truth and love. But we don’t have to know that. Our job is to do what God told Paul to do in Acts 18:9 – to go on speaking the truth about Jesus. For we can have the same assurance that God gave to Paul in 18:10 – no matter what sort of opposition comes our way, God will be with those who faithfully show and share Christ with others. And who knows? Maybe He’ll let us be part of His plan to draw more of His people to Himself today.
Acts 18:1-11 (NASB)
After these things he left Athens and went to Corinth.
2 And he found a certain Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, having recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to leave Rome. He came to them,
3 and because he was of the same trade, he stayed with them and they were working; for by trade they were tent-makers.
4 And he was reasoning in the synagogue every Sabbath and trying to persuade Jews and Greeks.
5 But when Silas and Timothy came down from Macedonia, Paul began devoting himself completely to the word, solemnly testifying to the Jews that Jesus was the Christ.
6 And when they resisted and blasphemed, he shook out his garments and said to them, “Your blood be upon your own heads! I am clean. From now on I shall go to the Gentiles.”
7 And he departed from there and went to the house of a certain man named Titius Justus, a worshiper of God, whose house was next to the synagogue.
8 And Crispus, the leader of the synagogue, believed in the Lord with all his household, and many of the Corinthians when they heard were believing and being baptized.
9 And the Lord said to Paul in the night by a vision, “Do not be afraid any longer, but go on speaking and do not be silent;
10 for I am with you, and no man will attack you in order to harm you, for I have many people in this city.”
11 And he settled there a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them.
