“Now a certain Jew named Apollos, born at Alexandria, an eloquent man and mighty in the Scriptures, came to Ephesus” (Acts 18:24).
The biggest truck in the world is not a Ford F-450 Crew Cab or a 605 horsepower Mack Titan. The mighty haulers of enormous size are giant dump trucks used to carry heavy metal ores out of mining pits. Some of them weigh a million pounds and can easily haul more than 300 tons. A powerful car might have around 300 horsepower, but these monster trucks boast about 3,000 horsepower!
Mining trucks can stand twenty feet tall, making entry into the cab similar to climbing a ladder up to the second-story window of a building. The humongous trucks are also quite long, often running fifty feet in length, which is similar to an adult humpback whale. At the present time, the Bucyrus MT 6300AC tops them all at twenty-six feet high, fifty-one feet long, with a payload of 400 tons and a 3,750-horsepower engine.
Apollos was a giant Christian in the early church. He was converted through the ministry of John the Baptist and became a follower of Jesus after being guided by Aquila and Priscilla into a deeper understanding of truth. He was originally from Egypt and intellectually gifted. Luke describes him as “an eloquent man and mighty in the Scriptures.” The Greek word for “mighty” is dunatos, from which we get the word dynamite.
This powerful deliverer of the word was humble enough to listen to advice from others and became so influential in Corinth that Paul had to encourage the believers to not idolize their favourite ministers. “Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers through whom you believed, as the Lord gave to each one? I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase” (1 Corinthians 3:5, 6).
The Lord used Apollos not only because he was mighty in the Scriptures but also because he understood the true source of power.
Dear Jesus, may I stand tall for You today. May I powerfully carry the gospel to all I meet.
For Further Study: Acts 18:24–28; 2 Cor. 12:9; Jeremiah 9:23, 24