There continues to be much conversation and debate about who God can speak to. Apparently, God will not cup your ear and whisper into it if you are a woman. 

Good only for her lady parts, God has no use for women save marriage and childbearing. It reminds me of Priscilla and Aquila and the ministry model they offer readers in the Acts of the Apostles.

Apollos was well on his way. I imagine his schedule full of preaching and teaching engagements. 

Well-spoken and well-educated, he was passionate about the faith, primed and ready to spread the gospel all over the globe. Send him; he’d go. 

Gung ho because when you know, you just know. Apollos is mentioned with the likes of Peter and Paul and that’s saying something.

Paul is on his way to Ephesus when we bump into Apollos and learn of a group that believes in Jesus. They have received John’s baptism but did not know about the Holy Spirit. 

He is teaching in the synagogue but could take this show on the road, perhaps a world tour. Priscilla and Aquila see something in him and they want to improve upon it. 

They see that Apollos is good for the ministry, but they are not threatened by it. Dr. Willie James Jennings adds in his commentary on Acts, “This is the reality of the couple that the church has never grasped in its fullness, that is, to be a micro-cell of insurgency, an intimate event of revolution that might draw others to a deeper understanding of the life of God in flesh.”  

Apollos is new to the ministry, but they don’t use this to their personal advantage or suggest that he must work his way up—by serving them. Apollos doesn’t know it all, but they don’t create unnecessary hoops for him to jump through. 

Priscilla and Aquilla, who Jennings calls “a new kind of couple,” don’t say things like, “My family built this synagogue.” Or “I have sandals older than you.”

Rather than waving their credentials and quizzing Apollos on his knowledge of their ministry, they share what they know and bring him up to speed. This ministry tag team affirms his voice and seeks to strengthen it. 

They do not shake his hand after the service and then call for a business meeting. They see his strengths, where his presentation could be stronger, and they pull him aside. 

It is a faith shared not shoved, not stuffed into his mouth. It is a belief that doesn’t require him to be berated. 

It is a faith that is exchanged, discussed, talked through—not debated. Conversion happens in conversation.

Because his ignorance is not willful. Because this is a marathon, not a sprint and they didn’t want Apollos to get off on the wrong foot. Because discipleship is a communal effort and he can go faster and farther if they help him. 

Luke tells us that not only did Priscilla and Aquila, whose names sound like they dressed alike, fill him in on the way of God more fully but the believers encouraged him and sent letters of recommendation ahead of him. Because persons become pillars of the community with lots of support, mentoring and guidance. 

Because Christians shouldn’t put their hands in to hold other people back. Because the right hand of fellowship received was not agreeing to more of the same old fights, political sparring, traditional hatreds, culture wars and racialized competitions.

Because this “kin-dom” coming is prepared by a new community and we are to believe our way into behaving as new citizens—sight unseen. Because “faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God,” the Word made flesh, Jesus, who walked and talked with us until our hearts burned up the patriarchal, stereotypical and hyper-divisive plans that society laid out for us.

The Rev. Dr. Otis Moss III