(This is a talk I gave at Outlook Christian Church on Wednesday, July 22nd, 2026.)
For the past several weeks we’ve been doing a series here at Outlook on hidden figures in the Bible, and I am so glad that we’re doing this, because none of these people got into the Bible by accident. Nothing in Scripture is there by accident. Can we agree with that? And so it’s always good to ask, “why is this here? Why did this incident, this person, get recorded in Scripture?”
Now some people will immediately say, “well, because it happened.” And they’re right; it did. But that’s not an explanation. An enormous number of things have happened, and an enormous number of people have lived, that didn’t get into the Bible. For example, if we look at the population of the world at the time the New Testament was written (I looked this up), the estimates range from about 170 million to about 300 million. Do you know how many people are mentioned by name in the New Testament? I couldn’t get an exact count. There are 173 names, but some of those names were shared by more than one person, and in some cases it’s not completely clear if different passages are talking about the same person or different people with the same name. But you can still get the picture. A few hundred people out of a few hundred million alive at the time, so people in the Bible, or at least in the New Testament, are literally one in a million. Of all the things that have ever happened, all the people who have ever lived, only a tiny percentage of them are in the Bible.
So why did the Holy Spirit tell us about these events and these people? 1 Corinthians 10:6 says that these things occurred as examples to us. Some of these are, obviously, examples we should follow, while others are examples of what not to do, but either way, anybody that the Holy Spirit thought was worth including in Scripture is somebody we should be able to learn something from.
So, with that thought in mind, I want us to look at our hidden figure for this evening; a man named Apollos. We see him for the first time in Acts 18. Just to set the stage, Paul was on his second missionary trip. He had just left Corinth where he’d spend a year and a half, along with a couple of his fellow workers, whose names were Priscilla and Aquila. They made their way to Ephesus, and then they separated; Paul continued on to Jerusalem, while Priscilla and Aquila stayed in Ephesus to continue the ministry there. And then this happened:
Meanwhile a Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria, came to Ephesus. He was a learned man, with a thorough knowledge of the Scriptures. He had been instructed in the way of the Lord, and he spoke with great fervor and taught about Jesus accurately, though he knew only the baptism of John. He began to speak boldly in the synagogue. When Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they invited him to their home and explained to him the way of God more adequately (Acts 18:24-26).
So what do we see here? The first thing I see is that: “he spoke with great fervor.” So this is not someone who viewed his ministry as a duty. Apollos was excited. And no wonder; Jesus is worth getting excited about! Amen? But get this: the Scripture also says, “he only knew the baptism of John.” He didn’t even know the full message. He wasn’t ignorant; he had an advanced Jewish education, but he didn’t know the full message about Christ, yet he was already out doing ministry. And not just any ministry – as we’ll see in just a bit, he was doing apologetics. And he was tearing it up! So that’s the first point: Apollos didn’t wait until he’d learned everything.
I’m going to say that again: he didn’t wait until he’d learned everything. He didn’t know it all, but the part he did know was good. So he got excited, and he got going.
If the Holy Spirit intended Apollos to be an example for us, then maybe we should ask ourselves, “what am I excited to be doing for Jesus?” Or maybe better, “what am I excited to have God do through me?” That doesn’t have to mean one of the official church ministries, by the way, although last week, Paige did tell me that she needs some more volunteers to work with the preschoolers on Sunday mornings. But it doesn’t have to be through the church. I minister through what I write and post on my website. I minister to the people I talk with at the dog park. I minister through the prayer walks I do around my neighborhood. Apollos ministered by going into synagogues and debating with people. Devote yourself to God, get excited, and let the Holy Spirit direct you. So that’s point number one.
Point number two: When Apollos was doing his ministry, he didn’t think he knew everything. The Scripture says that Priscilla and Aquila “invited him to their home and explained to him the way of God more adequately.” So he went with them and he was willing to learn from them. Apollos didn’t wait until he’d learned everything before he started serving, and then he didn’t think he knew everything once he was serving.
God provided Apollos some on-the-job training, and Apollos was all up for it. Why? Because he was excited about what God was letting him do, and he wanted to do it the best way he possibly could.
Now, I think most of us have seen the opposite, when somebody starts thinking they already know everything there is to know about whatever it is they do. Especially if they’ve been doing it for a long time, or if God has been blessing their ministry and they’ve seen a lot of success. It’s easy to start thinking, “who is this person to teach me anything?’ But whenever you get that attitude, you’re no longer glorifying Christ, you’re glorifying yourself. Apollos was glorifying Christ. He was right in the middle of a successful ministry, but he saw an opportunity to learn how to do it even better and he jumped at it, because glorifying Christ was more important to him than being “the guy” who knows how it’s done.
And what happened?
When Apollos wanted to go to Achaia, the brothers and sisters encouraged him and wrote to the disciples there to welcome him. When he arrived, he was a great help to those who by grace had believed. For he vigorously refuted his Jewish opponents in public debate, proving from the Scriptures that Jesus was the Messiah (Acts 18:27-28).
That last sentence is how we know he was doing apologetics, by the way.
Apollos had been doing a great job, but now he got even better at it. And because he wasn’t too proud to learn, God didn’t just use Apollos in the city of Ephesus, he used him to tear it up in the province of Achaia too.
A little more background: Ephesus, where Apollos met Priscilla and Aquila, was a city in what is now Turkey. Achaia, where he went, was a province that was part of what we now call Greece. Is everyone still with me? The capital of Achaia was the city of Corinth, where Paul and Aquila and Priscilla had just come from. So Apollos was now working where Paul had just worked, at churches Paul had planted. And I’ve got to tell you, that would be a hard act to follow. Was he successful? Well, we know that Paul heard about Apollos, because a few years later he mentioned him in a letter, so let’s see what Paul had to say:
What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe – as the Lord has assigned to each his task. I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. The one who plants and the one who waters have one purpose, and they will each be rewarded according to their own labor. For we are co-workers in God’s service; you are God’s field, God’s building (1 Corinthians 3:5-9).
Paul is writing about Apollos here as someone who’s basically on the same level as himself. But that’s not actually the point I want us to see in this Scripture. Paul writes, “I planted the seed, Apollos watered it.” Apollos was willing to go from having his own ministry to being a part of someone else’s. In other words, it didn’t matter who was the pioneer, or who got the credit. What mattered was that people were coming to Christ and being built up, and that Jesus was being glorified. So, first Apollos didn’t wait until he’d learned everything, then he didn’t think he knew everything, and third, he didn’t have to be the one who did everything. That’s what ministry looks like when you’re more excited about serving Jesus than about serving yourself.
There are a couple more verses in Scripture that mention Apollos in passing. I won’t go into them; I’ll just say that near the end of Paul’s life, he considered Apollos a valuable partner. And I think the reason has to be that Apollos got excited about serving Jesus.
So what have we seen?
Apollos didn’t wait until he’d learned everything, he didn’t think he knew everything, and he didn’t have to do everything. He got excited about Jesus, and then he got going.
Now I’ve been talking so far about ministry, and some of you might be thinking, “that’s great for Apollos, but what does that have to do with me?” Just this: ministry in Christ is not just something for other people to do. God has something for every one of us to do, to help advance his kingdom. Ephesians 2:10 says:
For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
It might not be apologetics like Apollos. It might not be church planting like Paul. It might not be writing articles for a website. But it’s something. Something that you were born to do. If you don’t know yet what work God prepared for you, then the way to start is to get excited about Jesus; excited about who he is, and excited about what he’s done. I guarantee that if you let yourself get excited about Christ, the opportunities to express that excitement will appear. Get excited about the God who loved you enough to die for you. Get excited, and then get going.