Priscilla: Teacher and Church Planter

Today's Scripture

Acts 18:26 — "He began to speak boldly in the synagogue, but when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately."

Romans 16:3-5 — "Greet Prisca and Aquila, my fellow workers in Christ Jesus, who risked their necks for my life, to whom not only I give thanks but all the churches of the Gentiles give thanks as well. Greet also the church in their house."

Colossians 3:16 — "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom."

The Big Idea

Priscilla never wrote a book, never held a title, and appears in only six short passages — yet she taught the most eloquent preacher of her generation, hosted churches in her home on two continents, and risked her neck for Paul. Today is about how the gospel actually spreads: less through platforms and stages, more through ordinary people who open their homes, listen well, and explain Jesus more accurately.

Reflection

A tent shop in Corinth

Priscilla enters the Bible as a refugee. Acts 18:1-3 — Paul arrives in Corinth and finds "a Jew named Aquila... recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to leave Rome. And he went to see them, and because he was of the same trade he stayed with them and worked, for they were tentmakers by trade."

Slow down and picture it. An emperor's decree has uprooted this couple from their home and business in Rome. They have started over in Corinth — a rough port city — cutting and stitching leather and cloth. Then a traveling preacher with the same trade moves in, and for many months the most important theological education on earth happens over a workbench. Church history, at this point, smells like leather and tent cloth.

We tend to assume God's important work happens somewhere else — on stages, in seminaries, behind pulpits. The book of Acts keeps insisting otherwise. C.S. Lewis explains why no workshop, and no coworker, is ever "just" ordinary:

"Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbour is the holiest object presented to your senses." — C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

The customer at the counter, the apprentice sweeping scraps — every one an eternal person. Priscilla's first ministry tool was not a microphone. It was a shop, a spare room, and a table with food on it.

The day she taught the preacher

Then comes the scene Priscilla is remembered for. A scholar named Apollos arrives in Ephesus — brilliant, Alexandria-educated, "an eloquent man, competent in the Scriptures." Acts 18:24-26 — "He had been instructed in the way of the Lord... he spoke and taught accurately the things concerning Jesus, though he knew only the baptism of John. He began to speak boldly in the synagogue, but when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately."

Watch the three verbs. First, they heard him — really listened, long enough to discern exactly what was missing. Dietrich Bonhoeffer called this the first duty believers owe each other:

"The first service that one owes to others in the fellowship consists in listening to them. Just as love to God begins with listening to His Word, so the beginning of love for the brethren is learning to listen to them." — Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together

Second, they took him aside. No public takedown, no embarrassing the gifted young preacher in front of his audience. Think of a good coach who notices a flaw in your shooting form and fixes it quietly after practice instead of benching you in front of the team. Correction that intends to build will usually choose privacy.

Third, they explained more accurately. Apollos knew real things — but he knew only "the baptism of John," the warm-up act. He had the introduction without the main event: the cross, the resurrection, the Spirit. Tim Keller had a phrase for the upgrade Apollos needed:

"The gospel is not just the ABCs but the A to Z of the Christian life." — Tim Keller, Center Church

Priscilla — named here alongside her husband, and named first — gave Apollos the A to Z. And notice what Apollos did: he received it. A celebrated scholar let a pair of leather-workers correct his theology, and was great enough to be grateful. Humility ran in both directions in that room — the courage to teach, and the teachability to be taught.

It worked spectacularly. Apollos went on to become so powerful a preacher that some Corinthians ranked him with Paul. Paul himself drew the diagram: 1 Corinthians 3:6 — "I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth." Trace the arrow back one step: who discipled the waterer? A tentmaker and his wife, in their living room. Every famous ministry, if you trace it far enough upstream, runs back to somebody's kitchen table.

This is what Colossians 3:16 expects of every believer, not just professionals: "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom." If the word dwells in you richly, you have something to give away.

Risked their necks

Follow Priscilla through the rest of the New Testament and a pattern emerges. Romans 16:3-5 — "Greet Prisca and Aquila, my fellow workers in Christ Jesus, who risked their necks for my life, to whom not only I give thanks but all the churches of the Gentiles give thanks as well. Greet also the church in their house."

Three details deserve a long look. Fellow workers — Paul's term for full partners in the mission, not assistants. Risked their necks — somewhere along the way, this couple stood between Paul and death, at potential cost of their own. We never learn the story; heaven knows it, and Paul says "all the churches of the Gentiles" were thanking them for it. And the church in their house — wherever they landed, a congregation grew up around their table. There were no church buildings for centuries; Christianity spread through living rooms exactly like theirs. In Ephesus too: 1 Corinthians 16:19 — "Aquila and Prisca, together with the church in their house, send you hearty greetings in the Lord." When Paul wrote his very last letter, awaiting execution, they were still on his mind: 2 Timothy 4:19 — "Greet Prisca and Aquila."

One more detail, the one scholars always note: of the six times this couple is named in the New Testament, Priscilla comes first in four. In the ancient world, where the husband was named first as a matter of course, that ordering was loud. Luke and Paul are signaling, in the politest way available, who the more prominent partner in ministry was — and neither of them seems the least bit bothered.

She was not an exception. Paul's greetings in Romans 16 read like a roll call of working women: Romans 16:1-2 — "I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a servant of the church at Cenchreae... she has been a patron of many and of myself as well." Phoebe likely carried the letter to the Romans — the most influential letter in history — in her luggage. The chapter goes on to greet Mary, Junia, Tryphaena, Tryphosa, Persis — woman after woman described as working hard "in the Lord." All of this was Pentecost working itself out, exactly as promised: Acts 2:17-18 — "I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy... even on my male servants and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit."

Elisabeth Elliot — missionary, author, and no one's pushover — described the identity underneath a life like Priscilla's:

"The fact that I am a woman does not make me a different kind of Christian, but the fact that I am a Christian does make me a different kind of woman." — Elisabeth Elliot, Let Me Be a Woman

Priscilla was a different kind of woman: refugee and host, tradeswoman and theologian, risk-taker and teacher. Not because she chased a platform, but because Christ had the whole of her.

The gospel in a guest room

Step back and ask the why question. Why did this couple keep opening their home in city after city? Why risk their necks for a difficult apostle? Why spend their evenings explaining doctrine to a preacher more talented than themselves?

Because that is what the gospel does to people. They had been welcomed by God when they were strangers, so their door stopped being fully theirs. They had been rescued at the cost of Christ's life, so risking their necks felt less like heroism than family resemblance. John Calvin described the logic of a life like that:

"All the blessings we enjoy are divine deposits, committed to our trust on this condition, that they should be dispensed for the benefit of our neighbors." — John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion

A deposit, not a possession. Their house, their trade, their theology — all of it was on loan from God, for the benefit of whoever walked in next. N.T. Wright says this is simply what the church is:

"The church exists primarily for two closely correlated purposes: to worship God and to work for his kingdom in the world." — N.T. Wright, Simply Christian

Notice that nothing in that sentence requires a stage. Priscilla worshiped God and worked for his kingdom with a needle, a guest room, and a well-stocked mind. The movie credits of church history are full of names like hers — the ones that scroll past while everyone is leaving the theater. But the film does not exist without them. And the Director, it turns out, reads every name.

That is the quiet promise hiding in today's story. The same Lord who made a once-demonized woman the first witness of his resurrection makes tentmakers the teachers of preachers. He is not waiting for you to become impressive. He is asking what is already in your hands — a table, a skill, a working knowledge of his grace — and whose benefit it is deposited there for.

Going Deeper

Do one Priscilla-sized thing this week. Option one: thank your Apollos-teacher — send a message today to someone who once took you aside and explained the way of God more accurately, and tell them what it meant. Option two: be the host — put a date on the calendar to have someone at your table who needs encouragement in the faith, and before they come, pray Colossians 3:16 over the meal: that the word of Christ would dwell richly in the conversation.