Episode #4
Episode 4: Sea Change Church The Book of Acts: The Church Has Left the Building S1E4 - Priscilla & Aquila- Pastor Adam Stadtmiller
Closing out this twelve week series through Acts, Pastor Adam turns to a married couple mentioned six separate times across the New Testament: Priscilla and Aquila. Ordinary tentmakers, they were living an established life in Rome until Emperor Claudius expelled every Jew from the city, an edict that displaced them into Corinth and, without their knowledge, directly into Paul's path. Pastor Adam frames the whole message around a phrase he felt God give him while studying the passage: "What looked like displacement became divine placement." The message builds around a single key word, integrity , illustrated through a seventh grade science class lesson on the space shuttle's heat tiles: when even one is out of place, the whole system fails on reentry. For Priscilla and Aquila, integrity meant a faith that showed up identically at work, on the road, and at home. Acts 18 shows them tentmaking alongside Paul. Romans 16 shows Paul thanking them for risking their lives on his behalf and greeting "the church in their house." And Acts 18:24 through 26 shows their most defining moment: quietly taking aside a gifted, eloquent teacher named Apollos, whose knowledge of Jesus was sincere but incomplete, and explaining "the way of God more accurately," not publicly, but over what Pastor Adam imagined as a shared cup of tea. That encounter becomes the message's working definition of discipleship: recognizing who someone can be in Christ and investing into that calling. Pastor Adam closes with a personal story of the people who took a risk on him when he'd given them every reason not to, and a direct challenge to identify one person worth developing and one ordinary space, a home, a workplace, a neighborhood, worth intentionally turning toward Kingdom impact. This is the fourth and final message in The Church Has Left the Building , a series through Acts that shifts the spotlight from the apostles to the ordinary believers who carried the gospel into their own neighborhoods, workplaces, and relationships. Key topics: How a forced move from Rome to Corinth became the setup for one of the New Testament's most enduring friendships and ministry partnerships What it means to have integrity across every sphere of life, illustrated through the space shuttle's heat tiles How Priscilla and Aquila discipled the gifted but incomplete teacher Apollos, and what that reveals about recognizing potential in others
