‘And the Lord added to their number daily' – Authors note

A bit of background to explain why have I chosen Priscilla, Aquila, Mordechai and Junia as a focus for these stories.

Priscilla and Aquila

In the Bible, we first meet Priscilla and Aquila in Acts 18:

After this, Paul left Athens and went to Corinth. There he met a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus , who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had ordered all Jews to leave Rome. Paul went to see them, and because he was a tentmaker as they were, he stayed and worked with them. (Acts 18:1-3)

It doesn’t explicitly say that Paul converted them to Christianity, which it does in many of Paul’s other encounters. So, it’s possible that they were already followers of Jesus. Paul met many people on his journeys that were already believers… and some of those are likely to be people that were there at Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came.

Luke, (the author of Acts) doesn’t say Paul ‘met some Jews, Aquila and his wife Priscilla’ he clearly identifies Aquila as a Jew, and Priscilla as his wife. So it may be that Pricilla was a convert to Judaism. Acts 2:10-11 says that in the crowd at that first Pentecost there were ‘visitors from Rome (both Jews and converts to Judaism)’. There may have been converts from other nations too, but Rome is singled out. Given that they play a significant part in the life of the early church, it seems possible that this refers to Priscilla and Aquila.

In Acts 18 Priscilla and Aquila minister with Paul in Corinth and the travel with him to Ephesus. Paul travels on, but they stay in that place (Acts 18:18-19). When Apollos arrives in Ephesus, it’s Priscilla and Aquila that ‘explain to him the way of God more adequately.’ From Paul's 1st letter to the church in Corinth, we see that Apollos goes on to be a significant leader in the early church (1 Corinthians 1:12).

Scholars believe that Jesus was crucified in the spring of either 30 or 33 AD and it’s estimated that Paul first came to Corinth in around 50AD. So, it’s possible that as a young couple Priscilla and Aquilla could have been some of the visitors from Rome in Jerusalem at Pentecost 17-20 years before they met Paul. So making Priscilla 17 in this story would put her in her mid-30s when she met Paul.

In his letter to the Church in Rome, Paul writes:

Greet Priscilla and Aquila, my co-workers in Christ Jesus (Romans 16:3)

Scholars believe that Romans was written around 57AD, about 7 years after Paul met Priscilla and Aquila in Corinth. Jews were allowed to return to Rome from 53 AD, so this timeline fits.

In the list of people that Paul greats in his letter to the Romans, Priscilla and Aquilla are the first. In a society where rank and position were highly significant, then the prominence of the greeting for these two indicates that Paul regarded them as foremost among the leaders in the church in Rome. Also given that he greets them in that order, he is honouring Priscilla over Aquila.

Junia and Mordechai

In Romans 16:7 Paul writes

Greet Andronicus and Junia, my fellow Jews who have been in prison with me. They are outstanding among the apostles, and they were in Christ before I was.

Neither apostle is mentioned anywhere else in the Bible and they certainly weren’t apostles recorded in the Gospels. So, as they were ‘in Christ’ before Paul, it is possible that they too were there at Pentecost.

Paul calls them Jews, but Andronicus and Junia are names of Greek and Latin origin (respectively). In the ancient world people were often known by more than one name, so they may have had other Jewish names. The name Andronicus means ‘warrior’, and the equivalent name that means warrior in Hebrew, is Mordechai.

Basing them in Emmaus, having Junia as a native of Corinth who converts to Judaism, and having Mordechai as being related to Aquila aren't based on anything in the Bible. These are just creative license to help tell the story of Pentecost and the early church. It’s possible that it may have happened this way, but there is no biblical , or historical evidence that it did.

The structure of the book

I'm sharing this book as I write it, but the intended structure will be something like:

Chapter 1 – Peter – Doing the Impossible

Chapter 2 – Priscilla – New beginnings

Chapter 3 – Aquila – Hungry to learn

Chapter 4 – Priscilla – Longing for family

Chapter 5 – Junia – Finding hope

Chapter 6 – Crowd Management

Chapter 7 – Mordechai – Finding forgiveness

Chapter 8 – Awe and wonder

Chapter 9 – The Temple Courts

Chapter 10 – Anyone Who had Need

Chapter 11 – Breaking bread in each other’s homes

Chapter 12 – Glad and Sincere Hearts

Chapter 13 – And the Lord Added to their Number

Chapter 14 – Changing the world

So far, I've written up to chapter 5, have outlined chapters 6 and 7, and have an idea where I'm going with the rest. When I wrote the Easter reflections, I was on sabbatical and was able to focus on that alone. But now I'm fitting writing in around the busyness of life and ministry, so each chapter is taking about a month to pull together.

I'm also working on some discussion questions for each chapter, but they are lagging behind a little as I'm caught up in wanting to write the story.

So apologies that there will be some gaps between chapters. However, I was persuaded to start sharing them now for two reasons...

1. To get feedback to help shape the book. If you find some parts helpful, confusing, or if they raise questions for you, please comment or message me. That will all help as I come back to revise each chapter and write th questions for discussion

2. Knowing that people are waiting for the next chapter will encourage me to keep making the time to write :) :)

Thanks for reading these posts.

God Bless,

Barry