⁷Then he left there and went to the house of a man named Titius Justus, a worshiper of God, whose house was next to the synagogue. ⁸Crispus, the leader of the synagogue, believed in the Lord with all his household, and many of the Corinthians when they heard were believing and being baptized. ⁹And the Lord said to Paul in the night by a vision, “Do not be afraid any longer, but go on speaking and do not be silent; ¹⁰for I am with you, and no man will attack you in order to harm you, for I have many people in this city.” ¹¹And he settled there a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them.

While the Jews at the synagogue as a whole rejected Paul’s message, there were two wins for the apostle, and quite significant ones at that. The first mentioned was a Gentile (by now, we recognize Luke’s penchant for referring to a Gentile engaged in Jewish worship at the synagogue as “a worshiper of God”). He must have been quite significant to be mentioned by name here (and only here in the Bible), probably a wealthy benefactor of the synagogue. His house next door to the synagogue, which seemingly became Paul’s residence, may have been seen by the Jews as competition to the synagogue. Add to that a leader of the synagogue, Crispus (1 Cor. 1:14), also converted. He was not the only “leader” of the synagogue, for Sosthenes also was a leader (Acts 18:17), though he may have been Crispus’ successor. At any rate, Crispus’ entire family believed, and therefore were baptized. From Paul’s first letter back to this church, we learn that Paul personally baptized him and one other, Gaius. Beyond that, all baptisms were performed by other members of the team, a point that Paul makes when dealing later with the divisions in this fledgling church.

Paul and company saw great results from their evangelistic efforts as “many” came to faith and were baptized. At this point, Paul’s mission tour goes into a hiatus mode; the Lord instructs him in a vision to stay on in this city and preach boldly, without fear. His detractors were given a divine restraining order, as it were.

Of particular interest is the statement, “for I have many people in this city.” This does not mean there are many Jews or currently many believers. Instead, it means many will come to faith, and the Lord now speaks of those future believers as being already His. How do we understand this? Theologically we can adopt one of two interpretations: 1) God has perfect foreknowledge and therefore knows who will come to faith or 2) God elects those who will come to faith. Either way, the Lord can speak of future believers (from our perspective) as already being in the family of God (from His perspective).

Lord, help me have faith that some to whom I witness will come to faith.