How often does a forced move, a layoff, a change of city feel like nothing but loss? Aquila knew that feeling well. A decree from Emperor Claudius suddenly expelled all Jews from Rome, and he had to start life over from scratch, in another country.
Aquila was a native of Pontus, a region in what is now northern Turkey, and made his living as a tentmaker. Expelled from Rome along with his wife, Priscilla, he ended up in Corinth, Greece. There he met another Jew who knew the same trade: Paul of Tarsus (Acts 18:1-3).
The apostle came to live and work with the couple, cutting and stitching canvas while preaching the gospel in the city. When Paul continued his journey, Aquila and Priscilla went with him as far as Ephesus and stayed there (Acts 18:18-19).
In Ephesus, the couple heard a gifted preacher named Apollos, who knew the Scriptures well but had an incomplete understanding of the gospel. Instead of exposing him in public, Aquila and Priscilla took him home and explained the Way of God to him more accurately (Acts 18:24-26).
In time, the couple returned to Rome, and their home became a gathering place for a church (Romans 16:5). Paul calls them his co-workers in Christ Jesus and says something rare about someone in his letters: that they risked their own lives for him (Romans 16:3-4).
Years later, near the end of his life, Paul writes his last letter and does not forget the couple, sending greetings to Priscilla and Aquila (2 Timothy 4:19). Their names run through nearly all of the apostle’s correspondence, always as a pair, always serving.
Aquila’s life shows that God uses a workbench as much as a pulpit. He received no visions and wrote no letters, but he opened his own home, patiently corrected a preacher, and risked his own neck for the sake of the gospel. Without people like him, the Way of God would not have advanced so far.
