When Paul arrived in Corinth, he did not go looking for a pulpit. He went looking for work. He found a couple named Aquila and Priscilla who shared his trade — they were tentmakers, stitching leather into shelters for a living — and he moved in with them and went to work. Three people bent over the same craft, cutting and stitching, day after day. And somewhere in the rhythm of the work, the gospel took root. A friendship was formed that would last the rest of their lives. Priscilla and Aquila would travel with Paul, risk their lives for him, plant house churches in Corinth, Ephesus, and Rome, and mentor a gifted preacher named Apollos whose theology needed sharpening. All of it began at a workbench.

What is remarkable about Priscilla and Aquila is that the New Testament never separates their work from their witness. They are always both at once — tentmakers and church planters, craftspeople and teachers, workers and worshippers. They opened their home for the church to meet. They used their income from the business to support Paul's missionary work. When they heard Apollos preaching with passion but with incomplete theology, they did not embarrass him publicly — they took him aside privately and explained the way of God more accurately. These are not the actions of people who thought of their faith as something confined to Sabbath hours. Their whole life — the work, the home, the friendship, the teaching — was one continuous act of service to God.

Paul himself, the great apostle, was not above spending his days stitching tents. He saw no contradiction between that and preaching. The work was not a necessary evil he endured between sermons. It was part of the calling.

Prayer: Lord, like Priscilla and Aquila, help us to see no division between our daily work and our daily witness. May our workplaces be places where the gospel takes root — not just in what we say, but in how we work. Amen.