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Studies in Acts

Timothy and the Second Missionary Journey (Acts 16:1-10)

Verses 1-5 Paul and Silas went to Derbe and then to Lystra. Timothy is mentioned here for the first time. Years later Paul would urge Timothy: “Let no one despise you for your youth” (1 Timothy 4:12). So when Paul arrived for the second time in Lystra, Timothy was perhaps barely twenty years old. He had a Greek father and a Jewish mother, named Eunice, whose mother was called Lois. Both were believing women who had instructed their (grand)son from his youth in the Old Testament Scriptures (2 Timothy 1:5; 3:15). In this way, they unknowingly prepared Timothy for his great future task as a close collaborator of the apostle Paul. He was a particularly fine Christian, for whom the believers in Lystra and Iconium had deep respect. In this regard he fulfilled one of the primary requirements for leaders in the Christian churches (1 Timothy 3:2, 10). Paul saw in him an excellent fellow worker. He was a Jew, he knew the Scriptures, he was fluent in Greek, and was highly esteemed among the brothers and sisters.

The only thing everyone in the region knew was that he had a non-Jewish father. As a child of a Jewish mother, he was a Jew according to Jewish law, but for unknown reasons he had not been circumcised and therefore in Jewish eyes he was an apostate. If Paul had taken him along in that condition, Timothy could never have spoken in the Jewish synagogue and would have had no access into Jewish homes.

Paul had to make a judgement call here (cf. Philippians 1:9-10; Psalm 119:66). Not every Messiah-believing Jew who continued living according to the Torah was on that account a Judaizer. Not all law-keeping is Judaizing. The apostle was very flexible toward law-keeping Jews: “To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law” (1 Corinthians 9:20). Paul had his new fellow worker Timothy circumcised. Because he fervently wanted to bring Jews to faith, in this instance he was “a Jew to the Jews.” Timothy’s circumcision was not in conflict with the decisions of the Jerusalem council. “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love” (Galatians 5:6).

In Lystra and its surroundings, Paul took into consideration his law-keeping brothers and Jews who did not yet know the gospel and for that reason did not yet understand that circumcision was no longer required. In such situations we may certainly make concessions. That is completely different from yielding before the Judaizing enemies of the gospel. But when Paul arrived in Jerusalem with his uncircumcised fellow worker Titus, and had dealings there with Judaizers, he did not have Titus circumcised (Galatians 2:3-4). It was an entirely different situation. If the apostle had compelled Titus to be circumcised at that time, he would have given the appearance of exchanging Christian freedom for the Judaizers’ prison. Toward law-keeping believers, Paul was accommodating, but toward Judaizing critics he was inflexible.

Paul would come to love Timothy so deeply that he would later call him “my beloved child” or “my true child in the faith” (1 Timothy 1:2; 2 Timothy 1:2). He would become so united in spirit with him, that in his last letter he wrote: “You, however, have followed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness,my persecutions and sufferings that happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium, and at Lystra” (2 Timothy 3:10-11). He often served as a delegate and substitute for the apostle (Acts 17:14; 19:22; 1 Corinthians 4:17; Philippians 2:19; 1 Thessalonians 3:1-2). Paul even calls him his fellow emissary in his letters to the Philippians, Colossians, Thessalonians, and Philemon. And when the apostle was facing martyrdom, he longed so fervently for his spiritual son that he wrote to him: “Do your best to come to me soon” (2 Timothy 4:9).

Paul, Silas, and Timothy travelled from town to town, delivering the decisions of the Jerusalem gathering. By means of their instruction, the churches came to stand more firmly in their belief that apart from any merits of theirs, God had graciously imputed to them the complete satisfaction and righteousness of Christ, as if they themselves had rendered all the obedience that he had fulfilled for them. Because they had been confirmed in the faith, they grew in the fruit of the Spirit (cf. Galatians 5:22). This made them attractive to outsiders, so that they not only grew in faith, but they also grew daily in number. Verse 5 is one of those summarizing statements that occur in Luke’s account.

Verses 6-10: The Holy Spirit was determining Paul’s travel route, and he would make a course correction that would have far-reaching consequences for the future course of this journey. The Spirit prevented Paul and his companions from going to Bithynia. In v. 7 Luke calls him “the Spirit of Jesus” (cf. Philippians 1:19; Romans 8:9; 1 Peter 1:11). Since Pentecost, the Father had placed his Spirit at the disposal of his Son, so that from now on through the Spirit he could continue his redemptive work. This is why since Pentecost the Holy Spirit is called the “Spirit of Jesus.”

With his initial intervention, the Spirit prevented the apostle from proclaiming the gospel in the province of Asia. He would be permitted to do that during his third journey, when he would work for two years in Ephesus (Acts 19:10). Luke does not tell us how the Spirit made this course correction. By means of a prophecy (Silas had that gift), a dream, or by means of obstructive circumstances? In any case, he made it clear that the apostle had to continue his travels not toward the province of Asia, but in a northerly direction. In so doing, the three evangelists trekked through Phrygia and the original Galatian region, where the apostle had not been on his first journey, but where, according to Acts 18:23, he now established churches.

When they reached the border of Mysia, they wanted to continue travelling to Bithynia on the coast of the Black Sea, where Nicaea and Chalcedon were located, important cities with large Jewish populations. Paul wanted to remain in Asia. If it had been up to him, the gospel would have passed Europe by at that time. Perhaps a Christianised Asia would have resulted, and Europe would have remained a mission field. But then came the second intervention of the Holy Spirit: he did not permit them to remain in Asia and to travel to Bithynia. Paul was told in a vision, “You must go to Europe!”

When Paul was traveling through “Turkey,” Europe was still thoroughly pagan. No one had ever heard of a God who had shown grace and had sent his Son to earth as Saviour. The call to Macedonia was critical for the spread of the gospel. The Europeans lived “without hope and without God” (Ephesians 2:12). When they buried their loved ones, they were desperate, for no one had ever heard yet about Jesus, the Victor over death and the grave. They lived constantly in fear of gods and spirits. When the Lord Jesus through his Spirit pushed the apostle Paul and the gospel toward Europe, he made a beginning with the Christianisation of Europe. Nowadays, we see even more clearly what a world-historical transition the Acts 16:6-10 narrative is. It would also be from Europe that the gospel would spread in subsequent centuries across Africa, Asia, North and South America, Australia, and the Pacific islands (Isaiah 51:5).

Extra Notes: It is remarkable that from v. 16:10 on, Luke changes his travel narrative from third person to first person. From this we conclude that he had joined Paul’s company in Troas, or perhaps even earlier. We encounter such so-called “we passages” also in Acts 16:10-17 (from Troas to Philippi), 20:6-21:18 (from Philippi to Jerusalem, and 27:1-18:16 (from Caesarea to Rome). In a modest way he is letting us know that he is describing these events as an eyewitness. We don’t know how he had come to know Paul. As a believing physician and cultured Greek, Luke became a strong support to Paul. At the end of his life Paul was to write, “Only Luke is with me” (2 Timothy 4:11).

Questions:

How difficult would it have been for Eunice and Lois to let go of Timothy? (remember Acts 14:19).

Are we grateful that God, through Paul, brought the Gospel to Europe? Discuss.

The writer to the Hebrews (13:23) mentions that Timothy had been released from prison. Like his mentor/colleague, he had suffered for the sake of the Gospel. How do you think Timothy experienced this as he remembered Paul?

– Alida Sewell