AP

Studies in Acts

Jerusalem via Macedonia (Acts 20:1-12)

Paul’s departure from Ephesus was not due to compulsion, for calm had returned to the city, which enabled the apostle to conclude his work quietly. Even before the tumult had erupted, he had decided to leave Ephesus to go to Jerusalem via Macedonia. Paul called the disciples together. Aquila and Priscilla would have been there, and the disciples whom he had taught in the school of Tyrannus. In addition, perhaps also the twelve followers of John the Baptizer, and the many Jews and Gentiles who had come to faith through him. Paul left behind a church in which the Mosaic wall of separation had been taken down, so that Jews and Gentiles constituted one undivided, new humanity (Ephesians 2:14-16). Meanwhile elders and overseers had been appointed from among his students, to whom he could now entrust the shepherding of the church (Acts 20:28).

After his farewell, Paul set out to travel though Macedonia, encouraging the believers. He had taught that we must expect everything not from ourselves but from God (2 Corinthians 1:9). Even though Paul was going to leave, the exalted Lord Jesus remained with them with his Spirit and Word. Although they would have liked to keep Paul in their midst, they sent him off with love for his work in the Macedonian and Greek churches. He would never see this church again, though he did see their elders during his return trip (Acts 20:17-18).

From Ephesus via Macedonia to Greece (Acts 20:2-6)

Luke’s travel report here is very abbreviated. In verse 2a he describes with ten Greek words a period that could have lasted longer than a year.

Second visit to Troas prematurely ended. Meanwhile Paul was especially concerned about the conflicts in the church in Corinth. He had sent Titus there to bring peace. He was hoping to meet him in Troas but could not find him. For although the Lord had opened the door widely for him in Europe, “my spirit was not at rest because I did not find my brother Titus there” (2 Corinthians 2:12-13). At that point his longing for a report from Titus obsessed him so much that he interrupted the work in Troas. He tore himself away from the listeners that he had found there and crossed the Aegean Sea to Macedonia. The church of Corinth filled such a large place in his heart that he left Troas after only seven days.

Paul had established churches in Philippi, Thessalonica, and Berea, located in Macedonia during his second journey. He had been forced to leave them due to persecution. We are not told how much time he spent strengthening these churches, but with many encouraging speeches, he said goodbye to all the churches that he visited after his departure from Ephesus. All these believers were his dearly beloved children, to whom he was now saying farewell as their father-in-Christ (1 Corinthians 4:14-15).

 In Macedonia he was living in misery: “fighting without and fear within” (2 Corinthians 7:5), until finally he met Titus again, who to his great relief brought him good news about Corinth. A radical turnaround had taken place. Their disrupted relationship with Paul had been restored. At that point the apostle wrote what we know as 2 Corinthians. How wonderfully God had blessed him amid all his adversity! (2 Corinthians 1:3-11). He immediately recommended the assistance for the poor in Jerusalem (2 Corinthians chapters 8-9).

After travelling through the province of Macedonia (i.e., northern Greece), he arrived in Hellas or the province of Achaia (i.e., southern Greece). The cities of Athens, Corinth, and Cenchrea were located there, places he had already visited on his second journey. In this province Paul spent the three winter months, in part because shipping had completely shut down for the season (Acts 27:9-12; 1 Corinthians 16:6). Presumably he spent most of that time in Corinth, for in view of the content of 2 Corinthians, there was a lot to discuss, though he could also have encouraged the believers in Athens en route.

During these winter months, the apostle wrote the letter to the Romans from Corinth (Romans 15:25-29). When we recall that he always paid his own expenses and taught God’s Word in the homes (Acts 20:20, 34), we can imagine the kind of circumstances under which this deep and rich epistle was written. We see in our mind’s eye the workplace of a tentmaker, where a small oil lamp was casting its light. Paul dictated and Tertius wrote (Romans 16:22). People have calculated that for the letter to the Romans, some fifty sheets of papyrus would have been needed. The necessary mental work that preceded the writing would be considerable. For the apostles were not lifeless dictation machines but living instruments of the Holy Spirit. If all this work took place in the evening and during the night, we can understand that Paul endured numerous “sleepless nights” (2 Corinthians 6:5; 11:27).

Assassination dodged. When the winter months had passed and sea travel resumed, Paul decided to sail to Syria and to travel from there to Jerusalem, starting out from Corinth. During this time many foreign Jews were travelling to the temple to celebrate the major feasts there. It is possible that the apostle had booked passage on a ship carrying such pilgrims. At the last moment, he found out that the Jews had plotted to assassinate him. Apparently, they still hated him intensely because of the split from the synagogue in Corinth, resulting in a Messiah-believing church meeting right next to the synagogue. Nor had they forgotten the embarrassment of the failed trial before Gallio. When this plan leaked out, Paul changed his travel plans. He decided to travel by land via a long detour through Macedonia to Asia, and to board a ship there.

Bringing the collection. One of Paul’s goals was to transport as quickly as possible the proceeds of the collection that the churches in Asia, Macedonia, and Achaia had gathered for the impoverished Jewish believers at his request. It would have been a large sum, for the Macedonian churches had, despite their severe poverty, given more than they could spare. The apostle was accompanied by seven representatives from the churches that had contributed to this gift (1 Corinthians 16:3). They were Sopater, the son of Pyrrhus from Berea; Aristarchus and Secundus from Thessalonica; Gaius from Derbe; and Timothy, Tychicus, and Trophimus from Asia. They carried and guarded the proceeds of the collection.

Why did Paul attach such a great deal of importance to this international assistance effort? First, because he was deeply sympathetic to the poor believers in Judea, who were the first to have suffered the severe persecution of the church (Acts 8:1) and later suffered famine (Acts 11:28-30). Second, because the apostles had specifically requested him to remember the poor (Galatians 2:10). And third, because the unity of the churches consisting of Jews and those made up of Gentiles could be powerfully strengthened in Christ in this manner.

Philippi. The seven deputies travelled ahead of Paul for unspecified reasons (by ship?) and agreed that they would wait for him in Troas. He himself chose the detour by land, in connection with which he once again visited Berea, Thessalonica, and his beloved Philippi. From verse 5 onward, Luke resumes his use of the first-person plural (we), which he had not used after 16:10-17 (the first arrival in Philippi). Had he worked there during the five intervening years as physician and evangelist? In any case, Paul met this friend there once again. From now on, they would continue working together.

When Paul departed from Philippi, the week of Passover had already ended. If he wanted to be in Jerusalem for Pentecost, the time was short (Acts 20:16). He probably did not celebrate Passover in the Gentile Christian church in Philippi. There was no synagogue in that city and among people who did not have the law of Moses, he wanted to do his best to conduct himself as one who lived without this law (1 Corinthians 9:20). According to him, Christians did not need to observe special days (Romans 14:5-6; Galatians 4:10; Colossians 2:16). Whatever the case may have been, after the Jewish days of Passover, he travelled with his group from Neapolis, the harbour of Philippi, to Troas. It took them five days, three more than earlier (cf. Acts 16:11). There they joined up with the rest of their team and remained seven days. It would turn out to be an unforgettable week.

The church in Troas extraordinarily strengthened by Word and miracle (Acts 20:7-12)

Several months earlier, Paul had pulled himself away from his fruitful field of labour in Troas for the sake of Corinth. Now the Lord was leading things in such a way that during his third visit here, he could perform an extraordinary sign of the coming Kingdom: raising someone from the dead!

Church after work. Luke was probably using the Greek way of calculating time, whereby a day began at daybreak. For the “daybreak” of verse 11 was “the next day” of verse 7. Viewed this way, the church had gathered on Sunday evening. It was meeting on the first day of the week, and no longer on the seventh day, the Jewish Sabbath (cf. 1 Corinthians 16:2; Revelation 1:10). They did not have a divine command for this (Galatians 5:1). Although the Sabbath was nowhere immediately discarded, the believers gradually came to choose in Christian freedom the day of the resurrection of our Lord as their fixed weekly day of gathering.

During this era, Sunday was still an ordinary working day. During the first three centuries there was no such thing as a free Sunday, so the time for church meetings was before or after working hours. It is not impossible that the believers in Troas had been together very early that morning before they went to work. Now after finishing their labour, they gathered in order “to break bread” (eat together and celebrate the Lord’s Supper), and to listen to the preaching of the gospel.

Church service in an apartment. It was a special service: Paul led worship among them for the last time. The next morning, he would travel further. Therefore, he spoke longer than usual. He wanted to lay so much on their hearts that he continued until midnight. The meeting was held on the third floor of an apartment, for there were tall houses in large cities in antiquity as well. In Troas, the top floor would have been a spacious room that could accommodate many people, who ate together as well. Large church buildings holding crowds of churchgoers and pulpit preachers who ascended high pulpits appeared for the first time after AD 313, when emperor Constantine became a Christian. Before then, simplicity was an asset. Because of the many oil lamps, spreading heat in addition to light—in Asia Minor evenings during this time of year were rather warm—eventually an oppressive atmosphere resulted.

Eutychus revived. A young man, Eutychus, had gone to sit in a window opening. Perhaps because the room was jam packed and he could also get some fresh air there for there was no covering over the window. When Paul continued his sermon, the young man’s eyes became heavy. It was already midnight, and he was likely tired from his long workday. He began nodding off and was suddenly so overcome with sleep that he lost his balance and fell from the third story to the ground. When they cradled his body, he appeared to be dead. As a physician, Luke would not have been mistaken. 

For the second time, the Lord Jesus used an apostle to raise a dead person. He had enlisted Peter when the beloved Dorcas had died (9:36-42), and now Paul was his instrument. The apostle immediately quit preaching, ran downstairs, and did the same thing that Elijah and Elisha had done in their day (1 Kings 17:21-22; 2 Kings 4:34): he got down to lie on the corpse and put his arms around the body. At that point the virtually invincible death surrendered before the Son of the Almighty God, who had received the keys to the realm of death (Revelation 1:18). The young man began to breathe again! When Paul saw that, he said to the deeply shocked and wailing believers: “Do not be dismayed, for he is alive!” Then they beheld a shining proof of Jesus’ power and a portent of the last day, whereby they were powerfully strengthened in their faith. They did not yet have a complete Bible, but they had sufficient encouragement with this miracle. It was a sign accompanying God’s Word, as it remains for us as well.

Even after midnight Paul continued with his teaching. He went up the stairs again, and when he reached the hall, he broke bread with them and ate with them. Was this the second meal of the evening? Even though a trek of some thirty kilometres awaited him the next day, he did not take time to get some sleep, but continued speaking about salvation through Jesus Christ until the morning light. Then the apostle and the church members had to bid each other farewell for the last time. They had to get back to work, and he had to resume his travels.

“Troas” still comforts. This was the last episode involving reviving a dead person that Scripture narrates: the son of the widow in Zarepheth; the son of the Shunamite; the dead man hastily thrown into Elisha’s grave; the young man from Nain; the daughter of Jairus; Lazarus; the dead who came forth from their graves after Jesus’ resurrection; Dorcas; and Eutychus. By means of the first three, God strengthened the prophets Elijah and Elisha. By means of the next ones, he validated the legitimacy and authority of our Lord Jesus as God’s anointed Prophet, Priest, and King. And by means of the last two, he confirmed the apostolic authority with which Peter and Paul proclaimed the gospel orally and in writing. Due in part to these miracles of Peter and Paul, we read their letters with much greater respect for their apostolic authority. In a special way, we are particularly encouraged by what they teach us about the resurrection of Christ as the guarantee of our blessed resurrection.

Questions:

Paul worked to support himself. Should this be our model for ministry in the church? What about 1 Corinthians 9:1-18?

How bound are we to the “Christian Sabbath”? That is, should we observe a legalistic day of rest? What did Jesus say about the Sabbath?

What are the principles revealed in this passage about how charitable giving should be conducted?

– Alida Sewell