Paul the Apostle chose Silas and left for his second missionary journey, commended by the believers to the grace of the Lord. He went through Syria and Cilicia and strengthened the churches. Barnabas took John Mark and sailed for Cyprus, because of a dispute between Paul and Barnabas, see Unity. (Acts 15:37–41).
Paul came to Derbe and then to Lystra, where a disciple named Timothy lived, whose mother was a Jew and a believer but whose father was a Greek. The believers at Lystra and Iconium spoke well of him. Paul wanted to take him on the journey, so he circumcised him because of the Jews who lived in the area, because they all knew that his father was Greek.
(Acts 16:1–3). Circumcision wasn't needed to be saved. It was done so as not to offend the Jews, to keep the doors of communication open with them, so as not to be rejected by them (1 Cor 9:20). Timothy sacrificed his right to
refuse it for the sake of the ministry, to remove obstacles to the ministry, see
time 25:25–28:53 in Bible Q & A With Pastor Paul - June 2023.
As they traveled from city to city, they delivered the decisions made by the apostles and elders in Jerusalem for the people to obey, see the second half of
Paul's First Missionary Journey. So the churches were strengthened in faith and daily grew in number. Paul and his companions traveled through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been kept by the Holy Spirit from preaching the word in the province of Asia. (Acts 16:4–6).
When they reached the border of Mysia, they tried to enter Bithynia, but the
Spirit of Jesus wouldn't allow them to do that. So they passed by Mysia and descended to Troas. During the night Paul had a vision of a man of Macedonia standing and begging him to come over to Macedonia and help them. After Paul had seen the vision, they immediately prepared to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called them to preach the gospel to them. From Troas they put to sea and sailed straight for Samothrace, and the next day they went on to Neapolis. From there they traveled to Philippi, a Roman colony and the leading city in this district of Macedonia. And they stayed there several days. (Acts 16:7–12).
On the Sabbath they went outside the city gate to the river, where they expected to find a place of prayer. They sat down and began to speak to the women who had gathered there. One of those listening was a woman from the city of Thyatira named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth. She was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message. She and the members of her household were baptized. (Acts 16:13–15).
Once when they were going to the place of prayer they were met by a female slave who had a spirit through which she foretold the future. She made a great deal of money for her owners by fortune-telling. She followed Paul and the rest of them and shouted: "These men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved." She kept doing this for many days. Finally, Paul became so annoyed that he turned and said to the spirit: "In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her!" At that moment the spirit left her. (Acts 16:16–18).
God has always forbidden his people from being involved in this kind of spiritism (Isaiah 8:19). This type of demonic spirit speaks just enough truths to hook you.
In this case, what this demonic spirit says is essentially true, but anything beyond that contains lies and deception.
When her owners realized their hope of making money was gone, they seized
Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to face the authorities. They brought them before the magistrates and accused them of having thrown their city into an uproar by advocating customs unlawful for the Romans to accept or practice.
The crowd joined in the attack on Paul and Silas, and the magistrates ordered them to be stripped and beaten with rods. After they had been severely flogged, they were thrown into prison, and the jailer was ordered to guard them carefully. When he received these orders, he fastened their feet in the stocks in the inner cell. (Acts 16:19–24).
At midnight, Paul and Silas prayed and sang hymns to God, and the other prisoners listened to them. Suddenly there was an earthquake so violent that the foundations of the prison were shaken. At once all the prison doors flew open and everyone’s chains came loose. The jailer woke up, and when he saw the prison doors open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself because he thought the prisoners had escaped. But Paul shouted that he wasn't going to hurt himself and that they were all here. The jailer rushed in and fell trembling before Paul and Silas. He then took them out and asked what he must do to be saved? They answered: "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household." Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all the others in his house. At that time of night the jailer took them and washed their wounds; then he and his whole house were immediately baptized. The jailer brought them into his house and set a meal before them; he was filled with joy that he had come to believe in God, he and his whole household. (Acts 16:25–34).
Paul and Silas sang at this situation. We should joy when we face trials of various kinds because it gives perseverance (James 1:2–4), see The Book of James.
See also Blessed are those who are persecuted in The Sermon on the Mount.
The jailer is just about to take his own life but is saved. When Paul said that the jailer's household would also be saved, it didn't mean that they would
automatically be saved because the jailer was saved. Every individual must come
to Christ personally and realize his need for a Savior, see Salvation.
When it was daylight, the magistrates sent their officers to the jailer with the order to release them. But Paul told the officers that they had been publicly beaten without trial, although they were Roman citizens, and that they had been thrown into prison.
Paul wanted them to come themselves and escort them out. The officers reported this to the magistrates, and when they heard that Paul and Silas were Roman
citizens they were alarmed. They came to appease them and escorted them from the prison and requested them to leave the city. (Acts 16:35–39).
Paul's reaction wasn't because he was concerned about his own reputation, but he was concerned about the reputation of the early Christian church.
After Paul and Silas got out of prison, they went to Lydia's house where they met with the brothers and sisters and encouraged them. Then they left. (Acts 16:40).
When Paul and his companions had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a Jewish synagogue. As was his custom,
Paul entered the synagogue and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that Messiah had to suffer and rise from the dead. He said: "This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Messiah." Some of the Jews were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as well as a large number of godly Greeks and a good many prominent women. But other Jews were jealous; so they gathered some bad characters from the marketplace, formed a mob and started a riot in the city. They rushed to Jason’s house looking for Paul and Silas to bring them out to the crowd. But when they didn't find them, they dragged Jason and some other believers before the city officials and shouted that they had caused trouble all over the world, that Jason had welcomed them into his house, and that they all defied Caesar's decrees, saying that there is another king, one called Jesus. When they heard this, the crowd and the city officials were thrown into turmoil. After taking money as collateral from Jason and the rest, they released them. (Acts 17:1–9).
As soon as it was night, the believers sent Paul and Silas away to Berea. When they got there, they went to the Jewish synagogue. Now the Berean Jews were of a nobler character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures daily to see if what Paul said was true. As a result, many of them believed, as did also a number of prominent Greek women and many Greek men. But when the Jews in Thessalonica learned that Paul was preaching the word of God in Berea, some of them also went there, agitating the crowds and stirring them up. The believers immediately sent Paul to the coast, but Silas and Timothy remained in Berea. (Acts 17:10–14).
Those who escorted Paul brought him to Athens and then left with instructions for Silas and Timothy to join him as soon as possible. While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols. So he reasoned in the synagogue with both Jews and God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there. A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to debate with him. Paul preached the good news of Jesus and the resurrection. Then they took him and brought him to a meeting at the Areopagus, where they asked him about his teaching. Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: "People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship, and this is what I am going to proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and Earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole Earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. 'For in him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said: 'We are his offspring.' Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image made by human design and skill. In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by
raising him from the dead." When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered, but others said they wanted to hear more about this. Then Paul left the Council. Some of the people became followers of Paul and believed. Among them was Dionysius, a member of the Areopagus, also a woman named Damaris, and a number of others. (Acts 17:15–34).
After this Paul left Athens and went to Corinth. There he met a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla because Claudius had ordered all Jews to leave Rome. Paul went to meet them, and being a tentmaker as they were, he stayed and worked with them. (Acts 18:1–3).
- earned a living as tentmakers,
- always worked as a couple,
- traveled a lot with Paul,
- were a great support for Paul's ministry (Rom 16:3–5a).
Every Sabbath Paul reasoned in the synagogue and tried to persuade Jews and Greeks. When Silas and Timothy came from Macedonia, Paul devoted himself exclusively to preaching and testifying to the Jews that Jesus was Messiah. But when they opposed Paul and became abusive, he shook out his clothes in protest and said to them: "Your blood be on your own heads! I am innocent of it. From now on I will go to the Gentiles." Then Paul left the synagogue and went next door to the house of Titius Justus, a worshiper of God. Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue, and all his household believed in the Lord; and many of the Corinthians who heard Paul believed and were baptized. (Acts 18:4–8).
What Paul means by saying these words to the Jews is that the responsibility for their refusal and objection of the gospel is theirs, and he has done all he could to convince them and he could do nothing more for them, see
Casting pearls before swine in The Sermon on the Mount.
One night the Lord spoke to Paul in a vision: "Do not be afraid; keep on speaking, do not be silent. For I am with you, and no one is going to attack and harm you, because I have many people in this city." So Paul stayed in Corinth for a year and a half and taught them the word of God. (Acts 18:9–11).
While Gallio was proconsul in Achaia, the Jews of Corinth made a united attack on Paul and brought him to the place of judgment. They accused him of persuading the people to worship God in ways contrary to the law. Gallio told them that since these were matters of Jewish law, they must settle the matter themselves, and he wouldn't judge such matters. The crowd then turned on Sosthenes, the leader of the synagogue, and beat him before the proconsul; and Gallio showed no concern whatsoever. (Acts 18:12–17).
Sosthenes became a Christian believer (1 Cor 1:1–2a).
Paul stayed in Corinth for a time, before leaving the brothers and sisters and sailing to Syria, accompanied by Priscilla and Aquila. Before sailing, he had his hair cut off at Cenchreae because of a vow he had made. They came to Ephesus, where Paul left
Priscilla and Aquila. He entered the synagogue himself and reasoned with the Jews. When they asked him to spend more time with them, he declined. But when he left, he promised: "I will come back if it is God’s will." Then he sailed from Ephesus.
(Acts 18:18–21).
To say: "If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that", is biblical if meaning it
(James 4:13–16), see The Parable of the Rich Fool.
The vow that Paul had made was probably a Nazirite vow (Num (4 Mos) 6:1–21). A Nazirite was a person who for a time surrendered to God and let his hair grow.
Paul knew that this wasn't part of salvation. It was part of the Jewish way of doing things but not part of the Christian way of doing things. It was just a matter of personal devotion to God that Paul did in a Jewish way.
When Paul landed in Caesarea, he went up to Jerusalem and greeted the church and then went down to Antioch (Acts 18:22).
See also Paul the Apostle.
