Acts 18:18-28
Dear RTB’ers,
Paul’s second missionary journey continued and ended, from Corinth to Ephesus to Caesarea to Jerusalem (likely) to Antioch and on to his third missionary journey – to Galatia and Phrygia.
Paul takes Priscilla and Aquila with him to Ephesus and leaves them there, which turned out to be a good move, since Apollos came to Ephesus and had to be instructed correctly by Priscilla and Aquila (Acts 18:24-26). One wonders why Paul did not leave Priscilla and Aquila in Corinth – why take them along at all? Clearly Paul was hearing from the Lord in all this!
There’s a lot of travel in verse 22: When he had landed at Caesarea, he went up and greeted the church, and then went down to Antioch. It’s very likely that the church he greeted was the Jerusalem church. Jerusalem is about 2500 feet above sea level – we’ve talked earlier about travelers going “up” to Jerusalem even when it was a journey to the south. In addition, Caesarea is much closer to Jerusalem (about 75 miles) than to Antioch (250 miles), and the verse continues with Paul going “down” to Antioch (to the north and at sea level again). Luke leaves out a lot of intermediate information in today’s reading!
Verse 23 begins Paul’s third missionary journey. Then the chapter ends with a focus on Apollos. Remember this name. We’ll read about him again when we get to I Corinthians (I Cor 1:12, 3:4-11).
Blessings!