Chapter Eighteen

Paul in Corinth (1–17). His departure through Ephesus to Jerusalem (18–23). The beginning of the third apostolic journey (22–23). Apollos the Alexandrian (24–28).

Acts 18:1. After these things Paul left Athens and came to Corinth; “Corinth” — the most famous and great commercial and wealthy city of antiquity, on the isthmus between the Aegean and Ionian Seas, with two harbors on the eastern and western sides, at that time the residence of the Roman governor — the proconsul.

Acts 18:2. and, finding a certain Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus who had recently come from Italy, and his wife Priscilla — because Claudius had ordered all Jews to depart from Rome — he came to them; “A Jew,” named “Aquila,” and his wife “Priscilla” — they were probably not yet enlightened by faith in Christ at that time, and Paul stayed with them not on account of a shared faith but a shared trade. However, they were likely soon converted to Christianity by the apostle (see Acts 18:26). “Aquila” — a Greek pronunciation of the Latin name Aquila; what his Hebrew name was is unknown. “A native of Pontus” — an inhabitant of the Asia Minor province of Pontus, bordering the Black Sea. Regarding the expulsion of Jews from Rome by the edict of Emperor Claudius, the Roman historian Suetonius speaks (chapter 25 of the Life of Claudius), reporting that the cause of this was unrest among the Jews, stirred up by some Jewish agitator who claimed to be Christ. When, after Claudius’s death, many of the expelled Jews began to return to Rome again (Acts 28 and following), Aquila and Priscilla did the same (Rom 16:3). “Priscilla” — a diminutive form of the Latin name Prisca.

Acts 18:3. and, since they had the same trade, he stayed with them and worked; for their trade was tent-making. “Tentmaking” — for travelers, for military purposes, and so on — was quite a common and profitable trade. Paul was trained in it — according to the custom of the time of teaching children some trade, even if they were the children of wealthy parents, in order to ensure them full independence of means of livelihood. Paul refers to this independence many times as one of the by no means insignificant conditions for the success of his preaching (Acts 20:34; 1 Cor 4:12; 1 Thess 2:9; 2 Thess 3:8).

Acts 18:4. Every Sabbath he would speak in the synagogue and would try to persuade both Jews and Greeks. “He spoke... he tried to persuade...” in the synagogue, which presupposes the conversational manner of preaching that was permitted in synagogues, as is evident also from the Gospel (John 4:25-59). From what follows (Acts 18:6) it is evident that the apostle’s preaching did not at first bring the desired fruit (“they opposed and reviled”), so that a special appearance of the Lord to the apostle was required to encourage him (Acts 18:9-10, cf. 1 Cor 14:9).

Acts 18:5. When Silas and Timothy had come from Macedonia, Paul was being pressed by the Spirit to testify to the Jews that Jesus is the Christ. “Silas and Timothy came from Macedonia...” — see Acts 17:14. “Was occupied with the word...” — an expression pointing to a particular intense state of the apostle’s spirit, in response to the especially stubborn resistance of the Jews.

Acts 18:6. But as they were opposing and blaspheming, he shook out his garments and said to them: Your blood is on your own heads; I am clean; from now on I am going to the Gentiles. “He shook out his garments...” — the same as “shaking off” the dust from one’s feet (Acts 13:51) — an expression of decisive rupture and separation from the unbelievers. “Your blood be on your own heads...” (Matt 23:35) — that is, your guilt is yours, and so too is its reckoning — through the bloody punishments of God announced in the Gospel, and through eternal destruction. “I am innocent...” — inasmuch as I have done everything in my power so that you might know the truth and, knowing it, avert from yourselves not only temporal but also eternal ruin appointed for the disobedient (Rom 1:32 and others). “From now on I will go to the Gentiles...” — cf. Acts 13:46.

Acts 18:7. And he left there and came to the house of a certain worshiper of God named Justus, whose house was next door to the synagogue. The apostle’s transition to preaching to the Gentiles and his settling in a house next to the synagogue, while displaying his agitated state and decisiveness of character, was in keeping with his rule of provoking the zeal of his kinsmen according to the flesh (Rom 11:14). “He settled in the neighboring house so that this very proximity might arouse their zeal, if they should so wish” (Chrysostom). And indeed, so decisive and impressive a measure did not fail to produce its saving effect on many. The example was set by the synagogue ruler himself (cf. Acts 13:15), Crispus, one of the few baptized by the apostle himself (1 Cor 1:14). This Crispus was later bishop on the island of Aegina, off the shores of Greece in the Saronic Gulf (Chet.-Min., January 4).

Acts 18:9. And the Lord said to Paul in a vision at night: Do not be afraid, but speak and do not be silent, “In a vision...” — not in a dream, though “by night,” but specifically “in a vision,” in a wakeful state (cf. Acts 16:9). It is possible that under the influence of a heavy feeling and fears of an open riot by the Jews, the apostle was thinking of leaving or of weakening his preaching, like Jeremiah (Acts 20 and following). Therefore the Lord encouraged him, commanding him “not to be afraid” and “not to be silent” and promising his help and protection.

Acts 18:10. for I am with you, and no one will harm you, because I have many people in this city. “I have many people in this city.” By these people, whom the Lord calls his own, are meant not only those who had already turned to him and were known to Paul, but chiefly (cf. John 10:16) those who were yet to turn to him — those appointed to eternal life in this city (Acts 13:48).

Acts 18:12. Meanwhile, while Gallio was proconsul of Achaia, the Jews made a united attack on Paul and brought him before the tribunal, “While Gallio was proconsul of Achaia.” According to the Roman division of provinces, Achaia encompassed all of proper Greece including the Peloponnese. At first, as a senatorial province, it was governed by proconsuls; later, under Tiberius, having become an imperial province, it was administered by procurators. But Claudius returned it to the Senate and to the governance of proconsuls. In the time described by the narrator (53–54 AD), the proconsul of Achaia was Junius Annaeus Gallio, brother of the well-known philosopher Seneca, tutor of Nero, who died as Seneca did, at the hands of Nero. The family name Gallio was adopted by him from his adoptive father, the rhetorician L. Junius Gallio; previously he had been called Julius Annaeus Novatus. By his brother Seneca’s account, he was a very gentle, honest, humane, and experienced ruler, which is consistent also with the narrator’s account.

Acts 18:13. saying that he was persuading people to worship God in a way contrary to the Law. “To worship God contrary to the law” — a vague expression apparently intended to point to Paul’s activity as something generally destructive of laws and in particular of the Mosaic law.

Acts 18:14. When Paul was about to open his mouth, Gallio said to the Jews: Jews! if there had been some wrongdoing or a wicked crime, I would have reason to hear you out, Acts 18:15. but if it is a dispute about teaching and about names and about your own Law, settle it yourselves; I have no wish to be a judge of such matters. Gallio quite rightly declines to take up the matter raised by the Jews, declaring it not subject to judicial proceedings, as a matter more of scholarly than of judicial competence. “About words and names” — probably the names of the Messiah foretold in the Old Testament, which Paul was examining, proving that Jesus is the true Messiah (Acts 18:5). “Your own law” — Gallio’s correct view of the matter, as something not touching the Roman laws, the upholding of which was the proconsul’s duty.

Acts 18:16. And he drove them away from the tribunal. Acts 18:17. Then all the Greeks seized Sosthenes, the ruler of the synagogue, and beat him in front of the tribunal; and Gallio paid no attention to any of this. “He drove them” — obviously by force, prompted, no doubt, by the customary importunity of the Jews, who were demanding the condemnation of Paul in violation of order and all propriety. The expulsion of the Jews from the tribunal was accompanied by beatings, in which, besides the proconsul’s attendants, “all the Greeks” present took part, with Sosthenes the synagogue ruler (probably Crispus’s successor) suffering the most, and this punishment was meant to serve as a particular warning to the other Jews. This Sosthenes was later converted to Christ by the apostle, was his co-worker (1 Cor 1:1), and afterward became bishop in Colophon in Asia Minor (Chet.-Min., January 4). “Gallio paid no attention at all” to the fact that the Jews were now suffering an obvious injury (Acts 18:14) that fell within the judicial authority of the proconsul. Thus the Lord’s promise to the apostle was fulfilled, that “no one would harm him”; on the contrary, it was those who tried to do this harm who themselves suffered. Gallio probably treated the punishment of the Jews with such indifference because he found that the crowd’s judgment was, in this case, carrying out only what the law itself should have done in dealing with those who had violated all respect for it through their importunate and unlawful demands.

Acts 18:18. Paul, after staying on for quite a few more days, said farewell to the brothers and sailed away to Syria, and with him were Aquila and Priscilla; he had had his head shaved at Cenchreae, because of a vow. Both the text here and the event mentioned are somewhat obscure. The first obscurity is to whom the expression “having cut his hair” refers, since besides Paul as the main actor in this narrative, it could also refer to Aquila, whose name appears in the Greek text, apparently not without reason, behind his wife’s name (“Priscilla and Aquila”), in immediate proximity to the event in question. Be that as it may, both Paul and Aquila could have permitted this Hebrew rite to be performed on them without great offense to believers and without particular contradiction to their own convictions. We know from what follows that Paul participates in the performance of such a rite in Jerusalem at the advice of the senior apostles (Acts 21 and following, cf. Acts 16:3). As for the significance of the act of “cutting the hair by reason of a vow,” this was probably a Christianized fulfillment of the Old Testament law of the Nazirite vow (Num 6). According to this law, one who made a vow to God of Naziriteship for a fixed period of time was not, among other things, to cut the hair of his head; the cutting was performed only either at the expiration of the vow’s term or in the event of “defilement” of the vow (as provided by the law), at which time the vow was prescribed to be begun again from the start. Since all these rites were connected with the offering of sacrifice and consequently could properly take place only at the temple — a possibility that was hardly available to those living in the diaspora and traveling — the cutting of the head mentioned by the narrator probably signified the conclusion of some private vow, for which the apostle made use of the authorized symbol. “At Cenchreae” — the port of Cenchreae to the east of Corinth, from where Paul with his companions set sail for Syria.

Acts 18:19. On arriving at Ephesus, he left them there, while he himself went into the synagogue and reasoned with the Jews. “Ephesus” — the chief city of the Asia Minor province of Ionia, which was part of what was then called proconsular Asia (Asia; see note to Acts 16:6), a large coastal trading city, the center of activity of the holy Apostle John the Theologian. The visit to Ephesus mentioned here was the first for the apostle to the Gentiles.

Acts 18:20. When they asked him to stay with them longer, he did not agree, Acts 18:21. but took leave of them, saying: I must by all means spend the approaching feast in Jerusalem; but I will come back to you again, if God wills. And he set sail from Ephesus. (But Aquila and Priscilla remained in Ephesus.) The Apostle Paul’s customary preaching in the synagogue evidently pleased the Ephesian Jews, who “asked him to stay longer,” but the “approaching festival in Jerusalem” — probably Passover or Pentecost — the apostle “needed to observe” (why? it is not stated) “in Jerusalem,” and he could not fulfill their request, promising to return again, which he also did (Acts 19:1). “If God wills” — cf. Jas 4:13-16.

Acts 18:22. Having stopped in Caesarea, he went up to Jerusalem, greeted the church, and then went down to Antioch. “Having landed at Caesarea” — the so-called Caesarea Maritima, a coastal city of Palestine where the apostle disembarked after the sea crossing. Paul’s brief stay in Jerusalem, without any indication of special activity on his part there, is explained, no doubt, by his cautious fear of stirring up excessive irritation among the Jews, which might disrupt his future plans, as happened on his following visit to Jerusalem (Acts 21 and following). Therefore, fearing not death and suffering for Christ but the loss of the ability to preach the Word of God, he hastens on to a new journey into the pagan lands (Acts 18 and following). The apostle heads first to “Antioch” of Syria (see Acts 11:19). “He had a special love for this city — a human feeling: because here the disciples began to be called Christians; here he was commended to the grace of God; here he successfully concluded the matter concerning the teaching on circumcision” (Chrysostom).

Acts 18:23. And, having spent some time there, he departed and traveled in order through the Galatian region and Phrygia, strengthening all the disciples. He departed... — the beginning of the third apostolic journey of Paul. “He went through the region of Galatia and Phrygia” — see the note to Acts 16:6. “Strengthening all the disciples” — that is, in faith and Christian life, which was the purpose of visiting these lands and the communities founded in them (cf. Acts 14:21-22). Of the apostle’s visits to other Asia Minor communities nothing is said — either for brevity’s sake, or because the apostle did not visit them this time. Paul’s companions are also not mentioned, though from what follows it is evident that Timothy and Erastus were with him (Acts 19:22).

Acts 18:24. A certain Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria, an eloquent man well-versed in the Scriptures, arrived in Ephesus. “Apollos” — a shortened form of Apollonios. Apollos was a vigorous worker in the planting of Christianity in Corinth (see 1 Cor.), which is why the narrator gives him particular attention. “A Jew from Alexandria” (Egypt), which was the center not only of extensive commerce but also of the highest development of Jewish-Hellenistic culture, whose representative at that time was the famous Jew Philo.

Acts 18:25. He had been instructed in the rudiments of the way of the Lord and, being fervent in spirit, was speaking and teaching accurately about the Lord, though he knew only the baptism of John. Learned and eloquent, well-versed in the books of Holy Scripture, a convinced and fervent preacher, Apollos gave promise of particular success. “Here are educated men beginning to preach!... See the success of the preaching!” — Chrysostom exclaims on this occasion. “In the way of the Lord,” that is, in the teaching and life in accordance with the Lord’s commandments (cf. Acts 9:2). “In the beginning things,” that is, not fully, so that Apollos still needed a more precise explanation of this way of the Lord (Acts 18:26), which was then provided (Acts 18:26). “Knowing only the baptism of John...” as did the Ephesian disciples mentioned further on (Acts 19:2-3). Such incompleteness of Apollos’s knowledge and teaching about Christ was, of course, not an incorrectness of knowledge and teaching, which is why it did not prevent Apollos, “fervent in spirit” (Rom 12:11), from speaking and teaching about the Lord correctly, though incompletely. Having received a fuller and more detailed knowledge of the teaching, deeds, and person of the Lord Jesus from Aquila and Priscilla, and having received the baptism in the name of the Lord Jesus and the grace of the Holy Spirit (Chrysostom), Apollos appeared in Achaia as a grace-endowed preacher (Acts 18:27).

Acts 18:27. When he resolved to go over to Achaia, the brothers wrote to the disciples there, encouraging them to welcome him; and on his arrival he greatly helped those who had believed through grace, Acts 18:28. for he powerfully refuted the Jews in public, demonstrating from the Scriptures that Jesus is the Christ. The beneficial activity of Apollos in Achaia is beautifully characterized by the Apostle Paul in 1 Cor 3:6: “I planted, Apollos watered...” “In that he refuted ‘publicly,’ his boldness was shown; in that he was firm, his strength was manifest; in that he proved it from the divine Scriptures, his experience was expressed; for boldness by itself contributes nothing if there is no strength, and strength — without boldness” (Chrysostom). Subsequently Apollos was bishop in Smyrna (in Asia Minor) before the well-known Polycarp (Chet.-Min., January 4).