Workbenches, a Courtroom, and a Teacher Willing to Learn

Corinth lay about fifty miles west of Athens on the isthmus between two seas. Destroyed by Rome in 146 BC, it was refounded by Julius Caesar as a Roman colony in 44 BC and was now capital of Achaia. Paul later told the Corinthians he came to them “in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling” (1 Corinthians 2:3).

Pontus lay on the Black Sea coast; Jews from there heard Peter at Pentecost (2:9). Suetonius records that Claudius expelled from Rome Jews who kept rioting “at the instigation of Chrestus”, very likely a garbled Christus, and a later historian dates it to AD 49. Paul calls her Prisca (Romans 16:3); Priscilla is the diminutive.

“Tentmakers” is skenopoioi, which may mean leatherworkers or weavers of the goat-hair cloth for which Cilicia was known. A saying in the Mishnah praises Torah study joined to a trade (Avot 2:2). Paul later reminds the Ephesian elders that “these hands have ministered unto my necessities” (20:34).

“Persuaded” is in the imperfect, “he kept trying to persuade”. The Greeks in the synagogue would be God-fearers. Excavators at Corinth found a stone lintel inscribed “Synagogue of the Hebrews”, though its date is uncertain and it may be later than Paul.

The oldest manuscripts read not “pressed in the spirit” but “wholly occupied with the word”. Silas and Timothy seem to have brought money from Macedonia, since Paul says “that which was lacking to me the brethren which came from Macedonia supplied” (2 Corinthians 11:9), which would free him from the workbench to preach full time.

“Opposed themselves” is antitasso, a military word for drawing up in battle order. Shaking out the garment is Nehemiah’s gesture, “so God shake out every man” (Nehemiah 5:13). “Your blood be upon your own heads” is the watchman’s language of Ezekiel 33:4–6: a warning given leaves the warner clean.

The oldest manuscripts name him Titius Justus, a Roman name. Some scholars suggest he is the Gaius whom Paul calls “mine host, and of the whole church” (Romans 16:23), giving him the full name Gaius Titius Justus; that is conjecture. “Joined hard” means his house shared a wall with the synagogue.

Crispus is one of the very few Corinthians Paul baptized with his own hands (1 Corinthians 1:14). The head of the synagogue walking next door to join Paul would have been felt by everyone. The three verbs for the Corinthians, hearing, believing, being baptized, are in tenses that picture a steady stream.

“Be not afraid” is a present imperative in Greek, “stop being afraid”, which implies Paul was afraid. “Speak, and hold not thy peace” says one thing twice, positively and negatively, a Hebrew way of emphasis, like Isaiah 58:1: “Cry aloud, spare not.”

“I am with thee” is the promise given to Jeremiah, “Be not afraid of their faces: for I am with thee to deliver thee” (Jeremiah 1:8). “Set on thee” is epitithemi, to attack. “Much people” uses laos again, the word for God’s own people, for Corinthians who have not yet believed.

“Continued” is literally “sat”, kathizo: he settled down. Eighteen months is the longest stay in one place so far in Acts. During it Paul almost certainly wrote 1 Thessalonians, after Timothy brought news from Thessalonica (1 Thessalonians 3:6), and probably 2 Thessalonians soon after.

Gallio was Lucius Junius Gallio, elder brother of the philosopher Seneca. A letter of Claudius inscribed at Delphi dates his year as proconsul to about AD 51–52, the firmest fixed date in Paul’s life. The judgment seat, the bema, was a raised stone platform in the Corinthian forum, and its remains still stand.

“Contrary to the law” is ambiguous: Jewish law, or Roman law about permitted religions. The accusers may have meant the second; Gallio hears the first (verse 15). “Persuadeth” is anapeitho, to win over, to seduce into changing, found only here in the New Testament.

Paul had his defence ready, and the magistrate never let him use it. “Wicked lewdness” is rhadiourgema, villainy or reckless crime, with the 1611 sense of lewd as low and wicked; its root was used of Elymas’s “mischief” (13:10). “Reason would” means it would be reasonable for me to hear you.

“Look ye to it” is almost what Pilate said, “see ye to it”, washing his hands (Matthew 27:24). Gallio’s ruling, if followed elsewhere, treated the followers of Jesus as a dispute inside Judaism, which carried Rome’s long-standing tolerance; commentators have seen in it a useful precedent for Paul’s work.

“Drave” is apelauno, to drive off: the lictors cleared the platform. Seneca wrote affectionately of his brother that no mortal was as agreeable to one person as Gallio was to everyone. Here the agreeable man does not trouble to hear a case he considers beneath him.

The oldest manuscripts say only “all” took Sosthenes, leaving the attackers unnamed; later copyists added “the Greeks”, and a few “the Jews”. He appears to have succeeded Crispus as the synagogue’s ruler. Gallio’s indifference became proverbial, and in English sermons a “Gallio” came to mean a person careless of religion.

Cenchrea was Corinth’s eastern port on the Saronic Gulf, where Phoebe later served the church (Romans 16:1). Priscilla is named before her husband here, as in four of the six places the couple appear, which may reflect her standing or her prominence in the church; the Greek does not explain it.

Ephesus, capital of the province of Asia, lay across the Aegean, some 250 miles by sea. The Spirit had barred Paul from preaching in Asia in 16:6; now he enters its chief city and speaks in the synagogue. He leaves Priscilla and Aquila there, and they are established before he returns.

“Consented not” is epineuo, to nod assent: he did not nod. For once a synagogue asks Paul to stay longer, a rare invitation after the expulsions of the last several chapters, and he declines it for now.

The words about keeping the feast in Jerusalem are absent from the oldest manuscripts; the King James follows a later text. “If God will” is the formula James urges on his readers: “ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that” (James 4:15). He keeps the promise in 19:1.

“Gone up” means up to Jerusalem, which is not named; this is Paul’s fourth visit in Acts, dealt with in half a sentence. “Saluted the church” is all that is said. Then he goes down to Antioch, the church that had sent him out twice, and the second journey closes where it began.

The third journey begins in a single clause, with no send-off recorded. Paul told the Corinthians that he had given orders to “the churches of Galatia” about a collection for the saints (1 Corinthians 16:1), and this tour of the Galatian region is the likeliest time for those instructions.

Apollos is a short form of Apollonius or Apollodorus. Alexandria had the largest Jewish community outside Judaea, and it was home to Philo, who read Scripture with a philosopher’s allegory; whether Apollos was trained in that manner is guesswork. “Eloquent” is logios, learned or skilled in speech, and “mighty” is the word used of Moses, “mighty in words” (7:22).

“Fervent in the spirit” is literally “boiling in spirit”, a phrase Paul uses in Romans 12:11. “Instructed” is katecheo, taught by word of mouth, the root of catechism. “Diligently” is akribos, accurately, which sets up the next verse: the man who taught accurately is taught more accurately.

The oldest manuscripts name Priscilla first here too; the King James follows a text that put the husband first. “Took him unto them” is proslambano, to take aside or welcome, possibly into their home. “More perfectly” is akribesteron, the comparative of the word used of Apollos’s own teaching in verse 25.

The brethren send a letter of recommendation, the kind Paul mentions when he asks the Corinthians whether he needs “epistles of commendation to you” (2 Corinthians 3:1). “Through grace” can go with “believed” or with “helped”; the Greek allows either, and both make sense.

“Mightily convinced” is diakatelenchomai, to refute thoroughly and point by point, an intense compound found only here. His success in Corinth was so marked that some there said “I am of Apollos” (1 Corinthians 1:12), and Paul described their work as one planting and the other watering (3:6).