Biblion Bible Commentary
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Through Macedonia and Greece, and a plot
Acts 20:1-6
1 After the uproar had ceased, Paul sent for the disciples, took leave of them, and departed to go into Macedonia. · WEB
A travel note carries a delegation of seven men from six churches, and the reason for the escort is the money they are carrying.
The uproar over, Paul sends for the disciples, takes leave of them, and goes to Macedonia, then into Greece, where he spends three months. That stay is almost certainly when the longest of his letters was written, from Corinth, to a church in the city he was determined to see Romans 15:23–25.
A plot is made against him as he is about to sail for Syria, so he determined to return through Macedonia. Direct passage from Corinth to Palestine at that season would have meant a pilgrim ship crowded with Jews going up to the feast — an ideal setting for a murder at sea that nobody could investigate. He goes the long way round by land.
Then a list that looks like a passenger manifest and is in fact the shape of his whole ministry. Sopater of Beroea, Aristarchus and Secundus of the Thessalonians, Gaius of Derbe, Timothy, and Tychicus and Trophimus of Asia. Seven men, from Macedonia, Galatia and Asia, traveling together to Jerusalem.
What they are is a delegation. Paul had spent years organizing a collection among the Gentile churches for the poor believers in Judea, and had insisted that the contributing congregations appoint their own men to carry it 1 Corinthians 16:3–4 2 Corinthians 8:19–21 — partly so that no one could question the handling of the money, and partly because the point of the gift was the giver as much as the sum. Every name here represents a church, and each is walking its own offering to Jerusalem.
That is why the delegation matters more than it appears. The collection is the practical answer to the question the council settled in principle. Gentile congregations that had been told they must become Jews to be saved are sending money to the Jewish church, in person, in a group. Paul thought it worth a year of administration and, as the next chapters show, his liberty.
The narrator rejoins the party at Philippi — we sailed away from Philippi after the days of Unleavened Bread — and the first person continues to the end of the book. He had last been heard from in this same city some years earlier, when Paul left it after the earthquake, which suggests he stayed and worked there in the interval.
The voyage to Troas takes five days against the two the outward crossing needed, and they stay seven. The delay is why the next paragraph happens: a week in port, a farewell meeting on the last night, and a young man in a window.
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