Acts 18:27

And when he was minded to pass over into Achaia The original expresses more than an inclination on his part; he wished to go. We find from Acts 19:1 that the centre of his labours there was Corinth. Being acquainted with the philosophy and learning of Greece he was well fitted to be a preacher to the Greeks as well as to the Jews, and he may have felt that Corinth was the place where he could do most good. We are not told of any Apostolic commission to Apollos, but we know from 1 Corinthians 1:12, &c. that he came to be regarded by some Corinthians as the equal of St Paul, and that there arose some strong party feeling in that Church, which is rebuked in St Paul's letter to them. We cannot suppose that this was brought about by Apollos, for St Paul speaks of him as watering what he himself had planted, and it may be that the knowledge of the existence of such a spirit accounts for the unwillingness of Apollos to come back to Corinth (1 Corinthians 16:12) which we read of somewhat later.

the brethren wrote, exhorting the disciples to receive him Here the A. V. makes the disciples in Achaia the object of the exhortation. The construction in the original is not quite clear, but the order of the words seems in favour of the Revised rendering, "the brethren encouragedhim and wrote to the disciples, &c." though the pronoun "him" is not expressed in the Greek. Here we find the first instance of letters of commendation sent from one Church to another. "The brethren" at Ephesus must have been a small number, but Aquila and Priscilla would be well known to the Christians in Corinth.

who, when he was come, helped them much which had believed through grace So far as the Greek is concerned the last two words may be connected either with "helped" or "believed." But as the history is occupied with the work of Apollos, it seems more natural to explain the "grace" spoken of, as the gift which was already in Apollos, and which the more full instruction that he had just received had tended to increase. He had formerly been but partially enlightened. Now that he knows the truth in Christ, his former ability becomes more helpful still. His work seems rightly estimated by St Paul, "he watered" what the Apostle had "planted" (1 Corinthians 3:6).