Acts 20:16

For Paul, &c. In the midst of a large Christian congregation, such as we know to have existed in Ephesus, there would have arisen many causes of delay which the Apostle in this rapid journey desired to avoid. Perhaps too there might have been some hostility roused against him, and either from a wish not to awaken this or from fear lest the allaying of it should consume time he resolved to send for the heads of the church to confer with him at Miletus.

because he would not spend the time in Asia Better (with Rev. Ver.), that he might not have to spend time in Asia. He felt that he could not go to Ephesus and leave again in a day.

for he hasted Better, was hastening. The verb expresses the whole character of his journey, and we can only conclude that there was some difficulty in finding a vessel at Troas, or he would not have stayed there so long as he did and not have given a day to Ephesus, which he felt he was hardly likely to see again.

if … Pentecost Pentecost at Jerusalem must have been a high Christian as well as a Jewish festival. There would be at such a time an opportunity for the Apostle to meet the more prominent members of the Christian body, and, while bringing his contributions from the churches which he had founded, to gladden them with the news of what God had enabled him to do.