Acts 18:2

2, 3. Paul entered this large city a stranger, alone, and penniless. What little means he had brought with him from Macedonia was exhausted, and his first attention was directed to the supply of his daily wants. He knew what it was to suffer "hunger and thirst;" but he had been taught to look to heaven and pray, "Give us this day our daily bread." A kind Providence found him lodging and means of livelihood. (2) "And having found a certain Jews named Aquila, born in Pontus, and Priscilla his wife, lately come from Italy because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to depart from Rome, he went to them. (3) and because he was of the same trade, he remained with them, and worked; for they were tent-makers by trade." To be thus under the necessity of laboring as a journeyman tent-maker was certainly a most discouraging condition for one about to evangelize a proud and opulent city. From the calm and unimpassioned style in which Luke proceeds with the narrative, we might imagine that Paul's feelings were callous to the influence of such circumstances. But his own pen, which often reveals emotions that were not known to Luke, gives a far different representation of his feelings. Writing to the Corinthians after long years had passed away, and all transient emotions had been forgotten, he says, "I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling." Though keenly sensitive to all the distressing influences which surrounded him, he had, withal, so strong confidence in the power of truth, and so gloried in the very humility of the gospel, that he never despaired. The companionship of two such spirits as Aquila and Priscilla afterward proved to be, was, doubtless, a source of great encouragement to him.