Acts 20 - Introduction

XX: 1. (1) "After the tumult had ceased, Paul called to him the disciples, and bade them farewell, and departed to go into Macedonia." Thus ended the long-continued labors of the apostle in Ephesus. The "great and effectual door," which he saw open before him but a few weeks previous, had now been suddenly closed; and the "many adversaries," for the noble purpose of resisting whom he had resolved to remain in Ephesus till Pentecost, had prevailed against him. He had accomplished much in the city and province, but there seemed now a terrible reaction among the people in favor of their time-honored idolatry, threatening to crush out the results of his long and arduous labors. When the disciples, whom he had taught and warned with tears, both publicly and from house to house, for the space of three years, were gathered around him for the last time, and he was about to leave them in a great furnace of affliction, no tongue can tell the bitterness of the final farewell. All was dark behind him, and all forbidding before him; for he turns his face toward the shore across the Ægean, where he had been welcomed before with stripes and imprisonment. No attempt is made, either by Luke or himself, to describe his feelings, until he reached Troas, where he was to embark for Macedonia, and where he expected to meet Titus returning from Corinth. At this point, a remark of his own gives us a clear insight to the pent-up sorrows of his heart. He writes to the Corinthians: "When I came to Troas for the gospel of Christ, and a door was opened to me by the Lord, I had no rest in my spirit, because I found not my brother Titus; but took leave of them, and came away into Macedonia." We have followed this suffering apostle through many disheartening scenes, and will yet follow him through many more; but only on this occasion do we find his heart so sink within him that he can not preach the gospel, though the door is opened to him by the Lord. He had hoped that the weight of sorrow which was pressing him down above his strength to bear, would be relieved by the sympathy of the beloved Titus, and the good news that he might bring from Corinth; but the pang of disappointment added the last ounce to the weight which crushed his spirit, and he rushed on, blinded with tears, in the course by which Titus was coming. A heart so strong to endure, when once crushed, can not readily resume its wonted buoyancy. Even after the sea was between him and Ephesus, and he was once more among the disciples of Macedonia, he is still constrained to confess, "When we had come into Macedonia, our flesh had no rest, but we were afflicted on every side; without were fightings; within were fears." Finally, however, the long-expected Titus arrived with good news from Corinth, and thus the Lord, who never forgets his servants in affliction, brought comfort to the overburdened heart of Paul, and enabled him to change the tone of the second letter to the Corinthians, and express himself in these words: "Nevertheless, God, who is the comforter of those who are lowly, comforted us by the coming of Titus, and not by his coming only, but by the consolation with which he was comforted in you, telling us your earnest desire, your mourning, your fervent mind toward me, so that I rejoiced the more."

But the news brought by Titus was not all of a cheering kind. He told of the good effects of the former epistle; that the majority of the Church had repented of their evil practices; that they had excluded the incestuous man; and that they were forward in their preparation for a large contribution to the poor saints in Judea. But he also brought word that Paul had some bitter personal enemies in the Church, who were endeavoring to injure his reputation, and subvert his apostolic authority. For the purpose of counteracting the influence of these ministers of Satan, encouraging the faithful brethren in their renewed zeal, and presenting to them many solemn and touching reflections suggested by his own afflictions, he addressed them the epistle known as the Second to the Corinthians, and dispatched it by the hand of Titus and two other brethren, whose names are not mentioned. First, He refers, in the epistle, to having recently come from Asia into Macedonia, which he had now done according to the history. Second, He wrote from Macedonia, when about to start from that province to Corinth. But he was never in Macedonia previous to this, except when there was as yet no Church in Corinth, and he was never here afterward on his way from Asia to Corinth.