Went over all the country of Galatia and Phrygia in order. — It is clear from the Epistle to the Galatians that on this visit he found few traces, or none at all, of the work of the Judaisers. The change came afterwards. Some falling away from their first love, some relapse into old national vices, he may have noticed already which called for earnest warning (Galatians 5:21). As he passed through the churches he had founded on his previous journey, he gave the directions for the weekly appropriation of what men could spare from their earnings (the term, a weekly “offertory,” though often employed of it, does not represent the facts of the case), to which he refers in 1 Corinthians 16:2. What churches in Phrygia were visited we are unable to say. A possible construction of Colossians 2:1 might lead us to think of those of the valley of the Lycus, Colossæ, Hierapolis, Laodicea, as having been founded by him, but the more probable interpretation of that passage is, that he included them in the list of those who had not seen his face in the flesh.

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