VI - ST PAUL AT EPHESUS

Summary

The later history of the resolutions of the conference

The rest of the Acts need not occupy us long After certain days Paul said unto Barnabas “Let us return now and visit the brethren in every city wherein we proclaimed the word of the Lord, and see how they fare.” This journey then proceeded from no act of the Ecclesia of Antioch nor (so far as appears) from a special Divine monition. It was apparently in intention, and certainly as regards the first part of it, merely supplementary to the former journey. As we know, St Paul and Barnabas had a division of opinion, and separated, Paul taking Silas, one of the envoys of the Ecclesia of Jerusalem, and himself a prophet. At Lystra a still more important fellow-labourer was added to his company in the person of Timothy, whom for prudential reasons he circumcised; doubtless because, though hitherto formally outside the old covenant, he had been from childhood to all intents and purposes a Jew. As they went through the cities they delivered to them (masculine: to the disciples there) the resolutions which had been decided on (τὰ δόγματα τὰ κεκριμένα) by the Apostles and Elders that were at Jerusalem. The region through which they were now travelling had nothing to do with the provinces associated with Antioch, viz. Syria and Cilicia, to which the Jerusalem letter had been addressed.