Charles Ellicott Commentary Acts 16:3

"Him would Paul have to go forth with him; and he took and circumcised him because of the Jews that were in those parts: for they all knew that his father was a Greek." — Acts 16:3 (ASV)

And took and circumcised him. The act seems at first inconsistent with Saint Paul’s conduct regarding Titus (Galatians 2:3) and with his general teaching regarding circumcision (Galatians 5:2–6).

The circumstances of the two cases were, however, different, and there were adequate reasons here for the course Paul adopted.

1. The act was spontaneous. People may rightly concede as a favor, or as a matter of expediency, what they would be justified in resisting when it is demanded as a matter of necessity.

2. Titus was a Greek, pure and simple (Galatians 2:3). However, Timothy's mixed parentage, according to the received canons of Jewish law, meant he inherited from the nobler side. He was therefore by birth in the same position as an Israelite.

3. By not urging circumcision before baptism, or before his admission to that “breaking of bread”—which was then, as it was later, the witness of full communion with Christ—the Apostle had shown that he did not consider it essential for admission into the Christian Church or for continued fellowship with it. In what he did now, he was simply acting on his declared principle of becoming to the Jews as a Jew (see Notes on Acts 18:18; 1 Corinthians 9:20). He was also guarding against the difficulties he would have encountered from those he sought to win for Christ, if they had seen an Israelite in the traveling company who was ashamed of the seal of the covenant of Abraham.

The acceptance of that seal by one who had grown up to manhood without it may be noted as showing that the disciple had absorbed the spirit of his Master. It seems probable, from Timothy's youth, that at this period he took the place Mark had previously filled, acting chiefly as an attendant, with the “work of an evangelist” coming later (2 Timothy 4:5).