Charles Ellicott Commentary Acts 20:1

"And after the uproar ceased, Paul having sent for the disciples and exhorted them, took leave of them, and departed to go into Macedonia." — Acts 20:1 (ASV)

Paul called to him the disciples, and embraced them...—The latter verb implies a farewell salutation.

Departed for to go into Macedonia.—We are able from the Epistles to the Corinthians to fill up the gap left in the narrative of the Acts. Having sent Timotheus and Erastus to see after the discipline of the Church of Corinth (Acts 19:17), the Apostle was cheered by the coming of Stephanas and his two companions (1 Corinthians 16:17), and apparently wrote by them what is now the First Epistle to the Corinthians.

A previous Epistle had been sent, probably by Timothy, to which he refers in 1 Corinthians 4:17. When he wrote that Epistle he intended to press on quickly and complete in person the work which it was to begin (1 Corinthians 4:18–19).

He was led, however, to change his purpose, and to take the land journey through Macedonia instead of going by sea to Corinth (2 Corinthians 1:16–17), and so from Corinth to Macedonia, as he had at first intended. He was anxious to know the effect of his letter before he took any further action, and Titus, who probably accompanied the bearers of that letter, was charged to hasten back to Troas with his report.

On coming to Troas, however, he did not find him, and after waiting for some time in vain (2 Corinthians 2:12), the anxiety affected his health. He despaired of life and felt as if the sentence of death was passed on him (2 Corinthians 1:8; 2 Corinthians 4:10–11). The mysterious thorn in the flesh buffeted him with more severity than ever (2 Corinthians 12:7).

He pressed on, however, to Macedonia (2 Corinthians 2:13), probably to Philippi, as the first of the churches he had planted, where he would find loving friends and the beloved physician, whose services he now needed more than ever. There, or elsewhere in Macedonia, Titus joined him, and brought news that partly cheered him and partly roused his indignation. On the one hand, there had been repentance and reformation where he most wished to see them (2 Corinthians 6:6–12); on the other, his enemies said bitter things about him, sneered at his bodily infirmities (2 Corinthians 10:10), and, to his disparagement, compared the credentials Apollos had presented (2 Corinthians 3:1) with his lack of them.

The result was that Titus was sent back with the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, accompanied by some other disciple (probably St. Luke, but see Notes on 2 Corinthians 8:18–19). The Apostle resolved to wait until they had brought matters into better order and had collected what had been set aside for the Church of Jerusalem, so that it might be ready for him on his arrival (2 Corinthians 9:5).

At or about this time also, judging from the numerous parallelisms of thought and language between it and the Epistles to the Corinthians on the one hand, and that to the Romans on the other, we must place the date of the Epistle to the Galatians. (See Introduction to that Epistle.)

Probably after Titus and Luke had left, and before Timotheus had returned—when he was alone, with no one to share the labour of writing, or to give help and counsel—news came that the Judaizing teachers had been there also, and had been only too successful. How the news reached him we do not know, but if the purple-seller of Thyatira was still at Philippi, she might naturally have been in receipt of communications from that city, as it was near enough to Galatia to know what was happening there.