Acts 19:1 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

While Apollos was at Corinth Preaching with considerable success, Acts 18:27-28; Paul, having passed through the upper coasts Of the Lesser Asia, namely, Galatia and Phrygia; came to Ephesus According to his promise, Acts 18:19; Acts 18:21, with a purpose of making some stay there. Ephesus, at this time, was the metropolis of the province of Asia, and an exceedingly populous city. For, not to speak of its native inhabitants, who were very numerous, a great concourse of strangers always resorted to it, some to worship the goddess Diana, whose rites were celebrated with great magnificence, in a temple erected to her there at the expense of all Asia; others to learn the arts of sorcery and magic, which were taught and practised at Ephesus with such reputation, that the magical words, or sentences, used in the practice of these arts, had their names from Ephesus; being called Εφεσια γραμματα, Ephesian letters: others came to prosecute law-suits, or to solicit offices from the Roman governor of the province, who had his residence there; others took Ephesus in their way to and from Europe; and others, after the manner of the easterns, abode there occasionally for the sake of commerce. Ephesus, therefore, being a place of such general resort, and the very throne of idolatry, superstition, and magic, the apostle, when he formerly left that city, resolved, as we have seen, to return and attack these impieties in their strongest hold. Wherefore, having discharged his vow in Jerusalem, he made no stay there, nor even at Antioch, but travelled through Syria and Cilicia, and the countries above mentioned, as expeditiously as was consistent with his purpose in visiting them, and then came to Ephesus, where he abode three years, and gathered a very numerous church; the members of which were peculiarly dear to him, as is manifest from his epistle to them, and the discourse addressed to their elders, Acts 20:17, &c.