Acts 19:21,22 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

After these things, &c. After the extraordinary cures performed, and conversions made, at Ephesus, which have been mentioned above, Paul, being much concerned about the spiritual welfare of his former converts, and very solicitous to promote the progress of the gospel; purposed in spirit διελθων, having passed through Macedonia and Achaia Where he had planted so many flourishing churches some time ago; to go to Jerusalem, saying, After I have been there, I must also see Rome That I may bear my testimony to the gospel in that metropolis of the world. “Paul sought not to rest, but pressed on, as if he had yet done nothing. He is already possessed of Ephesus and Asia. He purposes for Macedonia and Achaia. He has his eye upon Jerusalem; then upon Rome; afterward on Spain, Romans 15:26. No Cesar, no Alexander the Great, no other hero, comes up to the magnanimity of this little Benjamite. Faith, and love to God and man, have enlarged his heart even as the sand of the sea.” Bengelius. Providence, accordingly, brought Paul to Rome, though in a manner different from that in which he had expected to visit it. So he sent Timotheus and Erastus into Macedonia To give the churches notice of his intending to visit them, and to get their collection ready for the poor Christians in Judea. And soon after, he wrote his first epistle to the Corinthians, designing to follow it himself, as appears, 1 Corinthians 4:17-19. For the present, however, he himself stayed in Asia In the country about Ephesus, founding churches and instructing the new converts.