CRITICAL REMARKS
Acts 16:6. Phrygia and the region of Galatia should probably be, the Phrygian and Galatian region; but whether one or two distinct districts is intended is presently under debate. The commonly accepted interpretation (Hackett, Alford, Plumptre, Holtzmann, Zöckler, and others) holds that Paul and Silas, having visited the Churches in Derbe, Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch, directed their steps first in a north-easterly direction towards Phrygia, and then turned north-west towards Northern Galatia, which was bounded “on the north by Paphlagonia and Bithynia, on the east by Pontus and Cappadocia, on the south by Cappadocia and Phrygia, and on the west by Phrygia and Bithynia” (Hackett), and inhabited by a Celtic population; but a different view (Zeller, Renan, Hausrath, Weizsäcker, Wendt, Ramsay, and others) considers the Phrygian and Galatian region to be the district alluded to in Acts 16:1-4, in which the above-named Churches were situated—viz., Southern, as distinguished from Northern Galatia. (See further in “Homiletical Analysis.”) That Paul again visited the Churches in this district, or these districts, at the beginning of his third journey is afterwards mentioned (Acts 18:23). Forbidden of the Holy Ghost.—Not through the exercise of ordinary prudence on the part of the apostles (De Wette), but by some special Divine intimation, as in Acts 13:2 (Alford), but whether conveyed by the Bath-Kol (Renan), or through some prophetic voice, as in Acts 20:23; Acts 21:11 (Holtzmann), cannot be determined. That this prohibition extended to preaching in Phrygia and Galatia is against the presupposition contained in Acts 18:23. Asia.—I.e., Proconsular Asia, or the western coastland.
Acts 16:7. Mysia was situated in the north-east corner of Asia Minor, Bithynia in the north and west of Mysia. Why they were prevented from preaching in Asia and Bithynia cannot be known, though Romans 15:20 and 2 Corinthians 10:15-16 may shed some light on the problem. Perhaps it should suffice to say that in this way the Spirit designed to turn their steps and faces westward in the direction of Europe. But see further in “Hints.” The Spirit.—The oldest authorities read, The Spirit of Jesus. As in the Filioque controversy at the Synod of Toledo, A.D. 589 neither party quoted this phrase, the inference is that by that time the text had been long corrupted.
Acts 16:8. Passing or having passed by Mysia.—Not “having passed along” the border of Mysia, but “having passed it by” so far as their work was concerned—i.e., having not stopped to preach in, but hastened through it. Troas.—Called Alexandria Troas, in honour of Alexander, founded by Alexander’s successors, and situated on the Hellespont. Now Eski-Stamboul. Visited twice again by Paul (Acts 20:6; 2 Corinthians 2:12). The home of Carpus, who perhaps acted as his host (2 Timothy 4:13).
Acts 16:9. Whether Paul’s vision in the night (compare Acts 18:9; Acts 23:11; Acts 27:23; 2 Corinthians 12:1) occurred in a dream or in an ecstasy cannot be decided. A man of Macedonia.—Paul would know this, if not from the man’s appearance, from his words “Come over.” Ramsay (St. Paul the Traveller, etc., pp. 202, 203) maintains that the man of Macedonia was Luke.
Acts 16:10. We.—The commencement of the “We” passages of this book (Acts 16:10-17; Acts 20:5-15; Acts 21:1-18: Acts 27:1 to Acts 28:16), which shows that the writer of the Acts (Luke) joined Paul’s company at Troas. Tradition makes Luke to have been an Antiochian.
HOMILETICAL ANALYSIS.—Acts 16:6-10
Regions Beyond; or, the Vision of the Man of Macedonia
I. The hindering Spirit.—
1. Who this was.
(1) The Holy Ghost. The third person of the Trinity, who proceedeth from the Father and the Son (John 15:26), and whom Christ promised to send after His departure from the earth (John 16:7), who came according to promise, on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:4), and had ever since been guiding the development of the Church and the footsteps of its apostles and evangelists (see Acts 8:29, Acts 10:19, Acts 11:12, Acts 13:2; Acts 13:4).
(2) The Spirit of Jesus—i.e., the Spirit whom Jesus had sent. A valuable statement, the genuineness of which must be conceded (see “Critical Remarks”), confirming the well-known dogma of the Creed that the Spirit bears the same relation to the Son as to the Father.
2. When He interposed.
(1) After the two missionaries Paul and Silas had gone through the Phrygian and Galatian region, lying on the west and north of Lycaonia. The route pursued by them can only be conjectured. Probably from Lystra they proceeded to Iconium, and from that to Antioch in Pisidia, where Paul had on his previous journey founded a Church, after leaving which they would most likely cross the hills, and, merely touching Phrygian territory, enter the district of Galatia towards the north. (See, however, “Critical Remarks” and “Hints” on Acts 16:6.) Whether they evangelised any towns in Phrygia cannot be determined. Colossæ, situated in the south of Phrygia, it is not certain the apostle ever visited; but that he published the gospel to the Phrygians and made disciples seems the obvious deduction from Acts 18:23. That he preached in Galatia and founded Churches there himself declares (Galatians 1:2; Galatians 4:19). No Galatian cities are specially mentioned in connection with the spread of Christianity in this province; hence the inference that the Christian communities were scattered about the rural parts. Paul’s preaching in Galatia was, in a manner, brought about against his will, through an attack of bodily sickness which detained him in that province, when possibly he intended to push eastwards to Pontus. What this sickness was is not recorded, though most likely it was ophthalmia, and presumably had to do with his “thorn” or “stake in the flesh” (compare 2 Corinthians 12:7-10 with Galatians 4:13-15); and see also Acts 13:14; “Homiletical Analysis” and “Hints”)
(2) Again when they assayed to go into Bithynia. This they did when they had come over against Mysia, which lay north of Asia, and, like it, looked out on the Ægean. Arrived thither, they contemplated turning north-east to Bithynia, a province located between Mount Olympus and the Euxine, when once more they were mysteriously arrested.
3. How He signified His will. This also can only be surmised. It may have been by an outward voice (Renan), such as probably directed Philip (Acts 8:20), or by an inward impression, such as Paul had already experienced (Galatians 2:2), by a dream or by a vision, by the voices of prophets, as in Acts 20:23, Acts 21:11 (Holtzmann, Nösgen), or simply, though less likely, by some natural occurrence, unrecorded, which rendered it impossible to carry out their intentions first of going into Asia and next of moving north into Bithynia. Paul’s rule (2 Corinthians 10:15-16) was not the hindrance. (See “Hints” on Acts 16:7.)
4. What course He appointed.
(1) That they should not speak the word in Asia. Politically considered, Asia meant the western portion of Asia Minor, which included Mysia, Lydia and Caria, Galatia, Phrygia, Bithynia, Cilicia, Pamphylia and Lycia, but, popularly viewed, it signified the territory situated west of Phrygia and south of Mysia. Why the missionaries were prevented from entering it can only have been that the hour was not yet arrived for its inhabitants to hear the gospel.
(2) That they should not pass into Bithynia. This seemed the natural direction for them to take, if their mission was not to cross the Ægean. But the Spirit, unconsciously to them, was conducting their steps towards Europe. Accordingly, once more stopped (at Mysia) and turned westward, they passed through but did not preach in (the meaning of “passing by”) the country, till they came down to Troas on the Hellespont, about four miles from the site of ancient Troy.
II. The midnight vision.—
1. The form it assumed. “A man of Macedonia” appeared before the eye of the apostle, “standing, beseeching him, and saying, Come over into Macedonia and help us.” The apparition and the voice were both supernatural (compare Acts 11:12; Acts 10:30). Whether Paul recognised the man as a Macedonian by his appearance, dress, or speech is not related; but as Paul’s thoughts the day before had probably been much occupied with the Macedonian land which lay beyond the Ægean, and as the vision, though not created by, had been fitted to, his thoughts, it is not difficult to understand how his soul, lying in the hand of God, quickly leapt to the interpretation of the scene. The strange figure wore the aspect of a Macedonian man—perhaps, from his upright posture, a soldier (Farrar); the outstretched hands evoked a mute appeal for aid; the voice sounded like a summons to hurry over with that help which the men across the water greatly needed, not alone because of the corrupt and decaying civilisations in the midst of which they were perishing, but because of the magnificent potentialities for good which lay within them, notwithstanding their environment as members of the most advanced and active races on the face of the globe.
2. The inference it suggested. The apostles at once perceived the reason of that mysterious hindrance they had twice suffered, and, concluding that God had called them to preach the gospel in Europe, at once took steps to obey. “Straightway, we sought to go forth into Macedonia.” Like the good soldier of Jesus Christ that he was (2 Timothy 2:3), Paul always obeyed his marching orders with military promptitude and precision.
Lessons.—
1. The real, though unseen, presence of the Holy Spirit in the Church and with the true servants of Jesus Christ.
2. The development of the Christian Church the proper care of the Holy Ghost.
3. The duty of Christian people, but especially of Christian ministers, to wait upon and follow the leading of the Spirit.
4. The certainty that guidance will never fail those prepared to accept it.
5. The loud call of the heathen world to the servants of Jesus Christ.
HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS
Acts 16:6. The Region of Galatia.—The view that this was not Northern but Southern Galatia, the district in which lay the Churches of Derbe, Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch, has been recently championed by Professor Ramsay, who offers in its support the following consideration:—
I. The phrase, τὴν Φρυγίαν καὶ Γαλατικὴν χώραν, describes a single district, the land or territory which is both Phrygian and Galatian—a description which the professor maintains to be “strictly true,” and perfectly inapplicable to Northern Galatia, which could have been thought of had the discarded reading of the Textus Receptus, τὴν Φρυγίαν καὶ τὴν Γαλατικὴν χώραν, been retained.
II. Roman documents of the first century show that the district in which the above-named Churches were situated might be accurately described as Phrygian-Galatic. “In some inscriptions,” writes the professor, “the Governor of Galatia (in the larger sense) is called simply the Governor of Galatia, while in others he is styled Governor of Galatia, Pisidia, Phrygia, Lycaonia, Isauria, Pontus Galaticus, etc.”
III. No traveller from North Galatia to Bithynia could come to a point “over against Mysia,” still less “to the frontier of Mysia.” “A glance at a map (preferably a large map) will make this clear to all”; while everything is natural, if, after leaving Phrygian Galatia, the apostle was making for Asia when his course was arrested, and again was heading northwards to Bithynia, when he was a second time checked and turned westwards to Mysia and Troas.
IV. South Galatia is favoured by the chronology of Acts.—“The process of preaching in the great cities of Galatia needed in any case a considerable time; an invalid, as St. Paul is supposed on the North Galatian theory to have been, would require a long time in that vast and bare country. But the period allotted on any of the proposed systems of chronology to this journey leaves no room for the evangelisation of Galatia. We may safely assume that Paul left Antioch on his second journey in the spring. No one who knows the Taurus will suppose that he crossed it before the middle of May; June is a more probable time. Say, he passed the Cilician Gates on the 1st of June. If we calculate his journey by the shortest route, allowing no detention for unforeseen contingencies, but making him rest always on the Sundays, and supposing a stay of two Sundays each at Derbe, Iconium, and Antioch, and of at least five weeks at Lystra (which is required to select Timothy as comrade, to perform the operation on him, and to wait his recovery), we find that even if he did not touch North Galatia, October would be begun before he reached Philippi. Eleven months may be fairly allotted to the events recorded at Philippi, Thessalonica, Bœrea, and Athens; and then Paul went to Corinth where he resided a year and a half. He would then sail for Jerusalem in spring. Thus three entire years are required as the smallest allowance for this journey, even if it was done in the way our theory supposes.
V. Paul’s sickness makes for the South Galatian theory.—“It is required by the North Galatian theory that St. Paul, stricken at Ancyra by the severe illness,” referred to in Galatians 4:13, “took that opportunity to make the long, fatiguing journeys needed in order to preach in Tavium and Pessinus. Those who know the bare, black uplands of Galatia, hot and dusty in summer, covered with snow in winter, will appreciate the improbability and want of truth to nature which are involved in the words ‘because of an infirmity of the flesh I preached unto you.’ ” Professor Ramsay thinks Paul’s infirmity was the fever which he caught at Perga, and which determined him to visit the highlands of Pisidia and Lycaonia.—The Church in the Roman Empire, chaps. 3, 4.
Acts 16:6-7. Forbidden to preach in Asia and Bithynia.—The reason suggested for this by Hausrath is that Paul’s visit to Galatia, and indeed his entire progress hitherto, had been one of controversy and struggle. “Controversy in Jerusalem, controversy at Antioch, controversy in Galatia: that had been the way which lay behind him. Perhaps it was just for this reason that in the year 53–54 the Spirit suffered him not to turn either west to Proconsular Asia, where Ephesus was already in the struggle with Jewish Christians, or to Bithynia in the north, where in the days of Pliny at least a strongly coloured Jewish Christianity prevailed, but called him by a vision to Europe, where a freer development of his own peculiar foundation principle was possible among the Jews of the Diaspora who were less closely bound up with Jerusalem” (Der Apostel Paulus, p. 266).
Acts 16:7. The Spirit of Jesus.
I. The personality of this Spirit.—
1. Implied in the actions here ascribed to Him—“suffering not,” “hindering.” Impossible to be explained as a merely human, moral spirit, or even as “the power of the true religion or of the fellowship in life which the human spirit has with God, which has proceded from Jesus Christ and continues to work in the Christian Church” (Pfleiderer, Grundriss der Christlichen Glaubens- und Sittenlehre, p. 163). Throughout Acts the Spirit is a Divine person.
2. Confirmed by other Scripture representations. John 14:26; John 15:26; John 16:7; John 13-15; Romans 8:9; 1 Corinthians 2:10-11; 2 Corinthians 13:14, etc. “With Paul the Holy Spirit is that Spirit which, according to its origin, is Divine, but in Christians is Divine human, as becoming the peculiar and permanent principle of the new man (Galatians 5:22; Galatians 5:25; Romans 5:5; Romans 8:1-15; 1 Corinthians 2:10-15). With John also the Holy Spirit, corresponding to and in consequence of the Divine Logos personality in Christ is definitely conceived of as a separate Divine being” (Ibid., pp. 159, 160).
II. The relation of this Spirit to Jesus.—
1. Equal in essence with Christ. This implied in His association with Christ in the baptismal formula (Matthew 28:19) and the Christian benediction (2 Corinthians 13:14). “As the principle of man’s life fellowship with God,” says Pfleiderer (Grundriss, p. 159), the Holy Spirit with Paul “is thought of at one time as of the same essence with God and Christ, at another time as distinguished from both as the gift of God intermediated through Christ.”
2. Distinguished in personality from Christ. This also involved in the biblical doctrine of the Holy Spirit. Yet the distinction in personality must not be so held as to contradict the unity of essence. The existence of such relations in the Godhead may transcend human reason, but is not on that account to be denied.
3. Proceeding forth from Christ. Not merely from the Father (John 15:26), but also from the Son. Though not so stated in the New Testament, this has been accepted by the Christian Church as the necessary consequence of the doctrine of the divinity of the Son, and therefore of the Son’s essential equality with the Father.
4. Dispensed by Christ. In the days of His flesh Christ claimed that after His glorification He would send forth the Spirit from the Father (John 15:26; John 16:7), and this promise He fulfilled at Pentecost (Acts 2:33).
5. Representative of Christ. That the Holy Ghost should be the personal vicegerent and plenipotentiary of Jesus after His departure from the world was likewise distinctly taught (John 16:16).
III. The functions of this Spirit in the Church.—
1. The creator and sustainer of its life. The new moral and spiritual nature which belongs to every individual member of the Church is a direct production of the indwelling of the Holy Ghost in the soul of the believer (John 3:5; Ephesians 2:1; Ephesians 2:10; 2 Corinthians 5:17).
2. The revealer and interpreter of its truth. Whatever spiritual understanding the believing soul attains to, he owes to the inward illumination of the Holy Spirit (John 16:13-14; 1 Corinthians 2:9-14; Ephesians 1:17; 1 John 2:20).
3. The inspirer and guide of its movements. As the footsteps of Paul and Silas were directed by the Holy Ghost, so are those of believers superintended by the same Divine leader (Romans 8:14; Galatians 5:16).
Acts 16:9. The Cry of the Heathen—Come over and help us.
I. The significance of the cry.—
1. The cry of a perishing humanity.
2. Which has begun to realise its danger.
3. For that succour which alone can relieve distress—viz., the salvation of the gospel.
II. The parties to whom it is directed.—To the Christian Church—i.e., to those
(1) who have that salvation in their possession;
(2) who themselves received it as a free gift; and
(3) who also have been commanded to make it known to others.
III. Reasons why the cry should be listened to.—Because
(1) it is urgent, and has been long sounding in the Church’s ear;
(2) those crying are the Church’s brethren, who, like themselves, belong to Jesus Christ;
(3) ordinary gratitude for mercy received, if not love to Jesus Christ, should impel the Christian Church to respond to it; and
(4) without the Church’s aid the heathen world cannot be recovered for Jesus Christ.
The Cry of the Nations.
I. All nations ignorant of the gospel need help.—Arising from:
1. Their ignorance
(1) of God, and the way in which He is to be worshipped;
(2) of the Saviour, and the manner in which He is to be approached.
2. Their condition, represented in Scripture as a state of
(1) darkness (Matthew 4:16; Ephesians 5:8);
(2) disease (Isaiah 1:6);
(3) bondage (Romans 6:17; Ephesians 2:2); and
(4) death (Ephesians 2:1).
II. All nations needing help utter the same cry as the men of Macedonia.—Evident from
(1) the knowledge we have of their condition;
(2) our connection with them in the way of commerce; and
(3) the political relations in which we stand towards them.
III. It is the duty of the Church of Christ to respond to this cry.—
1. God has done everything to facilitate our exertions.
2. He has committed the care of the inhabitants of the world to the Christian Church. 3. Christ commands us to “love our neighbours as ourselves” and to “preach the gospel to every creature” imply the obligation here referred to.
4. Reason and equity say we should send to others that which we ourselves received from others.—Bogue.
Acts 16:10. The Call to Macedonia.—The cause which led to the apostle Paul’s crossing from Asia into Europe, and the object which he had in view in coming here.
I. As to the causes which led to his coming.—While one is referred to in the text, you will find others mentioned in the verses which go before (Acts 16:6). Thus, even so far, Paul might have felt himself guided to this continent. But he was not left to judge of it merely in that way. It was so important a step, and such great consequences were to follow on it, that a vision was given him.
II. And for what object did they come?—They drew the conclusion, we are told, that the Lord had called them to preach the gospel in that place. This was the object for which all the journeys of the apostle Paul were undertaken.
What are the lessons which we may learn for ourselves from this history?
1. From the way in which the apostle Paul was more than once kept from going where he intended, kept from going into the province of Asia, and kept from entering into Bithynia, and was led on where he seems never to have intended to go, to accomplish a mighty purpose, we learn how God may disappoint His people now in regard to some plan of usefulness which they have in view.
2. Another truth which we are reminded of is, that as this vision was given to Paul, the man of Macedonia calling on him to help them, so there are calls of the same kind continually made upon all Christian people, which we need no vision to remind us of, because they are a reality with which we are acquainted.
3. And there is one other lesson closely connected with this, which we may learn from what we have been considering to-day—the exceeding value of the gospel. This was shown by Paul’s object in coming over to Macedonia.—M. F. Day.