Acts 16:6 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

To preach the word in Asia,— That is, in Asia Proper, or Proconsular Asia, as all the places mentioned in the former verses lay in Asia Minor. It is also apparent that flourishing churches were afterwards planted there; particularly at Colosse, Laodicea, Sardis, Thyatira, and Philadelphia; so that it seems to have been the determination of Providence, that, instead of going through this region now, by such a leisurely progress as that in which they proceeded in their former journey through Pamphylia, Pisidia, Lycaonia, &c. they should hasten to Europe directly, and preach the gospel first in Philippi, which was a Roman colony, and then in the neighbouring parts; while, in the mean time, the Asiatic provinces now passed over, might hear some report of it from their neighbours, and so be prepared to receive with greater advantage the labours of the apostles, when they should return to them, as St. Paul afterwards did: ch. Acts 18:23, &c. By this means the spread of the gospel would, in any given time, be wider than (other circumstances being equal) it would have been, had they taken all the interjacent places in their way.