And some days after Paul said unto Barnabas, Let us go again and visit our brethren in every city where we have preached the word of the Lord, and see how they do.
And some days after - that is, after the return of Judas and Silas to Jerusalem. How long after, is left undetermined; but as Antioch seems now to have been rich in Christian agency (Acts 15:35), if this suggested to Paul the thought that he and his coadjutor could well be spared for a time, and kindled the desire to set out afresh on missionary work, perhaps the interval was not long.
Paul said unto Barnabas, Let us go again and visit our brethren in every city where we have preached the word of the Lord, and see how they do. Not, then-in the first instance at least-to break new ground did he propose to go, but revisit the converts already made, to see whether they were holding fast, whether advancing or declining, etc.-a pattern this for successful missionaries in every age, whether in the home or in the foreign field. 'Reader (asks holy Bengel), how stands it with thee?' Yet we agree with Baumgarten, that a still further diffusion of the Gospel must have been contemplated by the apostle in this journey first, because the extension of the Gospel among the Gentiles had been so laid upon him, in his original call, as the great work of his apostolic life, that he could scarcely have planned such a journey without having that in view; next, because the proceedings of the council at Jerusalem, which Paul and Silas carried with them to communicate to the Gentile churches already formed, were evidently designed to meet a much wider diffusion of the Gospel among the Gentiles than had then taken place; and lastly, because the very first step which the apostle took on his arrival at Lystra-namely, to add Timotheus to his party, but not until he had circumcised him-plainly shows that, instead of confining himself to the mere visitation of churches already founded, he was laying himself out on this journey for pushing the kingdom of Christ alike among Jews and Gentiles wherever he could find an open door. Still, his more immediate object must have been to "visit the brethren in every city where they had preached the word of the Lord, and see how they did." 'We notice here (as Howson remarks), for the first time, a trace of that tender solicitude for his converts, that earnest longing to see their faces, which appears in the letters which he wrote afterward, as one of the most remarkable and attractive features of his character. He thought, doubtless, of the Pisidians and Lycaonians, as he thought afterward at Athens and Corinth of the Thessalonians, from whom he had been lately "taken in presence, not in heart, night and day praying exceedingly that he might see their face, and perfect that which was lacking in their faith."'