Him would Paul have to go forth with him; and took and circumcised him because of the Jews which were in those quarters: for they knew all that his father was a Greek.
Him would Paul have to go forth with him. Though Silas took the place of Barnabas, it is consistent with all that we know of the great apostle that he should set his heart upon the society and services of a youth like Timothy, on whose love and devotedness, as his son in the Gospel, he could thoroughly and always reckon; whose character and gifts had been already proved; and whom he could employ on errands which he might not feel warranted in imposing upon Silas. And a treasure to him he proved to be-the most attached and serviceable of all his associates. (See Philippians 2:19-23; 1 Corinthians 4:17; 1 Corinthians 16:10-11; 1 Thessalonians 3:1-6.) His double connection-with the Jews by the mother's side, and by the father's with the Gentiles-would strike the apostle as a special qualification for his own sphere of labour. Wieseler remarks that 'Timothy, so far as appears, is the first Gentile who after his conversion comes before us as a regular missionary; for what is said of Titus, in Galatians 2:3, refers to a later period.' Though we differ from that distinguished chronologer, when he ascribes the visit which Titus paid to Jerusalem in company with Paul to a later period than this, his remark about Timothy is nevertheless correct, as we think; for we have no evidence that Titus was 'a regular missionary' at the time of that visit.
And took and circumcised him. This act-which any Israelite might perform-seems to have been done by Paul himself.
Because of the Jews which were in those quarters: for they knew all that his father was a Greek. From this one would infer that his father (who perhaps was now dead) had never become a proselyte to Judaism; for against the wishes of a Gentile father (as the Jews themselves say) no Jewish mother was permitted to circumcise her son. And this will explain why all the religion of Timothy is traced (2 Timothy 1:5) to the female side of the family. The circumcision of Timothy, before being taken into this missionary party, was an indispensable step. For if the mere report that Paul at a later period had brought a Greek into the temple occasioned an uproar in Jerusalem, and endangered the apostle's life (Acts 21:27-31), how could he expect to make any progress in this missionary tour to preach Christ - "to the Jew first," and only after that to the Gentiles-if his principal assistant and constant companion had not been a circumcised person? On the one hand, in refusing to compel Titus to be circumcised, at the mere bidding of Judaizing Christians, as necessary to salvation (Galatians 2:3), he only vindicated "the truth of the Gospel" (Galatians 2:5): in circumcising Timothy, on the other hand, "to the Jews he became as a Jew, that he might gain the Jews." It is probable that the ordination of Timothy (1 Timothy 4:14; 2 Timothy 1:6) took place now; and as it was done "before many witnesses" (1 Timothy 6:12), it was probably a solemn service, and attracted a considerable concourse.
Remarks:
(1) The stability of the first Christian missions, as well as their rapid progress, must be ascribed in a large degree to the wise union of the conservative with the aggressive principle on which the apostle conducted them. The first Gentile converts must have been extremely rude in knowledge, and all inexperienced in the management of a Christian congregation, even of the smallest dimensions. But besides the instructions which they would receive at their first reception of the Gospel, it will be remembered that they were revisited on the apostle's return, confirmed in the faith, exhorted to stedfastness, and faithfully warned of the cost of discipleship; that elders were ordained over every cluster of believers; and that on parting with them they were solemnly commended to the Lord with prayer and fasting (Acts 14:21-23). Then, after a long interval, during which the hearts of the missionaries yearned after them, a fresh journey was projected and carried out, for the express purpose of revisiting their converts; and doubtless this visit would contribute largely to the consolidation and growth of those young churches.
In like manner, the churches which were afterward gathered out of Corinth, Ephesus, etc., were revisited once and again, and to them were addressed those Epistles which, though they have become the heritage of all the churches of Christ, were designed in the first instance for the instruction and direction of the churches whose names they bear. Thus anxiously did the first great missionaries of the Cross watch over and cherish the work of their hands, "lest in any way the tempter should have tempted them, and their labour have been in vain" (1 Thessalonians 3:5); and if one would see into the very heart of those model missionaries, as they "travailed in birth again" for their converts, let him read the second and third chapters of the First Epistle to the Thessalonians. And should not the churches of our day-with all their missionary agents abroad, and missionary directors or committees at home-study to imbibe the same spirit, and act upon the same principle in the case of their converts?
(2) The account here given of the circumcision of Timothy, in contrast with the non-circumcision of Titus, has furnished the Tubingen school (Baur, Zeller, Schwegler) with a fitting occasion for the display of their special criticism. It suits their views to contend for the genuineness of the Epistle to the Galatians; but it does not suit their views-or rather it is fatal to them-to admit the genuineness of the Acts of the Apostles. Accordingly, as Paul tells us in the Galatians (Galatians 2:3), that he would not compel Titus to be circumcised, because he was a Greek, while in the Acts he is represented as taking and circumcising Timothy, "because of the Jews of those quarters" where he was going, though everyone "knew that his father was a Greek" - this is made out to be a flat and clumsy contradiction, such as shows the book that contains it to be no genuine production. According to this style of criticism, why have they not discovered the Epistle to the Galatians itself to be spurious, since it makes the apostle to say in one chapter, "Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if ye be circumcised Christ shall profit you nothing" (Galatians 5:2); and in the very next chapter (Galatians 6:15), "In Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature"? Men who cannot see, or will not admit, that a change of circumstances may warrant and even demand a change of procedure, are not fit to be critics of the New Testament or of any sensible writings. That the circumstances were different in the cases of Titus and of Timothy here-sufficiently so to justify, if not to require, a different line of action-is so plain, that after what we have said on Acts 16:3, it is not necessary to add a word. To a thorough critic, who penetrates beneath the surface of the facts, the apparent contradiction, so far from being staggering, is just what would corroborate the genuineness of both the productions in which the two statements are contained.
(3) The 'undesigned coincidence' between the account given of Timothy in this narrative of his accession to the missionary party and that of the apostle himself in his Second Epistle to Timothy (Acts 1:5), is a striking confirmation of the truth of both works. (See Paley's 'Horae Paulinae,' 12:, No. 2:) In the Epistle all the religion of this admirable Christian is traced to the female side. The "unfeigned faith" which dwelt first in his grandmother Lois passed down (as we have seen) from her to his mother Eunice; and thence, like the precious ointment upon the head of Aaron, that ran down upon the beard, and went down to the skirts of his garments (Psalms 133:2), it descended to the youth who proved such a treasure to the apostle, both in his travels, when he was preaching Christ with burning zeal amid difficulties and hardships, and afterward when he became a prisoner of Jesus Christ-from his first association with him to the very close of his career in martyrdom for Christ. Here, in the History, the impression one naturally forms of his Greek father is, that he had not been a proselyte to the Jewish Faith, else lie would probably have had Timothy circumcised in infancy; and from its being said that Paul now "took and circumcised him," the probability is that his Greek father was either dead by this time, or that he had deserted his wife-as was not uncommon in the case of such unequal marriage. At all events, while the Epistle trace all the religion of Timothy to the mother's side, the History traces none of it to the father's. But this suggests another remark:
(4) The strength and preciousness of the maternal influence in the religious training of the young is seen all the more in this case from the disadvantages on the father's side under which Timothy laboured. If the mother's piety was decided before she formed a matrimonial connection with an unconverted Gentile, it was a step which cannot be justified, and one that must have cost her many a trial. But if her religions training had not taken decisive hold of her heart up to the time of her marriage, that step-especially in a region where Jewish families were few-was not so unnatural, nor would it be so injurious to conscience. At the same time, as she certainly was a woman of "unfeigned faith," and was honoured to transmit the same to this child of hers, she must have had to struggle into it through adverse influences and deadening conversation with an irreligious husband. Perhaps the contrast between her mother's hallowed house and the withering secularity of her husband's, drove her to the God of her fathers, and disclosed to her spiritual necessities which she had never felt under the parental roof.
And if this was the means of deciding for the first time her choice of "the good part," all her early training would then come back upon her, and turn to more precious account than it had ever done before. So, at any rate, it has often been in the experience of Christian mothers. And how did all this tell upon Timothy? Had he been a raw convert at the time of his first reception of the Gospel-like the other disciples who stood round about the apparently lifeless body of Paul at Lystra (Acts 14:20) - he had not so quickly risen to reputation among the brethren at Lystra and Iconium (Acts 16:2); nor would he have had in him probably those qualities which drew him to the greatest of the apostles, and which, when matured, made him the greatest treasure of his apostolic life. All this must be traced instrumentally to the training he had received, the example he had witnessed, and the prayers and tears which doubtless watered both, under the parental roof. Probably the mixture of Gentile blood was an advantage to him intellectually; but to his mother we certainly owe all that hallowed and directed his natural endowments. And what Christian mother or guardian of the young may not well be encouraged amid all her struggles, and stimulated to put forth her best energies, to train up her children "in the nurture and admonition of the Lord," by the blessed result in this case of Timothy!
Progress through the Cities-Entrance into Phrygia and Galatia-The Mysterious Double Arrest, and the Journey to Troas (16:4-8)