And when he was disposed to pass into Achaia, the brethren wrote, exhorting the disciples to receive him: who, when he was come, helped them much which had believed through grace:
And when he was disposed to pass into Achaia - of which Corinth, on the opposite coast (see the note at Acts 18:1) was the capital; there to proclaim that Gospel which he now more fully comprehended. If it be asked why he wished to go into Achaia, Lechler replies, that 'a delicate reserve might prevent him, after being fully instructed, from again coming forward in Ephesus, where he had already appeared with such unripe and defective knowledge. But since "the brethren" of Ephesus wrote to the disciples of Achaia, "exhorting them to receive him," as is stated in the very next clause, we can hardly doubt that they were quite cognizant of the enlargement of his views, and, so far from thinking less of him for it, joyfully furthered his desire to go to a field more suited to his gifts. The probability rather is, that Aquila and Priscilla, knowing fully the nature of the Corinthian field, convinced him that it opened up a richer sphere for the special style of his teaching than Ephesus, where the ground had as yet been scarcely broken, and that the handful of believers there, concurring with them, joined them in this letter of recommendation.
The brethren. We had not before heard of such, gathered at Ephesus; but the desire of the Jews there to whom Paul preached to retain him among them for some time (Acts 18:20), and his promise to return to them (Acts 18:21), seem to indicate some drawing toward the Gospel, which, no doubt, the zealous private labours of Priscilla and Aquila would ripen into discipleship.
Wrote, exhorting the disciples to receive him - a beautiful specimen of 'letters of recommendation' (as Acts 15:23; Acts 15:25-27; and see 2 Corinthians 3:1), by which, as well as by interchange of deputations, etc., the early churches maintained active Christian fellowship with each other.
Who, when he was come, helped them much (was a great acquisition to the Achaian brethren), which had believed through grace. If this is the right way of rendering the words, it is one of those incidental expressions which show that faith's being a production of God's grace in the heart was so current and recognized a truth that is was taken for granted, as a necessary consequence of the general system of grace, rather than expressly insisted on. In this sense the words have certainly been understood by the majority of interpreters. But Grotius, Bengel, Olshausen, Meyer, Webster and Wilkinson, and Lechler, connect the words "through grace" with Apollos, not with the Corinthian converts-translating thus: 'who, when he was come, helped them much through grace who had believed;' and though once disinclined to this, we now judge it to be the true sense of the statement. For what the historian tells us is not that Apollos helped the believers at Corinth, by operating successfully on themselves-to the enlargement of their knowledge, the furtherance of their faith, their growth in grace: in that case it might have been quite natural to tell us that it was those whom the grace of God had first brought into subjection to Christ who were thus furthered in the divine life by Apollos. But the whole service which the historian says Apollos rendered to the Corinthian believers, "when he was come" - or, on his first arrival-consisted in his adding to their numbers from without, or at least bearing down all opposition from their Jewish adversaries. And since the whole stress of the statement is laid upon the success of Apollos' labours among the unbelieving Jews, it seems more natural to understand the historian to mean that it was "through grace" that Apollos carried all before him in his discussions with them, than that he should have meant to tell us that those who were believers long before he arrived had "believed through grace."