And having all laid hold on Sosthenes the ruler of the synagogue, they beat him before the judgment-seat. And Gallio troubled himself about none of these things.
Paul's accusers came to Gallio's court hoping to see him condemned. They left watching a mob beat their own synagogue ruler, while the governor looked away.
(The writers quoted below use older translations, which call the tribunal "the judgment-seat.")
Sosthenes held the top office in the synagogue at Corinth. He had not always held it.
Sosthenes seems to have taken Crispus' place in that office, without any hint of his conversion as yet, though he may be the one later spoken of as a brother.
Another writer goes further and dates his conversion to this beating.
Sosthenes came from Corinth (see Acts 18:17). It seems he was converted after the beating the Greeks gave him as chief ruler of the synagogue. He had taken the place of Crispus, who was converted a little earlier.
Both writers hold this as likely, not certain.
Gallio saw through the charge and threw it out. The mob did not stop where he stopped.
The Jews were thinking of their own law, not the Roman one, as Gallio easily sees. It was a mere hypocritical plea, as everyone knew, and he treats it as such. The accusers were driven from the judgment-seat. The crowd, going further than the judge, beat the ruler of the synagogue in front of it. But Gallio was still indifferent.
The mob acted on what Gallio thought of the whole dispute. Deep scorn lay behind his refusal to step in.
To him the Jewish religion was a miserable, contemptible superstition, because it cut its followers off from the whole world. The human heart does not love the truth that condemns the falseness of the world and its ways. If the head of this religion were beaten, it was nothing to him; in his eyes he deserved it, and so they could go ahead. Unbelief despises superstition, and yet supports it. But it hates the truth, and persecutes it if it can.
Gallio was not a cruel man. That is what makes him so instructive.
The Roman governor left the Jews to settle their religious questions in their own way. Gallio refused to have his hand forced; he had no mind to be a judge of such things. The kindest and most courteous person can show plenty of contempt where the truth is concerned — a truth he knows nothing about.
Gallio had already told the Jews that a genuine wrong would have had his attention. His scale of values is the point.
To him a "matter of wrong," however small, mattered more than the "worship of God." He treated that as a "question of words and names" — a mere trifle, unworthy of a philosophic intellect. Settling a revolt against Caesar had his full attention. The rights of the King of kings he could afford to ignore. But intellectualism, as much as ritual religion, is fatal to the welfare of the soul. The only remedy is a heart truly subject to the Word of God — one that, unlike Gallio, finds its pleasure in the worship of God as revealed in His Son.
The verse says only that "they all" seized Sosthenes. One writer names them, and points back to the vision Paul had seen.
The Greeks took Sosthenes, the chief ruler of the synagogue, and beat him in front of the judgment-seat. Gallio paid no attention to any of it. Note that the vision came true; Paul suffered no harm.
The governor had no idea whose purposes he was serving.
So God in His providence brought to nothing the malicious attack of the Jews on Paul, while showing up the unbelieving easiness of Gallio.
Indifference feels like neutrality. One writer argues that it is nothing of the kind.
The hearer who is merely careless may not think he is despising or rejecting the offer of salvation. But this matter is of unspeakable interest to God, and of unspeakable importance to man. To be indifferent about it is, in some respects, the most guilty way to treat the message.
- Cared not. Gallio was courteous and fair, yet he treated the worship of God as a quarrel about words. Decency and contempt for the truth can live side by side.
- Cost nothing. Because the governor cared nothing, the crowd felt free to beat Sosthenes at the very seat of justice.
- Covered. God used that same indifference as a shield. The vision came true, Paul suffered no harm, and the blows landed elsewhere.
- Converted. Sosthenes may be the brother named later with Paul, converted after this beating — likely, though not certain.
- Cure. Careless indifference to God's message is not neutrality; it is the most guilty way to treat it. The remedy is a heart that delights in the worship Gallio despised.
And Paul, having yet stayed [there] many days, took leave of the brethren and sailed thence to Syria, and with him Priscilla and Aquila, having shorn his head in Cenchrea, for he had a vow;
Paul's long stay in Corinth ends, and Luke adds one puzzling detail: a shaved head and a vow at the port of Cenchrea. Why would the apostle who preached freedom from the law leave with an old Jewish rite? And was the vow even his?
The case the Jews brought against Paul had collapsed before Gallio, the Roman governor.
It is interesting to note that the apostle did not leave Corinth at once. The failure of the Jews before the governor left him free… He wrote the two letters to the Thessalonians during his stay at Corinth. There was a gap between them, short but enough to show what damage could come upon the saints in a brief time. So those who think it took centuries before error was able to enter are quite mistaken.
Scripture never states what prompted it. One suggestion links the vow to a woman commended later for her care of Paul.
Who this last remark refers to has been much questioned. We believe Luke meant Paul. We know no reason why he should not have made a vow, since we do not know the circumstances in which he made it. Romans 16:1-2 may throw a little light on the matter. Notice how the apostle there writes of Phoebe, a servant of the assembly at Cenchrea… "a helper of many and of myself as well," he says. It may well be that some illness overtook him, and that he owed much to Phoebe's care. In gratitude to God for his recovery, he then made a vow.
Commentators differ. Aquila's name stands nearest, so some read the clause as about him. Others hold that it is Paul.
The ancients do not seem to have doubted that Paul himself is meant. They read the words just before as a parenthesis. Others, in more recent times, have been more willing to attach the vow and the shaved head to Aquila. But the great apostle went a long way in going along with Jewish forms, and in stooping to them, in cases that left the grace of the gospel untouched. What roused a storm of feeling in him, and unanswerable argument, was the effort to force the law on Gentiles who believed.
The other case rests less on grammar than on the nature of a vow.
A vow was a voluntary act between the person and God. No one was required to make one. So not keeping it could give no offence, and not taking it up broke no law. Aquila might have taken it before he became a Christian. He would then let it run to its end, and honour Moses in something that to him as a Christian was a matter of indifference. But Paul taught that we are "dead to the law through the body of Christ" (Romans 7:4). How could that fit with choosing to take up something no one else's conscience required?
What sort of vow was it? There is little to go on.
The New Testament records only two vows. One is the vow at Cenchrea by Paul (or Aquila, as some judge), which is wrapped in mystery. The other is the vow of the four men at Jerusalem. Acts 18:18; Acts 21:23. Both were probably Nazirite vows, since the head was shaved. According to the law the final shaving had to be at the tabernacle or temple. Numbers 6:18.
The timing of the shaving matters.
Paul did not let his hair grow, and that is the opposite of a Nazirite. It was when the vow was over that the head was shorn.
Whoever made the vow, it opens a window on Paul and his own nation.
The opposition of the Jews does not take away his attachment to his nation. It does not take away his faithfulness in preaching the gospel to them first, or his recognition of all that belonged to them in grace before God. He even submits to Jewish ordinances. Perhaps habit had some influence over him which was not of the Spirit. But according to the Spirit he had no thought of denying what the patient grace of God granted to the people… Liberty that stoops to prejudices and habits is not the same thing as being subject to them.
Another writer puts the accent on love rather than on habit.
In his own mind, and as led by the Spirit, we feel sure he was far above and beyond a religion of feasts and vows, but he stooped in grace to the customs of his nation. To the Jew he became a Jew. Their constant opposition to his teaching, and their violent persecution of him, never weakened his affection for his beloved people.
The order of the couple's names is worth noticing.
Priscilla's name comes before her husband's — an unusual thing at that time and in that part of the world. We see the same order in Romans 16:3… We can only conclude that the wife was spiritually more devoted, and the leader in the things of the Lord.
- Freedom. Gallio's refusal to act left Paul free. He stayed on at Corinth, wrote the two Thessalonian letters there, and left when he chose.
- Gratitude. One reading links the vow to Phoebe of Cenchrea, who cared for Paul. The vow may have been thanks for recovery from illness.
- Dispute. Commentators differ over whose head was shaved. The case for Aquila is that a vow is voluntary, and that Paul taught believers are dead to the law.
- Ending. The shaving marks a vow completed, not begun — the opposite of a Nazirite letting his hair grow.
- Affection. Whoever took it, the record shows an apostle of grace who never turned from his own people. Stooping to old customs is not the same as being bound by them.