And landing at Caesarea, and having gone up and saluted the assembly, he went down to Antioch.
One short sentence covers hundreds of miles. Paul lands on the coast, greets a church, and leaves for Antioch. Two questions follow. Where did Paul go up to, and why does Luke tell us so little about the visit?
This travel note closes one stage of Paul's work and opens the next:
Landing at Caesarea he went up and greeted the Church, and then went down to Antioch, five hundred miles away. He spent some time in his familiar quarters at Antioch. Then he started on his third missionary journey.
Luke never says where Paul "went up" to. Commentators agree it must be Jerusalem. But the text does not give his reason. One writer separates what Luke records from what readers assume:
"Going up" was certainly to Jerusalem. But it need not have been to keep a Jewish feast, unless the text said so plainly. The only thing recorded as a fact is his greeting the church... verse 22 lets us know that his heart had other aims in view than the purpose he had mentioned to the Jews of Ephesus.
What Paul does in Jerusalem is one thing only: he greets the believers there. He does not stay. One writer points out the ground he is now standing on:
Leaving Priscilla and Aquila, two quiet people, but faithful and devoted to the Lord, he goes on towards Jerusalem. There he greets the assembly. Then he sets out for Antioch, the starting-point of the gospel for the Gentiles, and the city the Holy Spirit had sent him out from. At Jerusalem he merely greets the assembly, for here we are on Christian, not Jewish, ground.
Paul had told the Jews at Ephesus why he was going up. Yet Luke records nothing of what happened when he arrived. One writer leaves that silence alone:
The sacred historian gives us no information about what happened in Jerusalem on this occasion. He only tells us that when Paul had gone up and greeted the church, he went down to Antioch. But his intense desire to pay this visit may assure us of its great importance... we need not seek to remove the veil which the Holy Spirit has drawn over this visit.
Commentators differ on how to read the gap. Another writer links the short stop to what happens to Paul later:
Instead of any word about keeping the feast, he runs up from Caesarea and greets the assembly. We have to work out which assembly he means — perhaps for him at that moment there was hardly an assembly anywhere else. Yet he does not stay. We do not see what, if anything, was done. The visit he wanted so much feels strangely unsatisfying. It may well be that he cannot stay there, as we realise from what happens later. He goes down to Antioch, the place the Spirit first called him to go out from. So his second missionary journey is over.
Antioch matters because of what began there. One writer shows what this return ties together, and where the story goes next:
Paul goes down from Jerusalem to Antioch, visiting all the assemblies he had first formed. In this way he binds his work together — Antioch and Jerusalem. So far as we know, Paul's visit to Antioch was his last... The gospel moves further and further towards the West. The inspired part of the apostle's life story, after a short stretch of deep interest in Judea, centres at last in Rome.
Verses like this show Paul still attached to his own people. That can tempt a reader to look down on him. One writer turns the passage back on the person studying it:
Statements like these test the heart of the readers... For nothing is easier. Some people are only shallowly aware of their own grave faults. They point out, with eagerness and self-satisfaction, acts of Paul that sprang from his excessive attachment to the ancient people of God. And this is a servant of Christ so deeply taught and devoted... Is it not wiser and holier to draw this conclusion: that affections of the sweetest kind may entangle even the most faithful and spiritual? Then we watch ourselves, so that we do not slip through lower affections into far worse wrongdoing.
- Landed. Paul comes ashore at Caesarea and goes down to Antioch, five hundred miles away, before starting his third journey.
- Greeted. The one recorded act at Jerusalem is a greeting to the church. There is no feast, no stay, and no stated reason for going up.
- Veiled. Luke says nothing about what happened in the city. Commentators differ. One leaves untouched the veil the Holy Spirit drew over it. Another finds the visit strangely empty.
- Sent. He goes down to Antioch, the place the Holy Spirit first sent him out from. That closes the second journey and binds the whole work together.
- Tested. Paul's lasting pull toward his own nation should humble the reader, not arm him with criticism.
And having stayed [there] some time, he went forth, passing in order through the country of Galatia and Phrygia, establishing all the disciples.
Luke covers this stage of Paul's travels in one sentence: after some time in Antioch, Paul sets out again through Galatia and Phrygia. No new cities, no riots, no miracles — so why is this quiet return trip in the record at all?
The journey opens with care for people Paul had already won, not with new ground. One writer sees the motive behind the route:
First, though, we see Paul starting out fresh from Antioch. A love that cares for everyone carries him once more over the ground he had covered on his second journey. He takes it up in an orderly way this time, so that he misses none of those who had been brought to Christ back then. In Galatia at least there were many of them, and they were earnest disciples. Of Phrygia we know only that he had visited it throughout. But the sense is that there too there were many. He was caring for them now, rather than starting new assemblies.
The stay in Antioch was short:
At Antioch he now spent "some time," a phrase that shows it was not a very long stay. Then he was off on his third journey, going first to the places where he had worked before, to strengthen the disciples. This work is always badly needed, because so many influences work to weaken disciples.
The phrase translated "in order" belongs to Luke alone:
Luke is the only writer who uses this term, and he uses it often. It properly means in a regular series, one after another, and so sometimes just following, or next, in order… On the whole, I see no sign at all that Luke uses it for time order. The word itself does not carry that meaning, except that time order is one kind of order.
On the ground, that meant taking the two districts in reverse of his earlier route:
On his first visit to those parts he went to Phrygia before Galatia (16:6). This time he reversed his route, going through Galatia before Phrygia. He seems to have been shaping his course for Ephesus, which he had promised to visit (18:21).
This verb appears only a few times in the New Testament, and it points to no ceremony:
Paul and Barnabas went to Lystra, Iconium and Antioch, confirming the souls of the disciples and urging them to continue in the faith. Judas and Silas, messengers from Jerusalem to Antioch, were prophets, and they encouraged the believers with many words and confirmed them. Paul and Silas later went through Syria and Cilicia, confirming the churches. Acts 14:22; Acts 15:32, 41. Those passages, along with Acts 18:23, where the word is translated 'strengthen,' are all the places where the word ἐπιστηρίζω occurs. (There is no idea of a ceremony here, like what is now called 'Confirmation.')
Two details matter here: who received this help, and who could give it:
Again, in 18:23, we read that Paul went through the countries of Galatia and Phrygia in order, strengthening, or confirming (the same word here as elsewhere), all the disciples. All of them needed strengthening, or confirming. The context shows what the historian meant to say. The disciples as a body in each place needed this kind of ministry. The Lord provided it, and people other than apostles could do it.
Paul is doing here a different job from the one that first brought him to these places:
The pioneer work of the evangelist had opened out the work in those parts; now he acts as the pastor and teacher.
That return visit is offered as a pattern, not merely a record:
The evangelist has a duty to preach the gospel in the regions beyond, as long as there are regions still to reach. The pastor has a duty to "go again and visit his brothers," as long as there are brothers to visit. The evangelist forms the connection; the pastor keeps it and strengthens it… The two gifts can exist in the same person, as they did in Paul. But either way, each gift has its own sphere and object.
The timing of what came next is sobering:
Since this was a second visit, we read of him passing through the country 'in order' — that is, where assemblies existed — and establishing 'all the disciples' who had already received the gospel. This matters a great deal for the letter to the Galatians. He wrote it not long after they were called: "I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel" (Gal. 1:6, ESV). People are like that, even where the greatest of the apostles had laid the foundation a little before.
- Love goes back. The third journey begins by retracing the second. Paul would not leave earlier converts unvisited.
- Love goes in order. "In order" means one place after another, in a regular series, so Paul skipped no one.
- Love strengthens. The word means confirming and establishing believers. It is not a ceremony. The same verb marks this work elsewhere in Acts.
- Love reaches all. Not some but all the disciples needed it, and apostles were not the only ones able to give it.
- Love is still needed. Soon after they were called, the Galatians turned to a different gospel. Starting a work and steadying it are two different jobs.