Acts 16:6-10--The Macedonian Call

Acts 16:6-10
English Standard Version
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The Macedonian Call
6 And they went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia. 7 And when they had come up to Mysia, they attempted to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them. 8 So, passing by Mysia, they went down to Troas. 9 And a vision appeared to Paul in the night: a man of Macedonia was standing there, urging him and saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” 10 And when Paul had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go on into Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.

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I again encourage you to look at the maps made available in your Bible maps--there should be maps of the various missionary journeys of Paul.  If you don't own a Bible with Bible maps, you can access the ESV Study Bible maps here:  https://www.esv.org/resources/esv-global-study-bible/article-back-maps/ (You would need to look at Map 13 in this set for today's reading--https://static.esvmedia.org/media/esv-global-study-bible/images/big/map-back-13.jpg).

If Paul were simply retracing his steps from the last missionary journey, but that's not what he's looking to do.  He wants to forge ahead into new areas, either Bithynia or Asia.  The Holy Spirit prevents him from entering either of these areas as there are other apostles meant to do work in these areas--Peter will work in the areas of Bithynia and Galatia and John will work amongst the seven churches in Asia (see Revelation 1-3--we know for sure that John was one of the elders overseeing the church at Ephesus, but he probably oversaw these other six churches in the region too).  There will be some overlap between Paul and John at Ephesus and between Paul and Peter in Galatia.

The Holy Spirit does want Paul, Silas and Timothy to go to new areas, and Timothy is uniquely suited for the mission ahead since his mother was Jewish and his father was Greek.  He can both translate and understand both cultures.  They passed by Mysia and went along the northern coast until reaching Troas.  It was not until they reached Troas that Paul received a vision to make his next destination clear.  He was to cross the Aegean Sea and go into Macedonia, for the vision was of a Macedonian man urging Paul (and his team) to come and help them.

There was no waiting and praying on it--as soon as Paul received the vision, he sought to obey it.  He concluded that this vision was from God and that this was God's means of telling Paul, Silas, and Timothy that He wanted them to preach the gospel to the people of Macedonia.  The nature of the mission had now changed from revisiting churches to read the letter given to them by the church in Jerusalem to pushing forward and planting completely new churches in a place where it could not be said like it was said in the letter from Jerusalem that the Gentiles knew the Law because Moses was preached in the synagogues every Sabbath--for there will be no synagogues here in this place.  They will be outside the area that Jewish person would normally travel to because of needing to travel back to Jerusalem for the pilgrimage feasts.  In the last missionary journey we saw that the gospel had gone to the placed defining the outermost regions of where the Jews who were faithfully observing the Law had gone.  We are not reaching into areas where there may be some ethnic Jews who have assimilated into the Gentile culture, but most of the area will be under the pagan influences of Greek and Roman cultures and their many gods and goddesses.

God is faithful in this area to have a small remnant of Jewish women for Paul to talk to.  Much like Timothy's mother, there were some Jewish women that ended up this far out and married some Greek men, but there were no Jewish men to speak of in this area to lead the community or their families or their synagogues.  We'll see this at play in the next couple of lessons.