With Aquila and Priscilla, and possibly Silas and Timothy, Paul set out for Cenchreae, the port of Corinth, for the journey to Antioch in Syria (see Acts 18:18-22). The significance of Paul's vow mentioned here is uncertain; it may have been a modification of the strict Nazarite vow referred to in Numbers 6:1—21, for religious vows were not then uncommon.
Paul's first port of call was the large city of Ephesus on the western shore of Asia Minor, where he made only a brief contact, promising to come back after going to Jerusalem for the feast (possibly of Passover or Pentecost, early in a.d. 53). No details of this Jerusalem visit are given. We know only that he landed at Caesarea, went "up" (i.e. to Jerusalem), "saluted the church," and returned to Antioch. So closed Paul's second great missionary journey, during which his most outstanding achievement had been the opening of new fields in Macedonia and Greece.
Paul spent some time in Antioch. He was to begin his next journey by making a tour of "all the country of Galatia and Phrygia . . ., strengthening all the disciples" (Acts 18:23), and many believe that his Epistle to the Galatians was written at this period to the Christians at Derbe, Lystra, Iconium, and neighboring cities.
His letter was clearly prompted by a specific problem. Some who preached "another gospel" (Gal. 1:6), and insisted on the circumcision of Gentile converts, had been at work in the area, and the Galatians seem to have been all too easily persuaded of this view. The apostle's mission to the Gentiles had been undermined and his students influenced against his teaching. For the sake of these Galatians, living far from the Christian community at Jerusalem, it was important for Paul to relate in some detail the events surrounding his conversion and his experience as a Christian apostle among the church leaders there.
The theme of the first two chapters is mainly Paul's vindication of the authority of his apostleship. As a Pharisee, he explains, he had been a determined persecutor of the "church of God," but after God had revealed His Son in him at the moment of his conversion, he had completely broken away from the old way of thinking. He had not conferred with flesh and blood; he had neither sought nor received instruction from the other apostles.
Then Paul, in explaining the inadequacy of the Jewish law to bring salvation, introduces one of his basic doctrines, "justification" or "righteousness" by faith; he draws in vivid outline the deadening effect of strict obedience to legal regulations in contrast to the vital results of faith in the Son of God. "For I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God" (2:19). He develops his argument by calling the law a schoolmaster bringing us unto Christ —a schoolmaster needed only until faith has come. All who are "the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus" (3:26) are heirs of the Father's promises to Abraham, no longer in bondage of any kind. After his allegory of Abraham's two sons, one (Ishmael) by the bondwoman, and the other (Isaac), a son of promise, he shows how all the strictures of Jewish law are nullified by the new freedom under the law of Christ, though such freedom does not absolve anyone from obedience to its moral precepts (see 4:22-31; 5: 13-26).
Soon, perhaps, after this letter Paul began his third missionary journey, about July of a.d. 53. Priscilla and Aquila had been left at Ephesus (see Acts 18:18, 19); possibly his companions now were Titus and the youthful Timothy, who had already shown his ability as a preacher and a trusted messenger. Passing through Syria and Cilicia and crossing the Taurus mountains by the Cilician Gates, they came to Galatia. As soon as his work of "strengthening all the disciples" there was completed, Paul kept his promise and returned to Ephesus.
Ephesus was capital of the Roman province known as Asia, but its importance and influence reached far beyond its own territory. In Paul's day it was the chief city of all Asia Minor and formed the western outpost of Asia in the larger, continental sense. It was, one might say, both an eastern and a western city. Behind it stretched great overland routes reaching out toward Tarsus and beyond that to Antioch, Damascus, and the Euphrates; while vessels plied constantly across the Aegean, linking Ephesus with Rome, Corinth, and other European centers. It was a city of culture as well as of wealth, next to imperial Rome the most important city in which Paul labored.
The apostle probably reached Ephesus about the fall of 53 (see Chap. 19). An enthusiastic new preacher, Apollos, a Jew from Alexandria, had already arrived in Ephesus and had gone on to preach in Corinth. Paul would learn about him from Aquila and Priscilla, who, having recognized his possibilities, had prepared him for sound missionary work (see 18:24-28). Paul found at Ephesus a small group of about twelve others, sincere, like Apollos, in their baptism after the teaching of John the Baptist, but eager to learn of the Holy Ghost and to be baptized "in the name of the Lord Jesus" (19:5).
For about three months Paul preached in the synagogue, until the seemingly inevitable rupture came about. Then he gathered around him the disciples he had won and hired the lecture hall of Tyrannus, a teacher of rhetoric, where he could teach every day. This work went on for two years with good results.
Among those in Ephesus who became aware of Paul's healing work, supposing it to be but another form of the magic so prevalent in the city, were seven sons of Sceva, a chief priest of the Jews. Assuming that by the use of two names, Jesus and Paul, they could duplicate these wonders, they attempted to exorcise an "evil spirit," but with disconcerting results. News of the exorcists' discomfiture spread quickly, to the benefit of the growth of the band of Christians, and many of the Ephesians brought forward their books on the occult arts and burned them. "So mightily grew the word of God and prevailed" (v. 20).
During Paul's stay at Ephesus he would have heard reports of the work at Corinth, for these two major seaports were in close communication. The news that came was disquieting. The Christian population would be very small, and in such a city as Corinth temptations of laxity and immorality would be rife.
The situation evidently drew from Paul, about the fall of the year 54, his original letter to the Corinthian church, a letter previous to the one we call I Corinthians. Paul refers specifically to this earlier note: "I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators" (I Cor. 5: 9). At least one fragment of it has found its way into our Bible (see II Cor. 6:14 to 7:1).
After the dispatch of this note to Corinth, the apostle received further discouraging news from that city. It came through some people of the household of Chloe (see I Cor. 1:11), telling of contention, party feeling, and other disorders rending the church. Apollos also had brought tidings to Ephesus, and altogether it was obvious that the disciples at Corinth needed further counsel. So, a few months after his brief original note, Paul undertook to write what we know as his First Epistle to the Corinthians.
