Not only was Paul's head shorn in Cenchrea, and this as a vow; but we ought to gather from the subsequent history, if not from the immediate context, that it was of the Spirit to reveal the fact as important for us to observe in the account He is giving of that blessed man and of his labors. Not that we are meant to infer that Paul in thus acting was at the height of the fresh revelations of Christ given to him, but that along with these he acted thus with a good conscience. He was apostle of the Gentiles and minister of the, church; but he was also, as he said, a Pharisee, son of Pharisees, who even after this charged himself to his nation with alms and offerings, and Was found purified in, the temple. Grace was bringing out its new and hitherto unrevealed wonders in Christ, and in the church, to God's glory; but the most deeply taught and fully furnished witness of heavenly truth heartily loved the ancient people of God, and never forgot that he too was an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin; and this, not only within the precincts of Jerusalem and the land, but, as we see here, among the Greeks. This is often a great difficulty to those imbued with the spirit and habits of traditional Christianity; but it is because they are and would be logical, where the Holy Spirit is giving in those most honored of the Lord things just as they were. Prejudices and prepossession are not so quickly shaken off, even where we behold an Israelite indeed in whom is no guile. The Lord deals pitifully with a true heart, where a cold intellect can only spy out an inconsistency; but the criticizing mind could not follow that heart for a moment either in its zealous service or in the spiritual might and power which pursues the service to the Lord's glory. We shall see that more follows of a similar character, which in the inspired record beyond controversy points to no less a man than the apostle.
“And they arrived at Ephesus, and he left them there; but he himself, entering into the synagogue reasoned with the Jews. And when they asked him to remain for a longer time, he did not consent, but taking his leave and saying, [I must by all means keep the coming feast at Jerusalem;] I will return again unto you if God will, he sailed from Ephesus. And landing at Caesarea, he went up and saluted the church, and went down unto Antioch. And having spent some time he departed, going through the country of Galatia and Phrygia in order, establishing all the disciples” (ver. 19-23).
There is no doubt considerable and good authority in support of the received text, followed by the A.V. and most others. But the best witnesses and versions sustain the plural form in the first clause, which gives additional force to the singular in the second, in which all agree. “And they arrived at Ephesus” is the reading given by the Sinaitic, Alexandrian, Vatican, and Land's Bodleian, with some cursives. The Greek of Beza's MS. is probably a mere clerical error, as it makes no grammatical coherence, and the Latin agrees with the oldest authorities and several of the best ancient versions. It is certainly true that they all reached Ephesus. It is only a matter of emphasis that the apostle entered into the synagogue and discoursed to the Jews: though he did leave them there, there was no need of giving prominence to such a circumstance. Still less is it implied that they did not accompany him to the synagogue, or that αὐτοῦ; if genuine instead of ἐκεῖ: suggests that the synagogue was outside the city; which inferences appear alike unfounded.
“And when they asked him to remain for a longer time, he did not consent, but taking his leave and saying, [I must by all means keep the coming feast at Jerusalem;] I will return again unto you if God will, he sailed from Ephesus” (ver. 20, 21). It is well known that the clause within the brackets is not in the Uncials of the highest character, though it is attested by abundant and good authority. Hence it becomes very much a question of internal evidence. Mayer lays stress on the reference of ἀναβάς in ver. 22; but “going up,” though unquestionably to Jerusalem, need not have been to keep a Jewish feast, unless it was expressly so explained. The only thing recorded as a fact is his saluting the church. This in no way disproves the purpose to keep the feast there; but it undoes the force of the argument founded on ἀναβάς. The truth is that both may be true: ver. 21, if genuine, stating what he meant to do in Jerusalem, though nothing is said of its accomplishment; and ver. 22 letting us know that his heart had other objects before him than the purpose he had mentioned to the Jews of Ephesus. And the history shortly after informs us that he did soon return to Ephesus for one of the most blessed services even of his wonderful life.
Such statements as these test the heart of the readers. If vain or proud, irreverent or self-righteous, they will probably yield to the snare of thinking and even speaking disrespectfully of the great apostle to the damage of their own souls and the injury of others. For nothing is easier than for persons superficially conscious of their own grave faults to mark with eagerness and self-satisfaction any acts of Paul, a servant of Christ. so deeply taught and devoted, which sprang from his excessive attachment to the ancient people of God, and to the habits of their religious life. It is easy also to forget that it is to his inspired writings, more than to all other sources put together, that they owe the means of sitting in judgment on him in this respect. But is this the return that divine grace would produce in hearts which have truly profited? Does it become us? Is it not a wiser and a holier conclusion to see how affections of the sweetest kind may entangle even the most faithful and spiritual, and to watch that we who have it all set before us by the unwavering and impartial hand of the Holy Spirit may learn from it, so that, far behind in self-negation and untiring labors and sufferings of Christ, we slip not through less elevated affections into far more serious delinquency?
It was after this visit to Jerusalem that the apostle went down to Antioch (ver. 22). Was it not then, as it was certainly there, that Cephas, blessed man as he was, must needs be resisted to the face? Indeed he stood condemned; for his conduct was no mere lingering respect for Jewish institutions, nor self-sacrificing love for the people of whom, as to flesh, the Messiah came, but a wavering compromise of God's gospel to the Gentiles through fears of the circumcision; and this, after not only a special revelation to him when he went to Caesarea, but his stand with the apostles and elders at the council in Jerusalem. It was pot condescension to Jewish feeling, but what Paul did not hesitate to call dissimulation and not walking uprightly according to the truth of the gospel; and it was so much the worse and more dangerous because, of the eminence and influence of the defaulters. True, it was very far from the awful evil which began to rise up against the truth or teaching of Christ in the “last hour” of John, which this apostle of love vindicated so sternly. But hitherto men had not sunk to the unclean reasoning that heinous sin is to be excused, because it is practiced by those who claim to be dear children of God; though even they had had the warning that one who boasted of his readiness to lay down his life for Christ was precisely the one wile at that very moment was on the eve of denying Christ repeatedly with oaths.
All that we are told by Luke is that, having spent some time (ie., at Antioch), Paul “departed, going through the country of Galatia and Phrygia in order, establishing all the disciples” (ver. 23). When the apostle planted the gospel in Galatia, he had entered the country from Phrygia, which lay to its south and south-west (chap. 16: 6). Now, coming from a different direction, he traversed Galatia before Phrygia. And as it was a second visit, we hear of his passing through the country “in order,” that is, where assemblies existed, and establishing “all the disciples” who had already received the gospel. This is of much interest in its bearing on the Epistle which was certainly written not long after their calling: “I wonder that ye are so quickly removing from him that called you in the grace of Christ unto a different gospel, which is net another” (Gal. 1:66I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel: (Galatians 1:6)), Such is man even where the foundation had been laid a little before by the greatest of apostles.