19:21
Paul “resolved in the Spirit” to pass through Macedonia and Achaia and go to Jerusalem, and then to Rome. So we see the importance of the Holy Spirit again. However, we are given no indication of how he “resolved in the Spirit”, we must assume that it was through prayer and contemplation on the word of God. The Spirit directs and guides us in all sorts of ways. Sometimes He does so directly through dreams and visions, as He did with Paul, but this is not the most common way. Prayer, Bible study, fellowship, praise etc are the most common means. We will see later that everyone else thought going to Jerusalem was a bad idea. There are some things that the Spirit does in our lives that no one else will understand, yet it is still the Spirit. At the same time, if no one ever understands what you are doing then that is a pretty good sign that it is not the Spirit who is guiding you!
19:22
However, Paul stayed in Asia for a while, sending Timothy and Erastus ahead of him to Macedonia. Erastus is also mentioned in Romans 16:23, where he is referred to as the treasurer of the city, and in 2 Tim 4:20. We cannot be absolutely certain that this is the same Erastus, but it is at least plausible. In 1929 an inscription was found in Corinth mentioning an Erastus as an “aedile”, a city official.
No comments:
Post a Comment