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.’  (Acts 16:9)

On his return to Galatia, the apostle Paul had planned on expanding his mission to the Roman province of Asia; but receiving an unspecified negative sign sent by the Holy Spirit that barred him from travelling west, he decided to head north to Bithynia and Black Sea coast, only to be prevented again.  Then he was sent a positive sign in the form of a vision, so informing where he was to go.  However, there is good cause to speculate that this was a test for the apostle because, historically, the Macedonians had visited great harm on his people, the Jews and had left a legacy that challenged those who feared God and observed His Holy Law. 

Μακεδονία, Macedonia, was the northern Roman province to the north of Achaia, or Greece. Though to Paul and all Jews, Greeks were interchangeable, Macedonia was not Greece.

That said, Paul knew well his own people’s history, what Jew did not?  In 333BC, Alexander III of Macedon (who had come to known as ‘the Great’), having conquered Asia Minor crossed the Taurus mountains and swept into Cilicia, the apostle’s place of birth.  From there, the Alexandrian empire subsumed the whole of the Levant, before extending ever eastwards, toppling the great power of the time, Persia.

This was a particular problem because beginning with Cyrus, successive Persian kings had assisted and encouraged the return of Jews in exile by the Babylonians.  The walls of Jerusalem had been rebuilt and reoccupied, and critical to the complete fulfilment of the Law of Moses, the Temple that had been destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar was rebuilt, and the sacrifices and ceremonies the Law required could resume.

For the Jews, the overthrew of the Persian empire meant a new ruler of their Biblical homeland and the opening of a new chapter in the travails of Israel.  This would mark the beginning of the Hellenistic Age, where Greek culture would insidiously infiltrate and to some extent undermine Jewish culture underpinned and defined by the Torah, and all of ‘the Law and the Prophets’, the Word of God of the Hebrew Bible.  One reaction to this threat was the formation of the Pharisees, would jealously seek to protect the religious, social and civic order, the expressly commanded through Moses.

Jesus publicly acknowledged the important role the Pharisees had played, when he declared:

‘The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat,so practise and observe whatever they tell you…’ (Matthew 23:2)

The Macedonian Empire this had been predicted by the prophet, Daniel.  Although Alexander is never mentioned, his growth of his empire at the expense of the Persian’s is.  Daniel is sent a vision, through a dream (just like Paul):  

I raised my eyes and saw, and behold, a ram standing on the bank of the canal. It had two horns, and both horns were high, but one was higher than the other, and the higher one came up last. I saw the ram charging westwards and northwards and southwards. No beast could stand before him, and there was no one who could rescue from his power. He did as he pleased and became great. (Daniel 8:3-4)

In explaining his dream, God’s messenger identifies the kings, including one who would become ‘great’.

As for the ram that you saw with the two horns, these are the kings of Media and Persia. And the goat is the king of Greece. (Ibid 8:20-21a)

After Alexander’s early death, ‘the horn that was broken’ his empire was divided between four of his diadochi or seconds-in-command; and this too is predicted:

And the great horn between his eyes is the first king. As for the horn that was broken, in place of which four others arose, four kingdoms shall arise from his nation, but not with his power. (Ibid 8:21b-22)

Forty years of war followed the division and when all was stabilised, the Levant was under a new dynasty, the Seleucid; and it was a Seleucid king who would bring the Judea to successful revolt.

Again, predicted by Daniel, Antiochus IV, who in naming himself ‘Epiphanes’, the manifestation of God, decided his divine image should occupy the Temple rebuilt under Nehemiah.  Daniel calls this ‘the abomination of desolation’ (ibid 9:27) although Jesus makes it clear this only a partial fulfilment of the prophecy (Matthew 24:15). 

This blasphemy united Jews, and triggered the Maccabean Rebellion which lasted seven years.

Judas Maccabeus won a hundred years of self-rule but perhaps of greatest significance, in December 164BC, the Temple was reconsecrated.  The dedication, or hanukkah, required that previously blessed oil to keep candles alight for eight days.  The tiny amount of oil that was miraculously sufficient and the non-Levitical Festival of the Dedication was thereafter celebrated, including by Jesus (John 10:22-23).

However, the effect of the ‘Greek’ rule lasted long after that, and when the Romans took control of Judea in 63BC, ‘Hellenisation’ had changed the nature of society and to some extent religion.  Many Jews adopted Greek ways, and although Aramaic was mostly spoken by Jews, Alexandrian or Koiné Greek became the language of trade.  As Biblical Hebrew was only read by the Scribes, it was the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, (the Old Testament) that was widely read.  Called the Septuagint, it is the text that is directly used when quoted in the New Testament.

Jews took Greek names, among the twelve disciples we find, Petros (Peter), Andreas (Andrew) and Philippos (Philip).  These rough and educated men Galilean tradesmen not only used Koiné Greek, but identified themselves using Greek nomenclature. 

Some Jews went further and abandoned the hallmark of Jewishness, their religion, only return to God on hearing the Gospel.  In Acts, we meet these ‘Hellenists’, Jews who abandoned the strictures of the Mosaic Law for a more modern and enlightened lifestyle; the author of Acts, Lucas (Luke), was probably a Hellenist (the prevailing view that he was a Gentile is based on the ambiguous reference to him in Paul’s epistle to the Colossians 4:10-11).  It is intriguing to speculate further, that as a physician, Luke studied at the renowned school of medicine in Philippi, the foremost city of Macedonia, named after Alexander’s father, Philip of Macedon.

But to return to Paul, what is known is the apostle’s former zealousness for his God and the Law of Moses.  When the thirteen-year-old Saul of Tarsus arrived in Jerusalem, he would study a wide range of texts, including those Greek philosophers and poets such as Meander, whom he quotes (1 Corinthians 15:33) but he was jealous of his God and Israel’s Holy Law, and Acts of the Apostles, we read the depth of his indignation at any attempt to lessen his centrality among Jews, evidenced by the way he promoted himself to prosecute the Nazarene sect!

So perhaps, when Paul received his vision from a Macedonian, his initial reaction was akin to Jonah, or the disciples who discovered Jesus ‘wasting’ his gospel on a Samaritan (and a woman, at that!)

The first chapter of the book of Jonah describes how rather than bring a message of repentance to Nineveh, the Assyrian city and Israel’s greatest enemy, he ran, or rather sailed, in the opposite direction.  Similarly, we read of the disciples, having been sent to Sychar buy food to see a woman hurrying back to the village, declaring she had met the Messiah:

Just then his disciples came back. They marvelled that he was talking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you seek?” or, “Why are you talking with her?”  (John 4:27)

Dumbfounded if not outraged, only the awe in which they held Jesus prevented them from questioning why he would minister to the hated Samaritans, with whom there was mutual enmity.

Scripture is testament to the God who will confound the narrow preferences of any he chooses to serve him.  While the Gospel itself turns upside down all conventional wisdom, it is for the lowly and the weak, for the last not the first, it is God decision to redeem those from among that are his enemies that is offense to the self-righteous.  Yet as Paul would reflect, when the Gospel is fully understood, it is all humanity who was sinful and had fallen short (Romans 3:23) and each person an enemy of God in need of redemption:

For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.  More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.  (Romans 5:10-11)

Luke’s spare narrative in Acts, shows that Paul had learnt well this lesson on the road to Damascus, for if he had any misgivings in answering the call to minister to the Macedonians, he dispensed with them instantly, and was obedient.

…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.  (Acts 16:10)