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MACEDONIA

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.

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Posted on by christianwordsblog

(The circumcision of) TIMOTHY

Paul wanted Timothy to accompany him, and he took him and circumcised him because of the Jews who were in those places, for they all knew that his father was a Greek.  (Acts 16:1-2)

Timothy’s Greek father gave his son a suitably Greek name, Τιμόθεος.  Timotheos ‘honoured by God’, derived from timé, ‘accorded honour’ or ‘perceived value’ and theos, a ‘god’.  It is not clear whether in naming his son, the god Timothy’s father had in mind was a god of the pagan pantheon or the God of Abraham; but it is likely to be the latter, because Paul tells us his mother was Jewish, which meant Timothy was Jewish (as by Hebrew tradition, racial attribution is from the mother not the father.)

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