θεοῦ θέλοντος – theosthelō– that is: IF GOD WILLS. Not only is this Paul’s response to many who urge the Apostle to stay longer on his second missionary journey, but once the Apostle returns home we will see this familiar approach in a third missionary journey.
God wills it.
WHY has the Apostle to the Gentiles remained in Corinth ACAIA for a year and a half?
We might easily ask WHY DID JESUS convict Paul fourteen years ago on a road to Damascus and then five years ago send the Apostle who had persecuted Christ’s followers with Barnabas to Cypress and Galatia back in A.D. 47?
Appearances of the Lord embolden the apostles and followers of Christ.
We haven’t thought of Peter much during Paul’s two missionary journeys, but do you recall how his visions emboldened this Jewish fisherman? He will soon write [in A.D. 64]:
For it is better to suffer for doing good, if God wills it, than for doing evil. Because Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, to bring you to God, by being put to death in the flesh but by being made alive in the spirit.
Once God said, I am with you, Paul proclaimed Christ to the Corinthians for 18 months.
18:12 But when Gallio was proconsul of Achaia, the Jews made a united attack on Paul and brought him before the tribunal..
17 And they all seized Sosthenes, the ruler of the synagogue, and beat him in front of the tribunal.
The Lord Jesus had appeared to the Apostle AND spoken to him in a dream.
Paul the Apostle was unafraid because of what God said.
And how comforting to have the Word assure us that NO HARM will come to us due to our witness of the Gospel of Truth.
Before we leave Greece & ACHAIA
What god said differs according to traditions and culture.
(IF your god is NO God at all THEN human flesh will seek its own desires.)
Athens and Corinth
more about the resurrection?
Although I have already emphasized the impact of culture on Paul's troubles with the Gentile cultures, due to the ongoing importance to his 3rd missionary journey as well as 21st century of the Common Era idolatries let's consult additional commentaries as a summary.
In Paul’s day, Corinth was already an ancient city. It was a commercial center with two harbors and had long been a rival to its northern neighbor, Athens.
Corinth was a city with a remarkable reputation for loose living and especially sexual immorality. In classical Greek, to act like a Corinthian meant to practice fornication, and a Corinthian companion meant a prostitute. This sexual immorality was permitted under the widely popular worship of Aphrodite (also known as Venus, the goddess of fertility and sexuality).
(Pick your 21st c. C.E. city parading its sin. Not so different.)
From Athens to Corinth,
from intellectual pride to sensual lust. – Bill Acton
“There had been culture shock in Athens, and now Paul experienced moral shock in Corinth. Its sweat and perfume and grit smothered Paul’s righteous soul, and he became depressed.” (Hughes)
The duration of Paul’s stay in Corinth shows where his heart was in ministry. He was no “in and out” evangelist, but a man committed to making disciples.
Allow me the liberty to move Luke's account of ACTS 18 from good narrative into chronological order of events.
18 After this, Paul stayed many days longer and then took leave of the brothers..
At Cenchreae [21st c. Kechries] he had cut his hair, for he was under a vow.
and with him Priscilla and Aquila (native of Pontus, Jews from Rome deported to Corinth).
and [they] set sail for Syria (with stops in other port cities).
19 And they came to Ephesus, and he left them [Priscilla and Aquilla] there
but he himself [Paul] went into the synagogue and reasoned with the Jews.
Once again some Jews are responsive to the Gospel of their obviously Jewish brother. All they had to do was take a look at the Apostle's shaved head symbolizing his Nazarite vow.
20 When they asked him to stay for a longer period, he declined. 21 But on taking leave of them he said, “I will return to you if God wills,”
and he set sail from Ephesus.
by way of Jerusalem
22 When he had landed at Caesarea, he went up and greeted the church
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