Question: Paul had a vision of a man imploring him to come where?
Answer: Macedonia. (Acts 16:6-10)
Comments: There has been a great deal of conjecture as to who the man Paul saw might have been. Sir William Mitchell Ramsay (1851-1939), an archaeologist who started his career to prove Luke in error, posed that it was Luke himself. (Luke the Physician, 1908, pp. 35ff) This was based upon the narrative suddenly shifting from the third person ("they") to the first person ("we") shortly after the vision.
Ramsay hypothesizes that possibly Paul needed a physician’s aid and consulted Luke in Troas. He also speculates that Luke and Titus were brothers, explaining their absence from the text of Acts. This is highly speculative and ancient tradition connects Luke with Antioch, not Macedonia.
William Barclay (1907-1978) has posed the possibility of Alexander the Great, most famous of all Macedonians. Whereas Alexander had a vision of "one world," Paul would make it a reality through the gospel. (William Barclay, The Acts of the Apostles; 1955, pp. 131ff.)
Whether the man was a generic or specific Macedonian, the key is that the vision drew Paul to Macedonia.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment