Acts 16:5

αἱ μὲν οὖν ἐκκ.: the last time ἐκκλησία is used by St. Luke, except of the Jerusalem Church, and in the peculiar case of the elders at Ephesus, Hort, Ecclesia, p. 95. Rendall, Appendix, μὲν οὖν, p. 165, connects this verse with the following paragraph, cf. Acts 9:31, so apparently Blass in β. ἐστερεοῦντο : only used in N.T. in Acts, cf. Acts 3:7; Acts 3:16, and only here in this figurative sense, and it is very possible that St. Luke as a medical man might thus employ the verb which he had twice used in its literal sense, cf. similar instances in Hobart's Introd., p. xxxii.; here as in Acts 6:7; Acts 9:31, we have the outward growth of numbers and the inward in the steadfast holding of the faith, extensive and intensive.