Acts 19:22

Acts 19:22. So he sent into Macedonia two of them that ministered unto him, Timotheus and Erastus. It was at Ephesus, and about this time, that Paul wrote his First Epistle to the Corinthians. From a passage in that epistle, we learn some of the reasons why one of these two friends of Paul was sent over into Europe before his master. Of Timothy's special mission in Macedonia we know nothing, but from 1 Corinthians 4:17-19 we learn that this trusted companion of the Gentile apostle was directed to pass on to Corinth, to prepare the church there for the approaching visit of the apostle (Acts 19:19). Erastus was most likely the same as the person alluded to in Romans 16:23 as the chamberlain of Corinth, and was not improbably chosen as the companion of Timothy on this difficult and delicate mission with which he was charged, on the supposition that his rank and station among the citizens would he a support to Timothy, who was the bearer of Paul's stern, grave message to his well loved church.

But he himself stayed in Asia for a season. For the reason of this prolonged stay of Paul's, see note on Acts 19:21. He appears to have gone on with his work for several months after the effect produced by the failure of the pretended exorcist family of Sceva the priest and the subsequent burning of the precious works on magic, until the uproar excited by the panic-stricken artificers who lived on the pilgrims to the great Diana shrine. This tumult evidently cut short this renewed period of Paul's activity, and he seems to have left Ephesus and his work there with some precipitancy. It is more than probable that the state officials privately desired him to leave a city where his presence in their opinion was provocative of disorders.