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From: Acts 16:1-10

Timothy joins Paul

[1] And he came also to Derbe and to Lystra. A disciple was there, named Timothy, the son of a Jewish woman who was a believer; but his father was a Greek. [2] He was well spoken of by the brethren at Lystra and Iconium. [3] Paul wanted Timothy to accompany him; and he took him and circumcised him because of the Jews that were in those places, for they all knew that his father was a Greek.

A Tour of the Churches of Asia Minor

[4] As they went on their way through the cities, they delivered to them for observance the decisions which had been reached by the Apostles and elders who were at Jerusalem. [5] So the churches were strengthened in the faith and they increased in numbers daily.

[6] And they went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia. [7] And when they had come opposite Mysia, they attempted to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them; [8] so, passing by Mysia, they went down to Troas. [9] And a vision appeared to Paul in the night: a man of Macedonia was standing beseeching him and saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” [10] And when he had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go on into Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.

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Commentary:

1-3. At Lystra, a city which he evangelized during his first journey (cf. 14:6), Paul meets a young Christian, Timothy, of whom he had
received good reports. His Jewish mother Eunice and his grandmother Lois were Christians, and Timothy had received the faith from them.

Paul’s apostolic plans for Timothy, and the fact that, despite being Jewish through his mother, he had not been circumcised, lead him to circumcise him: everyone in the city knew he was a Jew and those who practised the Mosaic Law might easily have regarded him as an apostate from Judaism, in which case he would be unlikely to be an effective preacher of the Gospel to the Jews.

“He took Timothy,” St. Ephraem comments, “and circumcised him. Paul did not do this without deliberation: he always acted prudently; but given that Timothy was being trained to preach the Gospel to Jews everywhere, and to avoid their not giving him a good hearing because he was not circumcised, he decided to circumcise him. In doing this he was not aiming to show that circumcision was necessary—he had been the one most instrumental in eliminating it—but to avoid putting the Gospel at risk”
(”Armenian Commentary, ad loc.”).

In the case of Titus, St. Paul did not have him circumcised (cf. Galatians 2:3-5); which showed that he did not consider circumcision a
matter of principle; it is simply for reasons of pastoral prudence and common sense that he has Timothy circumcised. Titus was the son of Gentile parents; to have circumcised him—at a point when Paul was fighting the Judaizers—would have meant Paul giving up his principles. However, the circumcision of Timothy, which takes place later, is in itself something that has no relevance from the Christian point of view (cf. Galatians 5:6, 15).

Timothy became one of Paul’s most faithful disciples, a most valuable associate in his missionary work (cf. 17:14ff; 18:5; 19:22; 20:4; 1 Thessalonians 3:2; Romans 16:21) and the recipient of two of the Apostle’s letters.

4. The text suggests that all Christians accepted the decisions of the Council of Jerusalem in a spirit of obedience and joy. They saw them as being handed down by the Church through the Apostles and as providing a satisfactory solution to a delicate problem. The disciples accept these commandments with internal and external assent: by putting them into practice they showed their docility. Everything which a lawful council lays down merits and demands acceptance by Christians, because it reflects, as the Council of Trent teaches, “the true and saving doctrine which Christ taught, the Apostles then handed on, and the Catholic Church, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, ever maintains; therefore, no one should subsequently dare to believe, preach or teach anything different” (”De Iustificatione”, Preface).

[Pope] John Paul II called on Christians to adhere sincerely to conciliar directives when he exhorted them in Mexico City to keep to the letter and the spirit of Vatican II: “Take in your hands the documents of the Council. Study them with loving attention, in a spirit of prayer, to discover what the Spirit wished to say about the Church” (”Homily in Mexico Cathedral”, 26 January 1979).

6. In Galatia Paul had the illness which he refers to in Galatians 4:13: “You know that it was because of a bodily ailment that I preached the Gospel to you at first...”: his apostolic zeal makes him turn his illness, which prevented him from moving on, to good purpose.

7. We are not told how the Holy Spirit prevented Paul from going to Bithynia. It would have been through an interior voice or through some person sent by God.

Some Greek codexes and a few translations say simply “Spirit” instead of “Spirit of Jesus”, but really the two mean the same: cf. Philippians 1:19; Romans 8:9; 1 Peter 1:11.

9. This vision probably took place in a dream: Acts tells us of a number of instances where God made His will known in that way (cf. 9:10, 12; 10:3, 17; 18:9; 22:17). Paul and his companions were convinced he had received a message from God.

The vision is quite right to describe the preaching of the Gospel as help for Macedonia: it is the greatest help, the greatest benefit, a
person or a country could be given, an immense grace from God and a great act of charity on the part of the preacher, preparing his
listeners, as he does, for the wonderful gift of faith.

10. The conviction that Paul and his companions have about what they must do is the way every Christian, called as he is at Baptism, should feel about his vocation to imitate Christ and therefore be apostolic.

“All Christians”, [Pope] John Paul II teaches, “incorporated into Christ and His Church by baptism, are consecrated to God. They are called to profess the faith which they have received. By the Sacrament of Confirmation, they are further endowed by the Holy Spirit with special strength to be witnesses of Christ and shares in His mission of salvation. Every lay Christian is therefore an extraordinary work of God’s grace and is called to the heights of holiness. Sometimes, lay men and women do not seem to appreciate the full dignity and the vocation that is theirs as lay people. No, there is no such thing as an ‘ordinary layman’, for all of you have been called to conversion through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. As God’s holy people you are called to fulfill your role in the evangelization of the world. Yes, the laity are ‘a chosen race, a holy priesthood’, also called to be ‘the salt of the earth’ and ‘the light of the world’. It is their specific vocation and mission to express the Gospel in their lives and thereby to insert the Gospel as a leaven into the reality of the world in which they live and work” (”Homily in Limerick”, 1 October 1979).

Now the narrative moves into the first person plural (16:10-17; 20:5-8; 13-15; 21:1-18; 27:1-28, 16). The author includes himself among St. Paul’s companions, as an eyewitness of what he reports. Luke must have joined the missionaries at Troas and then stayed behind in Philippi.