Acts 16

Acts 16 is the sixteenth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. It records the second missionary journey of Paul, together with Silas and Timothy. The book containing this chapter is anonymous but early Christian tradition uniformly affirmed that Luke composed this book as well as the Gospel of Luke.[1]

Acts 16
Acts 15:22–24 in Latin (left column) and Greek (right column) in Codex Laudianus, written about AD 550.
BookActs of the Apostles
CategoryChurch history
Christian Bible partNew Testament
Order in the Christian part5

Text

The original text was written in Koine Greek and is divided into 40 verses.

Textual witnesses

Some early manuscripts containing the text of this chapter are:

Locations
Places mentioned in (blue dots) and related to (red dots) this chapter.

This chapter mentions the following places (in order of appearance):

Timeline

The second missionary journey of Paul took place in c. AD 49.[2]

Verse 1
Then he came to Derbe and Lystra. And behold, a certain disciple was there, named Timothy, the son of a certain Jewish woman who believed, but his father was Greek.[3]

The Man of Macedonia

Verse 9
And a vision appeared to Paul in the night. A man of Macedonia stood and pleaded with him, saying, "Come over to Macedonia and help us."[4]

Verses 9 record a vision in which the Paul is said to have seen a 'man of Macedonia' pleading with him to "come over to Macedonia and help" them. The passage reports that Paul and his companions responded immediately to the invitation. The passage is considered to echo Joshua 10:6 in which the men of Gibeon sent to Joshua saying " ... come up to us quickly, save us and help us".[5] The first seal of Massachusetts Bay Colony had an American Indian with a scroll coming out over his mouth with the words "Come over and help us", also said [6] to echo the words of the man of Macedonia.

The woman of Filippi and the spirit of divination

Verses 16 to 18
Now it happened, as we went to prayer, that a certain slave girl possessed with a spirit of divination met us, who brought her masters much profit by fortune-telling. This girl followed Paul and us, and cried out, saying, "These men are the servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to us the way of salvation." And this she did for many days.

But Paul, greatly annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, "I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her." And he came out that very hour.[7] The passage refers of woman who was possessed by a "spirit of divination", whose nature remains unclear. Paul ordered to the spirit to come out of her and this happened in the Name of Jesus Christ, like apostles were called to do against demons (Mark 16:16-18). Nevertheless, the spirit of divination (Ancient Greek: πνεῦμα Πύθωνα, romanized: pneuma Pythōna[8]) affirmed for some days that Paul and Silas were servants of the Most High God.

Verse 31
So they said, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household.”[9]

See also

References
  1. Holman Illustrated Bible Handbook. Holman Bible Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee. 2012.
  2. John Arthur Thomas Robinson (1919–1983). "Redating the New Testament". Westminster Press, 1976. 369 pages. ISBN 978-1-57910-527-3
  3. Acts 16:1 NKJV
  4. Acts 16:9 NKJV
  5. Selwyn, E. C. The Christian Prophets at Philippi. Expositor, June, 1901, pp. 415–21
  6. Stockbridge Mohican History, 'The Seal of the Massachusetts Bay Colony: "Come Over and Help Us' http://www.stockmohistory.com/the-seal-of-the-massachusetts-bay-colony-come-over-and-help-us/ Archived 2015-01-07 at the Wayback Machine accessed 19 September 2015
  7. Acts 16:16-18 NKJV
  8. "Acts, chapter 16, verse 16 - Greek Interlinear Bible".
  9. Acts 16:31
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