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e 19:17-20. EPHESUS. Result: Name of Lord magnified.
We cannot deal with the vision of the man of Macedonia without going on to speak of the witness at Philippi.
This, however, demands a complete section, and we will therefore content ourselves here with presenting the
structure of this new section, and adding a few words with regard to Phrygia and the country of Galatia (16:6, and
18:18-23).
`Now when they had gone throughout the country which is Phrygian and Galatic' (Acts 16:6).
This is Sir William Ramsay's rendering, to which he adds the note `A single district to which both adjectives
apply' - `the country which, according to one way of speaking, is Phrygian, but which is also called Galatic'. If we
turn back to Acts 14 we find that the apostles fled from Iconium to Lystra and Derbe, and so apparently crossed a
boundary. In Acts 18:23 we find the order of the names is reversed, and we now read from Sir William Ramsay:
`"He went over all the country which is Galatic and Phrygia". The country denoted by the phrase in 16:6 is that
which was traversed by Paul after leaving Lystra: it is therefore the territory about Iconium and Antioch, and is
rightly called Phrygo-Galatic, "the part of Phrygia that was attached to Galatia". But the country which is meant
in 18:23 includes Derbe, Lystra, Iconium and Antioch, and could not rightly be called "Phrygo-Galatic"`.
A glance at a map showing the political divisions of Asia Minor between the years A.D. 40 and 63, explains the
ground of Sir William Ramsay's objection quoted above. The Galatian province had taken within its borders a part
of Phrygia on the west, and as Derbe, Lystra and Iconium had originally belonged to Lycaonia, which had been
absorbed on the east, the exactness of Luke's description `All the country which is Galatic and Phrygian' is striking.
No one who was acquainted with the geography of Great Britain would use the term `The London Scottish and
Midland Railway', and no one acquainted with the geography of the period covered by the Acts would expect any
other description in Acts 18:23 than that used by Luke.
The reader may not be keenly interested in the arguments that prove that when Paul speaks of `Galatia' he means
the Roman Province of that name, and not the smaller Northern Kingdom. We therefore take it as proven that
Antioch, Lystra, and Derbe are the cities of Galatia wherein the churches of Galatia were formed, and to which the
apostle addressed his epistle. Should any readers wish for the complete array of facts and arguments, we must refer
them to the writings of Sir William Ramsay as the matter is technical and would occupy far more space than we can
spare.
Our main object in this chapter has been to introduce the new departure, and to set out the structure. We are now
ready for the exposition of these epoch-making journeys - journeys which penetrated into Europe, and so brought
the history of our own evangelizing a step nearer.
We append a rough map of this second missionary journey and hope that it will enable the reader to follow more
closely the footsteps of these missionaries of grace as they break up new ground for the gospel message.