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the weak have some claim for protection, and that this doctrine would have been rejected
by the ordinary Roman citizen of the Apostle's day.
To revert to the narrative, the Apostle then knelt down and prayed with the little
company of elders. They wept sore, falling on Paul's neck and kissing him, for he who
roused undying enmity inspired also undying friendship, for they "sorrowed most"
because of his words, "that they should see his face no more". "And they accompanied
him to the ship."
Paul would have been the last to have rebuked these sorrowing saints. He ever
blended "natural affection" with the more austere graces of his calling. He knew what it
was to desire to see the face of his son Timothy once more before his death (II Tim. 1: 4),
and he had already written to the Thessalonians that he had "endeavoured" the more
abundantly to see their face with great desire (I Thess. 2: 17), and again, in the next
chapter, he wrote "Night and day praying exceedingly that we might see your face"
(I Thess. 3: 10).
The full bearing of this chapter upon Paul's prison ministry will be better realized
when we read chapter 28:, and can view it shorn of the wealth of detail that has
nevertheless made our study of it so precious. Like the Apostle himself, we have to
"drag" ("gotten from", 21: 1) ourselves away, for time and space have gone and we
must draw to a close.
#45.
The Third Missionary Journey (19: 21 - 21: 39).
From Tyre to Jerusalem (21: 1 - 17).
pp. 77 - 81
"And it came to pass, that after we were gotten from them, and had launched, we came
with a straight course unto Coos, and the day following unto Rhodes, and from thence
unto Patara. And finding a ship sailing over unto Phenicia, and went aboard, and set
forth" (Acts 21: 1, 2).
We have now reached the last stages of the fateful journey to Jerusalem. The
believers seem to have clung to the Apostle up to the very point of the launching of the
ship, for the words, "were gotten from them", translate apospao, a word actually used in
Acts 20: 30 by the Apostle when speaking of those who would "draw away" disciples
after them. "Tearing himself from them" is the translation suggested by Farrar. The
wind was favourable, and they ran with a straight course to Coos. Rhodes is famous for
the vast colossus which bestrode the harbour. At the time of the Apostle's visit, only the
two legs remained on their pedestals, the huge body of a man in bronze which formed the
upper portion of the statue having been previously hurled down by earthquake. This
figure, like the Temple of Diana, was one of the seven wonders of the world, and we can
well imagine that the Apostle, with recent memories of Ephesus, and the decline in the
number of its idolatrous worshippers, would look upon this fallen colossus as another