Luke recounts how Paul and his companions began preaching the gospel upon arrival in the city, but quickly found themselves at the center of heated controversy.  They were subsequently arrested, imprisoned, and beaten for preaching Christ crucified.  But as recounted in Acts 16:16-40, they were also vindicated by God.

Paul’s Approach to Preaching the Gospel—The Second Missionary Journey Gets Underway

Preaching first to Jews in local synagogues, where Paul could find a “common starting-point in the Jewish Scriptures,”[1] and then preaching to Gentiles in the city’s public spaces, Paul and his associates witnessed the conversion of sufficient numbers of Christian believers that an apparently thriving church had been founded in the Greek city of Thessalonica merely twenty years after the death and resurrection of Jesus.[2]  Our Lord’s promise to his disciples in Acts 1:8 comes to mind.  “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”  In many ways, Paul’s missionary journeys are the means through which Isaiah’s prophecy of Israel’s Messiah serving as a light to the Gentiles (Isaiah 49:6) is fulfilled, as well as our Lord’s promise in Acts 1:8.  The gospel was now going to the ends of the earth, largely through Paul’s preaching to Gentiles. 

The Macedonian Call – Two Doors Closed While Another Opened

The church in Thessalonica, along with the new churches in Philippi, Berea, and Corinth, all have their origin in the so-called “Macedonian Call,” which is recounted by Luke in Acts 16:6-10.  As a result of a vision given Paul while he was still in Asia Minor, the second missionary journey got under way as the gospel came to several prominent Greek cities: Philippi (Acts 16); Thessalonica (Acts 17:1-9); Berea (Acts 17:10-15); Athens (Acts 17:16-34); and Corinth (Acts 18:1-17). 

Coming on the heels of the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15), the “Macedonian Call” was a significant event in the early church, and is recounted in Acts 16:6-10, 

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

Given what we know about him in light of his calling as the Apostle to the Gentiles, Paul continually sought direction from the Lord about where to take the gospel when planning his second missionary journey.  Two apparent open doors slammed shut.  Luke tells us that the Holy Spirit prevented Paul’s group of missionaries from going east into Asia (Cappadocia, Armenia, and Syria).  Then, Luke says, “the Spirit of Jesus” blocked them from going to Bythinia, a region in the northern portion of Asia Minor extending to the Black Sea.  But closed doors meant that the Lord would open others.  The Spirit directed the missionaries to cross the Aegean Sea and “go west” into Macedonia, a Roman province which includes much of modern Greece and Albania.  It was God’s appointed time for Paul to take the gospel into Europe.

From Troas (in Asia Minor) to Neapolis in Macedonia

In Acts 16:11 ff. Luke recounts that Paul and his three companions, of which Timothy and Silas (Silvanus) are specifically mentioned by Luke, went west to Troas.  Troas is a small port at the Northwestern tip of Asia Minor.  The missionaries crossed the Aegean Sea (a short voyage), heading for Samothrace, a small island in the Aegean Sea where Paul and his companions spent the night before going on to the city of Neapolis on the Macedonian mainland (Acts 16:11-12).  It is worth noting that this is the first section in the Book of Acts where Luke likely includes himself in the narrative via the use of “we.”[3]  The shift to “we” in verse 11, implies that Luke too went along with Paul, Silas, and Timothy from Troas to Neapolis.  Neapolis (now the Greek city of Kavala) was a small village near Philippi where Luke seems to have remained when Paul and company went on to Thessalonica.[4]

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[1] George Milligan, Paul’s Epistles to the Thessalonians, reprint ed. (Old Tappan, NJ: Fleming H. Revell Company, n.d.), xxvii.

[2] Bruce, 1 & 2 Thessalonians, xxi.

[3] F. F. Bruce, The Acts of the Apostles: Greek Text with Introduction and Commentary, 3rd ed. (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1990), 3-7.

[4] Luke switches back to the third person in Acts 16:40, an indication that he did not proceed with Paul and the others on to Thessalonica.