Timothy - Acts 16:1-11

It was decided that Paul and Barnabas should go on a second mission to strengthen the branches of the church that they established on their first mission. While making the arrangements however, a dispute arose over whether or not to take John Mark with them a second time, with Barnabas wanting him to go and Paul not wanting Mark’s company. The final arrangement was that Barnabas and John Mark would go back through the first route and Paul would take Silas and go wherever the Spirit took him. At this point, the rest of Acts is solely focused on Paul and his adventures without mention of any other apostles, I believe.

It appears that one of their first stops was in Derbe and Lystra where they met “a certain disciple… named Timotheus, the son of a certain woman, which was a Jewess, and believed; but his father was a Greek.” It was decided that Timotheus would go with Paul and Silas as they continued their mission, but something interesting happened first, Paul “took and circumcised him because of the Jews which were in those quarters: for they knew all that this father was a Greek.”  After all the debate about circumcision and following the Law of Moses, Paul circumcision of Timothy seems like an extreme regression. What possible reason would Paul have to circumcise Timothy, especially after the Jerusalem conference where the decision was made that gentiles don’t need to be circumcised to join the church?
I think the main answer is right there in the verse, that Timothy’s mother was a Jew and his father was a Greek, and everyone knew it. The fact that Timothy had not been circumcised as a child is probably a good indicator of the level of his involvement in the Jewish community, and the fact that everyone knew that he was only half Jewish probably meant that it was some type scandal among the Jewish people. The IM comments, “After being circumcised, Timothy could labor more effectively among the Jews, who would feel that an uncircumcised missionary lacked respect for the God of Israel and His laws.”
This would be further complicated by the fact that Timothy was already half-Jewish, therefore if he remained uncircumcised, it would be portraying a message of “this is the gospel from the God of Israel, which you should accept, even though I don’t agree with your background,” or something like that. It might appear as an outright rejection of all of Judaism with an acceptance of Christianity. This could be off-putting to those who have dedicated their lives to the observance of the Law of Moses, to have that rejected by one of their own.
With circumcision, Timothy would be able to reach those who might have considered him some sort of half-breed because his circumcision would have acknowledged that Judaism was the correct form of religion previously and that Christianity had grown out of that foundation. Again, I’m not exactly sure how the people would have been able to check to see if Timothy was circumcised, unless it was custom for force men to expose themselves so others could “make sure,” but I guess that’s what they did in Nazi Germany to identify Jews, so who knows.
It almost seems like Timothy’s circumcision was a “taming the beast” type of move. Because he didn’t conform to the Jewish traditions of his mother, he might have been viewed as a wild card, one who knew the truth of Judaism but rejected it. It would have been a very powerful statement to others that Christianity showed this “lost” man the error of his ways, and not only brought him to Christ, but convinced him of the power of the God of Israel. It could have been seen that Christ brought in this man a rejection of his “heathen” heritage and an embracement of his Jewish heritage that no one had been able to do with him before. That is a very influential demonstration of Christ’s power to change ones life.
We also have to keep in mind that while we’ve talked about different gentile converts who have authored scripture, at this point in time, they have yet to do so, so we look at it as a “of course gentiles can be missionaries,” but at this point in time, all the missionaries are Jewish. Because they are Jewish, they can demonstrate just how Christ fulfilled the law of Moses, and how Christianity is the next step in the process of the God of Israel’s plan for his people. Timothy is uniquely positioned to appeal to both Jews because of his embracing of Jewish traditions, and gentile because of his father’s Greek heritage and his acceptance of those traditions while young. And technically, while circumcision is not required for conversion, there was no law anywhere stating that circumcision was forbidden, so Timothy and Paul broke no laws with the circumcision.
The IM points out that adaptation might be required sometimes by missionaries depending on their audience. Saying, “Effective missionaries may later behavior in some ways to avoid giving offense to those living in their fields of labor. In making these changes to accommodate other’s feelings, the missionaries would not disobey any gospel principles. For the sake of the gospel, at times Paul himself modified his behavior to reach both Jews and Gentiles. He also taught Gentile converts to willingly refrain from any behavior that might be perceived as offense to the Jews, even though it may not have been prohibited by any commandment.”
Paul, Timothy, and Silas continue on their journey, delivering the letters from Jerusalem, and preaching and establishing branches of the church throughout the area, “in the faith, and increased in number daily.” Interestingly, as they went throughout the cities, it appears that there were some sort of crossroad and they “were forbidden of the Holy Ghost to preach the word in Asia.” This is an interesting concept for me because I have to ask myself, were they forbidden to preach in Asia or were they just prompted to go another way? And why were they forbidden to preach the word in Asia, and if they had been permitted to take the gospel to Asia, how would our world be different now? I mean, it took hundreds of years for Christianity to really sort itself out in Europe, I guess if it really ever did at all. Interesting, I’m going to have to think about that for a while.
Instead of turning to go to Asia, the little group turned to go to Troas, which the IM points out is a 500 mile journey and “would have take the missionaries about six weeks to travel on foot.” Even though the stay in Troas is only discussed in 3 verses, there are two major events that happen there. First is that Paul has a vision of “a man of Macedonia, and prayed him, saying, Come over into Macedonia, and help us.” So Paul knows that their next destination is Macedonia.
But the second important event is that it is here that they picked up Luke as a missionary companion. It is not explicitly stated, but up until verse 9, the narrative is from an outsider looking in and then starting in verse 10 it becomes a first person narrative with “we” and “us.” The IM says, “The pronouns we and us that appear in Acts, beginning in Acts 16:10, indicate that this part of Luke’s record is an eyewitness account. It is likely that at or near Troas, Luke joined Paul and the other missionaries. This would explain how Luke knew many details of Paul’s ministry and why he focused so much of his record on Paul. Perhaps one reason why Paul and Silas were led by the Spirit to Troas was so that Luke might join them.”
This would also explain possibly why the Spirit instructed Paul to go to Troas instead of Asia, to get Luke and then to go to Europe where they would enjoy much success. It’s very unlikely that Paul or any of the other missionaries would have known about Luke prior to their arrival at Troas, but the Lord knew and that’s what mattered. Another powerful example of how the Lord will move things into and out of our lives as needed to accomplish him purposes and ours.