Beyond Sunday: Coming to an End

[Editor's note: Beyond Sunday is a Monday refresher to carry you through the week.]

Focus Verse of the Week

[Paul] lived there two whole years at his own expense, and welcomed all who came to him (Acts 28:30, ESV)

Classic Commentary

Paul dwelt two whole years in his own hired house. His expense was met during this period by the church in Rome and elsewhere. See Philippians 4:18 where the Philippian contributions are acknowledged. Here he was permitted to see and preach freely to all who came unto him. Here he wrote four of his epistles: the letters to the Ephesians, Colossians, Philippians, and the short letter to Philemon. Here, from notices in these epistles, we know that Luke, Timothy, Epaphros, Mark, Aristarchus, and Tychius were with him at least part of the time. There is no doubt that these two years produced great results in Rome. It was at a later period, when Nero fell under the influence of the cruel Tigellinus, that he became a persecutor, and Paul had at this time full liberty. A few years after, at the time of the Neronian persecutor, the church embraced vast numbers in the city of Rome. The Roman historian, Tacitus says: "An immense multitude" was converted and put to death.

Acts comes to an end with these two years and was almost certainly completed during this time. Why it paused here is unknown. We wish that it was continued to the end of the career of its great missionary hero. His subsequent life and work can only be learned from incidental allusions in his later epistles and from tradition. The testimony of the early church affirms that he was acquitted when his appeal, after long delay, came to trial, probably in A. D. 63; for several years he labored earnestly in other lands, visiting the old scene of his labors in Asia Minor once more. Prior to this visit he is supposed to have gone west to Spain and crossed from there into North Africa, then one of the most flourishing parts of the empire.