The Acts of the Apostles, the history of the early church, by Luke the physician - Acts 20:13-16 comments: Paul hurries toward Jerusalem

 

Acts 20:13 ¶  And we went before to ship, and sailed unto Assos, there intending to take in Paul: for so had he appointed, minding himself to go afoot. 14  And when he met with us at Assos, we took him in, and came to Mitylene. 15  And we sailed thence, and came the next day over against Chios; and the next day we arrived at Samos, and tarried at Trogyllium; and the next day we came to Miletus. 16  For Paul had determined to sail by Ephesus, because he would not spend the time in Asia: for he hasted, if it were possible for him, to be at Jerusalem the day of Pentecost.

 

Assos was located on the west coast of Asia Minor in the region of Troas and is a ruin today. It was a small but very wealthy city in Paul’s time. It was founded in about 1,000BC by Aeolian Greeks from the island of Lesbos. (Aeolians were one of the four main tribes of Greeks; Aeolian, Achaeans, Dorians, and Ionians.)

 

Mitylene, founded in the 11^th century BC, is an important city on the island of Lesbos. Yes, the word lesbian comes from the name for the island of Lesbos. Sappho, a sixth century BC Greek poet, wrote about the practice and the words “sapphic” and “lesbian” were inspired by her. This should not be understood to say that the people of Lesbos are lesbians. The word is just derived from the writings of a poet in the 6^th century BC who was known as being from there.

 

Chios is another island in the Aegean Sea and Samos yet another. Trogyllium was on the Asian mainland near Samos. Miletus was another Greek mainland Asia Minor location on the way to Ephesus. As noted in my comments on the previous chapter, “Ephesus was a great city of Asia at the time devoted to the goddess Diana which was the Roman version of the Greek Artemis as Jupiter was the Roman version of the Greek Zeus. It was founded as a Greek colony a thousand years before this and became under Roman control a little over a century and a half before this. It was famous for its temple to Diana/Artemis which is considered one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Worship of Diana was a great moneymaker and very important to commerce for the city. Ephesus was one of the seven churches of Revelation and some believe John wrote his gospel from there. It was an important center of trade and business as well as religion and culture for the Greek speaking Roman world of Asia.”