Paragraph 18:5–6
18:5a–b
And when Silas and Timothy came down from Macedonia, Paul devoted himself fully to the word: There are two ways to interpret the Greek words here:
(1) Silas and Timothy arrived, then Paul devoted himself to preaching full-time. For example:
After Silas and Timothy had arrived from Macedonia, Paul devoted all his time to preaching (New Jerusalem Bible)
(Berean Standard Bible, New International Version, Good News Translation, New Jerusalem Bible, New American Standard Bible, New American Bible, Revised Edition, New Living Translation (2004), God’s Word, Contemporary English Version, NET Bible, Revised English Bible, New Century Version)
(2) Silas and Timothy arrived and found Paul already devoted to preaching full-time. For example:
When Silas and Timothy arrived from Macedonia, Paul was occupied with preaching (Revised Standard Version)
(Revised Standard Version, English Standard Version, King James Version)
It is recommended that you follow interpretation (1).
18:5a
Macedonia: Macedonia was a Roman province of Greek speaking people.
Luke has mentioned Macedonia several times in chapter sixteen, so you may not need to explain that it is a province here, as in the Berean Standard Bible. But chapter seventeen does not mention Macedonia, so you may want to explain again that it is a province. For example:
⌊the province of⌋ Macedonia
18:5b
Paul devoted himself fully to the word:
Here this clause indicates that Paul began at this time to preach the message about Jesus full-time. He stopped working as a tentmaker. Other ways to translate this clause are:
Paul gave his whole time to preaching the message (Good News Translation)
-or-
Paul devoted all his time to preaching (New Jerusalem Bible)
-or-
After this, Paul spent all his time telling people the Good News, (New Century Version)
18:5c
testifying to the Jews that Jesus is the Christ: This phrase in Greek is literally “testifying to the Jews the Christ to be Jesus.” The Jews in Corinth knew the prophecies about the coming Christ, but may not have heard about Jesus. So Paul explained to them that the prophecies about the Christ were fulfilled in Jesus. For example:
testifying to the Jews that the Christ was Jesus (Revised Standard Version)
The meaning of “the Christ was Jesus” is the same as “Jesus was the Christ.” But “the Christ was Jesus” starts with what the Jews knew something about: the Christ. The New International Version and many English versions follow the order usually found in the New Testament: “Jesus…Christ.”
testifying: The Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as testifying means here “proclaim earnestly.” Paul had an important message for both Jews and Greeks. Other ways to translate this are:
telling the truth about
-or-
bearing witness
-or-
made it clear
the Christ: The word Christ means “the anointed one.” The Jews used it to refer to the special person God promised to send to save them from their enemies. The Hebrew word with the same meaning is written “Messiah” in English. Here Paul was trying to convince the Jews that Jesus was the Christ/Messiah. See how you translated this word in 2:31 or 17:3.
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