Acts 18:23

The beginning of Paul’s third missionary journey 18:23

Luke did not record Paul’s activities in Antioch, but we may safely assume he gave another report to the church as he had done when he returned from his first journey (Acts 14:27-28). Paul probably remained in Antioch from the spring or summer of 52 through the spring of A.D. 53. [Note: Longenecker, p. 489.] Leaving Antioch he seems to have followed the same route through the province of Galatia and the district of Phrygia that he had taken when he began his second journey (Acts 15:41 to Acts 16:6). He stopped to minister to the churches of those areas again, too.

"The third journey is a journey of new mission only in a limited sense. In the first two journeys the emphasis was on the founding of new churches. In Acts 18:23 Paul begins a journey to strengthen established churches." [Note: Tannehill, 2:231. Cf. Kent, p. 147. See the map of Paul’s third missionary journey in Longenecker, p. 250, or in Toussaint, "Acts," p. 406.]