Verse 25
After weighing all the possibilities it seemed to Paul that he would probably live a little longer. He evidently believed this because the case his accusers had brought against him was not strong (cf. Acts 23:29; Acts 25:25; Acts 26:31-32). The fact that he said, "I know that I shall remain," raises the question of whether he had received some special revelation. That is a possibility, but the Greek word translated "know" (oida) does not mean infallible knowledge necessarily (cf. Acts 20:25).
Statements in the later Pastoral Epistles as well as in the writings of some of the early church fathers indicate that Nero released Paul from his first Roman imprisonment in A.D. 62. The apostle resumed his missionary labors and returned to Macedonia and probably to Philippi. However, the Romans arrested him again, imprisoned him in Rome a second time, and then executed him as a martyr there in A.D. 68. If this information is true, he probably did contribute to the spiritual progress and joy of the Philippians as he said he hoped he could here.
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