Verse 6
6. Throughout Phrygia The boundary lines of the provinces of Asia Minor were very vague, and by political changes constantly varying both in name and extent. Phrygia was an extensive range of territory, extended at great length east and west, lying on the north of Cilicia and Pisidia.
Galatia Lying yet north of Phrygia. (See map.)
Forbidden of the Holy Ghost By three separate monitions is Paul warned that his field is no longer Asia, but Europe. Two of these monitions are negative, warning him away; one is positive, inviting him onward.
Asia To our modern ear this word covers the whole continent between Europe and the Pacific. The first known use of the word is in Homer, where the adjective Asian is applied to the meadows near Ephesus. Thence the term enlarged with the enlarged knowledge, by the Greeks, of the eastern regions. At first they distinguished Asia this side the Halys from Asia beyond the Halys. When the Romans conquered western Asia, and governed it by proconsuls, we have proconsular Asia, which included the provinces lining the AEgean, namely Mysia, Lydia, and Caria. The New Testament Asia, the Asia of John’s seven Churches, seems to have coincided with this.
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