Acts 17:1

4. Founding of the Second European Church Thessalonica , Acts 17:1-9 .

1. Now Our apostle leaving Luke at Philippi, banished but triumphant, attended by Silas and Timothy, takes the high Egnatian Road westward. In accordance with his plan, rather to plant the Gospel in the greater capitals of the world, he rapidly passes the lesser towns of Amphipolis and Apollonia, lying on the great way. From Philippi to Amphipolis was thirty-three miles; from Amphipolis to Apollonia thirty miles; and from Apollonia to Thessalonica thirty-seven miles. Resting by nights and travelling rapidly by day, the apostle might have been three days upon his journey from Philippi to Thessalonica.

Thessalonica No city on the great Egnatian Way surpassed THESSALONICA in importance. Under its ancient name of Therma it was the passage way of the great army of Xerxes in his invasion of Greece. It received its new name, Thessalonica, from a sister of Alexander the Great, on being rebuilt by her husband, and this name it still retains in the abbreviated form of Saloniki. The apostle found it the most populous city of Macedonia, and until the founding of Constantinople it was virtually the capital of Northern, if not of entire, Greece.

A synagogue Rather, the synagogue. For at Philippi, Amphipolis, and Apollonia there were probably only proseuchae, and here was the synagogue of this region of country. Paul’s own account in his epistles to the Thessalonians interestingly reveals what his entrance was after he had been shamefully entreated at Philippi. He used no flattering words, no cloak of covetousness. Labouring night and day, probably at his handicraft of tent-making, he refused to be chargeable unto any. Holily, and justly, and unblamably living himself, he could enjoin holy living upon others with a boundless authority.