Paul and Silas travel around Galatia and visit some of the cities he went to in his first missionary trip. Everywhere he goes, he delivers the decision of the Council of Jerusalem.
Paul meets with Timothy. Timothy's mother is Jewish, but his father his Greek. Paul invites Timothy to come, but requires him to be circumcised. The stated reason is out of concern for the Jews, who knew that Timothy's father was Greek.
Here, despite the Council of Jerusalem's decision and the Epistle to the Galatians, Paul requires Timothy to be circumcised. In context, the reasoning seems to have nothing to do with the internal management of the church, but so that Timothy can go with Paul into the synagogues. Paul frequently preaches to the Jews in their own synagogues while they are gathered on the Sabbath. In order for Timothy to help out, he needs to be circumcised.
Side note, I don't think Paul's preaching on the Sabbath is establishing a Sabbath for the church to recognize. Rather, at this point, Paul is still encountering a lot of Jews and preaching to them in these other cities. Jews gathered together on the Sabbath in the synagogues, which made it a perfect place to preach to them.
The last observance of the Sabbath by any of Jesus' disciples that was mentioned was that the women who witnessed Jesus' death went back home to rest on the Sabbath after Jesus died. On one hand, this confirms the date of Jesus' death as Friday, but it does not undercut Jesus' teachings about the Sabbath. Rather, in between the death and resurrection, the "Jesus movement" was at its lowest point and the disciples were trying to keep a low profile and stay alive. This would mean blending with the rest of the community, I.e., observe the Pharisee's Sabbath.
Back to the story, Paul is traveling around and has a vision of man in Macedonia, requesting help. The group concludes this is their next destination.
This is also the first point in Acts where the text says "we". This suggests that the author of Acts (and the Gospel of Luke) is now traveling with them. The text from here on alternates from "we" to "they".
Philipi
Paul heads to Philipi, which is a Roman colony and a major city of a local district of Macedonia. The text follows to main anecdotes. First, he encounters a woman named Lydia who is a believer of God. He baptizes her. He first meets her at a place of prayer outside the city.
The main anecdote in Philipi starts when a slave girl follows Paul to the place of prayer. The slave girl is a fortune teller and connects with evil spirits. She apparently was effective because he brought money in to her owners.
The girl follows Paul and says to those around, "this man will show you how to be saved". In a lot of ways, this is similar to the demons following Jesus and telling people that he is the Son of God.
Similarly, this agitates Paul, who rebukes her evil spirit. Then, she is unable to read fortunes and her owners are mad at Paul and Silas. They drag them before the magistrate who orders them beaten and imprisoned.
That night, Paul and Silas are singing praise songs to God in jail when an earthquake smashes the prison open. The jailer sees this and wants to kill himself, but Paul shouts from inside that everyone is still in there. The jailer goes inside, meets with Paul, and this leads to the conversion of the jailer and is family. The jailer also cleans the wounds of Paul and Silas from their beating.
The next day, the magistrate releases Paul and Silas. They stay at Lydia's house a bit before heading off.
It is incredible that the rest of prisoners stayed in the jail as well. We do not know what else Paul and Silas did to encourage them to stay other than that they were singing praise songs. Perhaps this inspired the prisoners to stay. We can only speculate, but it seems incredible that they did.
There is no record of Paul complaining to God about the way he is treated in Macedonia. He did complain to the authorities that he was a Roman citizen and beaten without a trial. However, there is no record here of him questioning God.
This is remarkable because he believes that God sent him to Macedonia to help people there. However, he finds torture and imprisonment and continues on the mission. This shows his faith and perseverance, but also that people might feel God wants them to go somewhere or do something. If that is the case, direction from God does not necessarily mean that the path will be free of difficulty.
Paul will send an Epistle to the church in Philippi. Here, we meet some of the foundational members: Lydia, the jailer, and the jailer's family.
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