Acts 16:6

[Cruxis117]

I was asked about this verse. Someone said that this verse means that God does not want all people to be saved, contrary to 1 Timothy 2:4. Can anyone help me interpret this?

 

[Della]

It has nothing whatsoever with God’s desire that everyone be saved. It simply means Paul was not to go to Asia. God didn’t abandon Asia. Others went there. God simply wanted Paul to go somewhere else. There’s a danger in reading into verses what is not there and of not knowing any Church history. St. Thomas went to India while Paul was directed to not go there. It doesn’t mean God didn’t want the people of Asia to be saved.

 

[trmyjs]

I’m extremely far from being any type of Bible expert, but if you ask me this seems like a case of God doing things on His own time in His own way. It simply may not have been the right time for those people to hear the word? I don’t know, just my guess. But I can’t imagine that this means God does not want everyone to be saved.

 

[DPMartin]

I was asked about this verse. Someone said that this verse means that God does not want all people to be saved, contrary to 1 Timothy 2:4. Can anyone help me interpret this?

Cruxis

I realize there are many schools of thought on that verse. But in context the Holy Spirit led them in accordance to God’s will. We must consider the Lord God knows were, and were not, there is good ground for the seed of the Life giving Gospel will take effect.

I personally believe it was prophesied when Pilot wrote the “King of the Jews” in Latin, Greek and Hebrew. That might have been first on the Lord’s agenda as to were the baulk ( if you will) of the message would take hold. And I think history has proved that. Considering Paul and Peter finished their work in Rome.

But the Lord would never reject any who seek Him in Truth and Spirit.

 

[_L]

I was asked about this verse. Someone said that this verse means that God does not want all people to be saved, contrary to 1 Timothy 2:4. Can anyone help me interpret this?

As the posters above have said this has nothing to do with God being unwilling to save certain people, it simply illustrates how Paul, following the guidance of the Holy Spirit was faithfully following his appointed task where it was to be undertaken. some people are called to be teachers, some are called to work in service to the poor, etc. though not mutually exclusive, each is a distinct role and in this passage it was Paul’s role not to preach in Asia but elsewhere. Clearly evangelization was done in Asia as well, (by St. Thomas I believe) so I don’t understand how someone could say that God didn’t want to save those in asia or something of that sort.

 

[thistle]

I was asked about this verse. Someone said that this verse means that God does not want all people to be saved, contrary to 1 Timothy 2:4. Can anyone help me interpret this?

D-R Bible, Haydock Commentary:

Ver. 6. They were forbidden by the Holy Ghost, to go, and preach at that time in the Lesser Asia [Asia Minor], perhaps because their preaching in Macedonia was more necessary; or because St. John was to be sent into Asia [Asia Minor]. (Witham) — Forbidden. Why? Because they were not yet prepared to receive the gospel; or, perhaps, these provinces were reserved for St. John, as Bithynia was for St. Luke. (Menochius) — St. Leo compares this question to many others respecting the inscrutable judgments of God. Why did not the Son of God come into the world many ages before? Why did he suffer so many to die in ignorance? Why are there yet so many in infidelity? Why, in one family, does one believe and is converted, while another remains in darkness, and crime? Who shall account for the exercise he pleases to make of his rigour, or his mercy, when all were justly victims of the former? (St. Leo, de vocat. Gentium. lib. ii. chap. 2)

 

[Little_One0307]

Commentary from Ignatius Study Bible

Act. 16:6

The direction of the second mission was determined by the Spirit.