Pastoral Epistles (6) Aquila and Priscilla

A clue to the date of the second letter to Timothy comes from the travels of Aquila and Priscilla. They were Jews who had been expelled from Rome during the reign of Emperor Claudius (Acts 18:2). Paul met them in Corinth and took them to Ephesus when he made a brief visit there, prior to travelling to Jerusalem.

They arrived at Ephesus, where Paul left Priscilla and Aquila (Acts 18:19).

When Paul wrote his first letter to the Corinth, Aquila and Priscilla were still in Ephesus, because they sent a greeting to Corinth (1 Cor 16:9). By the time Paul wrote to the Romans, Aquila and Priscilla were back in Rome, because Paul sent a greeting to them there (Rom 16:3).

This confirms an early date for Second Timothy, because in this letter, Paul sends a greeting to Aquila and Priscilla and the church in the house of Onesiphorus (2 Tim 4:19, which was in Ephesus or its environs. It is unlikely that Aquila and Priscilla would have gone all the way back to Rome and then returned to Ephesus again, so Paul must have written to Timothy before he wrote to the Romans.

This connection with Aquila and Priscilla explains where Timothy was when Paul wrote his second letter to him. He must have been in the area around Ephesus, where Aquila and Priscilla had been based. It also explains why Paul asked Timothy to pick up his cloak and books from Troas when he came to join him. If he was travelling west from Ephesus, he would need to pass through the Port of Troas.

This also confirms that Paul was based even further west when he wrote to Timothy, probably somewhere in Macedonia or Greece. One possibility is Nicopolis in the West of Greece (see Titus 3:12).