Word Pictures in the New Testament - David Cox

Word Pictures in the NT [Acts: Chapter 15]
rebuked Peter and Barnabas and won them back to his view. It was
a crisis. Some would even date the Epistle to the Galatians at
this time also, an unlikely hypothesis.
15:36 {Let us return now and visit the brethren} (\epistrepsantes
de episkeps•metha tous adelphous\). Paul takes the initiative as
the leader, all the more so if the rebuke to Peter and Barnabas
in Ga 2:11-21 had already taken place. Paul is anxious, like a
true missionary, to go back to the fields where he has planted
the gospel. He uses the hortatory subjunctive (\episkeps•metha\)
for the proposal (see on ¯15:14 for this verb). Note the
repeated \epi\ (\epi-strepsantes\ and \episkeps•metha\). There is
special point in the use of \d•\ (shortened form of \•d•\), now
at this juncture of affairs (cf. 13:2). {How they fare} (\p•s
echousin\). Indirect question, "how they have it." The
precariousness of the life of new converts in pagan lands is
shown in all of Paul's Epistles (Furneaux). So he wanted to go
city by city (\kata polin p•san\).
15:37 {Was minded to take with them} (\ebouleto sunparalabein\).
Imperfect middle (\ebouleto\), not aorist middle \ebouleusato\ of
the Textus Receptus. Barnabas willed, wished and stuck to it
(imperfect tense). \Sunparalabein\ is second aorist active
infinitive of the double compound \sunparalamban•\, old verb to
take along together with, used already about John Mark in 12:25
and by Paul in Ga 2:1 about Titus. Nowhere else in the N.T.
Barnabas used the ingressive aorist in his suggestion.
15:38 {But Paul thought not good to take with them} (\Paulos de
•xiou--m• sunparalambanein touton\). The Greek is far more
effective than this English rendering. It is the imperfect active
of \axio•\, old verb to think meet or right and the present
active infinitive of the same verb (\sunparalamban•\) with
negative used with this infinitive. Literally, "But Paul kept on
deeming it wise not to be taking along with them this one."
Barnabas looked on it as a simple punctiliar proposal (aorist
infinitive), but Paul felt a lively realization of the problem of
having a quitter on his hands (present infinitive). Each was
insistent in his position (two imperfects). Paul had a definite
reason for his view describing John Mark as "him who withdrew
from them from Pamphylia" (\ton apostanta ap' aut•n apo
Pamphulias\). Second aorist active articular participle of
\aphist•mi\, intransitive use, "the one who stood off from,
apostatized from" (our very word "apostasy"). And also as the one
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