When we had finished our voyage from Tyre, we landed at Ptolemais, where we greeted the brothers and stayed with them for a day.
Luke passes over the geography of Ptolemais without ceremony, if you want to know where it sits, consult a map. What matters is that Philip the deacon lodged Paul there, and this shows the deaconship was a temporary office; Philip left Jerusalem for greater work as an evangelist, a station between apostle and pastor, with broader license to teach.
AI summary
Paul and the Ephesians parted like lovers torn apart by violence, neither willing but both forced to it. Yet Providence smiled on their voyage: winds favored them, they found a ship to Phoenicia waiting, and the whole journey fell out so perfectly timed that we must cry, God makes our way perfect.
AI summary
Commenting on Acts 21:1-7
Ptolemais, called Aco in older writings, lay on Asher's border where the land of Israel met the sea. Jewish sources speak of its harbor and rocks; Josephus marks it by the mountains of Galilee to the east, Mount Carmel to the south, and the Ladder of Tyre to the north, a fortified port of some consequence.
AI summary