Acts 18:5-7 5And when Silas and Timothy came down from Macedonia, Paul was occupied with the word, testifying solemnly to the Jews that the Christ was Jesus. 6And when they opposed and reviled him, shaking out his garments, he said to them, “Your blood be on your own heads! I am innocent. From now on, I will go to the Gentiles.” 7And after leaving there, he went to the house of a man named Titius Justus, a worshiper of God whose house was next door to the synagogue.
Silas and Timothy caught up to Paul in Corinth. They may have brought financial support for Paul from other churches (2 Corinthians 11:8-9) or helped in the ministry, which freed up Paul to devote more time to preaching the word, meaning the gospel. Paul’s focus at first was speaking to the Jews. They should have recognized Jesus as the Messiah based on Paul’s logical explanation using the Jews’ own Scriptures. Some believed, but others did not. Like in other places, he experienced opposition, though not to the point of physical harm. Corinth was a large city, so a small group of Jews would not pose much of a problem of social unrest.
It must have been frustrating for Paul to face the hard-hearted and obstinate Jews. Luke uses two strong words in verse 6: opposed (antitassomenōn) and reviled (blasphēmountōn). By rejecting Paul and his message, they were rejecting God’s revelation. Shaking out his garments was a symbolic sign of disavowing association with a place or people (Matthew 10:14). Paul’s frustration seeps through the words of this verse. His exclamation cast the blame on the Jews. They would be accountable for how they responded to the gospel. When the good news of Jesus is proclaimed clearly and accurately, like what Paul did, those who hear it become responsible and accountable for how they respond.
Paul made a strategic decision to turn his focus to the Gentiles. He never gave up on the Jews, as the story of Acts indicates, but at least in Corinth, he spent more time and effort in preaching the gospel to the Gentiles. As he reminded the church later in 1 Corinthians 9:19-23, he became all things to all people in order to preach the gospel and win them for Christ. That was a challenging lesson for him to learn while in Corinth. It led to a mixed church of Jew and Gentile, perhaps more Gentile than Jew, as the moral challenges in 1 Corinthians indicate. In response to the rejection he experienced in the synagogue, he stayed in the house of Titius Justus, a God-fearing Gentile who lived next to the synagogue. That move was strategic and symbolic. When opposition to one’s ministry arises, there are times when one must move on or change strategies in order to get the word out.