Chapter 20
Chapter 19 ended with the town clerk quieting the mob in Ephesus, who were upset that Paul et al were going to convert so many from worshiping Artemis to worshiping God that they would go out of business. They had truly gone "mob" and rioted and done damage to private property and so on.
(MSB chapter notes indicate that Romans was written from Corinth. The way the Chronological Bible is broken up would indicate that both 1 and 2 Cor and Romans were written from Ephesus on this second missionary journey. Note that the end of Acts 19 says that Paul was doing tremendous miracles while he was in Ephesus - implying that he was exactly where God wanted him to be during this time. I really really need a better chronology of Paul's journeys, showing not only where he went, but how long he stayed and what letters he wrote from there. I felt like Paul's chosen topics in Romans made very much sense in light of that book being written from Corinth during all the problems there. But now I'm back to The Chronological Bible, which seems to say it was written from Ephesus. Barclay's little green book on Romans also says it was written from Corinth, in 58 AD. So I'm going with that. Makes really good sense to me that way. So when, in his journeys, was he in Corinth? He was there on his second journey and again on his third. My map with dates for each journey says that in 58 AD, he was not traveling at all. 58 AD was after his third journey. The long stay in Ephesus was before he went on to Corinth, via the churches in Greece/Macedonia and then down to Corinth, in Achaia. Then all the way back to Jerusalem to deliver the offerings from all the churches. So...pretty much had to be this third trip, whatever the dates were, if he wrote from Corinth.)
Once things are quiet, Paul meets with the disciples there in Ephesus, and then he leaves for Macedonia. He sort of circles through Macedonia, encouraging the believers in the churches there, and ends in Greece, where he stays for three months. As he prepares to return to Syria via ship, he learns of a Jewish plot against him, and so goes instead by land, back through Macedonia.
Paul preaches until midnight in Troas, and a youth named Eutychus falls asleep and falls out a third story window to his death. Paul raises him from the dead. In ESV, it says of those gathered that they were "not a little comforted" by this. It does not say they were amazed and thousands were converted. This seems not to have been done as a witness but as an undoing of a random accident. Could be Paul didn't preach so long after that.
The journey's details are given, each days stop. Paul is in a hurry to get to Jerusalem by Pentecost, and so skips stopping in Ephesus/Asia. However, he does send word to the elders of the Ephesian church and asks them to meet him in Miletus. He tells them that he doesn't know what will happen exactly in Jerusalem, but he knows he will meet with imprisonment and afflictions. He also tells them that he knows he will never see any of them again. He tells them to be on guard because the wolves are coming in to their church, and they must be ever alert. Paul won't be around to help them. He is handing the reigns over to the elders. At the end of the meeting Paul kneels and prays with them all, and they are very sad that they won't see him again. They go to the ship with him and see him off.