Troas

Troas is the seaport of Mysia in Asia Minor exhibited as one of Paul's repeated stations on his way back and forth between Asia and Macedonia. Most of the references gathered under this name are in the book of Acts, which UPDV does not carry. What survives in UPDV is two Pauline notices: one in 2 Corinthians where Troas is the named locale of an opened gospel door, and one in 2 Timothy where Troas is the holding-city for a cloak and books left with a man called Carpus.

A Door Opened in the Lord

In 2 Corinthians, recounting his movements after his earlier difficult Corinthian correspondence, Paul names Troas as the place where he arrived for ministry and where the Lord opened a door for him: "Now when I came to Troas for the good news of Christ, and when a door was opened to me in the Lord," (2Co 2:12). The verse fixes Troas as a gospel-purposed destination ("for the good news of Christ"), and it sets the city as the stage on which the opened door is granted. Troas is exhibited here as a ministry-station at which an opportunity in the Lord met the apostle.

A Cloak Left with Carpus

The other UPDV mention of the city is a request from prison. Writing to Timothy, Paul asks: "The cloak that I left at Troas with Carpus, bring when you come, and the books, especially the parchments" (2Ti 4:13). The place-name fixes the location of the leaving; the item is a cloak; the custodian there is Carpus; and an attached clause broadens the items to books and especially parchments. Troas is exhibited here as the holding-city for apostolic belongings left with a named keeper — a city to which Paul's possessions, and at least one of his named friends, remained tied after he himself had moved on.

Notes

The Acts material gathered under Troas — Paul crossing to it from Mysia and sailing from it to Samothrace (Ac 16:8, 11), and his later seven-day stay there with companions on the return from Greece (Ac 20:5-6) — is not in UPDV, since UPDV does not carry Acts.