Jerusalem was about 65 miles southeast of Caesarea, a long two-day trip. Mnason evidently became a Christian early in the history of the church, perhaps on the day of Pentecost. He was a Hellenistic Jewish Christian; he was from Cyprus, like Barnabas. As such he would have been more open to entertaining a mixed group of Jewish and Gentile Christians than many Hebrew Jewish Christians in Palestine would have been. Apparently he lived about halfway between Caesarea and Jerusalem.
Paul finally achieved the first phase of his plan to visit Jerusalem and then Rome (19:21). In doing so, he brought one chapter of his ministry to a close and opened another. His return to Jerusalem was an essential part of God's plan to send Paul to Rome. This plan unfolds in the rest of chapter 21.
"A certain parallelism between the careers of Jesus and Paul is to be seen. Jesus too journeyed to Jerusalem, and during his journey prophesied concerning his impending sufferings; he was arrested and tried, appearing before the Jews and the Romans . . ."845
