Acts 16:19, “They” becomes “we”

Today’s verse is a pivot point in Acts; a point where the pronoun “they” changes suddenly to “we,” and remains “we” for quite some time. You probably won’t notice this in your chosen version, because care is taken by most interpreters to make the story read cohesively. See the word [them], bracketed purposefully by the online Blue Letter Bible I copied from? It isn’t really there, not in the original Greek. Instead, the text suddenly switches from third-person to first-person. It is as if the author of Acts lifted a story, presumably written by Paul himself, and placed it within his own narrative. These portions describe the exploits and journeys of Paul, and coincide well with authentic Pauline writings elsewhere in the Bible. This change to a personal pronoun increases scholars’ confidence in at least this portion of the book of Acts.