Thematic Bible: Missionary journeys


Thematic Bible



After spending some time there, he started out again, and traveled systematically through Galatia and Phrygia, reassuring all the disciples. A Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria, came to Ephesus. He was an eloquent man, skilful in the use of the Scriptures. He had had some instruction about the Way of the Lord, and he talked with burning zeal and taught painstakingly about Jesus, though he knew of no baptism but John's. read more.
He spoke very confidently in the synagogue at first, but when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him home and explained the Way of God to him more correctly. As he wanted to cross to Greece, the brothers wrote to the disciples there, urging them to welcome him. On his arrival there he was of great service to those who through God's favor had become believers, for he vigorously refuted the Jews in public, and showed from the scriptures that Jesus was the Christ. It was while Apollos was in Corinth that Paul, after passing through the interior, reached Ephesus. Finding some disciples there, he said to them, "Did you receive the holy Spirit when you became believers?" "No," they said to him, "we never even heard that there was a holy Spirit." "How then were you baptized?" he asked. "With John's baptism," they answered. "John's baptism was a baptism in token of repentance," said Paul, "and he told the people to believe in him who was to follow him, that is, in Jesus." When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus, and when Paul laid his hands on them, the holy Spirit came on them, and they spoke in foreign tongues and with prophetic inspiration. There were about twelve of them in all. He went to the synagogue there, and for three months spoke confidently, holding discussions and trying to persuade them about the Kingdom of God. But as some of them were obstinate and refused to believe, finding fault with the Way before the people, he left them, and withdrew the disciples, and held daily discussions in the lecture-room of Tyrannus. This went on for two years, so that everyone who lived in Asia, Greeks as well as Jews, heard the Lord's message. God did such extraordinary wonders by means of Paul, that people took to the sick handkerchiefs or aprons he had used, and they were cured of their diseases, and the evil spirits went out of them. Some Jews who went from place to place casting out demons tried to use the name of the Lord Jesus in the cases of people who had evil spirits in them, saying, "I command you in the name of Jesus whom Paul preaches!" A Jewish high priest named Sceva had seven sons who were doing this. But the evil spirit answered, "I know Jesus, and I know of Paul, but who are you?" And the man in whom the evil spirit was sprang at them, and overpowered them all, with such violence that they ran out of the house tattered and bruised. This came to be known to everyone who lived in Ephesus, Greeks as well as Jews, and great awe came over them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus came to be held in high honor. Many who became believers would come and openly confess their former practices. A number of people who had practiced magic brought out their books and burned them publicly. The value of these was estimated and found to be ten thousand dollars. So the Lord's message went on growing wonderfully in influence and power. After these events, Paul, under the Spirit's guidance, resolved to go to Jerusalem, and to revisit Macedonia and Greece on the way. "After I have gone there," he said, "I must see Rome also." He sent two of his assistants, Timothy and Erastus, to Macedonia, while he stayed on for a while in Asia. Just at that time a great commotion arose about the Way. A silversmith named Demetrius was making large profits for his workmen by the manufacture of silver shrines of Artemis. He got the workmen in that and similar trades together, and said to them, "Men, you know that this business is the source of our prosperity, and you see and hear that not only in Ephesus but almost all over Asia, this man Paul has persuaded and drawn away numbers of people, telling them that gods made by human hands are not gods at all. There is danger, therefore, not only that this business of ours will be discredited, but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis will be neglected and the magnificence of her whom all Asia and the world worship will be a thing of the past!" When they heard this, they became very angry, and cried, "Great Artemis of Ephesus!" So the commotion spread all over the city, and by a common impulse the people rushed to the theater, dragging with them two Macedonians, Gaius and Aristarchus, Paul's traveling companions. Paul wanted to go before the people himself, but the disciples would not allow it. Some of the religious authorities also, who were friends of his, sent to him and begged him not to venture into the theater. Meanwhile the people were shouting, some one thing and some another, for the meeting was in confusion, and most of them had no idea why they had come together. Some of the crowd called upon Alexander, as the Jews had pushed him to the front, and he made a gesture with his hand and was going to speak in defense of them to the people. But when they saw that he was a Jew, a great shout went up from them all, and they cried for two hours, "Great Artemis of Ephesus!" At last the recorder quieted the mob and said, "Men of Ephesus, who in the world does not know that the city of Ephesus is the guardian of the temple of the great Artemis, and of the image that fell down from the sky? So as these facts are undeniable, you must be calm, and not do anything reckless. For you have brought these men here, though they have not been guilty of disloyalty nor uttered any blasphemy against our goddess. If Demetrius and his fellow-craftsmen have a charge to bring against anyone, there are the courts and the governors; let them take legal action. But if you require anything beyond that, it must be settled before the regular assembly. For we are in danger of being charged with rioting in connection with today's events, though there is really nothing about this commotion that we will not be able to explain." With these words he dismissed the assembly. When the confusion was over, Paul sent for the disciples and encouraged them. Then he bade them goodbye and started for Macedonia. After traveling through those districts and giving the people a great deal of encouragement, he went on to Greece where he stayed for three months. Just as he was going to sail for Syria, the Jews made a plot against him, and he made up his mind to return by way of Macedonia. He was accompanied by Sopater of Berea, the son of Pyrrhus, Aristarchus and Secundus, from Thessalonica, Gaius of Derbe, Timothy, and Tychicus and Trophimus, from Asia. They went on to Troas and waited for us there, while we sailed from Philippi after the festival of Unleavened Bread, and joined them at Troas five days later. There we stayed a week. On the first day of the week, when we had met for the breaking of bread, Paul addressed them, as he was going away the next morning, and he prolonged his address until midnight. There were a great many lamps in the upstairs room where we met and a young man named Eutychus, who was sitting at the window, became very drowsy as Paul's address grew longer and longer, and finally went fast asleep and fell from the third story to the ground, and was picked up for dead. But Paul went downstairs, and threw himself upon him, and put his arms around him. "Do not be alarmed," he said, "he is still alive." Then he went upstairs again, and broke the bread, and ate, and after a long talk with them that lasted until daylight, he went away. They took the boy home alive, and were greatly comforted. We had already gone on board the ship and sailed for Assos, intending to take Paul on board there, for that was the arrangement he had made, as he intended to travel there by land. So when he met us at Assos, we took him on board and went on to Mitylene. Sailing from there, we arrived off Chios on the following day. On the next we crossed to Samos, and on the next we reached Miletus. For Paul had decided to sail past Ephesus, so that he would not have to lose any time in Asia, for he was hurrying to reach Jerusalem, if possible, by the day of the Harvest Festival. From Miletus he sent to Ephesus for the elders of the church. When they came, he said to them, "You know well enough how I lived among you all the time from the first day I set foot in Asia, and how I served the Lord most humbly and with tears, through all the trials that I encountered because of the plots of the Jews. I never shrank from telling you anything that was for your good, nor from teaching you in public or at your houses, but earnestly urged Greeks as well as Jews to turn to God in repentance and to believe in our Lord Jesus. I am here now on my way to Jerusalem, for the Spirit compels me to go there, though I do not know what will happen to me there, except that in every town I visit, the holy Spirit warns me that imprisonment and persecution are awaiting me. But my life does not matter, if I can only finish my race and do the service intrusted to me by the Lord Jesus, of declaring the good news of God's favor. Now I know perfectly well that none of you among whom I went about preaching the Kingdom of God will ever see my face again. Therefore I declare to you today that I am not responsible for the blood of any of you, for I have not shrunk from letting you know God's purpose without reserve. Take care of yourselves and of the whole flock, of which the holy Spirit has made you guardians, and be shepherds of the church of God, which he got at the cost of his own life. I know that after I am gone savage wolves will get in among you and will not spare the flock, and from your own number men will appear and teach perversions of the truth in order to draw the disciples away after them. So you must be on your guard and remember that for three years, night and day, I never stopped warning any of you, even with tears. Now I commit you to the Lord, and to the message of his favor, which will build you up and give you a place among those whom God has consecrated. I have never coveted anyone's gold or silver or clothes. You know well enough that these hands of mine provided for my needs and my companions. I showed you in every way that by hard work like that we must help those who are weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, for he said, 'It makes one happier to give than to be given to.' " With these words, he knelt down with them all and prayed. They all wept aloud, and throwing their arms about Paul's neck they kissed him affectionately, for they were especially saddened at his saying that they would never see his face again. Then they accompanied him to the ship. When the parting was over and we had sailed, we made a straight run to Cos and the next day to Rhodes and from there to Patara. There we found a ship bound for Phoenicia, and we went on board and sailed on it. After sighting Cyprus and leaving it on our left, we sailed for Syria, and put in at Tyre, for the ship was to unload her cargo there. So we looked up the disciples there and stayed a week with them. Instructed by the Spirit, they warned Paul not to set foot in Jerusalem. But when our time was up, we left there and went on, and all of them with their wives and children escorted us out of the town. There we knelt down on the beach and prayed; then we bade one another goodbye, and we went on board the ship, and they went home. After making the run from Tyre, we landed at Ptolemais, where we greeted the brothers and spent a day with them. The next day we left there and went on to Caesarea, where we went to the house of Philip the missionary, who was one of the Seven, and stayed with him. He had four unmarried daughters who had the gift of prophecy. We spent a number of days there, and in the course of them a prophet named Agabus came down from Judea. He came to see us and took Paul's belt and bound his own feet and hands with it, and said, "This is what the holy Spirit says: 'The Jews at Jerusalem will bind the man who owns this belt like this, and will hand him over to the heathen!' " When we heard this, we and the people there all begged him not to go up to Jerusalem. Then Paul answered, "What do you mean by crying and breaking my heart? I am ready not only to be bound at Jerusalem but to die there for the sake of the Lord Jesus." So as he would not yield, we gave up urging him, and said, "The Lord's will be done!" After this we made our preparations and started for Jerusalem.


Some time after, Paul said to Barnabas, "Come, let us go back and revisit the brothers in each of the towns where we made the Lord's message known, to see how they are doing." Now Barnabas wanted to take John who was called Mark with them. But Paul did not approve of taking with them a man who had deserted them in Pamphylia instead of going on with them to their work. read more.
They differed so sharply about it that they separated, and Barnabas took Mark and sailed for Cyprus. But Paul selected Silas and set out, the brothers commending him to the Lord's favor. He traveled through Syria and Cilicia and strengthened the churches. He went to Derbe and Lystra also. At Lystra there was a disciple named Timothy whose mother was a Jewish Christian while his father was a Greek, and who was highly thought of by the brothers in Lystra and Iconium. Paul wished to take this man on with him, and so on account of the Jews in that district he had him circumcised, for they all knew that his father was a Greek. As they traveled on from one town to another, they passed on to the brothers for their observance the decisions that had been reached by the apostles and elders at Jerusalem. So the churches became stronger and stronger in the faith, and their numbers increased from day to day. Thus they crossed Phrygia and Galatia. The holy Spirit prevented them from delivering the message in Asia, and when they reached Mysia they tried to get into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus would not permit it, and they passed Mysia and came down to Troas. There Paul had a vision one night; a Macedonian was standing appealing to him and saying, "Come over to Macedonia and help us." As soon as he had this vision, we made efforts to get on to Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to tell them the good news. So we sailed from Troas, and ran a straight course to Samothrace, and next day to Neapolis. From there we went to Philippi, a Roman garrison town, and the principal place in that part of Macedonia. In this town we stayed for some days. On the Sabbath we went outside the gates, to the bank of the river where we supposed there was a praying place, and we sat down and talked with the women who gathered there. One of our hearers was a woman named Lydia, a dealer in purple goods, from the town of Thyatira. She was a believer in God, and the Lord touched her heart, and led her to accept Paul's teaching. When she and her household were baptized, she appealed to us, and said, "If you are really convinced that I am a believer in the Lord, come and stay at my house." And she insisted upon our coming. Once as we were on our way to the praying place a slave-girl met us who had the gift of ventriloquism, and made her masters a great deal of money by her fortune-telling. This girl would follow Paul and the rest of us, crying out, "These men are slaves of the Most High God, and they are making known to you a way of salvation." She did this for a number of days, until Paul, very much annoyed, turned and said to the spirit in her, "In the name of Jesus Christ I order you to come out of her!" And it came out instantly. But when her masters saw that their hopes of profits were gone, they seized Paul and Silas, dragged them to the public square, to the authorities, and brought them before the chief magistrates. "These men," they said, "are Jews, and they are making a great disturbance in our town. They are advocating practices which it is against the law for us as Romans to adopt or observe." The crowd also joined in the attack on them, and the magistrates had them stripped and beaten. After beating them severely, they put them in jail, and gave the jailer orders to keep close watch of them. He, having had such strict orders, put them into the inner cell, and fastened their feet in the stocks. But about midnight, as Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns of praise to God, and the prisoners were listening to them, suddenly there was such an earthquake that the jail shook to its foundations; all the doors flew open, and everybody's chains were unfastened. It woke up the jailer, and when he saw that the doors of the jail were open, he drew his sword and was just going to kill himself, supposing that the prisoners had escaped. But Paul shouted out, "Do not do yourself any harm! We are all here!" Then he called for lights and rushed in, and fell trembling at the feet of Paul and Silas. He led them out of the jail and said to them, "Gentlemen, what must I do to be saved?" "Believe in the Lord Jesus," they said, "and you and your household will be saved!" Then they told God's message to him and to all the members of his household. And right then in the night, he took them and washed their wounds, and he and all his household were baptized immediately. Then he took them up to his house and offered them food, and he and all his household were very happy over their new faith in God. In the morning the magistrates sent policemen with instructions to let the men go. The jailer reported this message to Paul, saying, "The magistrates have sent orders that you are to be released. So you can take your leave and go unmolested." But Paul said to them, "They had us beaten in public without giving us a trial, and put us in jail, although we are Roman citizens! And now are they going to dismiss us secretly? By no means! Have them come here themselves and take us out!" The policemen delivered this message to the magistrates, and they were alarmed when they heard that they were Roman citizens, and came and conciliated them, and took them out of the jail, and begged them to leave the town. After leaving the jail they went to Lydia's house, and saw the brothers and encouraged them. Then they left the town. After passing through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they reached Thessalonica, where the Jews had a synagogue. Paul went to it as he was accustomed to do, and for three Sabbaths he discussed the Scriptures with them, explaining them and showing that the Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead. "Jesus," he said, "of whom I am telling you, is the Christ!" He convinced some of them, and they joined Paul and Silas, along with a great many devout Greeks and a number of the principal women. This offended the Jews and they gathered some unprincipled loafers, formed a mob and started a riot in the town. They attacked Jason's house, to find them and bring them out among the people. As they could not find them, they dragged Jason and some of the brothers before the town magistrates, shouting, "The men who have made trouble all over the world have come here too, and Jason has taken them in. They all disobey the emperor's decrees, and claim that someone else called Jesus is king." The crowd and the magistrates were very much excited at hearing this, and they put Jason and the others under bonds before they let them go. The brothers sent Paul and Silas away immediately, in the course of the following night, to Berea. On arriving there they went to the Jewish synagogue. The Jews there were more high-minded than those at Thessalonica, and received the message with great eagerness and studied the Scriptures every day, to find out whether it was true. Many of them became believers and so did no small number of Greek women of position, and men too. But when the Jews at Thessalonica found out that God's message had been delivered at Berea by Paul, they came there too, to excite and stir up the populace. Then the brothers immediately sent Paul off to the coast, while Silas and Timothy stayed behind. The men who went with Paul took him all the way to Athens, and came back with instructions for Silas and Timothy to rejoin him as soon as possible. While Paul waited for them at Athens, he was exasperated to see how idolatrous the city was. He had discussions at the synagogue with the Jews and those who worshiped with them, and every day in the public square with any whom he happened to find. Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers debated with him. Some of them said, "What is this rag-picker trying to make out?" Others said, "He seems to be preaching some foreign deities." This was because he was telling the good news of Jesus and the resurrection. So they took him and brought him to the council of the Areopagus and said, "May we know just what this new teaching of yours is? Some of the things you tell us sound strange to us, and we want to know just what they mean." For all Athenians and all visitors there from abroad used to spend all their time telling or listening to something new. Then Paul stood up in the middle of the council and said, "Men of Athens, from every point of view I see that you are extremely religious. For as I was going about and looking at the things you worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: 'To an Unknown God.' So it is what you already worship in ignorance that I am now telling you of. God who created the world and all that is in it, since he is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples built by human hands, nor is he waited on by human hands as though he were in need of anything, for he himself gives all men life and breath and everything. From one forefather he has created every nation of mankind, and made them live all over the face of the earth, fixing their appointed times and the limits of their lands, so that they might search for God, and perhaps grope for him and find him, though he is never far from any of us. For it is through union with him that we live and move and exist, as some of your poets have said, " 'For we are also his offspring.' So if we are God's children we ought not to imagine that the divine nature is like gold or silver or stone, wrought by human art and thought. While God overlooked those times of ignorance, he now calls upon all men everywhere to repent, since he has fixed a day on which he will justly judge the world through a man whom he has appointed, and whom he has guaranteed to all men by raising him from the dead." When they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered, but others said, "We should like to hear you again on this subject." So Paul left the council. Some persons joined him, however, and became believers, among them Dionysius, a member of the council, and a woman named Damaris, and some others. After this he left Athens and went to Corinth. There he found a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had ordered all Jews to leave Rome. Paul went to see them, and as they practiced the same trade, he stayed with them, and they worked together, for they were tent-makers. Every Sabbath he would preach in the synagogue, and try to convince both Jews and Greeks. By the time Silas and Timothy arrived from Macedonia, Paul was absorbed in preaching the message, emphatically assuring the Jews that Jesus was the Christ. But as they contradicted and abused him, he shook his clothes in protest, and said to them, "Your blood be on your own heads! I am not to blame for it! After this I will go to the heathen." So he moved to the house of a devout proselyte named Titius Justus, which was next door to the synagogue. But Crispus, the leader of the synagogue, believed in the Lord, and so did all his household, and many of the people of Corinth heard Paul and believed and were baptized. One night the Lord said to Paul in a vision, "Do not be afraid! Go on speaking and do not give up, for I am with you, and no one shall attack you or injure you, for I have many people in this city." So he settled there for a year and a half, and taught them God's message. While Gallio was governor of Greece the Jews made a concerted attack upon Paul, and brought him before the governor. "This fellow," they said, "is trying to induce people to worship God in ways that are against the law." Before Paul could open his lips, Gallio said to the Jews, "If some misdemeanor or rascality were involved, Jews, you might reasonably expect me to listen to you. But as it is only a question of words and titles and your own law, you must look after it yourselves. I refuse to decide such matters." And he drove them away from the court. Then they all seized Sosthenes, the leader of the synagogue, and beat him in front of the court. But Gallio paid no attention to it. Paul stayed some time longer, and then bade the brothers goodbye and sailed for Syria, with Priscilla and Aquila. At Cenchreae he had his hair cut, because of a vow he had been under. When they reached Ephesus he left them there. He went to the synagogue there and had a discussion with the Jews. They asked him to stay longer, but he would not consent. He bade them goodbye, saying, "I will come back to you again if it is God's will." Then he sailed from Ephesus. When he reached Caesarea, he went up to Jerusalem and paid his respects to the church, and then went on to Antioch.