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A quick guide to St. Paul’s travels according to today’s map

Ephesus Foundation USA

A comprehensive map of all the journeys taken by St. Paul in his lifetime is yet to be completed . But what we know for sure is that Paul, who used to be called by his Jewish name Saul of Tarsus before converting to Christianity, spent about 30 years sailing around the Mediterranean basin and visiting what were considered to be the major cities of his time.

Sources disagree on an exact list of locations that Paul visited during his lifetime, but what’s sure is that during the three journeys described in Acts 13-14 , Acts 15-17 and Acts 18-20 he visited many historical cities that are considered the backbone of Western civilization. From Athens to Corinth, passing through Antioch and Ephesus, here is a summary of Paul’s travels , including an indication of where those locations are on today’s map. 

What’s considered Paul’s “first journey” started in the year 45 and ended in 49 . Together with Barnabas, a Cypriot Jew converted to Christianity, Paul traveled across the island of Cyprus, Barnabas’s homeland, preaching the Gospel in several synagogues. They then set sail from Paphos, on the southwest coast of Cyprus, and reached the port of Perga, in Anatolia, modern-day Turkey.

From Perga they finally reached Antioch of Pisidia, where Paul began to spread the word to the local Jewish community. Initially, his message was very well received, leading to an invitation to speak during Sabbath (the holy day), but part of the community soon turned envious about the strong popularity enjoyed by a foreign preacher and eventually managed to push Paul out of the city.

Paul and Barnabas then left for Konya, a city just south of Ankara, in present-day Turkey, but were forced to leave again, this time for the nearby town of Lystra. Here Paul healed a sick man and the local pagan community began to believe he was sent by God. But soon enough, the same people who contested him in Konya reached Lystra and instigated a group of locals to stone Paul, forcing him to flee. He then reached the city of Derbe, also in modern-day Turkey, and from there back to Lystra, Konya and finally Antioch of Syria on the Orontes, a city of ancient Syria now in modern-day Turkey, where his journey originated. Here Paul reports that, through his message, many pagans got to know the word of God.

Second trip

Paul’s second journey started in the year 49 and ended in 52 . This time, Paul hit the road to check back on those early Christian communities he helped found during his first trip.

He was accompanied by Silas, a leading member of the early Christian community, and Timothy, the son of a Greek man who was a dear companion to Paul. The group headed to Lystra, then through Phrygia, an ancient kingdom on the Sangarios River in modern day Turkey; then to Galatia, an area in the highlands of central Anatolia, also in present-day Turkey, that was inhabited by Gallic people of the Hellenistic period, and finally to Troad, a city in north-west Anatolia, present-day Turkey.

Here, Paul had a vision of a man asking him to bring the Gospel to Macedonia , and then set off to reach the European mainland for the first time. By way of Samothrace, a Greek island in the northern Aegean Sea, and Neapolis, known today as the Greek city of Kavala, they reached Philippi, a Roman city in the first district of Macedonia, which today stands as one of Greece’s UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

Here, Paul was hosted by Lydia, a woman who worked as a dealer in purple cloth from the city of Thyatira. But soon enough, a group of hostile locals pushed authorities to arrest Paul and his companions. However, thanks to a providential earthquake, the group managed to escape Philippi’s jail. Eventually, local magistrates learned that Paul and his travel companions were Roman citizens and officially let them free. The Philippian community soon grew to become an important Christian center, to which Paul later addressed the  Epistle of Paul to the Philippians.

After Philippi, the group reached Thessaloniki, in present-day northern Greece, where they were hosted by Jason, a Jewish man who had converted to Christianity. Here, even if his mission was somehow successful, Paul was quickly forced to leave after a group of local Jews reported his evangelization activities to local pagan authorities.

They then left for Berea, an important port city, now known as Veria, in Macedonia, north of Greece, but the same group that kicked them out of Thessaloniki soon caught up with them and pushed them to leave Berea as well.

The group hit the road once again and reached Athens, which had been severely damaged by Roman attacks in 146 B.C. but was still considered the capital of philosophy and knowledge of what was then the known world. Here Paul engaged in conversation with many public intellectuals in both synagogues and public squares and was eventually invited to give a speech to Athenian citizens from the Aeropago , a marble hill just above the Acropolis. According to Luke (Act 17, 11-33) it is here that Paul proclaimed his famous speech about “the Unknown God” to to the pagan thinkers of Athens.

From Athens, Paul headed to Corinth, capital of the Roman province of Acaia in present-day south-central Greece. Here he stayed with the married Christian couple Priscilla and Aquila , who had been exiled by the Roman emperor Claudius in 49-50. In Corinth Paul engaged in prolific speeches that led to many conversions, but he was subject to hostility from groups of local Jews. However, Roman pro-consul Gallio adopted a neutral stance regarding Paul religious mission and decided to let him free.

Together with Priscilla and Aquila, Paul set sail for Syria and reached Ephesus and from here Caesarea, in modern day north-central Israel, and eventually back to Antioch.

Third journey

Paul’s third journey took place between 52 and 57 . He first headed back to Galatia and Phrygia to check on the communities he helped set up during his previous trips. He then set sail for Ephesus , an ancient Greek city in present-day Turkey, which at the time was the capital of the Roman province of Asia and home to the famous temple of Artemis-Diana, which was considered one of the seven wonders of the world. Here Paul baptized 12 disciples who had previously received a penitential baptism by John the Baptist, and together with companions he helped evangelize nearly all the local inhabitants.

After a winter break in Corinth, Paul headed back to Ephesus , but hostility from local Jews forced him to leave for Antioch, Syria. From here he departed for more Greek cities—including the islands of Lesbos and Samos—and reaches Miletus, in modern-day Turkey.  

Here he pronounced his famous speech dedicated to the “Ephesian elders, ” in which he recommended that the leaders of the communities he helped found take on his mission and preserve the values of vigilance, disinterest and charity. In 58, Paul decided to head toward Jerusalem , so he set off on an arduous sailing trip that made stops at a new harbor almost each day, including the islands of Kos and Rhodes in modern-day Greece. He finally reached Jerusalem where he stayed with Mnason of Cyprus, one of the people he helped convert on one of his early trips.

Paul then visited James, who advised him to talk to the most traditionalist Jews at the Temple. Here Paul was recognized by the Jews of Asian provinces, and once again faced hostility. Claudius Lysias, the local Roman tribune, intervened and put Paul in jail before even knowing that he is a Roman citizen. This was the start of what many refer to as the “Passion Pauli,” in which St. Paul’s dedication to his evangelization mission led to his arrest, beating, torture, and eventual death in Rome at the order of Emperor Nero in 62-64.

Make sure to visit the slideshow below to discover some of the greatest works of art representing the Road to Damascus, the decisive moment in the life of Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles. 

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Paul in the Smith's Bible Dictionary

Paul         (small, little). Nearly all the original materials for the life St. Paul are contained in the Acts of the Apostles and in the Pauline epistles. Paul was born in Tarsus, a city of Cilicia. (It is not improbable that he was born between A.D. 0 and A.D. 5.) Up to the time of his going forth as an avowed preacher of Christ to the Gentiles, the apostle was known by the name of Saul. This was the Jewish name which he received from his Jewish parents. But though a Hebrew of the Hebrews, he was born in a Gentile city. Of his parents we know nothing, except that his father was of the tribe of Benjamin, Phm 3:5 and a Pharisee, Ac 23:6 that Paul had acquired by some means the Roman franchise ("I was free born,") Ac 22:23 and that he was settled in Tarsus. At Tarsus he must have learned to use the Greek language with freedom and mastery in both speaking and writing. At Tarsus also he learned that trade of "tent-maker," Ac 18:3 at which he afterward occasionally wrought with his own hands. There was a goat's-hair cloth called cilicium manufactured in Cilicia, and largely used for tents, Saul's trade was probably that of making tents of this hair cloth. When St. Paul makes his defence before his countrymen at Jerusalem, Ac 22:1 ... he tells them that, though born in Tarsus he had been "brought up" in Jerusalem. He must therefore, have been yet a boy when was removed, in all probability for the sake of his education, to the holy city of his fathers. He learned, he says, at the feet of Gamaliel." He who was to resist so stoutly the usurpations of the law had for his teacher one of the most eminent of all the doctors of the law. Saul was yet "a young man," Ac 7:58 when the Church experienced that sudden expansion which was connected with the ordaining of the seven appointed to serve tables, and with the special power and inspiration of Stephen. Among those who disputed with Stephen were some "of them of Cilicia." We naturally think of Saul as having been one of these, when we find him afterward keeping the clothes of those suborned witnesses who, according to the law, De 17:7 were the first to cast stones at Stephen. "Saul," says the sacred writer significantly "was consenting unto his death."  Full Article

Paul in the Bible Encyclopedia - ISBE 5. The First Great Mission Campaign: Acts 13 and 14, 47 and 48 AD: Paul had already preached to the Gentiles in Cilicia and Syria for some 10 years. The work was not new to him. He had had his specific call from Jerusalem long ago and had answered it. But now an entirely new situation arises. His work had been individual in Cilicia. Now the Spirit specifically directs the separation of Barnabas and Saul to this work (Acts 13:2). They were to go together, and they had the sympathy and prayers of a great church. The endorsement was probably not "ordination" in the technical sense, but a farewell service of blessing and good will as the missionaries went forth on the world-campaign (Acts 13:3). No such unanimous endorsement could have been obtained in Jerusalem to this great enterprise. It was momentous in its possibilities for Christianity. Hitherto work among the Gentiles had been sporadic and incidental. Now a determined effort was to be made to evangelize a large section of the Roman empire. There is no suggestion that the church at Antioch provided funds for this or for the two later Campaigns, as the church at Philippi came to do. How that was managed this time we do not know. Some individuals may have helped. Paul had his trade to fall back on, and often had resort to it later. The presence of John Mark "as their attendant" (Acts 13:5) was probably due to Barnabas, his cousin (Col 4:10). The visit to Cyprus, the home of Barnabas, was natural. There were already some Christians there (Acts 11:20), and it was near. They preach first in the synagogues of the Jews at Salamis (Acts 13:5). We are left to conjecture as to results there and through the whole island till Paphos is reached. There they meet a man of great prominence and intelligence, Sergius Paulus, the Roman proconsul, who had been under the spell of a sorcerer with a Jewish name--Elymas Bar-jesus (compare Peter's encounter with Simon Magus in Samaria). In order to win and hold Sergius Paulus, who had become interested in Christianity, Paul has to punish Bar-jesus with blindness (Acts 13:10 ff) in the exercise of that apostolic power which he afterward claimed with such vigor (1 Cor 5:4 f; 2 Cor 13:10). He won Sergius Paulus, and this gave him cheer for his work. From now on it is Paul, not Saul, in the record of Luke, perhaps because of this incident, though both names probably belonged to him from the first. Now also Paul steps to the fore ahead of Barnabas, and it is "Paul's company" (Acts 13:13) that sets sail from Paphos for Pamphylia. There is no evidence here of resentment on the part of Barnabas at the leadership of Paul. The whole campaign may have been planned from the start by the Holy Spirit as the course now taken may have been due to Paul's leadership. John Mark deserts at Perga and returns to Jerusalem (his home), not to Antioch (Acts 13:13). Paul and Barnabas push on to the tablelands of Pisidia. Ramsay (St. Paul the Traveler, 93) thinks that Paul had malaria down at Perga and hence desired to get up into higher land. That is possible. The places mentioned in the rest of the tour are Antioch in Pisidia (Acts 13:14), and Iconium (Acts 13:51), Lystra (Acts 14:8), and Derbe (Acts 14:20), cities of Lycaonia. These terms are ethnographic descriptions of the southern divisions of the Roman province of Galatia, the northern portion being Galatia proper or North Galatia. So then Paul and Barnabas are now at work in South Galatia, though Luke does not mention that name, using here only the popular designations. The work is wonderfully successful. In these cities, on one of the great Roman roads east and west, Paul is reaching the centers of provincial life as will be his custom. At Antioch Paul is invited to repeat his sermon on the next Sabbath (Acts 13:42), and Luke records at length the report of this discourse which has the characteristic notes of Paul's gospel as we see it in his epistles. Paul may have kept notes of the discourse. There were devout Gentiles at these services. These were the first to be won, and thus a wider circle of Gentiles could be reached. Paul and Barnabas were too successful at Antioch in Pisidia. The jealous Jews opposed, and Paul and Barnabas dramatically turned to the Gentiles (Acts 13:45 ff). But the Jews reached the city magistrate through the influential women, and Paul and Barnabas were ordered to leave (Acts 13:50 f). Similar success brings like results in Iconium. At Lystra, before the hostile Jews come, Paul and Barnabas have great success and, because of the healing of the impotent man, are taken as Mercury and Jupiter respectively, and worship is offered them. Paul's address in refusal is a fine plea on the grounds of natural theology (Acts 14:15-18). The attempt on Paul's life after the Jews came seemed successful. In the band of disciples that "stood round about him," there may have been Timothy, Paul's son in the gospel. From Derbe they retrace their steps to Perga, in order to strengthen the churches with officers, and then sail for Seleucia and Antioch. They make their report to the church at Antioch. It is a wonderful story. The door of faith is now wide open for the Gentiles who have entered in great numbers (Acts 14:27). No report was sent to Jerusalem. What will the Pharisaic party do now?  Full Article including Paul's Second and Third Campaigns

The Bible Mentions "Paul" in many places:

Map of Paul’s Journeys and the Roman Empire

The maps in the back of your Bible meet modern web mapping technology with this interactive exploration of Paul's Missionary journeys. Click each route to isolate it, compare areas to the modern world, and click through the passages describing events along the way. By tracing routes along ancient Roman road networks and shipping lanes, this map is the most detailed depiction available.

Interactive Version

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Paul’s Missionary Journeys: The Beginner’s Guide

by Ryan Nelson | Jul 6, 2020 | Bible topics

Paul’s missionary journeys helped spread the gospel throughout much of the ancient world. Over the course of his ministry, the Apostle Paul traveled more than 10,000 miles and established at least 14 churches.

The Book of Acts records three separate missionary journeys that took Paul through Greece, Turkey, Syria, and numerous regions you won’t find on modern-day maps. Some scholars argue that Paul also took a fourth missionary journey, since parts of the New Testament appear to reference travels that may have taken place after the events in Acts.

Paul’s travels played a crucial role in the formation and development of the early Christian church. Many of the communities he encountered on these missionary journeys were the same ones he wrote to in his pastoral epistles.

In this guide, we’re going to follow Paul’s footsteps as he travelled across the ancient world, looking at the places he went and the major events that took place along the way. At times it can be challenging to distinguish between ancient cities, provinces, and regions (and there are sometimes multiple names that refer to the same area), so as we go, we’ll make some of those distinctions more clear.

Paul’s first missionary journey (Acts 13–14)

Paul’s first missionary journey began in Antioch. You may notice that maps of the ancient world often have two cities labelled Antioch. They’re both named after Antiochus, father of Seleucid I. The Antioch in Acts 13 was the third largest city in ancient Rome and capital of the province of Syria. Today, it’s part of southern Turkey. The other Antioch was part of Pisidia, an ancient region which is also now part of Turkey. Your Bible likely refers to it as Pisidian Antioch or Antioch of Pisidia.

In Antioch (the big city in Syria), the Holy Spirit singled out Paul and Barnabas from the believers worshiping there, and sent them on their first missionary journey.

Paul’s first journey took him by boat to the Roman province of Cyprus. Today, Cyprus is a country known as the Republic of Cyprus. It’s a mediterranean island south of Syria. Paul and Barnabas arrived in the port city of Salamis, where John Mark (who was possibly Barnabas’ cousin), helped them share the gospel in Jewish synagogues.

From Salamis, the group moved across the island to Paphos, where they were met by a Jewish sorcerer named Bar-Jesus (also known as Elymas the sorcerer). This sorcerer worked for the governor—Sergius Paulus—who sent for Paul and his companions because he wanted to hear the word of God. Elymas opposed them and tried to turn Sergius from the faith, and so Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, called him a “child of the devil” and struck him blind. Sergius saw what happened, and believed.

Ironically, Elymas meant to steer Sergius away from Christ, but he became the very vehicle God used to draw Sergius toward him.

From Paphos, Paul and company set sail for the Roman province of Pamphylia, located in modern day Turkey. They arrived in the city of Perga, where John Mark left them and returned to Jerusalem (which, interestingly, was in the opposite direction from where they just came). We don’t know why John Mark decided to leave, but this would later create a rift between Paul and Barnabas.

Together, Paul and Barnabas travelled to Pisidian Antioch, where local synagogue leaders invited them to speak. Initially, the Jewish people were receptive to the gospel, but a week later, the entire city gathered to hear Paul and Barnabas, and the Jewish leaders became jealous. They resisted the message of the gospel, and so Paul and Barnabas made an important pivot: they began preaching to the Gentiles.  

Many of the Gentiles believed the gospel, and Luke (the traditional author of Acts) tells us that: 

“The word of the Lord spread through the whole region. But the Jewish leaders incited the God-fearing women of high standing and the leading men of the city. They stirred up persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and expelled them from their region.” —Acts 13:49–50

Driven out of Pamphylia, Paul and Barnabas travelled to Iconium, an eastern city in the region of Phrygia. Iconium still exists today as the Turkish city of Konya.

Once again, Paul and Barnabas spoke in the synagogue, where Jews and Greeks alike accepted the gospel. But the Jews who didn’t accept it stirred up trouble, even as Paul and Barnabas began performing signs and wonders (Acts 14:3). As support for Paul and Barnabas grew, so did the opposition they faced, and eventually, they became aware of a plot to abuse and stone them. So they left.

Fleeing the threat in Iconium, Paul and Barnabas left Phrygia altogether and travelled to Lystra, a city in the province of Lycaonia. Here, Paul healed a man who was lame.The locals who witnessed this miracle thought Paul and Barnabas were gods in human form, calling Barnabas Zeus and Paul Hermes. The priest from the temple of Zeus brought bulls and wreaths to offer sacrifices to them.

Paul and Barnabas attempted to redirect their praise to God, but struggled to keep the crowds from offering sacrifices to them.

Jews came from Antioch and Iconium and continued what they’d started. They riled up the crowds and convinced them to stone Paul. Believing he was dead, they dragged him outside the city. When the disciples gathered around him, Paul got up and went back inside the city.

Then Paul and Barnabas went to Derbe, another city in Lycaonia. There, they “won a large number of disciples” (Acts 14:21).

The return to Antioch

After a time in Derbes, Paul and Barnabas went back the way they came, working their way through Lystra, Iconium, Pisidian Antioch, and Perga. In each city, they encouraged the believers there and strengthened their faith, as they would continue doing on their future missionary journeys. They did, however, stop in a new Pamphylian city on the way: Attalia. Acts only mentions it in passing, but presumably, they established a community of believers there as well.

From there, they skipped a return voyage to the island of Cyprus and went straight back to Antioch (the big one), where they told the church what happened on their journey.

Paul’s second missionary journey (Acts 16:23–20:38)

Paul’s second missionary journey established many of the churches he would later write to in his pastoral epistles. Interestingly, this may have happened in part because of a “sharp disagreement” he had with Barnabas. Paul’s original plan was to essentially have a rerun of their first trip, strengthening the communities they’d formed in each city and telling them what the Council of Jerusalem had ruled in regards to Gentile believers.

But Barnabas wanted to take John Mark—who had left them shortly into their previous journey. Paul was so opposed to the idea that they parted ways, initiating two separate missionary journeys. Barnabas took John Mark and went with the original plan, making their way back to the island of Cyprus. Paul took a man named Silas and travelled through the provinces of Syria and Cilicia.

The first cities that Acts mentions by name on Paul’s second journey are Derbe and Lystra. At this time, Paul and Silas picked up a new companion: Timothy. 

The locals spoke highly of Timothy, and Paul wanted to bring him along even though he was half Greek, which meant local Jews would have a harder time accepting their message. Out of concern for these local Jews, Paul circumcised Timothy—even though, ironically, one of the things they were coming to tell Christians was that Gentiles didn’t have to be circumcised. (See Acts 16:3–4.)

Acts doesn’t specify where in Phrygia Paul and his companions stopped, but since he’d established a church in Iconium on the first trip, that community would’ve been on his mind (even though last time he was there, people had plotted to stone him). Interestingly, Acts notes that Paul and his companions journeyed here after they were “kept by the Holy Spirit from preaching the word in the province of Asia” (Acts 16:6).

Just north of Phrygia was the province of Galatia. Acts makes no mention of what happened here, but this is the province Paul wrote to in his letter to the Galatians . Interestingly, part of the purpose of Paul’s second trip was to share the news from the Council of Jerusalem regarding the Law of Moses and whether or not Gentiles (or Christians in general) should be expected to follow it. The council decided the Torah didn’t apply to Gentile believers (though they did hang on to a few rules). But by the time Paul wrote the Book of Galatians, Christians there were feeling pressure to obey the law (particularly in regards to circumcision) in order to be saved.

From Galatia, Paul’s group traveled west, until they reached the border of Mysia—a western region in the province of Asia, which is now part of Turkey. They intended to head north to the region of Bithynia, “but the spirit of Jesus would not allow them to” (Acts 16:7). So they passed by Mysia and headed to the city of Troas. Here, Paul had a vision of a man in Macedonia, begging him to “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” Paul took this vision as a sign that God was calling them to Macedonia, which was across the Aegean Sea.

From Troas, Paul and his companions sailed across the Aegean Sea, making a pitstop on the island of Samothrace before landing in Neapolis and then traveling to Philippi. In Philippi, they spoke with women outside the city gate. One of them was a wealthy cloth dealer named Lydia. After her household was baptised, she persuaded Paul’s group to stay with her for a while.

Later, Paul, Silas, and the others were confronted by a spirit-possessed slave woman who could predict the future. She followed them for many days, shouting, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved” (Acts 16:17). Paul became so annoyed that he cast out the spirit. Her owners were furious, because they had been profiting off of her fortune telling. So they turned the local magistrates against them, claiming Paul and Silas were stirring up trouble and trying to get Roman citizens to believe and do illegal things.

The authorities had Paul and Silas severely flogged and thrown in prison. Late at night, while they were worshiping, an earthquake shook the foundations of the prison, opened the doors, and freed the prisoners from their chains. When the jailer awoke and saw the doors open, he prepared to kill himself. But Paul stopped him and assured him everyone was still in the prison.

After listening to Paul and Silas share the gospel, the jailer believed in Jesus and had his whole household baptized.

The next morning, the magistrates ordered Paul and Silas released. Paul revealed that they were Roman citizens, who had just been beaten and imprisoned without trial, and the authorities became afraid. Paul and Silas returned to Lydia’s house, and then left the city of Troas.

After passing through the Macedonian cities of Amphipolis and Apollonia, they arrived in Thessalonica. Since Thessalonica had a synagogue, Paul turned to his usual method—preaching the gospel on the Sabbath. Over the course of three weeks, he achieved the usual result—many Jews and Greeks alike embraced the gospel . . . and those who didn’t were outraged by it. 

At night, the Thessalonian believers sent Paul and his companions away to the nearby city of Berea.

The Bereans listened eagerly to the gospel and carefully examined the Scriptures to see if they supported Paul’s claims. Many Jews and Greeks became believers, but some agitators from Thessalonica heard Paul was in Berea, and they stirred up the crowds. Silas and Timothy stayed in Berea, while Paul was escorted out of Macedonia to Athens.

In the first century, Athens was in the region of Achaia, just south of Macedonia. Today, it’s the capital of Greece, and the largest city in the country.

Paul was essentially waiting around for Silas, Timothy, and the others to rejoin him. But while he waited, he noticed that Athens was full of idols. He debated with philosophers in both the synagogue and marketplace. Some Athenians were open to his ideas, and they were eager to discuss them. One idol in particular caught his eye—it had an inscription that read: “to an unknown god.” He seized on this as an opportunity to tell them about the “unknown God” who died and rose so that all might have eternal life. 

Paul’s message in Athens incorporated observations about what he saw around him as well as quotes from famous Greek philosophers to point back to the gospel. After establishing a group of believers in Athens, Paul headed west to the city of Corinth.

In Corinth, Paul stayed and worked with a couple of Jewish tentmakers named Priscilla and Aquila. Every Sabbath, he preached to Jews and Greeks in the synagogue. Silas and Timothy rejoined Paul here, and Paul began focusing his energy on testifying about Jesus to the Jews. 

When the Jews opposed his message, Paul devoted himself to reaching Gentiles, and he left the synagogue. As more Greeks embraced the gospel, the Corinthian Jews brought Paul before the governor, who basically told them to take a hike and refused to help.

Paul stayed in Corinth for a year and a half, and he left with Priscilla and Aquila.

The return journey

Before setting off for Syria, Paul stopped for a vow-fulfilling haircut in the port city of Cenchreae, which was just a hop, skip, and a jump from Corinth. With his companions, he sailed across the Aegean Sea to Ephesus, where he dropped of Priscilla and Aquila, and promised to come back if he could. After a short stay in Ephesus, Paul set sail for Caesarea, which was across the Mediterranean and far to the southeast. From there, he made the trek south to Jerusalem.

Paul’s second missionary journey ended in Jerusalem.

Paul’s third missionary journey (Acts 18:23–20:38)

When you read Acts, there’s no transition from Paul’s second missionary journey to his third. His arrival in Jerusalem almost immediately began his next trip. But while his second journey ends in Jerusalem, the beginning of his third journey is actually in Antioch, which is about 300 miles north.

Phrygia and Galatia

From Antioch, Paul once again worked his way west, passing “from place to place throughout the region of Galatia and Phrygia, strengthening all the disciples” (Acts 18:23). This included Derbe, Lystra, and Iconium.

Paul traveled west to Ephesus, the capital of the province of Asia, where he’d left Priscilla and Aquila on his previous journey. Since he’d last visited, a man named Apollos had been preaching part of the gospel, but he didn’t know about the Holy Spirit. So when Paul arrived, he taught the Ephesians about the difference between water baptism and the baptism of the Spirit.

For three months, Paul preached in the synagogues. When people started criticizing Christianity, he left and began holding discussions in a lecture hall.

This went on for two years, and all the while, God used Paul to perform miracles. Even things Paul had touched—handkerchiefs and aprons—healed the sick and drove out evil spirits.

Some Jews thought invoking Paul’s name would let them drive out demons. Seven sons of a chief priest named Sceva said to an evil spirit, “In the name of the Jesus whom Paul preaches, I command you to come out” (Acts 19:13). The spirit replied that it knew Jesus and Paul, but not them, and then it pulverized all seven of them.

As word spread about what happened, people began to revere the name of Jesus. Local sorcerors came to repent, and they burnt scrolls that would have been worth more than 130 years’ worth of wages (Acts 19:19).

Around this time, a local silversmith named Demetrius realized that the future of his business (making idols) was jeopardized by the gospel. The demand for idols was going down all across the province of Asia, but especially in Ephesus, where he lived. So Demetrius gathered all the craftsmen and workers whose businesses were impacted, and stirred the entire city into an uproar. They seized two of Paul’s companions and brought them into a theater.

Paul wanted to address the crowd, but the disciples didn’t let him. Instead, a city clerk told everyone that unless they were going to bring formal charges against the men in a legal assembly, they were in danger of being charged with rioting.

Macedonia and Greece

After things settled down in Ephesus, Paul headed across the Aegean Sea to Macedonia. He traveled throughout the region, encouraging believers, and eventually arrived in Greece, where he stayed for three months. He intended to sail back to Syria (where his journey started), but some people plotted against him, so he took another lap through Macedonia instead.

Along the way, disciples joined Paul from many of the communities he’d ministered to. He had companions from Berea, Thessalonica, Derbe, and the province of Asia. These followers went ahead of Paul to Troas, in Asia. Paul stayed briefly in Philippi, then joined them.

Paul stayed in Troas for seven days. The night before he left, he stayed up late talking in a room upstairs. A young man sat in a window, drifted off to sleep, and fell to his death. Paul threw his arms around the man and declared that he was alive, and he was. Then Paul went back upstairs and continued talking until daylight.

Paul walked from Troas to Assos, which was just to the south, and then sailed for the nearby city of Mitylene. Eager to reach Jerusalem before Pentecost, Paul sailed past Ephesus and stopped in Miletus. There, he met with the leaders of the Ephesian church and essentially told them that he had taught them everything they needed to know, that he would not see them again, and that they needed to be on guard against false teachers. This is when Paul also famously quoted Jesus, sharing words that aren’t recorded in any of the gospels: “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35).

And then he set sail.

Paul and his companions stopped briefly in Kos, Rhodes, and Patara before heading across the Mediterranean Sea to Phoenicia (the coastal region south of ancient Syria, which is now part of Syria). They arrived in Tyre, where “through the Spirit” (Acts 21:4), the local disciples urged Paul not to go to Jerusalem. He ignored them.

From Tyre, the voyage continued to the port city of Ptolemais, and then Caesarea, where the group stayed with Philip the evangelist (not to be confused with Philip the apostle ). Here, a prophet warned Paul that he would be bound by the Jews in Jerusalem and handed over to the Gentiles.

Still, he pressed on to Jerusalem, and by the end of Acts, the Jewish leaders had handed him over to Roman rulers.

Paul’s fourth missionary journey

Acts explicitly records three distinct missionary journeys. But some scholars and even ancient Christian writers have claimed that there was also a fourth missionary journey which was only hinted at in the Bible.

The argument for a fourth journey is primarily based on clues from Paul’s letters. He occasionally refers to events and visits that may not be accounted for in Acts or the epistles. 

For example, Paul suggested he would travel to Spain (Romans 15:24), but he provides no record of this journey in his letters. However, early church fathers claimed Paul did, in fact, travel to Spain.

In his letter to the Corinthians, first-century church father Clement of Rome said Paul “had gone to the extremity of the west,” which at the time presumably meant Spain. Fourth-century church father John of Chrysostom said, “For after he had been in Rome, he returned to Spain, but whether he came thence again into these parts, we know not.” And Cyril of Jerusalem (also from the fourth century) wrote that Paul “carried the earnestness of his preaching as far as Spain.”

In 2 Timothy 4, Paul makes an ambiguous reference to “my first defense” and claims he was “delivered from the lion’s mouth” (2 Timothy 4:16-17). Some have interpreted this as a reference to his first defense before Emperor Nero, which he was heading for at the end of Acts.

Paul’s letters make other references to events not recorded in Acts, but since there is so much overlap in the locations mentioned, and Paul spent multiple years in some of these places on his three recorded journeys, it’s difficult to say whether or not this fourth journey ever actually happened.

Take a closer look at Paul’s footsteps

Paul’s missionary journeys are a key part of the New Testament. Paul’s epistles were originally written to the communities he formed on these journeys, and they show us exactly how Christianity spread to the Gentiles so rapidly.

Here at OverviewBible, we’ve charted each of Paul’s missionary journeys into beautiful, full-color posters you can display in your classroom or church office. Each comes in multiple sizes on fine art paper with a matte finish.

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Paul’s Four Missionary Journeys: The Complete Guide

God did many amazing things through the life and ministry of the apostle Paul. The gospel was spread to many people across the known world thanks to Paul’s efforts, despite the severe opposition and persecution Paul faced.

What were Paul’s missionary journeys? Paul took four missionary journeys. Paul’s first three missionary journeys are recorded in the book of Acts. The fourth is alluded to in Paul’s letters. On the first missionary journey Paul went through Cyrus, Pamphylia, and Galatia. On his second missionary journey he went through Galatia, Macedonia, and Achaia. Paul’s third journey took him through Galatia, Asia, Macedonia, Achaia, and ended in Jerusalem. After his third missionary journey Paul was imprisoned in Caesarea for two years and later transported to Rome where he was then placed under house arrest for another two years. His fourth missionary journey is not clear, but it may have included Spain, Crete, Asia, Achaia, and Macedonia.

By looking at Paul’s missionary journeys we can look and reflect on the beginning of the fulfillment of God’s command to “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19).

Timeline of Paul’s Missionary Journeys

• A.D. 37: Converted on the road to Damascus
• A.D. 37-40: Spends three years in Arabia
• A.D. 40: Brief visit to Jerusalem to meet with the apostle Peter
• A.D. 40-44: Preaches and ministers in Tarsus and surrounding regions
• A.D. 44 or 45: Relocates to Antioch in Syria
• A.D. 45 or 46: Travels with Barnabas to visit Jerusalem, brings a famine relief offering
• A.D. 46 or 47: First missionary journey with Barnabas, likely lasts 1-2 years
• A.D. 50: Attends the Jerusalem Council
• A.D. 51: Leaves on second missionary journey, trip lasts 2.5 to 3 years, including 18 months in Corinth
• A.D. 54: Leaves on third missionary journey, trip lasts more than 4 years, including 3 years in Ephesus
• A.D. 58: Arrested in Jerusalem, put on trial before the Roman governor Felix
• A.D. 58-60: Held in Caesarea for two years
• A.D. 60: Put back on trial by Festus the new Roman governor; eventually transported to Rome
• A.D. 61: Arrives in Rome
• A.D. 61-63: Placed under house arrest for two years
• A.D. 63: Released from house arrest, likely launches his fourth missionary journey
• A.D. 66 or 67: Imprisoned in Rome again
• A.D. 67 or 68: Martyred under Nero’s persecution

*Dates are approximate.

Paul’s Background

Before he was known as the apostle Paul, he was first known as Saul of Tarsus. He was a brilliant, pious, zealous, and well-educated Pharisee, from a wealthy and well-connected family. Saul was obviously intimately acquainted with the Hebrew Scriptures, but was also thoroughly acquainted with Greco-Roman history, language, and culture.

Saul became famous in Palestine because of his persecution of Christians. But things changed, dramatically. By God’s providence, Saul became a Christian after a supernatural encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus (Acts 9).

After Saul’s conversion, he traveled to a few different places, over several years, including three years in Arabia (Gal. 1:17–18), a brief visit to Jerusalem (Gal. 1:18), and then several years of preaching in the regions of Syria and Cilicia (Gal. 1:21).

Partnership with Barnabas

After some heavy persecution of the Christians in Jerusalem, some believers ended up living in the city of Antioch. They preached the gospel there and a “great number” believed in Jesus (Acts 11:21). When the apostles in Jerusalem heard about this, they sent a man named Barnabas to Antioch to serve in the church there (Acts 11:22).

Barnabas was a prophet (Acts 13:1) and an apostle (Acts 14:14). Through his ministry a “great number of people were brought to the Lord” (Acts 11:24).

After being in Antioch a while, Barnabas traveled to Tarsus to find Saul. Barnabas recruited Saul to come teach and lead and serve in the church in Antioch in Syria (Acts 11:25-26). Saul relocated to Antioch sometime between 44 and 46 A.D. and served as one of the leaders of the church there.

Barnabas and Saul would become ministry traveling partners for the next few years, including at least one earlier trip to Jerusalem (Acts 11:27-30) in order to bring a famine relief offering to the Christians in Jerusalem (likely sometime between 45 and 46 A.D.).

First Missionary Journey

Barnabas and Saul sensed the call of the Holy Spirit to go out on their first missionary journey (Acts 13-14). Sometime around 46 A.D. (or 47 A.D.), Barnabas and Saul were set apart by the Holy Spirit and sent out on their first missionary journey by the church at Antioch.

Before Barnabas and Saul officially left on their first missionary journey, they recruited a young man named John Mark to go with them. John Mark was the son of a woman named Mary (mentioned in Acts 12:12). She owned the house where the Christians had been meeting and praying when Peter was miraculously delivered from jail by the angel.

It is likely that, as a young boy, John Mark had witnessed Jesus’ ministry first-hand. Sadly, however, during the missionary journey, John Mark would eventually abandon Barnabas and Saul. This would later lead to a significant dispute between Barnabas and Saul a few years in the future.

Barnabas and Saul sailed from Seleucia to the island of Cyprus, apx. 100 miles off the coast of Syria. They began by preaching to Jewish people in the synagogues of Salamis. The crew did ministry in several parts of the island until they got to Paphos (Acts 13:4-6).

During their ministry they faced significant opposition. One of their earliest opponents was a magician who was a Jewish false prophet. Saul performed a supernatural act that blinded this false prophet. These events led to the conversion of the Roman proconsul Sergius Paulus (Acts 13:6-12).

Saul Becomes Paul

After the events in Cyprus, the author of the book of Acts, Luke, begins to refer to Saul as Paul. Some Christians have asserted that Saul changed his name. However, it’s more likely that Saul and Paul were two different names for the same person all along; he was known by both names for many years.

After launching a Gentile-focused ministry, Paul would have been interacting with many Gentiles, and they would have likely preferred to refer to him by the Gentile name. It appears Luke sought to make this a point of emphasis. Scholar Greg Lanier says :

“When Saul Paul launches his Gentile-focused ministry among primarily Greek-speakers (beginning with Acts 13:9), it’s natural for Luke, the author of Acts, to begin referring exclusively to him by his Greek name. Nor is it surprising that he’s later referred to as ‘Paul’ in Jerusalem, since there were Greek speakers there too. Indeed, Luke could be making a thematic point by shifting from Saul to Paul around chapter 13, given the broader theme of Acts (e.g., 1:8). After all, the church’s nucleus is shifting from predominantly Jewish-centered Jerusalem to the Greek-centered ‘ends of the earth,’ such as Rome.”

Pamphylia and Galatia

Barnabas, Paul, and John Mark then traveled across the Mediterranean Sea to Perga in Pamphylia. This is where John Mark deserts Paul and Barnabas and heads back to Jerusalem (Acts 13:13).

From Perga, Paul and Barnabas then continued northward into the province of Galatia, coming to the city of Antioch in Pisidia (not to be confused with their home base city of Antioch in Syria).

Archaeologists have discovered an inscription containing the name ‘Sergius Paulus’ in the city of Antioch in Pisidia (he was the Roman proconsul that became a Christian back on the island of Cyprus). This is strong evidence that Sergius Paulus had family roots in Antioch in Pisidia. Some scholars have argued that he was the person that probably encouraged Barnabas and Paul to travel up to Antioch in Pisidia.

Once they arrived in Antioch in Pisidia, Paul went to the synagogue and preached about the good news of Jesus. Paul effectively preached in the synagogue for multiple weeks. This resulted in many people coming to faith in Jesus (Acts 13:14-44).

Unfortunately, Barnabas and Paul faced significant opposition there too. Part of the problem they faced was the jealousy of certain Jews. There were many Gentiles showing up to hear the gospel preached. Some Jews became jealous and started to contradict what Paul had to say. Since the Gentiles were more willing to hear what Paul had to say, he turned and preached to the Gentiles.

And when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord, and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed. —Acts 13:48

The Gentiles’ response to the gospel was positive. The gospel continued to spread amongst Gentiles, but yet again the jealousy of the Jews became a significant issue. The Jews eventually drove Barnabas and Paul out of Antioch.

After leaving Antioch in Pisidia, they traveled eastward, further into the Galatian region, arriving at the city of Iconium. There they preached and did miracles in the name of Jesus.

Very similar to what had happened in Antioch, Paul went into the synagogue in Iconium to teach and the result was that many Jews and Greeks believed in Jesus, but the unbelieving Jews there stirred up trouble against Paul, dividing the city (Acts 14:1-4). Barnabas and Paul left the city when they heard about attempts to stone them (Acts 14:5).

Lystra and Derbe

They then came to Lystra. There Paul performed a miracle causing a crippled man to walk again. When this occurred the people of the area assumed Barnabas and Paul were gods. The priest of Zeus brought animals to offer as sacrifices to Barnabas and Paul. When Barnabas and Paul realized what was happening, they tore their clothes in lament and told the people of the one true God (Acts 14:8-18).

The Jewish unbelievers from Antioch and Iconium had come to Lystra too, stirring up trouble. They convinced the people of Lystra to stone Paul and left him for dead outside the city. But Paul wasn’t dead. He got up walked back into the city (Acts 14:19-20).

The book of Acts doesn’t give us details about the events of that day when Paul walked back into the city, but I imagine the city’s residents were shocked. It was quite rare for anyone to survive stoning.

Barnabas and Paul then continued onto Derbe the next day. They preached and “won a large number of disciples” (Acts 14:21). Archeologists have discovered several inscriptions that show the Christian faith was a major presence in the city of Derbe after Barnabas and Paul’s visit.

Facing Tribulations for the Sake of Discipleship

Barnabas and Paul began their trek back home, but they decided that they’d first travel back through Galatia. When you look at a map, you see that it would have been much faster (and likely easier) to travel from Derbe directly to Antioch in Syria.

Derbe is less than 260 miles away from Antioch in Syria and less than 140 miles away from Paul’s original hometown of Tarsus. Barnabas and Paul could have traveled eastward through the region of Cilicia. Paul was very familiar with Cilicia and likely had friends throughout the region that could give them safe refuge along the way.

But Barnabas and Paul intentionally traveled more than 280 miles in the opposite direction of Antioch in Syria. Even though they had suffered great persecution in Galatia, they wanted to go back through the Galatian cities, before heading home, because they wanted to strengthen the disciples in those cities.

They returned to Lystra and to Iconium and to Antioch, strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith, and saying that through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God. —Acts 14:21-22

The journey through these cities for a second time gave them the opportunity to teach doctrine, establish elders in the churches, and pray with the believers.

After this, Barnabas and Paul then continued back down to Perga in Pamphylia. They preached in that region for a time. They eventually made their way over to the nearby port city of Attalia and sailed from there to Antioch in Syria (Acts 14:24-28).

Return to Antioch

Barnabas and Paul returned back home to Antioch in Syria stay there after the trip for “a long time” (Acts 14:28).

They had traveled more than 800 miles. Their first missionary journey had probably lasted between one and two years. When Barnabas and Paul arrived back in Antioch in Syria, they shared with everyone about the many people who had come to faith in Jesus and the churches that were established.

Jerusalem Council

After returning, Barnabas and Paul learned about a particular faction from Judea that had been confusing many Christians in the region by preaching a false gospel. This group had been preaching that, in order to become a Christian, the Gentiles must follow the Old Testament law, including circumcision (Acts 15:1).

Barnabas and Paul seem to have spent significant time disputing this false message and debated the Judean faction.

Eventually, this debate, about this false gospel, was appealed to the apostles in Jerusalem (Acts 15:2). This led to the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15:3-35), which likely took place sometime in 50 A.D. (some scholars date this event as early as 48 A.D. and some date it as late as 51 A.D.).

While traveling to Jerusalem for the council, Barnabas and Paul made stops along the way throughout Phoenicia and Samaria, encouraging believers wherever they went.

At the council, all the apostles concluded that the Gentiles do not need to follow the Jewish laws in order to become Christians. Barnabas and Paul (as well as several other men who had been at the council) headed back to Antioch to declare the good news. After the council they stayed in Antioch “some days” (Acts 15:36).

Paul and Barnabas Separate

Not long after the Jerusalem Council, Barnabas and Paul began planning their second missionary journey. They believed it was essential that they go to the Gentile world to proclaim the statements that came from the council.

Originally, Barnabas and Paul had intended to go out together again, however, they had a “sharp disagreement” (Acts 15:39). The source of this dispute was John Mark. Barnabas wanted John Mark to come along again, but Paul was against this idea since John Mark had deserted them on their previous missionary trip when they were in Pamphylia. Paul saw John Mark as a liability.

Due to this sharp disagreement, Barnabas and Paul would go on separate missionary journeys. Barnabas took John Mark and sailed to Cyprus. Paul took a young man named Silas and traveled by land (Acts 15:39-41).

Paul’s Second Missionary Journey

Paul likely started his second missionary journey (Acts 15-18) sometime late in 50 A.D. or early in 51 A.D. (but some scholars date both the council of Jerusalem and the launch of this missionary journey as early as 48 A.D.).

Paul and Silas started by traveling northwestward by land through the region of Cilicia. The Roman road that they would have used went directly through Paul’s hometown of Tarsus. I imagine this would have given Paul the sweet opportunity to reconnect with many old friends.

Paul and Silas made stops in the churches all throughout the region, along their way, “strengthening” believers (Acts 15:41).

Return through Galatia

Paul and Silas continued their travels westward into Galatia. They spent significant time in several Galatian cities including Derbe, Lystra, and Iconium, connecting with the churches that Paul had planted with Barnabas on this first missionary journey.

Paul and Silas taught the believers throughout Galatia what had been decided at the council in Jerusalem and the “churches were strengthened in the faith, and they increased in numbers daily” (Acts 16:5).

Paul Circumcises Timothy

Along the way, Paul and Silas meet a young man named Timothy from that region. He had a good reputation. Paul decided to let Timothy accompany them. However, Paul first circumcised Timothy (Acts 16:3).

It seems that Paul knew that having an uncircumcised man like Timothy with him could somehow impede the advance of the gospel wherever they preached.

Paul intended to continue to preach that circumcision was not necessary for salvation. But Paul knew that Timothy’s presence could potentially cause their opponents to claim that the only real reason that Paul was making these claims is because he had an uncircumcised friend (Timothy).

Paul’s Ministry Restricted

Paul and his crew traveled throughout the “region of Phrygia and Galatia” (Acts 16:6) looking for opportunities to preach the gospel in Asia (modern-day southwest Turkey), but they were restricted from doing so multiple times. They then traveled to the region of Mysia (modern-day northwest Turkey), attempting to eventually make their way northward toward Bithynia, but multiple times they were restricted or diverted by the Spirit (Acts 16:7).

It seemed that God’s providence was leading them somewhere other than what Paul had originally intended. They passed through Mysia again and eventually ended up in the city of Troas near the cost of the Aegean Sea.

Luke Joins the Team

In Troas, Luke joins their missionary crew. The book of Acts does not explicitly state this, but it’s implied. Throughout most of the book of Acts, Luke speaks in the third person. However, starting in Acts 16:10, Luke begins to speak in first person, as if he had joined the team by that point.

Luke would become one of Paul’s ministry protégés. He was a Greek physician, but he also functioned as an investigative journalist. He eventually writes both the Gospel of Luke and the book of Acts. Some scholars have also suggested that Luke wrote the book of Hebrews.

Macedonian Call and Travel to Philippi

While at Troas, Paul received a vision. This vision was of a Macedonian man asking for Paul to come and help them (Acts 16:9-10). After receiving this vision they sailed across the Aegean Sea to the island of Samothrace, and then onto Neapolis (modern-day northeastern Greece).

The missionary crew then traveled to Philippi where they stayed for “some days” (Acts 16:12). While there, they preached the gospel. One specific woman they met was Lydia. She became a believer along with the rest of her household and invited Paul and his companions to stay (Acts 16:13-15).

Paul and Silas Jailed in Philippi

While in Philippi, Paul and Silas met a slave girl who was demon possessed. Her owners made money off of her because the demon gave her the ability to function as a fortune-teller. For several days she followed Paul and Silas around, declaring that Paul and Silas were preachers of the one true God (Acts 16:16-18).

Paul cast the demon out of her. The girl’s owners realized that they wouldn’t make any more money from her, because she could no longer function as a fortune-teller. They were angry so they took Paul and Silas to the magistrates. Paul and Silas were beaten with rods and thrown into jail. Paul had previously been beaten and persecuted, but this marked the first time he was officially imprisoned (Acts 16:18-24).

While in prison, Paul and Silas prayed and sung hymns to the Lord. As they sang and prayed many of the other prisoners listened. Late in the night an earthquake occurred, this earthquake not only opened all the doors but broke their chains.

The jailer believed that all the prisoners had escaped and was about to kill himself (the Romans would’ve blamed the guard and likely would’ve executed him). But Paul and Silas stopped him and told him that no one had escaped. Then the jailer responded asking how to be saved.

And they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” —Acts 16:31

God turned the persecution into an opportunity for gospel proclamation. Paul and Silas were not only able to witness to the jailer but all the prisoners listening to their hymns and prayers throughout the night. Paul went to the jailers home to preach and several people came to faith (Acts 16:25-34).

When the town magistrates learned that Paul and Silas were Roman citizens, the magistrates apologized for having unlawfully imprisoned them. This was a public vindication (of sorts) for Paul and Silas. Before leaving, Paul and Silas spent more time with Lydia and the other new converts in the region, encouraging them in the faith (Acts 16:35-40).

Thessalonica

Next, Paul and his crew passed through Amphipolis and Apponia and came to Thessalonica (Acts 17:1). As was his habit, Paul first went to the synagogue to preach to the Jews. He preached there on three consecutive Sabbath days. Many people believed, including many Gentiles.

Yet again, as Paul had seen before, many Jews became angry and jealous, and they caused an uproar. One of the brothers that had welcomed Paul was a man named Jason. The Jews dragged Jason before the city’s leaders. Jason was eventually released.

Paul and Silas left the city. It does seem that the church in Thessalonica continued to face persecution and trouble from their countrymen, but they flourished anyway. We read these words in Paul’s letter to the church:

For you, brothers, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea. For you suffered the same things from your own countrymen as they did from the Jews. —1 Thess. 2:14

Paul and his crew went to Berea. There, Paul yet again started in the Jewish synagogue, but this time he got a different response. Instead of jealousy and mobs, the Jews there examined the Scriptures to see if what Paul was saying was true. Many believed in Jesus.

Paul praised their willingness to study and pursue truth. Luke says the Jews of Berea were “more noble” than the Jews of Thessalonica (Acts 17:11).

Things seem to be going well. Many people became Christians. But the Jews from Thessalonica heard that Paul was teaching in Berea and they came to stir up the crowds and trouble. Paul was sent away by the brothers there, but Silas and Timothy stayed behind (Acts 17:13-14).

Traveling in Achaia

The apostle Paul was then escorted by some brothers more than 300 miles south, into the region of Achaia, reaching the city of Athens. When they arrived in Athens, the brothers headed back. Paul stayed in Athens, but told the brothers to tell Silas and Timothy that he wanted them to join him as soon as possible (Acts 17:15).

While Paul waited for Silas and Timothy, Paul’s “spirit was provoked within him” (Acts 17:16) because he saw an abundance of idols in the region.

Paul decided to make the best use of his time and talked with the Jews at the synagogue and preached to many Gentiles in the marketplace (Acts 17:17). Paul also talked with Epicurean and Stoic philosophers (Acts 17:18). They eventually brought Paul to the Areopagus, the court where men discussed philosophy, civics, and religion.

In the court of the Areopagus, Paul preached one of his most famous sermon (Acts 17:22-31). Paul’s sermons included quotes from famous Greek philosophers that they would have been familiar with. This gives us insights into Paul’s knowledge of their culture and insights into Paul’s missiology.

After hearing Paul’s sermon, there were some there who laughed at him, but there were also some who believed the gospel and joined Paul (Acts 17:32-34).

First Visit to Corinth

After leaving Athens, Paul traveled 53 miles southwest to Corinth. By this point in his second missionary journey, Paul had traveled more than 1,500 miles.

The apostle Paul probably arrived in Corinth apx. 8-12 months after the start of the second missionary journey, therefore, it’s likely that he got there sometime late in the year of 51 A.D. (or maybe sometime early in 52 A.D., depending on how we date his departure from Antioch in Syria). Paul stayed in Corinth for a year and a half (Acts 18:11), so Paul was likely in Corinth until the summer or fall of 53 A.D.

Silas and Timothy also rejoined Paul in Corinth.

While in Corinth, Paul met two Jews from Rome, Aquila and Priscilla. Like the apostle Paul, Aquila and Priscilla were also tentmakers. Paul stayed with them and worked while also going to the synagogues on the Sabbath to preach, seeking to convert both Jews and Greeks (Acts 18:1-4).

Paul faced some opposition from Jews in Corinth (Acts 18:5-9), but many people in the city believed anyway. Paul may have been considering leaving the city, but he stayed in Corinth after having received a vision from God that told him that “no one will attack or harm you” (Acts 18:10).

While in Corinth the apostle Paul wrote his letters to the Thessalonians, encouraging the new believers there to stand firm under the pressure and pain of persecution. He gives them instructions on how to live a godly lifestyle and gives doctrinal teaching about the future second coming of Christ.

Paul continued to preach the word of God faithfully for those 18 months. Many were saved and the church was established. But many Jews were upset.

The Jews of Corinth eventually tried to bring the apostle Paul before the Roman proconsul Gallio, who happened to be the older brother of the renowned dramatist and philosopher Seneca (the tutor of Emperor Nero). Gallio refused to even hear their case against Paul and sent them away (Acts 18:12-17).

Paul stayed in Corinth for “many days longer” (Acts 18:18) after being brought before Gallio. He then started his journey back home to Antioch in Syria, but planned to first make a stop in Ephesus. Priscilla and Aquila came with him.

Leaving from Cenchreae

Paul’s crew traveled to the nearby port city of Cenchreae, just eight miles from Corinth. We don’t know how long they stayed in Cenchreae, but they were there long enough for Paul to have his head shaved as part of a vow (Acts 18:18). It’s possible that this stop was very brief, but it’s also possible that they spent some time preaching and ministering there in the city.

There does seem to be some evidence that Paul spent some significant time in Cenchreae. But we cannot be certain. Also, we’re not sure if he spent time there during this second missionary journey or if that happened at a later time during his third missionary journey.

Brief Visit to Ephesus

When Paul arrived in Ephesus, he went into the synagogue to talk with the Jews about Jesus. His visit to Ephesus was brief. They requested that he stay in the city longer. He declined but said, “I will return to you if God wills” (Acts 18:21). Paul made plans to leave, but Priscilla and Aquila stayed in the city.

Paul traveled from Ephesus to Caesarea. Once he was there he visited with the believers in the region and preached the gospel in various towns and places. He briefly visited Jerusalem and then traveled back home to Antioch in Syria.

Paul’s second missionary journey lasted between two and a half years and three years, and likely ended back in Antioch sometime in the fall of 53 A.D. (or maybe early 54 A.D.).

Paul’s Third Missionary Journey

After getting back from his second missionary journey, the apostle Paul stayed Antioch for “some time” (Acts 18:23). Maybe just a few weeks or few months. He then launched his third missionary journey (Acts 18-21).

Paul likely left for his third missionary journey in the spring of 54 A.D. This third missionary journey was probably more than four years long and ended with Paul in Jerusalem in 58 A.D.

Galatia and Phrygia

Paul began his third missionary trip by visiting many of the same locations that he had visited on his first and second missionary journeys. We don’t know his exact route, but it’s likely he began by traveling through the region of Cilicia and through the city of Tarsus, on the way toward Galatia.

He spent several months traveling to the churches throughout the regions of Galatia and Phrygia, “strengthening all the disciples” (18:23). Paul passed through the “inland” route through Asia and traveled west to Ephesus (Acts 19:1).

Three Years in Ephesus

Paul spent three labor-intensive years in Ephesus (Acts 20:31). Paul was likely in Ephesus from the fall of 54 A.D. to the fall of 57 A.D.

Paul’s time in Ephesus was hard. He later says that he experienced many “afflictions” and he wasn’t confident that he would live through this season (2 Cor. 1:6-10). But God did many great things through Paul while he was in Ephesus.

For the first few months of Paul’s ministry in Ephesus, he spent time preaching in the synagogue. That was his focus. However there were many Jews stuck in unbelief, and they said evil things about Paul and the gospel message. So Paul decided to spend the last two and half years of his time in Ephesus preaching in the hall of Tyrannus, instead of the synagogue. He preached in the hall of Tyrannus daily and “all residents of Asia heard the word of the Lord” (Acts 19:10).

During Paul’s ministry, he performed many miracles in the name of Jesus, leading many to believe.

“God was doing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul… even handkerchiefs or aprons that had touched [Paul’s] skin were carried away to the sick, and their diseases left them and the evil spirits came out of them.” —Acts 19:11-12

God-Fearers Received the Holy Spirit

One of the most famous events from Paul’s time in Ephesus was when he corresponded with a group of disciples that had known about John’s baptism (referring to John the Baptist), but they did not know about Jesus (Acts 19:1-3). These types of believers were sometimes referred to as God-fearers.

These God-fearers had previously been taught by a great preacher named Apollos. He had taught them to revere the one true God, the God of Israel. But Apollos himself had not known about Jesus until after he had preached to this particular group of disciples. Apollos was later instructed by Paul’s friends, Priscilla and Aquila (Acts 18:24-28).

Paul taught this particular group about Jesus. They believed and received the Holy Spirit (Acts 19:4-7).

The Sons of Sceva

Another event that the book of Acts highlights, from Paul’s time in Ephesus, is about seven traveling Jewish exorcists, the sons of Sceva. These exorcists came across a demon-possessed man. They attempted to cast-out the demons (Acts 19:11-14). But one of the demons responded to them, “Jesus I know, and Paul I recognize, but who are you?” (Acts 19:15).

The demon-possessed man (under the control of the evil spirits) attacked the seven men and badly beat them (Acts 19:16). This caused many people in the region to respect Paul and his ministry. Many of the magicians in the area repented and burned their magic books (Acts 19:17-19) and “the word of the Lord continued to increase in the region” (Acts 19:20).

Demetrius, Riots, and Leaving Ephesus

Paul was planning to leave Ephesus. However, before he left Ephesus, a silversmith named Demetrius caused trouble. Demetrius made and sold idols. Paul preached against idolatry, so many people stopped buying Demetrius’ idols. This cost him money. Demetrius clearly was not happy.

There were other business owners that were also hurt financially because of Paul’s preaching. Many people had stopped buying their idols as they responded to the gospel. When these merchants got together, they started a massive riot in the city.

Paul wanted to go into the crowd to calm them down, but the disciples would not let him because they knew that Paul could get killed. Some of the Christians went into crowd and calmed the riot. Shortly after these riots, Paul set sail for Macedonia (Acts 19:21-20:1).

The “Painful” Visit

Paul had made plans to travel through Macedonia and then southward into Achaia (1 Cor. 16), which would likely include a visit to the church in Corinth.

At some point, Paul received some correspondence telling him that there were massive problems in the church of Corinth. How did Paul respond when he received this news? There are two main views from scholars.

View #1: Paul immediately changed plans and left from Ephesus to Corinth.

Some scholars argue that as soon as Paul received word that there were big problems in Corinth, Paul changed his plans and decided to visit the Corinthians immediately, skipping his original plans to travel through Macedonia.

Paul probably thought that once he was there in Corinth, that he’d be able to resolve the conflicts. But it seems that the exact opposite happened. Paul would later describe this visit as “painful” (2 Cor. 2:1). During this “painful” visit Paul was deeply hurt by someone in the church (2 Cor. 2:5).

The scholars that embrace View #1 say that Paul then left Corinth after this “painful visit” and headed back to Ephesus for a brief period of time.

It then appears that Paul was contemplating returning to Corinth, yet again, before heading over to Macedonia, but Paul ultimately decided against this additional visit, in order to “spare” the Corinthians (2 Cor. 1:23). Paul defends this decision in 2 Corinthians (vv. 1:12-2:2).

Paul then left from Ephesus to Macedonia (Acts 20:1). However, Paul would eventually make a third visit back to Corinth a few months later toward the end of this journey.

These scholars typically piece it all together like this:

• Paul (while in Ephesus) receives news of trouble in the church of Corinth and changes his plans
• Travels from Ephesus to Corinth for a second visit (known as the “painful” visit)
• Travels from Corinth back to Ephesus
• Contemplates another visit to Corinth, but decides against it
• Experiences the Demetrius-led riots in Ephesus
• Travels onto to Macedonia
• Goes from Macedonia down into Greece
• Eventually makes it back to Corinth (third overall visit)

Scholars that hold to View #1 assert that Paul ultimately made three total visits to Corinth; his first visit (the 18 months he spent there during his second missionary journey), the “painful” visit from Ephesus, and then a third visit toward the end of this third missionary journey.

View #2: Paul did not change his plans, but visited Corinth later.

Scholars that hold to View #2 say that Paul likely received some communication from Corinth (that there were indeed big problems in the church), but these scholars conclude that receiving this communication did not cause Paul to visit Corinth immediately.

The scholars that embrace View #2 argue that Paul did consider changing his plans, which would have consisted of a visit to Corinth before going through Macedonia, but these scholars argue that ultimately Paul decided against going to Corinth immediately, so he stuck to his plans to travel through Macedonia. They interpret Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians (vv. 1:12-2:2) as Paul giving a defense as to why he did not visit them.

These scholars say that eventually Paul did visit Corinth, a few months later, toward the end of his third missionary journey. Scholars that embrace View #2 often say that the word “painful” (2 Cor. 2:1) was not a description of an actual visit that ever happened, but that it was a description of the type of visit that would have ensued if Paul had indeed visited them. He knew that if he did visit, it would have been painful, so he sought to “spare” them (2 Cor. 1:23).

• Paul (while in Ephesus) receives news of trouble in the church of Corinth
• Contemplates an immediate visit to Corinth, but ultimately decides against it
• Goes from Ephesus to Macedonia
• Eventually travels to Corinth for his second visit

Scholars that hold to View #2 assert that Paul ultimately made two total visits to Corinth; his first visit (the 18 months he spent there during his second missionary journey) and then his visit to Corinth toward the end of this third missionary journey.

Leaving For Macedonia and the Sorrowful Letter

Paul leaves Ephesus and heads toward Macedonia. In the book of Acts, Luke gives us no details. He only says that Paul “departed for Macedonia” (Acts 20:1). However, by examining Paul’s letters, we get more insight into these travels.

It appears that, at some point during this journey, Paul had sent Titus to Corinth with a letter (this is sometimes referred to as the “sorrowful letter”). Paul later describes this “sorrowful” letter as having been written with “much affliction and anguish of heart and with many tears” (2 Cor. 2:4).

Some scholars contend that this “sorrowful letter” is the epistle that appears in the New Testament, that we know today as 1 Corinthians. Other scholars argue that the “sorrowful letter” is a separate correspondence that has been lost to history.

Ministry in Troas and Macedonia

On the way to Macedonia, Paul stopped in Troas to preach there and to await Titus’ return from Corinth. While waiting in Troas, Paul had great ministry opportunity. He called it an “open door” (2 Cor. 2:12).

However, when Titus’ return from Corinth appeared to be delayed, Paul was concerned for Titus’ safety. Paul decided to leave Troas and traveled to Macedonia to find Titus (2 Cor. 2:13).

Paul traveled throughout Macedonia, visiting the churches and friends in the region, and encouraging the believers in those churches (Acts 20:2).

Finally, while in Macedonia, Paul was reunited with Titus. Titus reported that many people in the church of Corinth had repented after hearing Paul’s letter (2 Cor. 2:5-11; 7:5-16). Paul was filled with joy.

However, Titus also reported that Paul’s opponents still wielded some influence over a small rebellious faction within the church questioning Paul’s authority and credibility. Paul responded to this faction by writing another letter (most likely from Philippi). This letter is in our New Testament, known today as 2 Corinthians.

Three Months in Greece

After these travels through Macedonia, the apostle Paul eventually traveled southward and finally arrived in Greece (i.e., Achaia). He stayed in the region for three months (Acts 20:2-3), including a lengthy stay in Corinth. This stay likely took place in late 57 A.D. or early 58 A.D.

While in Corinth, Paul wrote his theological masterpiece, the letter to the Romans.

As previously discussed in this article, some scholars believe that this was Paul’s second visit while others argue that this was his third visit.

Cenchreae and Phoebe

It’s also possible that during these three months in Achaia, Paul spent time in the nearby city of Cenchreae. In the book of Romans, Paul mentions Phoebe, a deaconess in the church of Cenchreae (Rom. 16:1).

Phoebe was the person that delivered Paul’s letter to the Romans, and Paul asked them to welcome her, praising her for being a “patron of many” (Rom. 16:2). It’s highly unlikely that Paul would have asked her to make this important delivery for him unless he knew her well and trusted her, pointing to the likelihood that Paul had spent time in Cenchreae before writing that letter.

As previously mentioned in this article, it’s also possible that Paul had spent some time in Cenchrea during his second missionary journey as well as this third missionary journey.

One More Lap Through Macedonia

After his time in Achaia, Paul had originally intended to sail directly to Jerusalem. Those plans were changed, however, when it was discovered that some of Paul’s opponents had been plotted against him. Paul decided to take another lap through Macedonia instead (Acts 20:3).

Paul had many companions with him, from various churches, which gave him protection while he traveled through Macedonia (Acts 20:4-5).

Throughout the spring of 58 A.D., Paul traveled through the Macedonian region, visiting towns such as Berea and Thessalonica, and eventually ending up in Philippi (again) during the “days of unleavened bread” (Acts 20:6).

Eutychus Raises from the Dead at Troas

Paul and his companions then traveled to Troas (Acts 20:5). He ministered there again for a week. It was in Troas that a young man, Eutychus, was listening to one of Paul’s sermons and fell three stories out a window. When they found him he was dead on the ground, but Paul supernaturally restored life to this man (Acts 20:6-12).

After Troas, Paul’s companions went by ship to Assos, but Paul went by foot. Luke doesn’t tell us precisely why Paul did this. But what we do know is that distance from Troas to Assos was more than 30 miles through dangerous and mountainous terrain.

After meeting with his companions in Assos, they began their trek to Jerusalem. They made briefs stops in Chios and Samos, before arriving in Miletus (Acts 20:15).

Goodbye to the Ephesian Elders

It would make sense that Paul would have wanted to stop in Ephesus before heading to Jerusalem. considering the dear friends he had there, but he intentionally passed Ephesus because he wanted to be in Jerusalem by Pentecost, and he knew that traveling through Ephesus, and staying in Asia, would take much more time than he desired. In addition, he knew visiting Ephesus again could cause an uproar (Acts 20:13-16).

However, Paul did want to see his Ephesian friends and ministry partners, so when he arrived in Miletus, Paul called the elders from Ephesus to meet him there (Acts 20:17). In Miletus he encouraged the elders and commended them, letting them know that he would not be seeing them again since he knew that imprisonment and maybe death waited for him in Jerusalem. This was, no doubt, an emotional moment for Paul and his friends.

Paul had spent several years laboring with these men in ministry, and now he was saying goodbye for, what appeared to be, the last time. They wept and prayed together (Acts 20:17-38).

Sailing for Syria

From there, the apostle Paul and his companions then sailed towards Syria. They made brief stops in Cos, Rhodes, and Patara, before finally coming to Syria, landing at Tyre (Acts 21:1-3). Paul and his companions spent seven days with the disciples in Tyre. Through “the Spirit” they told Paul not to go onto Jerusalem, but Paul sensed that Jerusalem was the right place to go (Acts 21:4).

Then Paul and his companions went to Ptolemais (Acts 21:7), spending one day with the believers there, before heading onto Caesarea. There they were greeted by the believers there and they stayed with Philip the evangelist (Acts 21:8). While they were there, a prophet named Agabus came down from Judea and told Paul of the coming affliction he would face in Jerusalem (Acts 21:10-12).

Despite many people again urging Paul not to go to Jerusalem, Paul told them he knew what was instore and that he was ready to die.

Then Paul answered, ‘What are you doing, weeping and breaking my heart? For I am ready not only to be imprisoned but even to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.’ —Acts 21:13

Paul and his companions then traveled to Jerusalem and was greeted by his brothers in Christ who lived there. He told the church there all God had been doing among the Gentiles (Acts 21:14-16). Once there, Paul visited with James and all the elders (Acts 21:17-18). He told them about all that God had done throughout the Gentiles.

Arrested in Caesarea

While in Jerusalem, Paul went to the temple to worship and pray. While he was there, some Jews from Asia Minor stirred up trouble for Paul. They accused him of abandoning the one true God of Israel, of maligning the law of Moses, and of encouraging people to disobey the Jewish laws. Paul (obviously) denied this charge. This confrontation caused a riot in the temple. Paul was dragged out of the temple by a mob. The Romans then intervened and took Paul into custody (Acts 21:27-36).

Paul then addressed the crowd. He made it clear that he loved the law of God and that he had previously been a persecutor of Christians. But that he had become a preacher of the gospel after meeting Jesus on the road to Damascus. This caused another riot to erupt. The Romans then took Paul in their barracks. The Romans were going to flog him but Paul appeals to his own Roman citizenship (Acts 21:37-22:29).

On Trial Before Felix

Paul is taken to the Roman barracks in Caesarea. During this time the Roman governor over the region, Felix, brought Paul to trial. Ananias, the high priest, came from Jerusalem to bring charges against Paul. Felix gave Paul the opportunity to speak before the crowd. Paul shares his story and preaches truth. Felix was afraid of Paul’s message, so he doesn’t seemingly know what to do with Paul (Acts 23:23-35; 24:1-27).

Paul was imprisoned in Caesarea by the Romans for two years, but was given “some freedom” and his friends are allowed to visit him “to take care of his needs” (Acts 24:23).

On Trial Before Festus and Agrippa

When Festus became the governor of the region in 60 A.D. (or maybe earlier in 59 A.D.), he brought Paul back to trial. Some Jews came from Jerusalem again to bring charges against Paul, but they could not prove any of those charges (Acts 25:1-12).

King Herod Agrippa II visited with Festus. Festus asked him to hear Paul’s case. When Paul is called to defend himself, he gives one of his most famous defenses of the gospel and even encourages Agrippa to believe in Jesus (Acts 26:1-29). Agrippa famously responds, “Do you think that in such a short time you can persuade me to be a Christian?” (Acts 26:28). Paul says that he wants everyone to believe.

Festus calls Paul crazy (Acts 26:24), but both he and Agrippa agree that Paul had not done anything that might “deserve death or imprisonment” (Acts 26:31). Paul could have simply “been set free if he had not appealed to Caesar” (Acts 26:32). Paul had appealed to Caesar under his rights as a Roman citizen. This set into the motion the plans for Paul to be transported from Palestine to Rome to face trial in Caesar’s court.

Journey to Rome

After his appeal to Rome, the apostle Paul is transported from Caesarea to Rome by ship under Roman guard (Acts 27:1-28:10). Some Bible scholars allude to this journey as Paul’s fourth missionary journey, but I don’t believe that’s the best or most accurate description for this trip.

Paul’s trip to Rome was tumultuous, filled with difficulties, including a shipwreck that caused him to be deserted on the island of Malta for three months. He also consistently faced belligerent resistance from people that opposed the gospel.

Paul and his companions eventually made it to Rome, sometime around 61 A.D. (or maybe somewhat earlier). When Paul arrived in Rome, he was placed under house arrest for two years.

Paul lived in a rented house where he served his house arrest. There he is able to visit with friends and preach the gospel to those who visit. During this time he also writes several letters that are now in the New Testament, including Philippians, Ephesians, Colossians, and Philemon.

The book of Acts ends there, with Paul under house arrest in Rome (Acts 28:11-31).

Paul’s Fourth Missionary Journey

The fourth missionary journey is not outlined in the narratives of Scripture. And there are some scholars that question whether such a journey ever really happened (we’ll cover that a bit more later in this article).

We don’t have a clear picture of what happened next in Paul’s life, after he was released from house arrest. But by carefully examining Paul’s epistles, I’m confident we can piece-it-together.

The early church father and historian Eusebius (writing in the 4th century) recorded that the most prominent church tradition had been that Paul was released from Roman house arrest and then re-arrested several years. According to this tradition, Paul’s second arrest eventually led to his martyrdom under the direction of Emperor Nero (see H.E. 2.22.6 ).

Also, Paul’s later letters (1 & 2 Timothy and Titus), commonly referred to as the Pastoral Epistles, are clearly written after the events of the book of Acts. In those letters Paul makes comments about his travels and plans. Paul is likely released from house arrest sometime around 63 A.D.

During his house arrest in Rome, Paul was clearly making plans to travel eastward. He asks Philemon to prepare a guest room for him (Philemon 22) and tells the Philippians that he intends to visit them (Phil. 2:24). Paul doesn’t strike me as the type of guy that would make plans in vain. Paul anticipated his release from house arrest.

These plans to go east make perfect sense. Paul’s habit was to go back and encourage the churches that he had previously established. That’s what he’d done on previous journeys.

Then, in 2 Timothy, written much later in life, during Paul’s second imprisonment, Paul mentions and alludes to people and moments that are connected to his post-Roman arrest ministry travels through Asia. He’s sort of looking back on past events and correspondences. Paul mentions:

• Having a significant dispute with some believers in Asia, including Phygelus and Hermogenes (2 Tim. 1:15)
• Receiving help from Onesiphorus (2 Tim. 1:18)
• Having been with Carpus at Troas (2 Tim 4:13-14)
• Being confronted by Alexander the coppersmith (2 Tim. 4:14)
• Needing to leave Trophimus in Miletus because he was ill (2 Tim 4:20)

All of these events happened after Paul’s release from Roman house arrest.

Paul says in 2 Timothy 4:20 that “Erastus remained at Corinth.” This is a clear statement that Paul had been in Corinth; he knew Erastus was there because he had first-hand knowledge, having recently visited the city.

In Titus 3:12, Paul invites Titus to join Paul in Nicopolis. Paul tells Titus that he plans on spending the winter in Nicopolis, a city in Achaia. Clearly, when Paul writes the letter to Titus he is already in Achaia or somewhere very close, hoping for Titus to meet him there.

In Paul’s letter to Titus, he alludes to having been in Crete and having left Titus in charge to help those churches flourish.

A few scholars have argued that Paul did ministry in Crete when he was shipwrecked there. Paul had been briefly shipwrecked in Crete while traveling from Caesarea to Rome, before his Roman house arrest (Acts 27).

However, Paul and the men from the shipwreck were in Crete just a short while. As we examine the events of the shipwreck, as they are described in the book of Acts, we see that Paul would not likely have had the opportunity to establish churches in the region during such a short period. Also, they didn’t travel throughout the island at all.

What seems much more likely is that Paul eventually made it back to the island of Crete, spend time preaching, establishing churches throughout the region, and that upon his departure Paul left Titus there to “complete [their] work there and appoint elders in each town” (Titus 1:5).

At the beginning of 1 Timothy Paul says “when I was going to Macedonia” (1 Timothy 1:3). When we examine this letter, we get the sense that he’s referring to events in the not-too-distant past. Seems likely Paul is referring to the moment when he had traveling to Macedonia after being released from Roman house arrest. After his time spent in Macedonia, he may have headed back to the church in Ephesus, which he asserted was his plan (1 Timothy).

Doubts about the Fourth Journey

There are clearly some comments in Paul’s letters that do not easily square with the events of the book of Acts, which means that those comments in his letters point to some missionary work that happened after Paul’s Roman house arrest.

However, a few scholars have argued that there’s significant (enough) overlap in the locations, types of events, and even the people mentioned during Paul’s first three journeys, therefore it’s hard to say for sure—they claim it’s possible that much of those things that do not seem to square with the events of the book of Acts can still potentially be things that happened on one of his first three missionary journeys.

Also, some scholars have sought to remind us that the apostle Paul spent long periods of time in some locations (like 18 months in Corinth and 3 years in Ephesus), and they’ve asserted it’s possible that many unrecorded things may have happened during those long stays, implying that those longer stays in those locations could account for some of the comments in Paul’s epistles.

These scholars claim there’s so much that we do not know about those time periods, that it’s entirely possible all of the events alluded to by Paul, in his own letters, took place during his first three journeys.

I happen to be confident that Paul did indeed take a fourth missionary journey, after his release from his Roman house arrest. I think that’s the best interpretation of the data we have. However, I also realize that there are some good New Testament scholars that don’t find the evidence as compelling as I do.

Potential Travel to Spain

Did Paul ever make it to Spain? We know from Scripture that the apostle Paul had a desire to preach in Spain (Rom. 15:22-29). After being released from Roman house arrest, he could have easily sailed westward.

Clement of Rome (writing in 95 A.D.) says that Paul had traveled and preached in “the farthest limits of the West” (1 Clement 5:5-7). This sort of language could have described a location west of Italy, such as Gaul or Britannia, but most scholars seem to think this describes Spain. However, it is also possible that Clement was speaking more broadly (or generically), referring to Paul traveling far westward from his home region, going from Palestine through much of the heart of the Roman Empire and eventually all the way to Rome. This latter interpretation seems odd to me.

The Muratorian fragment (written in apx. 170 A.D.), seems to affirm Paul’s missionary journey to Spain too, but some scholars question this; just because someone in the mid-to-late second century believed it doesn’t necessarily equate to strong evidence. However, this shows that church tradition was handing this down through the generations.

Paul’s missionary trip to Spain is also mentioned by Cyril of Jerusalem (313-386) and John Chrysostom (347-407).

There may not seem to be many significant (quality) pieces of evidence that corroborate the idea that Paul made it all the way to Spain, and there are not any comments in Paul’s later letters that point to him ever making it to Spain either. However, these extrabiblical evidences seem compelling. It’s possible that a trip to Spain may have been the first leg of Paul’s fourth missionary journey.

Paul Beheaded by Nero

In his second letter to Timothy, Paul mentions his “first defense” and says he was “delivered from the lion’s mouth” (2 Tim. 4:16-17). Most biblical scholars believe this is a reference to the first time he was in Caesar’s court, defending himself, eventually leading to his Roman house arrest (Acts 28).

Paul was released from his first Roman arrest, but there wouldn’t be a second release. Paul eventually ended up back in Rome. The second time, it wasn’t house arrest. It was a real Roman jail. This was most likely part of Nero’s persecution of Christians in the mid 60s. This was one of the most brutal times of persecution in Christian history.

When much of the city of Rome burndown in 64 A.D., Emperor Nero blamed the Christians. The emperor later requested that the apostle Paul be arrested and chained. It appears that Paul was arrested somewhat abruptly and unexpectedly, evidenced by the fact that he was not able to secure his cloak and his Old Testament parchments; Paul later requested that these be brought to him (2 Tim. 4).

Paul likely penned 2 Timothy during this second Roman imprisonment. Paul was beheaded shortly after he wrote 2 Timothy. Some scholars have concluded that Paul was killed as early as 64 A.D., but it is more likely that he was executed sometime between 67 A.D. and 68 A.D.

The legacy of the apostle Paul is second to none in Christian history. He is the greatest missionary evangelist the world has ever seen. Paul was a man on mission, focused on spreading the gospel and planting churches.

Paul was a man so impacted by Jesus, so compelled by God’s love, so humbled that the Messiah would choose him to be an ambassador, that he was willing to endure much pain and hardship to see others come to faith in Jesus Christ.

Featured illustration of Paul in prison courtesy of britannica.com. Images of the jails in Philippi and Caesarea courtesy of missionbibleclass.org. Illustration of Eutychus’ death courtesy of gfbtkingdomkids.com.

Recommended Resources:

“Handbook on Acts and Paul’s Letters” (by Thomas R. Schreiner)

“Paul: A Biography” (by N.T. Wright)

“Acts: An Expositional Commentary” (by R.C. Sproul)

“Dictionary of Paul and His Letters” (more than 100 contributors, edited by Gerald Hawthorne, Ralph Martin, and Daniel Reid)

Kenneth E. Ortiz (Th.M.) is Lead Pastor of Horizon City Church . He has 15+ years of vocational ministry experience. Kenneth previously served as a professor at Bethlehem College  and adjunct faculty at Spurgeon College . Kenneth lives in Minneola, FL with his wife Malaina, they have two kids.

Paul’s Missionary Journeys: A Map-Based Study of His Travels

The Apostle Paul is one of the most important figures in the New Testament, and his missionary journeys played a key role in spreading Christianity throughout the Mediterranean world. By exploring these journeys through maps and geography, we can gain a deeper understanding of Paul's travels and the impact they had on the early Christian church.

Paul's first missionary journey began in the city of Antioch, in modern-day Turkey. From there, he traveled to Cyprus and then on to cities in modern-day Turkey, including Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe. Paul faced many challenges during this journey, including opposition from local Jews and persecution from Roman authorities. Despite these challenges, Paul's preaching was successful in converting many people to Christianity.

Paul's second missionary journey took him to Greece, where he traveled to cities like Athens and Corinth. He also returned to some of the cities he visited on his first journey, such as Philippi and Thessalonica. During this journey, Paul faced many challenges, including opposition from local authorities and a split with his fellow missionary, Barnabas.

Paul's third missionary journey was focused on strengthening the churches he had previously established. He traveled to cities in modern-day Turkey, Greece, and Macedonia, including Ephesus, Thessalonica, and Corinth. During this journey, Paul continued to face opposition and persecution, but his preaching was successful in converting many people to Christianity.

In addition to these three journeys, Paul also traveled to Rome as a prisoner, where he was eventually executed for his beliefs. By exploring Paul's journeys through maps and geography, we can gain a deeper understanding of the challenges he faced and the impact his preaching had on the early Christian church.

Through mapping and exploring Paul's journeys, we can gain a better understanding of the history and culture of the Mediterranean world during the first century AD. We can also gain a deeper appreciation for the impact that Paul's preaching had on the early Christian church, and the lasting legacy of his work. Whether we are religious or not, studying Paul's journeys through maps is a fascinating way to learn about the early history of Christianity and the world in which it developed.

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Paul’s Journeys

Paul traveled over 10,000 miles proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ. His journeys on land and sea took him primarily through present day Israel, Syria, Turkey, and Greece. Paul walked the roads built by the Romans to facilitate their control over their Empire. Travelers took to the roads in as large a group as they could find. There was constant danger of bandits. They hurried to get to the next wayside inn for shelter and whatever food might be available.

Traveling by sea was not comfortable. There were no cabins for travelers. They had to find a place on the deck exposed to sun, winds, and rain. Paul’s trade as a tentmaker probably held him in good stead, as he could fashion shelter for himself and his companions on the deck.

In 2 Corinthians 11: 25 – 27 Paul describes some of the dangers of traveling.

25 … three times I was shipwrecked, I passed a night and a day on the deep; 26 on frequent journeys, in dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my own race, dangers from Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers at sea, … 27 in toil in hardship, through many sleepless nights, through hunger and thirst, through frequent fastings, through cold and exposure.

[Click on any of the images below to view a larger version.]

Paul’s First Journey

In response to a call of the Holy Spirit, the church in Antioch chose Barnabas and Paul to proclaim the gospel. They first traveled to Cyprus, then to Antioch in Pisidia, a city in present day west central Turkey. They then went to Iconium, Lystra and Derba. They then returned through Perga to Antioch. When they stopped in each city, they went to the synagogues to preach the coming of Jesus Christ, the messiah as the fulfillment of the promises made in the Old Testament.

Paul’s Second Journey

Barnabas and Paul separated over a disagreement (Acts 15: 36 – 40). Barnabas returned to Cyprus. From Jerusalem Paul went overland to revisit the churches in Lystra and Iconium. On this trip Paul had a dream calling him to bring the gospel to Macedonia. He crossed the Aegean Sea to present day Greece. He traveled down the east coast of Greece. Stopping in Athens, Paul attempted to proclaim the gospel in Athens, where he was met with polite indifference (Acts 17: 16 – 32). He then went to Corinth where he established a church that would give him both great joy and pain (see 1 and 2 Corinthians). Traveling back through Ephesus where his successful teaching won many to Christ to the annoyance of the local charm dealers (Acts 19: 21 – 40). Paul returned to Antioch by way of Jerusalem.

Paul’s Third Journey

On his third and longest journey Paul went overland through present day Turkey then across the Aegean Sea to Greece. This was a pastoral journey revisiting the churches he had founded to strengthen them and give them further instruction. While in Ephesus Paul heard a prophecy that should he return to Jerusalem he would be imprisoned. The churches he visited pleaded to him not to go. But Paul felt called by Christ to continue to meet whatever God willed for him.

Paul’s Journey to Rome

In Jerusalem Paul was arrested and accused of violating the sacred grounds of the Temple. (Acts 21: 27 – 36). He was saved from being beaten to death when the Roman tribune intervened and brought him to the barracks. In defending himself Paul claimed his right as a Roman citizen to appeal his case to the Emperor. He was then sent to Rome to have his case resolved.

Luke ends the Acts of the Apostles with Paul’s arrival in Rome. From Rome the gospel would be proclaimed throughout the world.

Related Links

The spirit of truth, a brief look at st. paul’s life and teachings, may crowning, pope john paul ii and his message of forgiveness, about the ten commandments.

Apostle Paul's First Missionary Journey Map

Late spring 44 a.d. to fall 46 a.d..

In the late Spring of 44 A.D. the brethren (Acts 13:1 - 3) ordain Paul and Barnabas as apostles. From Antioch, the two apostles and John (surnamed Mark) begin Paul's first missionary journey (Acts 13:4 - 52, 14:1 - 25).

Apostle Paul and company travel to Seleucia then sail to Salamis, the principle city and seaport of the island of Cyprus. Cyprus is where Barnabas was born and raised (Acts 4:36). In Salamis, they preach the gospel in several synagogues. They then cross the island by foot and arrive at Paphos.

While in Paphos, the island's Roman governor requests the two evangelists meet with him so that he can personally hear the word of God. Accompanying the governor to the meeting is a sorcerer and false prophet known as Elymas the magician. Elymas resists the gospel and tries to prevent the governor from accepting the truth of God (Acts 13:6 - 8).

The Apostle Paul perceives Elymas' intentions and responds immediately. Elymas immediately goes blind and is unable to see for a period. The governor, astonished at what he sees, believes the gospel (Acts 13:11 - 12).

Mark Leaves the Team

Apostle Paul, Barnabas, and Mark soon board a ship and sail to Perga. Mark then abruptly leaves the group and returns to Jerusalem (Acts 13:13). The issue of Mark suddenly abandoning the first missionary journey will be the catalyst for the separation of the evangelists before Paul's next journey (Acts 15:36 - 41). They leave Perga and travel to Antioch in Pisidia (also called Pisidian Antioch, to distinguish it from the Antioch located in Syria).

Thrown Out of Antioch

In Antioch, the evangelists visit a local synagogue where the apostle preaches a powerful message (Acts 13:16 - 41). After the Jews leave the synagogue, the Gentiles (proselytes) in the audience ask him to speak the next Sabbath day. Then, after the dismissal of the synagogue, many Jews and proselytes follow him and Barnabas in order to hear more about the gospel. On the next Sabbath, almost the entire city comes to hear the word of God (Acts 13:42 - 44).

Some Jews, however, envious of the large crowd drawn by apostle Paul, begin to speak against the gospel. Their rejection of Jesus as the Messiah means that he and Barnabas will now primarily preach only to Gentiles (Acts 13:45 - 47).

As the word of the Lord spreads through the entire region, some Jews begin a campaign to convince important men and women of the city to be against him and Barnabas. Persecution soon sets in and culminates with both men expelled from the area.

Arriving in Iconium Paul speaks at a local synagogue. His preaching convinces many Jews and Greeks to become believers. Jews who do not believe in what he teaches, however, stir others up against the gospel. Although Paul performs signs and wonders to confirm what he says, the city still wonders whether he and Barnabas are true servants of God.

In a short time, some Jewish leaders, along with other Jews and Gentiles, conspire to have the two apostles stoned to death. After discovering a threat against their lives, the evangelists flee the city to Lystra.

But the unbelieving Jews stirred up the Gentiles and poisoned their minds against the brethren. For this reason, they (Paul and Barnabas) stayed a long time, speaking boldly in the Lord, Who bore witness to the message of His grace . . . But the multitude of the city was divided; and some were with the Jews, and some were with the apostles. And when an assault was about to be made by both the Gentiles and the Jews with their rulers to insult and stone them, they became aware of it; so they fled to Lyconia . . . (Acts 14:2 - 6, HBFV).

Worshipped Like Gods

In Lystra Paul meets a man born crippled and never able to walk. He perceives, after the man hears his message, that he has enough faith for God to heal him. When Paul commands the crippled man to stand, he miraculously leaps up and is able to walk (Acts 14:6 - 10)!

The response to Paul's amazing miracle was immediate and unexpected. The two evangelists tear their clothes in amazement! They are barely able to keep the crowd from sacrificing to them as if they were Greek gods!

But when the apostles, Barnabas and Paul, heard this, they ripped their own garments in disbelief, and rushed into the multitude, shouting out and saying, "Men, why are you doing these things? We also are men, with the same nature as you, and we have been preaching the gospel to you, so that you will turn from these vanities to the living God . . . " And even by saying these things, they could hardly keep the multitudes from sacrificing to them (Acts 14:14 - 15, 18, HBFV).

Surviving a Stoning

In a short time, Jews from Pisidian Antioch and Iconium arrive in Lystra and succeed in turning people against the two evangelists. After being stoned, some people drag Paul's dead body out of the city. Some believers find his body and as they stand around it, he comes back to life! Amazingly, He re-enters the city.

Then Jews from Antioch and Iconium came there; and after persuading the multitudes, they stoned Paul and dragged him outside the city, supposing that he was dead. But while the disciples were standing around him, he arose; and he went into the city with them. And the next day, he departed with Barnabas to Derbe (Acts 14:19 - 20, HBFV).

After leaving Lystra Paul and Barnabas travel to Derbe where they preach the gospel. They then retrace their steps through Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch in order to strengthen the brethren. From Pisidian Antioch they travel to Perga and then to Attalia, where they catch a ship to sail back to where their missionary journey started (Acts 14:21 - 26).

Fall 46 A.D. to Late Summer 49 A.D.

Paul and Barnabas stay in Antioch for almost three years, from the Fall of 46 A.D. to the late summer of 49 A.D. (Acts 14:26 - 28).

Free Maps and Timeline of St. Paul's Journeys and Writings

Since you still have time to register for our “Seminar at Sea” — our St. Paul Cruise in a little over a month along with Fr. Larry Richards …

… I thought I would share this wonderful website with multiple maps from the life of St. Paul .

They help tie things together with his letters, and his missionary journeys. Click here to access this helpful site.

You can also download my FREE St. Paul Timeline here . Enjoy!

… and then to the Island of Malta where Paul suffered shipwreck and was bitten by a serpent. I have a week of talks there on apologetics adn defending the Catholic Faith.

For Fr. Larry’s humorous video invitation click on the image below or visit https://vimeo.com/131207320

This Post Has One Comment

Love your timeline! Esther pointed me to you and I have addd a link to your timeline from my Links for the Pauline Year. Thanks and enjoy your cruise!

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Maps of Paul's Journeys

All maps are courtesy of Logos Bible Software

• Paul's Early Travels
• Paul's First and 2nd Missionary Journeys (Click here for an intro/overview)
• Paul's Third Missionary Journey
• Paul's Travel to Rome

including the New Testament Letters: The Letters are not in their normal New Testament Order, but in the date order generally agreed by most scholars. Paul's Letters are integrated into the story of the Acts of the Apostles at the points in his journeys when they are generally believed to have been written  

SETTING THE SCENE

Map 12. The Travel Areas of the Acts of the Apostles; also where Paul Sent his Letters (city names in "stamped envelopes", the one province "unstamped")

Map 13. Some of the Many Centres of Jewish Population Outside Israel - the "Dispersion" or "Diaspora"

THE FIRST MISSIONARY JOURNEYS

Map 14. The Earliest Missionary Journeys - Philip the Evangelist

Taken from Acts 8:1b-40 - On that very day (the death of Stephen) a great storm of persecution burst upon the Church in Jerusalem [1]. All Church members except the apostles were scattered over the countryside of Judea [2] and Samaria [3]. While reverent men buried Stephen and mourned deeply over him, Saul (later the apostle Paul) harassed the Church bitterly. ..... Those who were dispersed by this action went throughout the country, preaching the good news of the message as they went. Philip (the "deacon" and Evangelist) , for instance, went down to the city of Samaria [4] and preached Christ to the people there. (Philip continues preaching in Samaria; the Apostles Peter and John join him there before returning to Jerusalem; Philip is then directed to another task ....) But an angel of the Lord said to Philip, "Get up and go south down the road which runs from Jerusalem to Gaza [5], out in the desert." Philip arose and began his journey. At this very moment an Ethiopian eunuch , a minister and in fact the treasurer to Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, was on his way home after coming to Jerusalem to worship. He was sitting in his carriage reading the prophet Isaiah. (Philip explains a prophecy of Isaiah, preaches the Gospel of Jesus to him, and at the eunuch's request baptises him ....) When they came up out of the water the Spirit of the Lord took Philip away suddenly and the eunuch saw no more of him, but proceeded on his journey with a heart full of joy. Philip found himself at Azotus [6] and as he passed through the countryside he went on telling the good news in all the cities until he came to Caesarea [7] (where we meet him 25 years later during a visit by Paul).

Map 15. The Conversion and Earliest Journeys of Saul (Paul) of Tarsus c AD34-45 Taken from Acts 9:1-30 - But Saul (of Tarsus [1] ), still breathing murderous threats against the disciples of the Lord, went to the High Priest (in Jerusalem [2] ) and begged him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus [3], so that if he should find there any followers of the Way (of Jesus Christ) , whether men or women, he could bring them back to Jerusalem as prisoners ..... Damascus - Capital of modern Syria. "The Pearl of the East", an ancient and important city of Syria, standing at over 2,000 feet in a large oasis. One of the city-states of The Decapolis, and a great centre of trade. Tarsus - Capital of Cilicia in Asia Minor, and Paul's home. A Greek-speaking, Roman province in south-eastern Asia Minor, an important city and major centre of learning. Tarsus was on the highway linking Syrian Antioch and the rest of the Middle East, with the provinces of Galatia and Asia to the west.

On the road to Damascus Jesus appears in a vision to Saul who is blinded, and directs him to continue his journey to Damascus where he is healed and baptised.

According to Paul's own account in his Letter to the Galatians 1:17, he then went away to Arabia [4] , before returning to Damascus [5]

In the Acts account, Paul immediately starts proclaiming Jesus in the synagogues of Damascus , before being forced to escape to Jerusalem

(Acts continues) When Saul reached Jerusalem [6], he tried to join the disciples. But they were all afraid of him, finding it impossible to believe that he was a disciple. Barnabas, however, took him by the hand and introduced him to the apostles, and explained to them how he had seen the Lord on his journey, and how the Lord had spoken to him. He further explained how Saul had spoken in Damascus with the utmost boldness in the name of Jesus. After that Saul joined with them in all their activities in Jerusalem, preaching fearlessly in the name of the Lord. He used to talk and argue with the Greek-speaking Jews, but they made several attempts on his life. When the brothers realised this they took him down to Caesarea [7] and sent him off to Tarsus [8]

(.... after which he preaches in Cilicia [9] and Syria [9] , Galatians 1:21. Sometime later still, Paul is brought from Tarsus by Barnabas to work in Syrian Antioch [10] , Acts 11:25 ).

Map 16. The Earliest Missionary Journeys - the Apostle Peter

Taken from Acts 9:31-10:48 - The whole Church throughout Judea [1], Galilee [2] and Samaria [3] now enjoyed a period of peace. ...... Now it happened that Peter, in the course of travelling (from Jerusalem [4] ) about among them all, came to God's people living at Lydda [5]. There he found a man called Aeneas who had been bed-ridden for eight years through paralysis. Peter said to him "Aeneas, Jesus Christ heals you! Get up and make your bed." He got to his feet at once. And all those who lived in Lydda and (the Plain of ) Sharon saw him and turned to the Lord. Then there was a woman in Joppa [6] (who is also healed). .... There was a man in Caesarea [7] by the name of Cornelius, a (Gentile) centurion in what was called the Italian Regiment. He was a deeply religious man who reverenced God, as did all his household. He made many charitable gifts to the people and was a real man of prayer. (He is told by an angel to send for Peter, who still in Joppa receives a vision showing that Christ is for all men - Jew and Gentile. Peter welcomes Cornelius' messengers ...) On the next day he got up and set out with them, accompanied by some of the brothers from Joppa, arriving at Caesarea on the day after that. (Peter teaches Cornelius, his family and friends about Jesus, they receive the Holy Spirit, and he baptises them. Peter later visits Jerusalem [8] where he explains his reasons for teaching and baptising Gemtiles) * * * * * Apart from his journeys with Jesus, and the visit with the apostle John to Samaria after the work of Philip the Evangelist, Peter can be linked to three other locations: (1) According to Galatians 2:11, he visited Syrian Antioch ; (2) He may have visited Corinth according to 1 Corinthians 1:12 as he was certainly known there; (3) Traditionally he lived in Rome, and was martyred there in c AD64 or 67

Map 17. The Church in Syrian Antioch Grows and Gains Gentile Converts

Taken from Acts 11:19-30 - Now those who had been dispersed by the persecution which arose over Stephen travelled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus and ( Syrian ) Antioch, giving the message as they went to Jews only. However, among their number were natives of Cyprus [1] and Cyrene [2], and these men, on their arrival at (Syrian) Antioch [3], proclaimed their message to the (Gentile) Greeks as well, telling them the good news of the Lord Jesus. The hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number believed and turned to the Lord. News of these things came to the ears of the Church in Jerusalem [4] and they sent Barnabas to ( Syrian ) Antioch [5]. Syrian Antioch - present day Antakya in southern Turkey. This Antioch was known as "Queen of the East", capital of the province of Syria, and the third largest city in the Roman Empire after Rome and Alexandria. With a population of over half a million people, it was located on the River Orontes, and a junction of trade routes between East and West. It should not to be confused with Pisidian Antioch, a Phrygian town in the Roman province of Galatia -

.... Then Barnabas went to Tarsus [6] to find Saul (Paul) . When he found him he brought him up to Antioch [7]. Then for a whole year they met together with the Church and taught a large crowd. It was in Antioch that the disciples were first given the name of "Christians".

During this period some prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch. One of them by the name of Agabus stood up and foretold by the Spirit that there was to be a great famine throughout the world. (This actually happened in the days of Claudius). The disciples determined to send relief to the brothers in Judea, each contributing as he was able. This they did, sending their contribution to the elders there (in Jerusalem [8]) personally through Barnabas and Saul (who later return to Syrian Antioch [9] ).

The Letter of James is generally believed to have been the first Letter of the New Testament to be written, probably some time before the Council at Jerusalem (see Map following)

PAUL'S MISSIONARY JOURNEYS and LETTERS

Map 18. Paul's First Missionary Journey, with Barnabas to Cyprus and Asia Minor c AD46-48 and Its Sequel, the Council at Jerusalem c AD49 Taken from Acts 13:4-14:28 - So these two (Barnabas and Paul) .... went down (from Syrian Antioch [1] ) to Seleucia [2] and from there sailed off to Cyprus. On their arrival at Salamis [3] they began to proclaim God's message in the Jewish synagogues, having John (Mark) as their assistant. As they made their way through the island as far as Paphos [4] they came across a man named Bar-Jesus, a Jew who was both a false prophet and a magician. This man was attached to Sergius Paulus, the proconsul (or Roman governor of the island province of Cyprus) , who was himself a man of intelligence. (Barnabas and Paul are summoned before Sergius, clash with Bar-Jesus, and Sergius Paulus becomes a believer.) (Barnabas and Paul then sail to Asia Minor and continue on to Galatia ) Galatia - A large Roman province in Asia Minor, extending almost from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean through the mountains and plains of modern central Turkey. Settled by Gauls from central Asia in the 3rd century BC, Galatia included the Phrygian town of Pisidian Antioch; not to be confused with Syrian Antioch

Then Paul and his companions set sail from Paphos and went to Perga [5] in Pamphylia. There John (Mark) left them and turned back to Jerusalem, but they continued their journey through Perga to the Antioch in Pisidia [6]. They went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day and took their seats. (On this occasion the Gospel of Jesus is well received. A week later it is rejected and Paul and Barnabas are expelled from the district ...)

..... and went on to Iconium [7]. And the disciples continued to be full of joy and the Holy Spirit. Much the same thing happened at Iconium. ..... But when a hostile movement arose from both Gentiles and Jews in collaboration with the authorities to insult and stone them, they got to know about it, fled to the Lycaonian cities of Lystra [8] and Derbe [9], and the surrounding countryside - and from there they continued to proclaim the Gospel.

(In Lystra, they heal a crippled man and are nearly worshipped as gods)

Then some Jews arrived from Antioch and Iconium and after turning the minds of the people against Paul they stoned him and dragged him out of the city thinking he was dead. But while the disciples were gathered in a circle round him, Paul got up and walked back to the city. And the very next day he went out with Barnabas to Derbe, and when they had preached the Gospel to that city and made many disciples, they turned back to Lystra [10], Iconium [11] and Antioch [12]. ...... They then crossed Pisidia and arrived in Pamphylia. They proclaimed their message in Perga [13] and then went down to Attalia [14]. From there they sailed back to Antioch (in Syria) [15] .... When they arrived there they called the Church together and reported to them how greatly God had worked with them and how he had opened the door of faith for the Gentiles. And here at Antioch they spent a considerable time with the disciples.

Map 19. Paul's Second Missionary Journey, with Silas returning to Asia Minor and on into Europe c AD49-52 Taken from Acts 15:40-18:23a - ..... Paul chose Silas and set out on his journey (from Syrian Antioch [1] ) ..... He travelled through Syria [2] and Cilicia [3] and strengthened the churches. He also went to Derbe [4] and Lystra [5]. At Lystra there was a disciple by the name of Timothy..... (who) was held in high regard by the brothers at Lystra and Iconium, and Paul wanted to take him on as his companion. ..... As they went on their way through the cities they passed on to them for their observance the decisions which had been reached by the apostles and elders in (the Council at) Jerusalem. ... They made their way through Phyrgia [6] and Galatia [7], but the Holy Spirit prevented them from speaking God's message in Asia. When they came to Mysia [8] they tried to enter Bithynia, but again the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them. So they passed by Mysia and came down to Troas [9], where one night Paul had a vision of a Macedonian man standing and appealing to him in the words: "Come over to Macedonia and help us!" .... So we set sail from Troas and ran a straight course to (the island of) Samothrace [10], and on the following day to Neapolis [11]. From there we went to Philippi [12], a Roman garrison-town and the chief city in that part of Macedonia. We spent some days in Philippi .... Philippi - The ruins of Philippi are near modern Kavalla in northern Greece. It was then a city of Macedonia founded by Philip, the father of Alexander the Great. A Roman colony and military centre, governed directly from Rome, Philippi was situated on the Via Egnatian, the highway running east and west linking Rome to Byzantium (Istanbul):

(Here Paul and Silas, Timothy and sometimes Luke bring the Gospel to Lydia from Thyatira , are in conflict over a girl with a spirit of clairvoyance, are beaten and imprisoned, survive a destructive earthquake and convert their gaoler. The magistrates release them, but on learning that Paul is a Roman citizen, apologize to them and .....) after taking them outside the prison, requested them to leave the city (of Philippi ) .....

Next day they journeyed through Amphipolis [13] and Apollonia [14] and arrived at Thessalonica [15]. Here there was a synagogue of the Jews which Paul entered, following his usual custom.

Thessalonica - Modern Salonika or Thessalonika. A free city, capital of the Roman province of Macedonia in northern Greece. Thessalonica was a major port, and like Philippi, located on the east-west Egnatian highway, and thus an important centre of trade by land and by sea:

(The teaching of Paul and Silas converts a large number of the people, but also infuriates many Jews. The city is in uproar .....) Without delay the brothers despatched Paul and Silas off to Beroea (or Berea) [16] that night. On their arrival there they went to the Jewish synagogue. The Jews proved more generous-minded than those in Thessalonica, for they accepted the message most eagerly ...... But when the Jews at Thessalonica found out that God's message had been proclaimed by Paul at Beroea as well, they came there too to cause trouble and spread alarm among the people. The brothers at Beroea then sent Paul off at once to make his way to the sea-coast ( near Beroea ) [16], but Silas and Timothy remained there.

The men who accompanied Paul took him as far as Athens [17] and returned with instructions for Silas and Timothy (still in Berea ) to rejoin Paul as soon as possible.

Paul had some days to wait at Athens for Silas and Timothy to arrive (and while there, addresses some of the many philosophers of Athens, most of whom reject his teaching ...)

Before long Paul left Athens and went on to Corinth [18] where he found a Jew called Aquila, a native of Pontus. This man had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla because (the emperor) Claudius had issued a decree that all Jews should leave Rome. .... They all worked together, for their trade was tent-making. Every Sabbath Paul used to speak in the synagogue trying to persuade both Jews and Greeks. By the time Silas and Timothy arrived from Macedonia Paul was completely absorbed in preaching the message, showing the Jews as clearly as he could that Jesus is Christ. However, when they turned against him and abused him he shook his garments at them, and said, "Your blood be on your heads! From now on I go with a perfectly clear conscience to the Gentiles."

Corinth - The original Corinth is near modern Corinth in southern Greece. An ancient Greek city, and chief town of the Roman province of Achaia, it was at this time governed by proconsul Gallio. Located near the narrow strip of land separating the Adriatic from the Aegean Seas, and through which ran the north-south highway linking the rest of Greece with the southern Peloponnesus, Corinth was a vital centre of commerce. A cosmopolitan city with the temple of Aphrodite - goddess of love and fertility - and with two nearby ports including Cenchrea, Corinth was well known for its sexual immorality -

Then he left them and went to the house of a man called Titius Justus, a man who reverenced God and whose house was next door to the synagogue. .... Paul settled down there (in Corinth ) for eighteen months (his second longest recorded stay in a city during his three Missionary Journeys) and taught them God's message.

Then, while Gallio was governor of Achaia the Jews banded together to attack Paul .... (but Gallio) flatly refuse (s) to be judge in these matters. ..... Paul stayed for some time (in Corinth) after this incident

........ and then (Paul) took leave of the brothers and sailed for Syria, taking Priscilla and Aquila with him. At Cenchrea [19] he had his hair cut short, for he had taken a solemn vow. They all arrived at Ephesus [20] and there Paul left Aquila and Priscilla, but he himself went into the synagogue and debated with the Jews. When they asked him to stay longer he refused, bidding them farewell with the words, "If if is God's will I will come back to you again" (which he does on his Third Missionary Journey) . Then he set sail from Ephesus and went down to Caesarea [21]. Here he disembarked and after paying his respects to the Church in Jerusalem [22], he went down to Antioch [23]. He spent some time there before he left (on his Third Journey) ......

Map 20. Paul Writes his Two Letters to the Thessalonians (during his Second Journey)

Map 21. Paul's Third Missionary Journey, returning to Asia Minor and Greece c AD53-58 Taken from Acts 18:23b-20:3a - (After spending some time in Syrian Antioch [1] , Paul starts on his Third Missionary Journey, and ....) proceeded to visit systematically throughout Galatia [2] and Phyrgia [3] putting new heart into all the disciples as he went. Now a Jew called Apollos, a native of Alexandria and a gifted speaker, well-versed in the scriptures, arrived at Ephesus. .... This man began to speak with great boldness in the synagogue. but when Priscilla and Aquila heard him they took him aside and explained the Way of God to him more accurately. Then as he wanted to cross into Achaia, the brothers gave him every encouragement and wrote a letter to the disciples there, asking them to make him welcome. ..... Ephesus - South of modern Izmir or Smyrna in Western Turkey, and at that time capital of the Roman province of Asia. One of the three greatest cities of the eastern Mediterranean with a population of perhaps 250,000 - the other two being Alexandria in Egypt and Syrian Antioch, Ephesus was an important port with good access to the interior of Asia Minor. As a centre for the worship of Artemis or Diana - the Asian goddess of fertility, her temple was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. The great theatre could hold 25,000 people:

While Apollos was in Corinth Paul journeyed through the upper parts of the country (the high inland plateau of Asia Minor) and arrived at Ephesus [4]. There he discovered some disciples (... who he baptises in the Holy Spirit) ,

Then Paul made his way into the synagogue there (in Ephesus ) and for three months he spoke with the utmost confidence .... But when some of them hardened in their attitude towards the message and refused to believe it ..... Paul left them, and withdrew his disciples, and held daily discussions in the lecture-hall of Tyrannus. He continued this practice for two years (... Paul's longest recorded stay in any one location during his three Missionary Journeys), so that all who lived in Asia (not just Ephesus , but the surrounding country) , both Greeks and Jews, could hear the Lord's message. (Paul continues to preach and also to heal, and with such success that a number who previously practised magic publicly burn their highly-prized books)

(Towards the end of his 3 year stay in Ephesus , Paul probably wrote his First Letter to the church in Corinth)

After these events Paul set his heart on going to Jerusalem by way of Macedonia and Achaia, remarking, "After I have been there I must see Rome as well." .

Then he despatched to Macedonia (the province that included the cities of Philippi and Thessalonica ) two of his assistants, Timothy and Erastus, while he himself stayed for a while in Asia.

(Paul is now publicly attacked by the many craftsmen whose livelihood depends on the worship of the goddess Diana and a near-riot ensues)

...... After this disturbance had died down, Paul sent for the disciples and after speaking encouragingly said good-bye to them, and went on his way to Macedonia [5]. As he made his way through these districts (... of Macedonia, Paul probably wrote his Second Letter to the Corinthians after Titus' return from Corinth) .... he spoke many heartening words to the people and then went on to Greece [6] (including Corinth), where he stayed for three months.

(During his stay in Corinth , Paul is believed to have written his Letter to the church in Rome . According to this Letter, either on his way from Macedonia or during his three months stay in Greece , Paul led or organised a mission to Illyricum or Dalmatia - the area of the old Yugoslavia.)

PAUL'S THIRD MISSIONARY JOURNEY CONCLUDED; THE RETURN TO JERUSALEM c AD58

Taken from Acts 20:3b-12 - 21:15 - Then (after staying in Greece [6] ...) when he (Paul) was on the point of setting sail for Syria the Jews made a further plot against him and he decided to make his way back (by land) through Macedonia [7]. His companions on the journey were Sopater a Beroean ... two Thessalonians ... Gaius from Derbe, Timothy, and two Asians..... This party proceeded to Troas to await us there while we sailed from Philippi [8] after the days of unleavened bread. and joined them five days later at Troas [9], where we spent a week.

(At Troas , Paul's lengthy teaching almost leads to the death of a young man Eutychus who goes to asleep and falls out of window!)

Meanwhile we had gone aboard the ship and sailed on ahead for Assos, intending to pick up Paul there ..... since he himself had planned to go overland. When he met us on our arrival at Assos [10] we took him aboard and went on to Mitylene [11]. We sailed from there and arrived off the coast of Chios [12] the next day. On the day following we crossed to Samos [13], and the day after that we reached Miletus [14] . For Paul had decided to sail past Ephesus with the idea of spending as little time as possible in Asia. He hoped, if it should prove possible, to reach Jerusalem in time for the day of Pentecost.

At Miletus he sent to Ephesus to summon the elders of the Church. On their arrival he addressed them ...... What saddened them most of all was his saying that they would never see his face gain......

When we had finally said farewell to them we set sail, running a straight course to Cos [15], and the next day we went to Rhodes [16] and from there to Patara [17]. Here we found a ship bound for Phoenicia, and we went aboard her and set sail. After sighting Cyprus [18] and leaving it on our left we sailed to Syria and put in at Tyre [19], since that was where the ship was to discharge her cargo. We sought out the disciples there and stayed with them for a week (... the disciples warn Paul not to go up to Jerusalem ) . ..... We sailed away from Tyre and arrived at Ptolemais [20]. We greeted the brothers there and stayed with them for just one day. On the following day we left and proceeded to Caesarea [21] and there we went to stay at the house of Philip the evangelist (... again he is warned of the dangers of returning to Jerualem) .

After this we made our preparations and went up to Jerusalem [22].

PAUL'S LETTERS

Map 22. Paul Writes his First Letter to the Corinthians

Map 23. Paul Writes his Second Letter to the Corinthians

Map 24. Paul Writes to the Galatians

Map 25. Paul Writes to the Romans

Map 26. Paul's Journey under Arrest from Palestine to Rome c AD58-61

Taken from Acts 27:12 - 28:31 - ..... (two years after Paul's original arrest in Jerusalem [1] and his journey to Caesarea [2] ) , Paul and some other prisoners were put in charge of a centurion named Julius...... We embarked on a ship hailing from Adramyttium, bound for the Asian ports, and set sail. ..... On the following day we put in at Sidon [3], where Julius treated Paul most considerately by allowing him to visit his friends and accept their hospitality. From Sidon we put to sea again and sailed to leeward of Cyprus [4], since the wind was against us. Then, when we had crossed the gulf that lies off the coasts of Cilicia [5] and Pamphylia [6], we arrived at Myra [7] in Lycia. There the centurion found an Alexandrian ship bound for Italy and put us aboard her. For several days we beat slowly up to windward and only just succeeded in arriving off Cnidus [8]. Then, since the wind was still blowing against us, we sailed under the lee of Crete, and rounded Cape Salmone [9]. Coasting along with difficulty we came to a place called Fair Havens [10], near which is the city of Lasea. ......... (In spite of Paul's warnings, the ship continued on its way) ...... the majority were in favour of setting sail again in the hope of reaching Phoenix [11] and wintering there. Phoenix is a harbour in Crete, facing south-west and north-west. So, when a moderate breeze sprang up, thinking they had obtained just what they wanted, they weighed anchor, and coasted along, hugging the shores of Crete. But before long a terrific gale, which they called a north-easter, swept down upon us from the land. The ship was caught by it and since she could not be brought up into the wind we had to let her fall off and run before it. Then, running under the lee of a small island called Clauda [12], we managed with some difficulty to secure the ship's boat. After hoisting it aboard they used cables to brace the ship. To add to the difficulties they were afraid all the time of drifting on to the Syrtis banks [13], so they shortened sail and lay to, drifting. (The writer of Acts then describes the terrible storm which finally casts them up alive on the shore of Malta) .... On the fourteenth night of the storm, as we were drifting in the Adriatic [14], about midnight the sailors sensed that we were nearing land. ..... After our escape we discovered that the island was called Melita [15] . ... (Paul's stay on Malta is described) ..... ... It was no less than three months later that we set sail in an Alexandrian ship which had wintered in the island ...... We put in at Syracuse [16] and stayed there three days, and from there we tacked round to Rhegium [17]. A day later the south wind sprang up and we sailed to Puteoli [18], reaching it in only two days. There we found some of the brothers and they begged us to stay a week with them, and so we finally came to Rome. The brothers there had heard about us and came out from the city to meet us, as far as the Market of Appius [19] and the Three Taverns [20]. .... When we reached Rome [21] Paul was given permission to live alone with the soldier who was guarding him (where he stayed for at least two years after which he was either executed or released) .

Map 27. Paul writes from Prison in Rome - to Colossians, Philemon, Ephesians and Philippians

Map 28. Paul Writes his First Pastoral or Teaching Letter to Timothy

Map 29. Paul Writes his Pastoral or Teaching Letter to Titus

Map 30. Paul Writes his Second Pastoral or Teaching Letter to Timothy

GENERAL LETTERS and REVELATION

Only the First Letter of Peter and the Book of Revelation is included here. The Letter of James is generally believed to have been the first Letter of the New Testament to have been written, probably some time before the Council at Jerusalem. The Letter to the Hebrews and the other General or Catholic Letters - Second Letter of Peter , First , Second , and Third Letters of John , and the Letter of Jude, although written around this time are not included. Where Hebrews, 2 Peter and Jude were written and their destinations are generally very uncertain. The three Letters of John were probably written in Ephesus probably all to addresses in the Province of Asia (see Map 31 following)

Map 31. Peter Writes His First Letter, to the Christian Jews of Most of Asia Minor

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Map 32. Book of Revelation - John Writes to Seven Churches in the Province of Asia

on to Part 3, Maps 33-43 New Testament Background OR back to New Testament Questions

Maps by Gordon Smith can be used without further permission. Please quote http://www.ccel.org/bible/phillips/JBPhillips.htm

SAINT PAUL | LIFE & MISSIONARY JOURNEYS

Paul was a 1st century Jew who, after being the bitterest enemy of the Christian Church, became its leading missionary and possibly its greatest theologian. His letters, the earliest extant Christian documents, antedate the Gospels of the New Testament. More than half of the Acts of the Apostles deals with his career, and this, together with the letters written by him or in his name, comprises one-third of the New Testament. His efforts and his vision of a world church were responsible for the rapid spread of Christianity and for the speed with which it became a universal religion. None of the followers of Jesus did more than he to establish the patterns of Christian thought and practice.

For Paul’s life, there are no reliable sources outside the New Testament. The primary source is his own correspondences, of which Romans I and II, Corinthians, and Galatians are acknowledged to be genuine by all scholars; Philippians, Colossians, I and II, Thessalonians, and Philemon by most. About Ephesians, opinion is divided, but it contains little biographical material. The Pastoral Letters (to Timothy and Titus) were written by a disciple of Paul beat probably contain Pauline defragments. The letters alone, however, provide no connected story. For that, it is necessary to rely on Acts, written some 30 years after Paul’s death. Because its evidence sometimes conflicts with that of the letters, some scholars question the historicity of Acts. The general belief is, however, that Acts was written by Paul’s companion the evangelist Luke, who drew on his own diary for much of the story.

Paul’s birthplace, Tarsus in Cilicia, a district of Asia Minor lying on the main trade route between East and West, was a cosmopolitan university city, which had been the home of famous Stoic philosophers. Paul was proud of his native city and manifested his debt to its Greek culture in his command of idiomatic Greek, in the occasional use of philosophical terms, and in a wealth of metaphors drawn from city life. He was proud, too, of the Roman citizenship inherited from his father; he used his Roman name Paulus in preference to his Jewish name Saul, and he found in the world empire of Rome a model for his later faith in a universal Christian commonwealth. Yet his formal education must have been strictly Jewish. He grew up with a knowledge of Hebrew and under the scrupulous regimen of the Pharisees, a religious and political Jewish party that emphasized moral purity and reinterpreted the Torah, or Law, according to the needs of the time. His subsequent conversion never robbed him of his pride in the ancestral traditions absorbed in childhood.

The notion that Paul had unhappy adolescence, tortured by religious doubts and uneasy conscience, is based on a misunderstanding of the Letter of Paul to the Romans, chapter 7. Though in the guise of autobiography, this chapter is a Christian analysis of religious legalism. Paul’s explicit references to his early life are free from any suggestion of inner struggle. He excelled all his contemporaries in his zeal for the Law of Moses, and by its standards his life was blameless. Ks picture -in Romans, chapter 2, verses 17-20- of the pious Jew exulting in the Law, proud of his God, confident of being the guide to the blind, is a self-portrait.

According to Acts, Paul was trained as a rabbi under Gamaliel 1, a renowned teacher of the Law, and this is borne out by his frequent use of rabbinic methods of exegesis (i.e. interpretation of a scriptural text) and his knowledge of Midrashic legends (i.e. commentaries or explanations of a scriptural text in the form of edifying lessons). Like most rabbis be also learned a trade -tent-making- by which throughout his missionary career he was regularly to earn his own living. It is unlikely that he ever met Jesus. In Jerusalem, however, he learned enough about Jesus to regard him as a menace to Pharisaic Judaism, for Paul first appears on the scene of history as a persecutor of the Christian Church. In the judgment of Paul the Pharisee, Jesus chapter 15. Acts, chapter 11, mentions an earlier visit of Paul and Barnabas to Jerusalem to deliver a relief fund for a famine that occurred probably in AD 46, and it is best to assume that they took advantage of that occasion to lay their plans before their Jerusalem colleagues. Shortly after this Peter visited Antioch. One question that had not been discussed at Jerusalem was the relationship between Jewish and Gentile Christians in the new community. Jews were forbidden by their Law to eat with Gentiles. The Church at Antioch had been disregarding this rule and holding common meals and Eucharists until a protest came from James that this practice at Antioch was making things difficult and even dangerous for the church in Jerusalem. The Jewish members, including Peter and Barnabas, accordingly abandoned their liberalism for fear of Jewish reprisals against the mother church. According to Galatians, it was left for Paul to show his mettle by insisting that not only church unity but the very truth of the gospel was at stake.

First Missionary Journey

Paul and Barnabas, accompanied by Barnabas’ cousin John Mark, now set out for Cyprus on a preaching tour, beginning at Salamis, the principal city of the island, and ending at Paphos, the seat of government, where they had an encouraging interview with the governor, Sergius Paulus. They then crossed to the mainland and landed at Perga (Perge, Turkey). There, to Paul’s annoyance, Mark left the party for home. Paul himself was ill, probably with an attack of the recurrent illness that in II Corinthians he called his thorn in the flesh. He had to change his plans (presumably, given his later history, he already had his sights on Ephesus, an ancient Ionian city in western Asia Minor) and go to recuperate in the more healthful uplands of Anatolia, or Asia Minor. This reconstruction of events is known as the South Galatia theory – i.e. that Galatians was written to the churches founded during the mission of Acts, chapters 13 and 14-in contrast to a North Galatia theory that is no longer held by many scholars.

The Galatian mission started in the Roman colony of Pisidian Antioch (Yalvac, Turkey), where the missionaries preached in the synagogue until Jewish hostility first compelled them to turn to the Gentiles and finally drove them from the city. Their visit to Iconium (Konya, Turkey) followed the same pattern. At Lystra (Hatunsaray, Turkey) they were first mistaken for local gods, but subsequently, Paul was stoned and left for dead. Yet, after reaching Derbe (the site is disputed), they were able to retrace their steps and revisit the churches they had founded before returning to Syrian Antioch.

The Jerusalem Conference

The success of this tour in gaining Gentile converts made a settlement of the dispute over table fellowship more urgent than ever; and so a conference was held in Jerusalem, which issued a letter asking Gentile Christians to relieve Jewish Christians of embarrassment by observing some of the Jewish rules of ceremonial purity. The historicity of this conference, or at least of Paul’s participation in it, has been impugned because Paul never mentions the apostolic letter or the solution propounded in it. Nevertheless, the probability is that events were moving so fast that this compromise was out-of-date almost as soon as it was promulgated.

Second Missionary Journey

Paul now proposed a new tour but refused to take Mark. Barnabas stood by his cousin, and the partners separated. Barnabas and Mark returned to Cyprus, and Paul chose as his new colleague Silas, who like himself was a Roman citizen, bearing the Roman name of Silvanus. Together they visited the churches of Syria, Cilicia, and Galatia. At Lystra, they were joined by Timothy – a young Christian with a Jewish mother and a Gentile father. At this point, it is possible to begin to see emerge Paul’s missionary strategy of concentrating on large centers of Roman influence. Aiming again for Ephesus, he was prevented by the Holy Spirit from entering the Roman province of Asia, turned north toward the large cities of Bithynia (northwestern Asia Minor), was diverted a second time, and so came to Troas, where he had a vision of Macedonian asking for help.

So Christianity gained its first foothold in Europe, with the formation of a small church in the Roman colony of Philippi in Macedonia. From the serene letter written to this church at the end of his life, it seems that they never caused him any of the ethical, theological, or disciplinary difficulties be had bad to face elsewhere. Instead, they frequently sent money out of slender resume to help with the expenses of his work in other cities and ultimately for his own relief in prison in Rome. After the cure of a psychic slave girl, Paul and Silas were imprisoned on a charge of anti-Roman practices but were released with apologies when they revealed their Roman citizenship and complained of the illegality of their treatment. At Thessalonica (modern Thessaloniki, Greece) they preached for three weeks before being interrupted by a riot and a charge of treasonable adherence to a rival emperor, from which they escaped by departure. Hostile Jews, however, pursued them to the neighboring town of Beroea and cut short their work there also. Paul went on to Athens, leaving Silas and Timothy to follow later. At Athens, Paul addressed the council of the Areopagus (formerly the supreme court of Atlas; at the time of Paul a body with wider and vaguer powers) and converted one of its members, but nothing is said about a church. The reason appears in the letter that he wrote soon afterward to Thessalonica. He was deeply concerned about the fate of the recent converts he had left behind there, exposed to persecution and without adequately instructed leadership. He was prevented 8em going back by Satan, probably a return of his recurrent illness. When Timothy arrived, Paul, with no thought for his own condition, sent him back for news. He himself went on to Corinth, still convalescent.

In Corinth, Paul lodged with a Christian couple, Aquila and Priscilla, tentmakers like himself. Aquila was a Jew from Pontus (northeastern Asia Minor), but he and his wife had been living in Rome until the previous year when an edict of emperor Claudius had expelled all Jews from the capital. These two became lifelong friends of Paul and on one occasion risked their lives for him. Soon Silas and Timothy arrived with the cheering news that the Christians in Thessalonica were loyal and in good heart. The only cause for anxiety was that some of them had misunderstood Paul’s preaching about the advent of Christ, taking his language about its imminence with a literalness he never intended. To deal with this situation, he wrote his first letter to them. Some weeks later, when he heard that members of the church had actually given up their daily work to prepare for the end, he wrote his second, somewhat sterner, letter accusing them of truancy.

After a year and a half in Corinth, Paul was arraigned before the new governor Gallio on a charge of practicing an illicit religion. The case was dismissed, and for the author of Acts, this episode was the strongest argument in his apology for the Christian religion. For the historian it has even greater importance, providing the one fixed date in Paul’s biography, from which the rest of the chronology has to be worked out, backward and forward. An inscription found at Delphi proves that Gallio’s year of office began on July 1, AD 51. Paul must have arrived in Corinth early in 50. Some time afterward (the author of Acts has a tantalizing way of adding vague indications of time to precise ones) Paul left Corinth for Ephesus, Caesarea (on the coast of Palestine), and Jerusalem and so returned to base at Antioch. Of Silas, no more is heard until he reappears in the final salutation of the First Letter of Peter.

Third Missionary Journey

From Antioch, Paul set out on a further tour of the Galatian churches, after which he at last succeeded in reaching Ephesus. Here he was to stay for three years, longer than he devoted to any other city. At first, he taught in the synagogue, then, when that was closed to him, in a hired lecture hall. Luke was not with him and records in Acts none of the events of this long period except the discrediting of a Jewish exorcist and a dangerous riot started by the silversmiths’ guild because Paul’s success was harming their market. From Paul’s letters, however, some of the gaps can be filled. He gathered around him a team of colleagues who evangelized the surrounding province of Asia. It must have been at this time, for example, that the churches of the Lycus Valley were founded, at Colossae, Hierapolis, and Laodicea. Here, as elsewhere, missionary work bad its dangers. Aquila and Priscilla, who seem to have made their home in Ephesus, risked their necks for Paul. He speaks, too, in II Corinthians, of mysterious trouble that made him despair of life and, in I Corinthians, of fighting with wild beasts at Ephesus. There is a possibility that he spent some of his time in prison.

Much of his attention was taken up with the church in Corinth, to which he wrote four letters and paid one visit, unrecorded in Acts. The first letter has not survived, but in reply to it, he received a letter that raised questions about various matters of faith and conduct, marriage and divorce, the eating of meat slaughtered in the pagan ritual, the right of women to lead public worship, ecstatic speech, and the resurrection of the body. The writers seem to have been those whom Paul refers to as the strong party, and they did not simply invite instruction but stated a case and expected him to agree with it. Paul had also received a verbal report of a more disquieting nature from Chloe’s people, who told him of party divisions within the church, litigation between its members, disorderly conduct at the Lord’s Supper, or Eucharist, and a case of incest that had gone unrebuked. Paul’s answer to all this was the letter known as I Corinthians. Before long the troubles in Corinth were exacerbated by the arrival of newcomers with letters of introduction from another church, who questioned Paul’s credentials and undermined his authority. Paul decided to deal with this crisis in person, but his visit was not a success, and he came out of the encounter badly. Back in Ephesos, he wrote a third letter (of which 11 Corinthians, chapters 10-13 may be a part), so severe that he regretted it as soon as Titus, his courier had left. Titus was to return through Macedonia, and Paul was to meet him at Troas, where he planned to spend some time in evangelism. So great, however, was his anxiety about Corinth that he could not settle there. He went on to Macedonia, where Titus met him with the good news that the severe letter had had its desired effect. All the pent-up feelings of the past weeks were then poured out in the letter known as 11 Corinthians (or perhaps only chapters 1-9).

Another of Paul’s concerns during his stay in Ephesus was the organization of a relief fund for the impoverished church in Jerusalem. Many of his churches were poor, but he encouraged them to be generous because be saw in this collection a demonstration of unity between Jewish and Gentile churches.

It is notoriously difficult to date Paul’s letter to the Galatians; but arguments from language, style, and theology would place it between 11 Corinthians and Romans, and in that case, it must have been written from Macedonia. Acts give the impression that, after meeting Titus, Paul hurried on to Corinth, stopping only to visit the Macedonian churches in passing. But in Romans Paul claims to have preached the gospel from Jerusalem as far round as Illyricum; i.e. the Yugoslav coast. The closing paragraph of the letter to Titus mentions a plan to spend a winter in Nicopolis, at the western end of the Corinthian gulf. If this last passage is one of the genuine Pauline fragments embedded in the Pastoral Letters, these two pieces of evidence together would seem to point to an extended ministry in the northwest part of the Balkan Peninsula.

Early in AD 57, Paul paid his last visit to Corinth, and it was probably during the three months he spent there that he wrote his letter to the church in Rome. In chapter 16 of Romans is an integral part of that letter, this origin is certain because that chapter is a letter of introduction for Phoebe, a deacon from Cenehreae, the port of Corinth. Even if that chapter is a separate note addressed to the church of Ephesus, Paul’s account of his plans makes it almost certain that he was in Corinth when he wrote. He had not founded the church in Rome (there had been a church thereby AD 49 when Aquila and Priscilla were forced to leave); and he wrote this full statement of his faith to prepare the way for a visit, in the hope that the church would then sponsor his projected mission to Spain related in Romans. First, however, he had to go to Jerusalem to accompany the relief fundraised by the Gentile churches. Paul had intended to travel by ship, but a plot against his life dictated a partial change of plans. He went overland to Troas, stopping for a week in Philippi for the Passover. He then took passage on a ship that stopped at several ports along the coast and enabled him to meet the Ephesian elders at Miletus in Turkey and take leave of them. After a week’s stay with the deacon Philip at Caesarea, he reached Jerusalem.

Arrest & Imprisonment

On his last journey to Jerusalem, Paul had been accompanied by representatives of the churches that had contributed to the relief fund. One of these, Trophimus, a Gentile from Ephesus, was recognized b; some Asian Jews, who jumped to the conclusion that Paul had taken him into the part of the Temple forbidden to Gentiles. Paul had to be rescued from the ensuing riot by Roman soldiers and escaped further ill-treatment by informing the commanding officer that he was a Roman citizen. While still in protective custody he heard of a plot on his life and informed the commanding officer, who sent him under guard to governor Felix at Caesarea. Having no evidence for a conviction but unwilling to antagonize the Jewish authorities, Felix kept Paul in prison for two years. When his successor, Festus, arrived, rather than be sent to Jerusalem for trial, Paul appealed to the Emperor. The journey to Rome began in late autumn, and a shipwreck delayed the travelers for three months in Malta so that they arrived in Rome in the spring of AD 60. There Paul remained for two further years, in-house custody awaiting trial. At this point, the narrative of Acts comes to an abrupt end, without disclosing the outcome of the trial. As long as the Pastoral Letters were accepted as of Pauline, their evidence demanded the hypothesis of an acquittal and second imprisonment. By this theory, Paul must have spent two or three further years in missionary work in Greece, Macedonia, Epirus (northwestern Greece), Asia Minor, and Crete before being arrested again, taken to Rome a second time, and this time sentenced to death. Now that these letters are recognized to be pseudonymous, however, there is no reason to suppose that the verdict at the first trial was favorable. There is good evidence from later authors that Paul died a martyr’s death in Rome sometime during the reign of Emperor Nero (AD 54-68). It is usually assumed, and with good reason, that Paul’s remaining letters, Philippians, Colossians, Philemon, and Ephesians (if the last is his), were written from his Roman prison. If so, they provide some evidence to fill out the story of his last years. A slave from Colossae, called Onesimus, had run away from his master Philemon (who happened to be a Christian and a friend of Paul); he came to Rome, met Paul, and was converted by him. Reluctantly, Paul decided he must send him back to his master and wrote a letter to Philemon asking him to receive his former slave as a brother. At about the same time he had another contact with the church in Colossae through its leader Epaphras, who came to consult him about an unorthodox philosophy that was gaining some following among Christians at Colossae. To refute this aberrant form of Christianity, Paul wrote his letter to the Colossians. At the same time, he wrote a letter that has not survived to the church in Laodicea. If the letter that is known as Ephesians is by him, it. was a circular letter to Gentile churches he had not founded or visited, written at the same time as the three letters mentioned above and carried by the same courier, Tychicus. The church of Philippi, which had sent Paul money in the past to help with the expenses of his missions, now sent one of its members, Epaphroditus, with a father gift. Epaphroditus fell ill on the way and nearly killed himself by completing the journey with the illness upon him. He had intended to stay with Paul and look after him; but Paul, hearing that his friends at home were anxious about his state of health, sent him back and wrote his letter to the Philippians to send with him. The rest is silence, except perhaps for a little farewell note to Timothy, preserved in II Timothy, chapter 4, verses 6-8.

Paul was a man of vivid contrasts. Small and unimpressive in physical stature, he must have had the immense stamina to withstand the rigors of travel, beatings, and imprisonments, bouts of intermittent illness, and not least the anxiety for all the churches (11 Corinthians). Though not a natural orator, he could dominate an audience by the incandescence of spiritual power. He was capable both of coarseness and of delicate sensitivity.

Paul’s favorite metaphors from the athletic stadium, law court, and battlefield reveal him as every inch a competitor, debater, and fighter. He aimed at excellence, whether as a Pharisee or as a servant of Christ. He gave himself to the Lord (I. Corinthians), determined only to spend and be spent (II. Corinthians), and to repay to Greek and barbarian, to wise and foolish the debt be owed to Christ (Romans). He must always be breaking new ground (Romans), always pressing on to discoveries of the mysteries of God (Philippians). Yet he gained the strength that was required for this restless activity from an inner peace that the outside world could not disturb (Philippians).

He could be violent in the assertion of his rugged independence (Galatians), acknowledging no superiors except Christ himself. Yet he had many friends and was never happier than when others shared with him his work, his enthusiasm, and his faith. He calls them fellow workers, fellow soldiers, fellow slaves, yokefellows. In a life devoted to the service of others, he had the grace to accept their service in return and to demand from his colleagues the same high standards that he demanded from himself.

Paul had an eye for detail and would take endless pains over matters of conduct that others thought trivial. Yet he combined with this a comprehensive grasp of the significance of his new faith, believing that it was God’s purpose to bring the warring powers of the universe to unity in Christ (Ephesians). It was clear to him that the mighty plan that embraced the whole of history and all nature could yet be reduced to the microcosm in God’s love for one man.

He could be both stable and volatile, at one time wielding a massive common sense ’ at another, borne aloft on the wings of ecstasy. He had the gift of tongues g Corinthians) and of prophecy (Acts) and underwent occasional experiences of vision or trance (11 Corinthians). Yet he did not base either his faith or his authority on these but believed that God’s activity, as most clearly to be seen in normal life and above all in human weakness. He dominates the apostolic age not as a saint or superman but as a normative Christian in whom ordinary human nature was raised to its highest powers. This same contrast characterizes his writing. From humdrum details of conduct, he can elicit universal principles and can move in a moment from the prose of argument to the poetry of worship.

Above all, Paul was a man of God. He saw the hand of God in his own early life, in his conversion, in his apostleship, in his ministry, and even in his illness. His theology is an exposition of the hidden wisdom of God, which had lain behind all history but was now disclosed in Christ. For him, God had been, in Christ, reconciling the world to himself; and man’s salvation was God’s work from start to finish.

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Solar eclipse 2024: Follow the path of totality

Solar eclipse, here's what time the eclipse will be visible in your region.

Emily Alfin Johnson

Visitors look through a pair of oversized eclipse glasses set up in the town square on Sunday in Houlton, Maine. Joe Raedle/Getty Images hide caption

Visitors look through a pair of oversized eclipse glasses set up in the town square on Sunday in Houlton, Maine.

On Monday, a solar eclipse will cross from Texas to Maine, putting over 30 million people in the path of totality , with a partial eclipse visible briefly for millions more.

Monday's weather forecast for the path of totality

Totality in the U.S. starts around 1:30 p.m. CT/2:30 ET and continues until 2:30 p.m. CT/3:30 p.m. ET, lasting for a few minutes in each location.

The folks at NASA have a detailed breakdown for anyone in the U.S. Just pop in your ZIP code .

If you're lucky enough to find yourself in the path of totality, you can also find a minute-by-minute breakdown of when totality begins in your area, here.

More resources to enjoy the eclipse

• Sharing the eclipse with tiny humans?  Check out these  kid-friendly total solar eclipse learning guides  from Vermont Public's  But Why,  and this great explainer from KERA Kids on  the difference between a solar and a lunar eclipse .
• Feeling whimsical?  Here are three ways to  sprinkle a little magic into your eclipse experience .
• Plan to wander into the wild for the best view?   Here are some tips from outdoor experts.
• Tips from Bill Nye  on the best ways to enjoy the eclipse.

NPR will be sharing highlights here from across the NPR Network throughout the day Monday if you're unable to get out and see it in real time.