Anonymous · 90 · global
Acts 13 to 21. Three journeys over roughly fifteen years, from Antioch out across Cyprus, Anatolia and Greece and back - on foot, on Roman roads and on other people's ships. He is stoned at Lystra, jailed at Philippi, laughed at in Athens and nearly lynched at Ephesus, and keeps going.
- 1Antioch
The base for all three journeys: the third city of the empire, and the first place the followers were called Christians. Paul and Barnabas are sent out from here and come back to report between each expedition.
- 2Cyprus
The first journey begins on Barnabas's home island, working the synagogues from Salamis to Paphos - and at Paphos the proconsul believes, which is the first sign that this will not stay a Jewish movement.
- 3Iconium
Into the Anatolian highlands: at Lystra he is taken for the god Hermes because he speaks, and then stoned by a crowd and dragged out of the city for dead - and gets up and goes back in.
- 4Philippi
The second journey crosses into Europe after a dream of a man calling from Macedonia. At Philippi he converts a dealer in purple cloth, is flogged and jailed, and the jailer is converted by an earthquake at midnight.
- 5Athens
He argues in the agora with Epicureans and Stoics and is taken up to the Areopagus, where he preaches an unknown god to a city full of statues - and is politely told they will hear him again some other time.
- 6Corinth
Eighteen months in a port city with a reputation, making tents with Priscilla and Aquila - and the letters he writes to this congregation later become the most argued-over documents in the New Testament.
- 7Ephesus
Three years on the third journey, until the silversmiths who make shrines for Artemis realise he is bad for trade, and the whole city shouts in the theatre for two hours - which is where the mission ends.
- 8Jerusalem
He goes back with a collection for the poor, against everyone's advice, and is seized in the temple - and everything after this is Roman custody, which is how he finally gets to Rome.