January 12 - Paul's Third Missionary Journey

January 12 - Paul's Third Missionary Journey

Things are starting to really move now. If you have your map, now's the time to look at it again. In Acts 18:23, we see Paul begin his next journey. He takes off from Antioch and moves to Galatia (now central Turkey) and Phrygia. There's a short aside in the passage where we meet Apollos and find him being mentored by Aquila and Priscilla in Corinth. In Acts 19:1, Paul travels through the interior of Turkey - what they called Asia Minor and ended up at Ephesus. He spent nearly 3 years in Ephesus, making it his home base for this time. I will concentrate on the stay in Ephesus tomorrow, but today we're going to skip around this point of stability in his life and see where else he travels.

Paul writes the letter to the Galatians while he is in Ephesus (though the date on this is disputed a little by scholars) and toward the end of his stay there, he wrote the first letter to the Corinthians.

Paul sent Timothy and Erastus ahead to Macedonia, knowing that he would be heading to Jerusalem and traveling through that area (Acts 19:21-22).

Once again, an uproar precedes Paul's leaving a city, but leave it he does. He set out for Macedonia (Acts 20:1-6), traveling throughout the area and after spending some time in Greece, left from Philippi and ended up in Troas.

Troas is better known as the home of a young man named Eutychus, who got bored during one of Paul's long-winded sermons, fell asleep and out of a third story window. We see Paul healing the young man ... we think (Acts 20:7-12).

Whenever you see the use of the word 'we' in these passages, remember that it is Luke writing this report, so he is traveling with Paul or as in Acts 20:13, he went ahead with a group to Assos by ship and met Paul there, who was traveling on foot. After Assos, they traveled to Mitylene, Kios, Samos and Miletus. (Acts 20:13-16)

Paul didn't want to take time to go back to Ephesus, so he sent for the elders of the church (Acts 20:17), told them that he was going to Jerusalem and would soon be facing prison and would never see them again. He blessed them. (Acts 20:18-38)

Paul set sail for Rhodes, Patara, Cyprus, Syria (Tyre) and stayed with disciples there who urged Paul not to go on to Jerusalem. He left them and went on to Ptolemais, Caesarea. (Take a moment to read Luke's aside in Acts 21:8-9 - awesome!)

Agabus came down to see Paul in Caesarea and prophesied that Paul would be bound over by the Jews in Jerusalem and they begged him to not go, but he refused to listen, knowing that the Lord's will needed to be done. (Acts 21:10-14)

Paul arrived in Jerusalem (Acts 21:17) and met with the brothers there. They asked him to complete a purification vow to appease the Jews in Jerusalem, which he does, but before that period of time was over, he was seen at the temple and the rabble rousing began. (Acts 21:27-29). He was dragged from the temple and only the arrival of Roman troops stopped them from murdering him.

He received permission from the Roman commander to speak to the crowd, so he gave them his testimony (Acts 21:40-22:21), but as soon as he told them that God had sent him to the Gentiles, they stopped listening and began shouting and rioting.

I'm going to stop the story here, before it gets any more exciting. Tomorrow we will look at Paul's stay in Ephesus and then at some of the letters he wrote during this period of time. We will return to this story in a few days.

I often wonder if I would have the conviction to stand strong through the same things that Paul faced.