The Questor

The Wild Gospel..… …..Back on the Road

After spending some time in Antioch, Paul and Barnabas split up. Barnabas went back to Cyprus and Paul set off on another missionary journey, this time taking a guy called Silas – and, of course, Dr Luke who was recording what went on – a kind of first century blog!

They started off by visiting some of the churches that they had started during the first missionary journey so they could encourage them. At Lystra he met a young Christian called Timothy and decided to take him along with him – he was to become a significant member of Paul’s team in due course.

As they travelled further west, it seems that Paul’s and God’s agendas diverged. Paul had intended to go west into the province of Asia and then north into the province of Bithynia. But Luke tells us that the Spirit of Jesus wouldn’t allow them to – it’s frustrating that he doesn’t tell us how that happened! So they travelled to Troas on the coast where Paul had a dream one night in which he saw a man in Macedonia begging him to go to visit them.

Paul didn’t waste any time, he and his companions got ready immediately and sailed across to Macedonia. They landed at Samothrace and then travelled on to Neapolis and then to Philippi – a Roman colony and the leading city in that region.

While they were there, they followed their usual practice of going to the place of prayer and preaching the Message of Jesus to whoever would listen. On one occasion, they met a slave girl who had the ability to predict the future – and she earned a lot of money for her owners by telling people’s fortune. She began to follow Paul and his companions shouting “These men are servants of the most high God, and they are telling you the way to be saved”

She kept this up for days until Paul couldn’t stand it any longer so he commanded the spirit, which was the source of her gift, in the name of Jesus to come out of her – and it did. But that meant that she could no longer tell fortunes. Her owners were furious because they had now lost a significant source of income. So they dragged Paul and Silas into the market place to face the authorities, accusing them of advocating customs which were contrary to Roman law. When the crowd joined in, the magistrates were persuaded and ordered them to be stripped and beaten with rods.

After they had been severely flogged, Paul and Silas were thrown into prison and the jailer told to guard them carefully. So he put them in the inner