23. Three Journeys
– THREE
LESSONS
There are many lessons that we can learn from Paul's three recorded missionary journeys, of course, but most of them are found in the accounts of individual people he met and events that occurred in the course of the journeys. Here, we look instead at three lessons which we can glean from the overall effects of the journeys themselves. First Journey (Acts 13-14): Contact Paul and Barnabas began their journey from Antioch in Syria traveling to Cyprus and then Asia Minor. At first, they preached in the local synagogues, but when many of the Jews rejected their message, the two missionaries turned to the Gentiles and many were converted to Christianity. This ministry to the Gentiles caused controversy with some Jewish Christians, and at the end of the journey Paul and Barnabas participated in a Church conference in Jerusalem in which they explained the situation with the Gentile churches, and the problem was largely settled.
But one of the most important aspects of this first journey was the congregations the two missionaries established. Acts 13:49, for example, tells us that "The word of the Lord spread through the whole region." This was not Paul and Barnabas going into every corner of the region, it was rather the local Christians reaching out and contacting others regarding the Gospel. At the end of this journey, we see that the two men retraced their steps and doubtless established communication between the churches they had now established. This interchurch communication is seen in the fact that at the conclusion of the Jerusalem council, letters were sent to the Gentile churches in Syria and Cilicia that had experienced a particular problem (Acts 15:23-29).
Second Journey (Acts 15:36-18:22): Interaction After returning to Antioch for a while, Paul and Barnabas disagreed over an aspect of their next journey. Barnabas took Mark and Paul set out with Silas through Syria and Cilicia and then revisited the churches founded in parts of Asia Minor on the first missionary journey. They then continued to Greece, taking the Gospel to Europe and enabling the conversion of many new disciples including Timothy, Lydia, Aquila and Priscilla. On this journey we see the beginnings of interaction between church areas. After Paul taught Aquila and his wife Priscilla in Corinth, they travelled with him to the church he had founded in Ephesus where they stayed for a while (Acts 18:18-19). Clearly, by this time, local churches were communicating and believers visiting each other. Third Journey (Acts 18:23-20:38): Support On his third major missionary journey Paul returned to the churches of Asia Minor, Macedonia and Greece. Despite many trials and frequent resistance, he added yet more believers to the Church, and much work was again directed toward strengthening the ties with churches founded on the earlier journeys (Acts 18:22, etc.). On this third journey it is notable that Paul collected contributions the established churches had taken up to aid the impoverished believers in Jerusalem (as the church at Antioch had done in Acts 13), and these funds were delivered to the Jerusalem church on Paul's return. The overall lessons of church interaction are clear in these three journeys. We see increasing ties between groups of believers beginning with contact, expanding through interaction, and culminating in support among mature churches. This was an important development, and we should remember that if Paul had not stressed the things he did that led to these three outcomes of his journeys, we would doubtless have to speak about the early churches instead of the early Church.
The application of these three lessons is also obvious for us. So many Christians today see themselves as part of a local congregation without looking much beyond that. Although there is some contact among local congregations, often people do not even know believers in churches that meet across the street from their own. Most people know little about other groups of believers; few regularly know and pray for, or otherwise support, the initiatives of other Christian groups.
If we look to the greater goals and purposes of the Church itself, we should perhaps, like the early Church, be willing to establish contact, develop interaction and support each other in ways that are mutually beneficial or simply further the work of the Gospel and accomplish good where good can be done. Such was the way of the early Church, and we clearly see it developing in the local churches that Paul founded on his three journeys.