View Paul’s Life and Journeys in a larger map
While you explore the map above, below are some observations to take note of.
- His friend Barnabus followed him everywhere until their dispute about John-Mark( Acts 14:26-28, 15:36-41). Barnabus (along with others) is later rebuked by Paul for withdrawing himself from Gentile converts ( Galatians 2:11-20).
- He never seems to travel alone, meaning that his missionary journeys weren’t necessarily just Paul’s journeys as we normally refer to them.
- Each of his three missionary journeys lasted no more than three years. We tend to remember him as the simply a missionary when in fact only 9 years of his roughly 65 year life span were spent on mission trips. The rest of his life was spent either as a Pharisee or as a Christian preaching in a small handful of cities.
- He didn’t go on first trip untill he was around 40 years old.
- The routes he took on mission trips brought him back to some of the same places multiple times. Paul was intentional about training the new converts by keeping in contact through letters and doing follow-up visits.
- It’s easy to assume he spent a lot of time in the places that are the subject of his epistles. In fact, he only spent a relatively short period of time in Galatia, Ephesus, Phillipi, Collosae, and Thessalonica.
- Paul visited both Tyre and Sidon on separate occasions. These once-great cities had a prominent place in Old Testament prophecy, which predicted they would fall. They were both destroyed, and little is mentioned of them in the New Testament other than as a warning to others.
If the Lord has shown you something interesting that’s not in this list, we’d love for you to tell us about it!
Source info: Biblestudy.org (not affiliated with this website)