Paul’s First Missionary Journey

According to Acts, the church at Antioch sent out Barnabas and Saul, with prayer, fasting and the laying on of hands (Acts 13:1–3). They sailed from Seleucia to Cyprus, Barnabas’s home island, and preached in the synagogues of Salamis, with John Mark as their assistant (Acts 13:4–5) (Acts 4:36).

At Paphos, at the other end of the island, the proconsul Sergius Paulus sent for them. A Jewish magician named Bar-Jesus, also called Elymas, who was with the proconsul, opposed them. Acts says that Saul told him he would be blind for a time, that a mist and darkness fell on him at once, and that the proconsul believed. At this point Acts begins to call Saul by his other name, Paul, and usually to name him first (Acts 13:6–13). They crossed to Perga in Pamphylia, where John Mark left them and went back to Jerusalem (Acts 13:13).

At Pisidian Antioch Paul was invited to speak in the synagogue. Acts gives the speech at length. It runs from the exodus to David, presents Jesus as David’s promised descendant, put to death and raised by God, and declares that through him everyone who believes is justified from all that the law of Moses could not set right (Acts 13:14–41). The next sabbath almost the whole city gathered. When Jews of the city contradicted them, Paul and Barnabas said, “we turn to the Gentiles”, and many Gentiles believed. The two were driven out of the district (Acts 13:44–51). At Iconium many Jews and Greeks believed, the city was divided, and after a long stay the two fled from an attempt to stone them (Acts 14:1–6).

At Lystra, Acts says, Paul healed a man who had been lame from birth. The crowd shouted in Lycaonian that the gods had come down, called Barnabas Zeus and Paul Hermes (Jupiter and Mercury in some English versions), and the priest of Zeus brought oxen to sacrifice. The two tore their clothes and protested that they were only men, bringing news of the living God who made heaven and earth (Acts 14:8–18). Then Jews arrived from Antioch and Iconium and won over the crowd. Paul was stoned and dragged out of the city for dead, but got up and went on the next day to Derbe (Acts 14:19–20). Paul’s own list of his sufferings includes the words “Once I was stoned” (2 Corinthians 11:25).

From Derbe they went back through Lystra, Iconium and Antioch, encouraging the new disciples and appointing elders in each church. They then came down to the coast and sailed for Antioch in Syria, where they reported that God “had opened a door of faith to the nations” (Acts 14:21–28). The churches founded on this journey included Gentiles (Acts 14:27). In Acts, whether such converts had to be circumcised and keep the law of Moses is the question that takes Paul and Barnabas to Jerusalem (Acts 15:1–5).