ON OUR JOURNEY AHEAD from Antioch I’ll show you a 21st century view of Paul’s missionary journey from GOOGLE EARTH guided by brief scripture for each part of Paul’s first missionary journey.
What do you know about Antioch?
In my introduction to the first missionary journey of Paul we introduced you to some representative faces of the culture in Antioch, the most notable church outside of Jerusalem.
About Antioch
Rather than taking a traditional approach to Paul’s missions from a first-century view culturally rooted in Jerusalem, it may help us to think about Antioch and Paul’s departure from this IMPORTANT ROMAN CITY more like a Roman Citizen.
After all, Saul of Tarsus (Paul), is not only a Jew, but a Roman Citizen who becomes somewhat of an ambassador between cultures, a man of learning and understanding of Romans, Jews and Greeks or Hellenists.
- What you see above is a painting of ruins of the ancient wall of Antioch.
- (I’ll show you an aerial view of this same area of the city [below]).
About Antioch: a little before Paul, but NOT before ROME:
The Great Commission – from Antioch
Three hundred miles (480 km) north of Jerusalem, the Seleucids urged Jews to move to Antioch, their western capital, and granted them full rights as citizens upon doing so. In 64 BC, Pompey made the city capital over the Roman province of Syria. By AD 165, it was the third largest city of the empire.
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21st c. comparison: FROM CINCINNATI OH to CHICAGO or Ashtabula OH WE might FLY to Chicago or DRIVE 400-500 km across Ohio, the same as from Jerusalem to Antioch {Syria, not Ohio}. Jerusalem is a long walk from MOST of the Roman World! So Jerusalem in many ways is NOT such a great place to "go into all the world.' TRAVEL: FLYING or even DRIVING 50+ mph for a day is NOT a first century option (obviously). OUR DEPARTURE is for MOSTLY ROMAN destinations. And in fact, ANTIOCH is mostly Roman; therefore the Holy Spirit brings Paul, Barnabas and many others to establish the CHURCH in Antioch and from there, to proclaim the Gospel of the Lord JESUS."
Antioch on the Orontes, an ancient Greek city on the eastern side of the Orontes River, was one of the most glorious of all the Greek cities in the world.
Home to hundreds of thousands of people in its golden age, it was known as “The Second Rome” and subsequently “the Cradle of Christianity” before it experienced so many cataclysmic earthquakes and military conquests that it was reduced to a backwater.
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~A.D. 47
ACTS of the Apostles 13:
Now there were at Antioch, in the church that was there, prophets and teachers: Barnabas, and Simeon who was called Niger, and Lucius of Cyrene, and Manaen who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch, and Saul. And while they were ministering to the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.”
Then, when they had fasted and prayed and laid their hands on them, they sent them away.
So, being sent out by the Holy Spirit, they went down to Seleucia…
Acts of the Apostles 13:4a
The Roman city is not unlike a more familiar Caesarea [a model pictured here], Jerusalem's Roman port also built by Herod the Great AND built even better for Rome by Herod Agrippa.
ACTS 13 of the Apostles on Mission TO BE CONTINUED…
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