Print this Lesson Paul's Journeys
Acts 13 and 14; 18:23 through 21:16
My name is Paul and I want to tell you about some of the things that happened on my trips for the church, but oh my, so many things happened. I can only tall you about a few.

Some of my friends and I were at Antioch and this was a very exciting place to be because this was where the disciples were first called Christians.

Anyway, while we were there, the Lord told us to go and preach and teach in other cities, so of course we left to do what God told us to do.

At one of the places, there was a man named Elymas who was a trickster and he tried to get the people not to obey the lessons we taught about Jesus! I had to command him to stop because he did not tell the truth and I finally called him the "son of the devil" because he was so evil!

During our trips, we told about Moses leading the people through the dried up Red Sea and how God fed and protected them. We told them about David and Abraham and also about John and how he baptized Jesus.

Of course we told them about Jesus and the wonderful news that He had brought about God's love for us. A lot of people did not like us and tried to hurt and even kill us! So we had to leave those places and go to where the people would listen. God helped us in some places by letting us perform miracles. One time we saw a man who was crippled. We saw him in the crowd and knew that he believed in Jesus, so in a loud voice, I told him to stand up. He obeyed immediately-he jumped for joy and began to walk! When the people saw this, they believed that we were gods and wanted to worship us! We had to tell them that we were only men and not gods-there is only one GOD!

Would you believe that right after this, that some of the people came and began to stone me? They dragged me out of the city because they thought I was dead, but my friends stood around me and SI rose up! You see, God was protecting me.

In Thyatira, there was a lady named Lydia who sold purple cloth. She also worshipped God. She heard us teaching and listened to what we had to say and believed us. We baptized her and her family and she then invited us to come and stay at her house.

The next day we left to go to other cities and I really want to tell you about something that happened to Silas and me. We were continuing to do God's will when we saw a slave girl who had a demon and we cured her. This made her owners very angry and they turned the people against us. They had us stripped of our clothes and beaten with rods until our backs bled very badly. Then we were thrown into a prison down deep in a dungeon. We were also chained. About midnight, Silas and I began to pray and sing praises to God and all of the other prisoners were listening to us. I'm sure they wondered how we could be so joyous after what had happened. You can't imagine what happened next! There came a great earthquake and it shook the prison and loosened everyone's chains and opened the locked doors! The jailer had been asleep and when he heard this, he awoke and was about to kill himself because he thought we had all escaped! But I stopped him and told him that we were all there. He immediately fell down and asked, "What must I do to be saved?" We taught him and his family about Jesus and they were baptized. He also took us to his house and washed our bodies where we had been beaten and gave us food.

Some of our travels were by land and some were by ship. One time, we were even shipwrecked. This shipwreck happened when some other prisoners and I were being sent to Rome. During this trip, the weather began to get stormy and I tried to get the soldiers not to go on, but the captain would not allow this. Later the storm got so bad that they were throwing everything into the sea to make the ship lighter. I finally told them that should have listened to me but to not be afraid because an angel had come to me and told me that we could be wrecked, but that everyone would be saved. The ones who could swim jumped into the sea first and the others followed on planks and other things. When we reached an island, we were cold and the people who lived there built a fire for us. I picked up some sticks to add to the fire and a poisonous snake hit me and hung on to my arm! When the people saw this, they thought I must be a murderer and it would only be fair for me to be killed by this snake. But I shook the snake off and didn't even get sick. Then the people thought that I must be a god!

God continued to bless us and allow us to teach, preach, and perform miracles. At Ephesus, people took handkerchiefs and aprons from us to the sick and they were healed. This was so exciting.

So you can see that some of our experiences were happy when we were able to teach the people about Jesus and help them. Some of the experiences were unhappy when they would not listen and sometimes treated us badly.

I hope that you will read more about my travels for the Lord. There are just too many for me to tell you all of them here.

I also want you to remember that God always took care of me and He will also take care of you when you follow what He wants you to do. Now I would like to ask you some questions.