June 17, 2015 (Wednesday)
This evening for our Bible Study at Bethel Baptist Church, Ingleside, we will look at Acts 15:36-16:15, as Paul begins his Second Missionary Journey. MacArthur’s famous words, “I shall return,” when he evacuated the Philippines could well have been Paul’s words when he departed Galatia at the close of his first missionary journey.
Some time after the Jerusalem Council, as they continued to work with the church at Antioch of Syria, Paul said to Barnabas, “Let us go back and visit the believers in all the towns where we preached the word of the Lord and see how they are doing.” Barnabas
wanted to take Mark again, but Paul felt that Mark’s desertion during the first journey disqualified him. Their disagreement was intense, and they parted company, Barnabas taking Mark and sailing for Cyprus, and Paul taking Silas, who had come from Jerusalem and was working in the Antioch church. Paul and Silas went overland this time, striking out for Galatia through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches as they went.
“Paul came to Derbe and then to Lystra, where a disciple named Timothy lived, whose mother was Jewish and a believer but whose father was a Greek. The believers at Lystra and Iconium spoke well of him. Paul wanted to take him along on the journey, so he circumcised him because of the Jews who lived in that area, for they all knew that his father was a Greek. As they traveled from town to town, they delivered the decisions reached by the apostles and elders in Jerusalem for the people to obey. So the churches were strengthened in the faith and grew daily in numbers” (Acts 16:1-5 NIV).
The Holy Spirit led them through Phrygia and Galatia, all the way to Troas, a coastal city on 
the Aegean Sea, where Paul had a vision of a man from Macedonia saying to him, “Come over into Macedonia and help us.” Paul concluded that the Lord was leading them to preach the gospel in Macedonia, so the next day they went by sea and land to the Roman colony of Philippi. On the Sabbath they discovered a prayer meeting of women, by the river. One of those was Lydia, a merchant from Thyatira, who opened up her heart to the Lord as Paul spoke to them. She invited Paul and his companions to stay in her home, declaring herself a believer.
And so began Paul’s work with the Philippians. The rest of his Second Missionary Journey will be spent in Macedonia and Greece, in Thessalonica, Berea, Athens and Corinth. Later, on his way home to Antioch of Syria via Caesarea and Jerusalem he would briefly visit Ephesus, but promised to return to them. Later in this study we will follow his journeys to these places and others. How exciting it is to see the hand of God at work through his servants.
