St Paul and his journeys

After Paul’s dramatic conversion experience, he spent the next several years of his life in what is obscure to us, but likely busy for Paul. In 47 AD the church in Antioch commissioned Barnabas and Paul to go forth with the gospel. They set out on the first of three missionary journeys. 

The first missionary journey (47- 48) took them to Cyprus and on up to southern Galatia. It was here that Paul insisted that Gentiles who accepted Christ did not need circumcision. Some Jewish Christians lambasted Paul for this decision. He went personally to the church in Jerusalem to settle the matter and was exonerated. 

During this first missionary journey, in the town of Lystra, Paul and Barnabas healed a crippled man, and the people assumed that Paul and  Barnabas were gods (Acts 14:8-18).