After the disagreement over whether to take along John Mark on the missionary journey, Barnabas and Paul went separate directions. Barnabas took John Mark and sailed to Cyprus following the same initial course of the first missionary journey. After some prayer and consideration, Paul took Silas who had stayed in Antioch after coming from the Jerusalem council. They traveled north along the coast and then turned into the area of Cilicia. Paul's hometown, Tarsus was here, and they began visiting the churches there and along the coast.

Paul and Silas eventually reached the towns where Paul and Barnabas had been attacked and stoned on the first missionary journey. Paul's faith and courage was rewarded by finding the churches that he had established flourishing and growing! God had obviously anointed the leaders of these churches and raised up ministers to preach the Word of God. One such minister was a young man named Timothy whose ministry had a good report throughout the region. Timothy's grandmother, Lois, and mother, Eunice, were in the church but his father was not (II Timothy 1:5). Timothy would eventually be mentored by Paul and be considered an adopted "son" (I Timothy 1:2). Timothy would become the pastor of Ephesus and later Paul would write two letters giving him advice in his pastoral duties. These two letters are the New Testament books of I Timothy and II Timothy.

Paul wanted Timothy to join the missionary journey, but Paul realized that he would never be able to enter into the Jewish synagogues along the way if Timothy was not physically circumcised. Timothy submitted to physical circumcision so that they would have an open door with the closed-minded Jewish leaders and Pharisees. Some people have criticized Paul for circumcising Timothy because they feel that it was hypocritical after the decision of the Jerusalem Council. Paul, however, was not circumcising Timothy for the purpose of salvation but that his witness would be accepted by the devout Jewish people. This was a special case in that Paul felt that Timothy's ministry would be better received if circumcision was performed. Paul did not preach or teach that circumcision was necessary for salvation and refused to circumcise another young minister Titus for that reason (Galations 2:3-5).

The real issue was Timothy's Greek father, who had obviously taken a strong stand against the Jewish leaders and refused to worship the one, true living God like his wife and mother-in-law. To reach the Jews of the area, they would have to see that Timothy was willing to separate himself from his father's example. His circumcision, while not being necessary for salvation, proved Paul and Timothy's desire to do whatever it took to reach lost souls (see I Corinthians 9:19-23). Even today, sometimes God will ask us to remove things in our life that may not necessarily be sinful but would hinder our ability to win someone else to God!

The missionary party was now Paul, Silas, and Timothy and as they traveled throughout the cities they read the letter from the Jerusalem council and strengthened the churches. God blessed their efforts with new souls won daily!

As they traveled through the cities in Galatia, the Holy Ghost directed them to not go northeast into the heart of the Asian continent but to continue to the western coast. Again in Mysia, they tried to turn north, but the Holy Spirit impressed upon them to not go. Notice how that the Holy Ghost was leading their footsteps and direction. Paul would later travel northeast into the continent of Asia and establish churches there, but at this time, the Holy Ghost was leading them west!

Coming to the coastal town of Troas, Paul had a dream or vision one night. In the vision, a man from Macedonia was calling out to him asking Paul to come help them. Macedonia was the land further west across the Mediterranean sea.

There is a change in verse 10 from "they" to "we." Obviously, the eventual writer of the book of Acts, Luke, had joined the missionary group in Troas. This was the same Luke who would write the Gospel of Luke. We only know a few things about Luke. He was a physician (Colossians 4:14), and was a Gentile (Colossians 4:10-17). He was the only non-Jewish author of a New Testament book. Luke four times accompanied Paul on missionary journeys and these times are always pinpointed in Acts by the change from "they" to "we." (called the "we passages" by scholars) Luke seemed to always join Paul on long voyages and no doubt spent the days at sea writing down everything that had just happened on the missionary journey. From these notes and other research within the church, Luke wrote his gospel and the book of Acts.

Everything else we know about Luke is inferred from his or Paul's writings. Luke was a careful historian, and his historical notes throughout his writings have been proven perfectly accurate. Luke's compassion for the poor and sick can be easily discerned from his stories. Luke was a very humble man, with no desire to make himself appear famous. He wrote more than one-fourth of the New Testament and yet never mentioned himself by name in the scriptures. He was extremely intelligent and educated, and his command of the Greek language and writing skills are by far the best of the Biblical writers.

The four men boarded a ship for Macedonia and after a brief layover on the island of Samothracia, arrived in the city of Neapolis.

Traveling inland to the capital city of Philippi, Paul and his companions decided to spend some time reaching out to them many people there. After a few days, they discovered that many people who worshipped the one, true, living God of Israel gathered together at the river side every sabbath and prayed together. Paul and his companions traveled to the river and joined themselves with a group of women which were meeting to pray.

Sometime during the prayer meeting, Paul began to preach about Jesus. One woman who gladly received Paul's word was Lydia who was originally of the city of Thyatira. Lydia was a "seller of purple" which meant that she sold cloth and robes that were dyed purple. In those days, the only dyes available were those found in nature. People would gather certain minerals or certain glands of animals to make the various colors.

There was a certain type of shellfish that lived in the waters off the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. Within these small shellfish was a small gland that produced a white substance. The shellfish was harvested and the white substance removed from the shell. Then they would allow sunlight to shine upon the substance and when the light hit it, it changed to a very deep purple color. This substance was then used to dye fabrics that precious purple color. It took 250,000 shellfish to make 1 ounce of dye and the shellfish had to be gathered by hand! Thus, to wear an entire garment of purple was very expensive. Really only the extremely wealthy and Kings and Princes could afford whole garments of it and in those days purple represented "royalty" and great wealth.

Lydia was a seller of purple and was no doubt one of the richest woman in Philippi. When she heard the message of Paul, she went and told all of the servants and family in her house and they all "were baptized" both with the Spirit and in water. After her conversion, Lydia invited the four men to stay in her spacious house and it became the first church in Macedonia.

Using the house of Lydia as their base, Paul and his companions began to evangelize the city. There was a young girl in Philippi who was possessed by a devil and was a servant of men who used her spiritual powers to make money. "Soothsaying" means that she pretended to be able to predict the future. There are many such "soothsayers" today that go by the name of "palm readers," "tarot card readers," or "psychics." If they are genuine, they are possessed by or have learned to communicate with evil spirits. An evil spirit can know through observation things from the past but CANNOT predict the future. The way these "soothsayers" work is that the evil spirit tells them something about the person's past and then tells the person what the evil spirit would like to become their future. Because the person has been fooled by the psychic's knowledge of their past, they believe the future prophecy and because of their faith, it sometimes comes true!

The devil has just copied this process from God's divine plan. When you hear a preacher preach the Word of God to you, you hear him identify with the help of the Holy Ghost something that you have done wrong in your life. He then tells you what God would like for your future to be! If you act with faith and obey what God has said, then you will reap the blessings in your future! A Christian therefore has no reason to consult such a "soothsayer" because we want it to be God's plan for our future that comes to pass!

This particular girl in Philippi began to follow Paul around saying "These men are the servants of the most high God, which shew unto us the way of salvation." Notice what she was saying was true, but her motives were wrong because she was trying to distract them from their true purpose of preaching the gospel. Paul ignored her for several days, not wanting to give the devil any attention. After a while, though, Paul became wearied with her and cast out the devil in the name of Jesus! Paul was exhibiting the signs of a true believer (Mark 16:16-17)!

The men who had been reaping the financial rewards from the girl's prophesying became angry when she could no longer communicate with evil spirits! They physically grabbed Paul and Silas and brought them before the city council charging them with "stirring up trouble." Notice that the narrative changes from "we" to "them" which indicates that Luke and Timothy were not arrested. Luke obviously departed at their arrest and did not rejoin them until their third missionary journey. Even though scriptures do not say, Timothy probably went back to Lydia's house.

The city council became angry at the accusations and had Paul and Silas beat with a whip! As if this punishment was not enough, they were then put into the innermost prison which was the worst place to have to stay. Before leaving, the city leaders gave a special warning to the jailor to make sure that Paul and Silas were kept locked away.

That the scriptures record the time of midnight is significant for several reasons. First, "midnight, represents the darkest part of the night and therefore the lowest emotional point in a trial. Paul and Silas, beaten and imprisoned, were probably not feeling much faith. The second reason that "midnight" is important is that most of the Greek and Jewish city councils did not conduct business or trials after sundown. This means that the latest that Paul and Silas could have been beaten and placed in jail was around 6 or 7 o'clock in the evening. For five or six hours, they probably sat in the prison depressed and wondering if they would even live through the night!

But at midnight, they began to pray and through their prayers, they mustered enough faith to begin to sing praises to God. These were not weak songs or silent prayers, but were so loud that all "the prisoners heard them!" When Paul and Silas began to sing, something supernatural happened: a great earthquake hit and shook the foundations of the prison. But this was no ordinary earthquake because at the same time of the tremors, all of the cells in the prison swung open and every prisoner's bands and shackles fell off! God had delivered his children!

Sometimes in our lives, we feel that we are at our lowest point spiritually or we may feel bound and unable to get the "breakthrough" that we need in our relationship with God. When we are at that "midnight" spiritually we can either get bitter and sulk or pray and began to praise God. When we are willing to praise and worship God in our darkest hour, then He will always respond with the miraculous! There really is power in praise and worship!

When the prison keeper awoke and realized that all of the prison doors were open, he drew his sword and was about to commit suicide before Paul stopped him! He was planning to kill himself because he knew that he would be put to death by the rulers if they discovered that all of the prisoners had escaped. The prisoners were so shaken by what they had just experienced, that they had not fled but had gathered around Paul and Silas!

The prison keeper grabbed a light and fell down before Paul and Silas asking "what must I do to be saved?!" Paul and Silas began to teach the keeper about Jesus Christ and having faith in what God could do in his life. The prison keeper took Paul and Silas to his own home, washed the wounds from their earlier beating, and then was baptized with all of his family! Notice that the jail keeper's belief was more than just a verbal confession but resulted in his baptism! Even though the scripture does not record every detail, the prison keeper and his family were not doubt baptized in water and in the Spirit! Salvation had come to the very one who had bound up the missionaries! We must never underestimate the power in prayer and worship!

After all his family was baptized, the prison keeper fed Paul and Silas a meal and "rejoiced" with them about what God had done. At the time Paul and Silas had not understood what the purpose of God was in allowing them to be beaten severely and imprisoned, but when they got over their fears and hurts and began to praise God despite their situation, an entire family was saved! God had known that the prison keeper was hungry for the Gospel all along! We must never doubt God's plan even in the roughest situations. God may have allowed the trial to come to place us in the path of someone who is hungry for Him!

When the morning came, the city leaders decided that they wanted to be rid of Paul and Silas and sent word for them to be released. Paul, however, waxed bold and said "if they want us to leave, they can come themselves and let us go." The issue here was that the city leaders had beaten Paul and Silas without a proper trial and without knowing that Paul was a Roman citizen. A Roman citizenship was supposed to guarantee a proper trial and an opportunity to speak for one's self. A Roman citizen could also not be beaten as punishment. Paul had decided to make the city leaders a little uncomfortable.

When they realized that they had done wrong to Roman citizens, the leaders became fearful because they realized that if Paul and Silas pressed charges, they could be in turn beaten and removed from office. Paul and Silas decided to leave and after stopping by the house of Lydia, left town.

The household of Lydia and the keeper of the prison's family formed the nucleus of a new church in the town of Philippi. This church would grow and eventually become one of the most giving churches of their time. About ten years later Paul would write a letter to this church which in our New Testament is called the book of Philippians.

Leaving Philippi, the missionaries traveled through Amphipolis and Apollonia and did not stop until they came to Thessalonica. Probably the reason that Paul bypassed the cities was because they did not have many Jewish people or established synagogues. Even though Paul knows the prophecies about the Gentiles, his "manner" is to preach first to the Jewish people and then to the Gentiles of an area. Because Thessalonica had a synagogue, they stopped and spent the next three sabbaths teaching the Jewish people. A careful study of the words for "opening and alleging" in the Greek reveals to us Paul's style of teaching the Jewish leaders. He would first mention well-known scriptures about the Messiah and show how that Jesus Christ had fulfilled every one. He would then emphasize the scriptures that showed the Messiah would suffer and die. Remember that the Jewish leaders had been falsely teaching for centuries that the Messiah would be a triumphal king and destroy the nation that ruled the Jewish people. Because Jesus did not destroy the Roman rule, the Jewish leaders rejected Him as being the Messiah. The term "Christ" actually means "anointed one" or "Messiah." When we say "Jesus Christ" we are actually saying "Jesus the Messiah."

Some of the Jewish people got the revelation and obeyed the Gospel but the real revival was in the devout Grecians. Also there where many woman in influential positions that believed the message and received Paul and Silas. Once again we see the familiar pattern of Paul's missions' adventures: they first preach in the synagogue, some Jews believe but many Gentiles are converted, and then the Jewish leaders who reject the message cause an uproar of force against the missionaries. Here in Thessalonica, Paul and Silas were staying in the house of a man named "Jason." Gathering a mob of the "thugs" of the city, the Jewish leaders demanded that Paul and Silas come out of the house and face the crowd.

Notice what the Jewish leaders were saying: "these that have turned the world upside down are come hither also!" Obviously the message of the Christians was spreading throughout Asia and many people were hearing of a people who were "turning their world upside down!" Not finding Paul and Silas, the people of the city arrested Jason and some of his household, but the next day they were released on a type of "bail."

To escape the crowd, Paul and his companions traveled under the cover of night to the town of Berea. The Bereans took a different approach to the teaching of Paul in the synagogue. Verse 11 states that they "searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so." We need to have the same attitude that the Bereans had! We must gladly receive the preached word and then study the scriptures to make sure what we are being taught is truth! A "Berean" Christian will never be led astray, for they will stand with the Word of God!

As they began to study the scriptures, the Bereans discovered that what Paul was teaching was indeed true therefore "many of them believed." Once again there was a revival among the influential women of the town, and also once again, the tremendous revival came from the Gentiles of the town!

The Jewish leaders of Thessalonica were determined to destroy the ministry of Paul so when they received word of the Berean revival, they came and began to stir up opposition. The attack was against Paul so the believers of the city took him to the seaport and placed him on a ship to Athens so that he would be safe until his pursuers returned home. Silas and Timothy stayed on in Berea teaching and instructing these people who so readily received the Word of God!