Fbco Sunday Sermons

Paul and Barnabas are on their first missionary journey. After beginning on the island of Cyprus, they sail to the coast of what is now Turkey and land at the port city of Perga, a hot, humid coastal town infested by mosquitoes and known in the Roman Empire as a hub of malaria. If you were in a part of the world rife with malaria, you needed to go higher in elevation, where it was cooler and there were fewer mosquitoes. Antioch of Pisidia was on a plateau above the coast at an elevation of 3,600 feet and the first city you came to in the Roman province of Galatia. Paul will travel to more cities in Galatia in Chapter 14. Shortly after this he will write the book of Galatians. In that book, Paul says something interesting about why he came there to preach: “As you know, it was because of an illness that I first preached the gospel to you” (Gal. 3:13). Many scholars believe Paul contracted malaria in Perga and immediately made his way up the mountains to Antioch of Pisidia to recover. There is also a subt