Soissons
Picardy
France

26 April 2015 

Meeting Paul the Tent-maker

Before we crossed the Gulf of Corinth, leaving the Greek Peloponnese in March to begin the long overland journey back to the UK, we spent two nights in Ancient Corinth. We slept in the motorhome 300 metres from the Greco-Roman site, which dates from the 8^th C BC.

In the Roman forum stands the Bema, the platform from which orators – including St Paul - addressed the crowd. Paul had chosen Corinth as his missionary base in Greece, living there for 18 months while working as a tent-maker. In 52 AD he was brought before the Roman Proconsul Gallio on the Bema, accused of attempting to convert Jews to what was emerging as 'Christianity'. Gallio refused to judge what he considered a mere religious dispute among the Jews and he acquitted Paul. If only Pontius Pilate had been as wise, how different things would have been over the last two thousand years!

Paul then turned his attention to non-Jews, the Gentiles. He wrote two letters to the Corinthians, among letters to his followers in other places he had visited (Romans, Galatians, Ephesians, Colossians, Thessalonians, Philippians etc). In effect, he was establishing what people must do in order to be called a 'Christian'.

Reading more about Paul and his long stay in Corinth, we realised that we had met him before in Ephesus and in Philippi. This began a search to find where else our paths had coincided: he on his three missionary journeys, us as we criss-crossed Europe and its environs. We came up with the attached list of 24 places ranging round the Mediterranean from Jerusalem to Sicily. There may be only two places, Lesvos and Damascus, where he stayed and we didn't and sadly it's too late for the latter.

There are some pictures from our visit to Ancient Corinth at:

http://www.magbazpictures.com/ancient-corinth.html

Go well in all you do

Barry and Margaret

ST PAUL 

Twenty-four places where by coincidence both Paul and we have stayed:

To start with:	Jerusalem
Turkey:	Antioch
	Tarsus
	Ephesus
	Myra
	Pergamum
	Assos
	Trogillium
	Miletus
	Troy
Greek Islands:	Samothrace
	Chios
	Samos
	Rhodes
	Crete
Greek Mainland:	Philippi
	Amphipolis
	Thessaloniki
	Athens
	Corinth
Islands:	Cyprus
	Malta
	Sicily
Finally:	Rome