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LESSON IX.

PAUL IN ASIA MINOR.

Acts XIV. 1-28.

To duty firm, to conscience true,
However tried and pressed,

In God's clear sight high work we do,
If we but do our best.

GOLDEN TEXT: And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men. - COL. iii. 23.

1. What did you learn about Paul and Barnabas in the last Lesson?

2. Where did they go when the Jews drove them from Antioch in Pisidia?

They went to the city of Iconium.

3. Will you find Iconium on the map?

4. What did Paul and Barnabas do here?

They went into the synagogue and preached.

5. When some of the Jews stirred up the people against them what did they do?

They left Iconium and went to the cities of Lystra and Derbe. 6. Will you find these cities on the map?

7. What were most of the people of Lystra and Derbe?

The most of them were heathen.

8. What did the people of Lystra say when they saw and heard the wonderful things that Paul and Barnabas said and did?

"The gods are come down to us in the likeness of men.”

9. Whom did they call Paul and Barnabas?

"They called Barnabas, Jupiter, and Paul, Mercurius." 10. Who were Jupiter and Mercurius?

They were heathen gods.

11. What did the priest of Jupiter do?

He brought oxen and garlands, and was going to offer sacrifice to Paul and Barnabas.

12. What did Paul and Barnabas say when they knew this? "We also are men of like passions with you, and preach unto you that ye should turn from these vanities unto the living God which made heaven and earth, and the sea, and all things that are therein."

13. What did Paul and Barnabas do soon after this?

They returned to Antioch in Syria.

14. Will you point out on the map the places visited by them during this journey?

1. What places visited by Paul and Barnabas were mentioned in the last Lesson?

2. When they left Antioch in Pisidia where did they go? Acts xiii. 51.

3. What account can you give of Iconium?

4. What is said of Paul's visit to this city? xiv. 1–6.

5. Where were Lystra and Derbe?

6. What can you say of the people of these cities?

7. What cure is Paul said to have performed at Lystra? 8-10.

8. What did the people say when they saw this? 11.
9. What did they call Paul and Barnabas? 12.
10. What can you say of Jupiter and Mercurius?
11. What is related of the priest of Jupiter? 13.

12. What did Paul and Barnabas say when they heard of this? 14-18.

13. What next befel Paul? 19.

14. Where did he go with Barnabas the next day? 20.

15. When they had preached in Derbe where did they go? 21.

16. What did they do in these cities? 22, 23.

17. Where did they go next? 24.

18. What did they do when they had preached in Perga? 25.

19. What account can you give of Attalia?

20. Where did they go from Attalia? 26.

21. What did they do on their return to Antioch? 27, 28.

22. What is the journey which they had now completed called?

It is called Paul's first missionary journey.

NOTES. Acts xiv. 1. Iconium. This city to which Paul and Barnabas next went was about sixty miles east of the Pisidian Antioch. It was on the great highway connecting Ephesus with the Syrian Antioch. It was a large and beautiful city in Paul's time, but ages after rose to much greater splendor and importance. "To this day, although there are few ancient remains, its walls are extensive, numbering many towers, and eighty gates." Its modern name is Konieh.

6. Lystra and Derbe. The exact site of these cities is not known. They were in a south-easterly direction from Iconium, and from forty to sixty miles distant. The inhabitants were rude, warlike, and superstitious. 11. The gods are come down to us in the likeness of men. "The Greek and Roman gods were deified men; it is not therefore strange that the people should believe, as they did, that these gods would on occasion visit the earth in human likeness.'

12. Jupiter... Mercurius. Jupiter was the greatest among the gods. He determined all changes in the heavens and the course of all earthly affairs. Mercurius was the messenger of the gods; also the god of eloquence.

13. Brought oxen and garlands. The oxen were to sacrifice, the garlands to decorate either the oxen or the apostles. - Unto the gates. "Not the gates of the city, but the door or gate leading into the court-yard of the house where the apostles were. Paul had finished his sermon and gone into the house, and knew nothing of what was going on, until the priest and the multitude appeared in the street." -Abbott. 19. Supposing he had been dead. "This had not been a Jewish stoning, conducted with fatal deliberateness, but a sudden riot, in which the mode of attack may have been due to accident. Paul, liable at all times to the swoons which accompany nervous organizations, had been stunned, but not killed.". Farrar.

REFERENCES.- Conybeare and Howson (Ch. VI.); Farrar (Ch. XXI.); Renan's "St. Paul" (Ch. II.); "Bible for Learners" (Vol. III., Bk. II., Ch. V.); "Footsteps of St. Paul" (Ch. VII.); "A Year with St. Paul' (Sundays XII.-XIV.). For a fuller list of references see Lesson V.

Published by the Unitarian Sunday-School Society, 7 Tremont Place, Boston. Price, $2.00 a hundred.

[Entered as second-class mail matter.]

Tenth Series.
No. 3.

NOVEMBER, 1881.

Lessons X.-XIII.

LESSON X.

THE CONFERENCE AT JERUSALEM.

Acts XV. 1-34; Gal. II. 1-10.

Dare to do right! dare to be true!

You have a work that no other can do!

Do it so bravely, so kindly, so well,
Angels will hasten the story to tell.

GOLDEN TEXT: Enter not into the path of the wicked, and go not in the way of evil men. - Prov. iv. 14.

1. What can you tell about the journey of Paul and Barnabas to Cyprus and Asia Minor?

2. What is this journey called?

It is called Paul's first missionary journey.

3. Where did we leave Paul and Barnabas in the last Lesson?

4. Who now came to Antioch from Jerusalem?

Men who taught that Christians must obey all the laws of the Jews if they would be saved.

5. What did Paul think about this ?

He thought that many of the Jewish laws need not be obeyed by Christians.

6. What did he do when he found that men from Jerusalem were teaching contrary to what he had taught?

He went to Jerusalem to see about it.

7. Who went with him?

Barnabas and Titus.

8. Which of the apostles did he see at Jerusalem? Peter, James, and John.

9. What question did he discuss with them?

The question whether Christians ought to obey all the Jewish laws.

10. Was this question settled, so that there was no further dispute about it?

It was not; but it was agreed that Paul and Barnabas should preach to the Gentiles, and the other apostles to the Jews.

11. Where did Paul and Barnabas go when they left Jerusalem?

They went back to Antioch and preached there.

1. Will you give a brief account of Paul's first missionary journey?

2. Who accompanied him throughout this journey?

3. What occurred some time after their return to Antioch? Acts xv. 1.

4. What were the views of the twelve apostles concerning the observance of the Jewish laws by Christians?

5. What was Paul's view of this subject?

6. What two parties, then, naturally arose in the apostolic church?

7. Where did Paul and Barnabas now go, and for what purpose? 2.

8. What account does Paul give of this visit to Jerusalem? Gal. ii. 1-10.

9. What account of it is given in Acts xv. 1-31?

10. In what do the two accounts agree, and in what do they differ?

11. Which must be regarded as the more reliable? 12. In what way do some attempt to reconcile them?

13. What evidence is afforded by Gal. ii. 11-16 that the question in dispute was not permanently settled at this time? 14. What other evidence is there to this effect?

15. Who, according to both accounts, gained an important victory at this time?

REVIEW OF PAUL'S FIRST MISSIONARY JOURNEY. We have seen that after Paul and Barnabas had preached a year in Antioch, they went down to Seleucia, and from thence sailed to Salamis, an important seaport on the east of the island of Cyprus. After preaching here in the Jewish

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