Paul’s first missionary journey stayed on one continent, and was about 1500 miles long. His second journey crosses the Aegean Sea into Greece, and is twice as long. Stanford University put together a program that calculates cost of travel in the first century. Wanna know what that missions trip cost? Read on…
It looks like it was 2012 when someone from Stanford created a program that would calculate the cost of first century travel. Of course on the Christians at the college got the idea to plug Paul’s missionary trips into the program and voila! We have a data point that helps us create a more complete picture of Paul’s life and ministry. Stanford’s Cost Web Page here
So, it looks like 3,000 miles in length, and just the walking time would have taken 100 days to complete. The entire trip was about 3 years in length (Late summer of A.D. 49 until fall A.D. 52). Thinking just of the walking time, and knowing that we can walk at around 3 mph, this tells me that Paul walked for at least 10 hours a day on travel days. If he were walking at 2 1/2 mph (factoring in stops for meals, etc.) he would have walked 12 hours a day. The point is: this isn’t leisurely travel….Paul is moving like a man with a purpose, trying to cover as much ground as he can so there is time for ministry. Then there’s the cost ….it would have taken about 314 denarii to complete such a trip, a denarius was a standard “days pay” on the low end of the scale…making it worth around $50 or slightly more today. It wasn’t good wages, but it would keep you in beans and rice. At a $50 value, 314 denarii come out to a $15,700 cost for the trip. To put that in today’s dollars, consider that our wage would be closer to $15 per hour. That would be around $37,700 for a total trip cost.
There are 312 days in the year, not including sundays….and Paul wouldn’t be traveling on Sundays either….so that leaves round 930 days total for work and travel. Subtract 100 travel days and you have 830 days. subtract 314 days of wage earning, and you are down to 516 days left for ministry. When you average out everything it seems fair to say that Paul probably spent just over half of his time in ministry, and the other “45%” in travel and work to support himself. There were times when others helped provide for him, so he might have had slightly more time to preach…but still, there was a significant cost and sacrifice to be on the missions trip. And the cost of subsequent trips climbed even higher.
All of those numbers and calculating to simply say this: If you want to be in ministry, then it’s going to cost you something. If you want to be a missionary, there is going to be a cost. And Jesus calls every one of us to ministry. We won’t all be missionaries, but we all minister.
None of that seems especially spiritual, so maybe I’d better add a few other observations here…
Paul uses scripture to argue his point with the Jews. This would be Paul using the Old Testament prophecies concerning Jesus to prove that the Messiah has already come, and they missed it. Theology isn’t why they try to kill Paul…it’s jealousy. They don’t really care what Paul has to say…if no one were listening they would have laughed and walked away…but when they started to lose the crowds they became jealous and tried to have Paul killed. Of course, they didn’t admit their real motivations…they said they were causing trouble, disturbing the city and promoting treason. Listen carefully to the shouts of the crowd….because the day will come when we Christians will hear the same thing in the U.S. Persecution has been ongoing in some parts of the world since Christ, and it will come to the United States eventually.
Paul uses scripture to argue his point with the Jews. This would be Paul using the Old Testament prophecies concerning Jesus to prove that the Messiah has already come, and they missed it. Theology isn’t why they try to kill Paul…it’s jealousy. They don’t really care what Paul has to say…if no one were listening they would have laughed and walked away…but when they started to lose the crowds they became jealous and tried to have Paul killed. Of course, they didn’t admit their real motivations…they said they were causing trouble, disturbing the city and promoting treason. Listen carefully to the shouts of the crowd….because the day will come when we Christians will hear the same thing in the U.S. Persecution has been ongoing in some parts of the world since Christ, and it will come to the United States eventually.
In Berea Paul was treated differently because the people there “searched the scripture” to see if what Paul was saying was true. They truly were of “more noble character” since they didn’t respond out of jealousy or envy, but they didn’t just take Paul’s word for it either. They did the homework and as they studied they were convinced. I wonder how strong the Berean church is today? The modern name for the town is Veria, in Macedonia Greece. There are Christian churches there today (tourism seems to be an income for them) but I couldn’t tell how “alive” the spiritual community might be. I hope they are thriving…they have such a wonderful legacy.
In Athens, Paul learned the local customs and religions and used that knowledge to introduce Jesus to the masses. We should be doing something similar here. Instead, we often read a book about what what is working in another culture or people group and try to recreate the same results. It generally doesn’t work, because people think and act differently in different parts of the world….and nation…and even the state. What works in NW Pennsylvania won’t necessarily work in Pittsburgh or Cleveland. Our method of ministry is different in a rural setting than it is in a suburban or city setting. And a good missionary, who spends time learning this will be more effective.
Priscilla and Aquila were great ministry partners. I had forgotten that they went with Paul back to Syria. One of the things that Paul did well was associate with other ministry partners who had the same mindset and goals that he did. Even though Paul doesn’t seem to have Barnabas’s gift for working with others, he did find a small group (like, one or two people) who understood him and could work with him and together they made a very effective ministry team. Sometimes small size means more flexibility and faster response times, less bureaucracy. I suppose we need all sizes of churches and ministries to effectively complete the mission Christ gave us.
Faithfully,
PR