The Second Mission Journey and Greece

Overview

Arriving in Philippi, Paul and his party met Lydia, who was baptized as Europe's first Christian convert. When a possessed slave girl bothered the missionaries, Paul exorcised the evil spirit inside her, which provoked her owners. They indicted Paul and Silas before the city authorities, who had them beaten and thrown into prison. Liberated by an earthquake, they baptized the prison warden and his family, and were escorted out of jail. At Thessalonica, a Christian convert named Jason received the missionaries. He was indicted before the city magistrates, then released. Meanwhile, Paul and his party went on to Berea, where he received a sympathetic hearing in the synagogue -- until agitators made him take a ship for Athens. There, Paul took in the city's cultural wonders but was depressed by its rampant Pagan idolatry, which he decried in his famous address at the Aeropagus, just below the Parthenon. His preaching on monotheism and the resurrection won several important converts.