Why was Paul the Evangelist willing to risk his life by traveling thousands of miles to preach about Jesus Christ?

By G.R. Konig
www.100prophecies.com

There is a Christian site that offers interactive maps, showing the missionary routes that Paul the Evangelist took during the first century AD, about 2000 years ago, when traveled throughout parts of the Roman world to preach about the Jewish Messiah, Jesus Christ.

The maps can be found at About-Jesus.org, which currently has four maps involving Paul's missionary journeys. These are the four journeys that are described in detail in the Bible's book of Acts, which was written by Luke during the first century. Three of Paul's journeys were mission journeys and the fourth was Paul's trip to Rome, when he was being taken there as a prisoner.

In looking at the maps as they trace Paul's travels from country to country, region to region, and city to city, throughout parts of western Asia and southern Europe, you catch a glimpse of something more than place names and travel routes, you catch a glimpse of Paul's dedication.

If you were to add up the distances from one town to the next, for each of the four journeys, and then total them up, you would end up with something like 10,000 miles. Paul traveled roughly 10,000 miles, over land, by foot, and over water, by ship.

And he did it during a time when the Roman Empire did not legally recognize Christianity.

In other words, Paul traveled thousands of miles to evangelize Jesus at great risk to himself. In fact, the Bible's book of Acts describes various incidents in which Paul is beaten, chained, flogged, chased, dragged, imprisoned, and even left for dead.

And yet, after each of these incidents, Paul continues to travel and he continues to evangelize.

Surely there have been other people throughout history who have shown great dedication to one cause or another, even religious causes that have nothing to do with Christianity. But, did they travel thousands of miles by foot to do so? Were they willing to risk their lives, over and over again, even after being imprisoned, beaten and left for dead?

Why did Paul do what he did?

The answer to this question is not found on any map. It is found in the Bible, in Acts 9, which describes how Paul met Jesus.

Paul met Jesus during a time when Paul was a non-Christian who was persecuting Christians. And he met Jesus many years after Jesus had been executed.

In other words, Paul met the resurrected Jesus – the son of God, who had conquered death.

Why else would Paul risk his own life to preach about a man who had already been killed?

As Paul wrote in about the year 55 AD:

For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, (1 Corinthians 15:3-4, NIV translation).

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