Konya

Two short days' ride from Nicaea has brought us to Mekidje, a station on the Anatolian Railway halfway between Haida Pasha and Eskisehir.

The single line went as far as Konya, and one train ran each way every day.

It stopped for the right at Eskisehir, continuing the journey next morning.

We arrived at the station some hours before the train was due and sat in the station master's strip of garden, for there did not seem anything else to do.

The curtain of the first act had gone down for us.

It gave promise of a more successful drama than the one we had previously witnessed.

It is two hundred and sixty-seven miles or thereabouts from Eskeshehr to Konya.

It took us a good fifteen hours by rail.

I went to the...

Mevlana Whirling Dervish Festival in Turkey, in Konya, Turkey, December 10th through the 17th, 2012, when I was on a festival kick.

And I've always been fascinated by Rumi and Shams and the whole idea of divine intoxication.

Can you just talk for a moment about what we can learn 750 years later about the poet and philosopher and, I guess, cleric earlier, Rumi?

I didn't know anything about Islam.

I felt more inadequate about that project than any other project.

So we went to Turkey and we studied with a sheikh from his lineage and learned the practices and went to Konya where you went, Cappadocia and all that.

And eventually I

So he came, Paul, to Lystra, to Derbe and Lystra, and behold, a certain disciple was there named Timothy, the son of a certain Jewish woman who believed, but his father was a Greek.

He was well spoken of by the brothers and sisters in Iconium.

Paul wanted to have him go with him.

And he took him and circumcised him because of the Jews who were in that region, for they all knew that his father was a Greek.

On the first missionary journey, Paul and Barnabas graphically demonstrated what Jesus commanded on that mountain in Galilee.

After they had evangelized that town and made many disciples, they returned to Lystra, to Iconium, and to Antioch, strengthening the disciples by encouraging them to continue in the faith and by telling them, it is necessary to pass through many troubles on our way into the kingdom of God.

When they had appointed elders in every church and prayed with fasting, they committed them to the Lord in whom they had

believed.

Gonna read you from Acts chapter 14, verses 19 and 20, where we read this.

"Then Jews from Antioch and Iconium came there, and having persuaded the multitudes, they stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, supposing him to be dead.

However, when the disciples gathered around him, he rose up and he went into the city, and the next day he departed with Barnabas to Derbe." Paul and Barnabas went from city to city in the Roman provinces of Asia Minor, what is today modern-day Turkey.

They preached the good news of Jesus Christ, and when people responded, they started congregations.

Along the way, they faced a lot of opposition.

In fact, there was an angry group of Jewish people from Antioch and Iconium who started following Paul, hoping to stop him and his companions.

When they came to the city of Lystra, some of these persecuting Jewish people from Antioch and Iconium traveled more than 100 miles, that's 160 kilometers, just to make Paul miserable.

They were dedicated adversaries of the Apostle Paul.

Two short days' ride from Nicaea has brought us to Mekidje, a station on the Anatolian Railway halfway between Haida Pasha and Eskisahar.

The single line went as far as Konya, and one train ran each way every day.

It stopped for the right at Eskisahar, continuing the journey next morning.

We arrived at the station some hours before the train was due and sat in the station master's strip of garden, for there did not seem anything else to do.

The curtain of the first act had gone down for us.

It gave promise of a more successful drama than the one we had previously witnessed.

It is 267 miles or thereabouts from Eskisehir to Konya.

It took us a good 15 hours by rail.

And then here at Lystra, this is also incredible place to be.

So you had Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe.

And we're going to look at Acts chapter 14.

I'm going to start here and buzz through and I want to focus on Lystra.

So in days ahead, tour groups will be able to come here and actually see the city.

So we start out.

In Iconium, they entered the Jewish synagogue as usual.

That was always Paul's starting point.