St. Barnabas 21. Iconium & St. Thekla. It is about 47 AD. St. Paul and St. Barnabas left the cosmopolitan Roman Colony of Antioch of Psidia, and now turned to the rustic peoples the Greeks and Romans tended to call the “barbarians” (cf. Col 3:11 ).  The vast plateau, about 3600' above sea level, was over the Taurus Mountains of today’s southern Turkey, then the Roman province of Galatia. Barnabas and Paul traveled in a southeasterly direction along winding roads among the hills. They would meet simple ordinary rural folks, and no doubt also robbers and bandits as was then common, and would share the gospel with whoever would listen.  Eventually they came to the town of Iconium, the first of a group of neighboring villages that also included Lystra and Derbe in the same general area of southeast Galatia. As usual, Barnabas and Paul first went to the synagogue in Iconium. There they found both Jew and Gentile attending services, and they must have been invited to spe...