I’ve read two books on St. Paul recently, one that was copyrighted in 2012 and the other in 1896. I learned quite a bit about Paul from both.
One of the books mentioned that Christianity’s influence in Asia Minor was primarily to the Greek speaking people in the cities. The people in the rural areas who spoke the Phrygian language were not evangelized by Christians. [1] In Paul’s travels around Asia Minor, he visited certain places and not others. As Acts 16:6-7 tells us Paul was forbidden by the Holy Spirit to preach in Asia and Bithynia. Will God send all the people who were by passed by Paul on his journeys to hell? Because Paul did not go to them, they had no opportunity to hear and believe.
As we have asked in my book, The Renovation of Our Soul, this applies to a multitude of people around the world. For centuries, people in North America, South America, Australia, and the islands of the South Pacific had no opportunity to be saved. Is this a God of mercy, love, and justice? There must be something we do not understand about God’s plan of salvation.
_________________________________________
[1] W. M. Ramsay. St. Paul the Traveller. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1896, p. 132.
