Greece & Italy Day 4a: Berea

The following is the devotional site presentation I gave to our group at Berea today.

“As soon as it was night, the believers sent Paul and Silas away to Berea. On arriving there, they went to the Jewish synagogue. Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true. As a result, many of them believed, as did also a number of prominent Greek women and many Greek men.”

“But when the Jews in Thessalonica learned that Paul was preaching the word of God at Berea, some of them went there too, agitating the crowds and stirring them up. The believers immediately sent Paul to the coast, but Silas and Timothy stayed at Berea. Those who escorted Paul brought him to Athens and then left with instructions for Silas and Timothy to join him as soon as possible.”

Apart from a later passage mentioning that one of Paul’s travelling companions was Sopater son of Pyrrhus from Berea (Acts 20:4), this passage from Acts 17:10-15 is the sole mention of Berea in Scripture.

After facing opposition in Thessalonica, where their host and other believers were dragged before the city council, Paul and Silas departed for Berea where they once again began preaching in the Jewish synagogue. In Acts, Luke praises the receptivity of the Bereans, declaring them to be “of more noble character” – the New Living Translation says they were “more open-minded” – since they received Paul’s message with eagerness and examined the Scriptures daily to see if what he said was true. Many of them believed – as is also attested by the fact that Paul later has a travelling companion from Berea – but then Thessalonian Jews followed them there to agitate against them. Acts doesn’t go into detail here, so we don’t know the extent of the trouble caused, but it was enough that Paul immediately departed for Athens, from which he later went to Corinth. It wasn’t so severe, however, that Silas and Timothy felt compelled to leave, so they stayed behind for awhile and then later rejoined Paul once he’d gone to Corinth.

Comparatively, this is a relatively minor Scriptural mention. There are no New Testament letters written specifically to the believers at Berea, as there are for those at Thessalonica, Philippi, Corinth, Rome, and elsewhere. In fact, when describing his travels within his own letters, Paul never singles out Berea for mention, even though it seems likely that he passed through there on other occasions as well.

And yet despite this, the Bereans served then and serve now as a model for the proper response to the Gospel message, summarized in a single verse: “Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true” (Acts 17:11).

Luke declares the Berean Jews to be “of more noble character” than those in Thessalonica, which admittedly may not have been a very high bar given what they had just experienced there. But what’s notable is what they are praised for – they received the message with eagerness and they examined the Scriptures daily to verify Paul’s truthfulness.

Now one danger many Christians have in reading this passage is that we see the word “Scriptures” and think “Bible.” It’s important to remember, however, that any such references in the New Testament are not referring to the New Testament itself, which was not in existence at the time.

In studying this, that fact reminded me of the importance of studying the Old Testament and not developing a faith that’s based simply on the New Testament. On a trip like this, where so much of our attention is focused on the players in the New Testament and where they went and what they did, the Bereans serve to remind us that the “Apostle to the Gentiles” often went first to the Jewish synagogue, where he preached the Gospel to people grounded in the Scriptures and acquired his first converts.

The Bereans also demonstrate that those who responded properly did so not by blindly accepting Paul’s message, but by comparing it to the Scriptures and making sure it was in alignment. While from our standpoint we may be tempted to ask “if you can’t trust Paul, who can you trust?”, it’s important to remember that Paul was the new guy in town, preaching a revolutionary new message. Regardless, this still functions to remind us that we can’t solely depend on the word of any human authority, but need to investigate to ensure that what they are declaring agrees with the Scriptures, which for us today means both the Old and New Testaments. This means that those, like myself, who often find ourselves gravitating toward easily digestible devotionals rather than digging into the Scriptures ourselves, need to be careful that we’re not accepting someone else’s teaching in contradiction to the testimony of Scripture.

It’s also important to note that the Berean Jews didn’t just boot up their BibleWorks software, decide Paul’s message matched Scripture, and call it good. Acts says that they examined the Scriptures not just once, but every day. As someone who – how shall I put it? – tends more toward an experiential than an intellectual faith, I find this especially convicting. Scripture is never something we are done examining. For those of us in seminary, that’s also a reminder that upon graduation we are not done growing in our knowledge of the Bible. The Bereans challenge us to return again and again to the Scriptures to ensure that the teaching we are receiving reflects Biblical truth.

All told, despite the brevity of their Biblical appearance, the Bereans teach us valuable lessons in their proper response to the Gospel message – we must value the Old Testament, test all teachings against Scripture, and study Scripture regularly. Then we, too, can be “of more noble character than those in Thessalonica.”

Greece & Italy Day 3: In which Luke kicks archaeologists’ collective butts

We began the day with a visit to the crypt beneath St. Demetrius Church, which was built on top of (noticing a theme?) Roman baths from an earlier era. This was followed by a visit to the remains of the Roman forum, which we’d passed numerous times since it’s right next to our hotel in the center of town (which is one of the strangest things about it). This too wasn’t an exception to the everything-is-built-on-everything-else rule – they’ve unearthed a Hellenistic bath house, which I believe they said was the oldest discovery in Thessaloniki, or some such (I really need to get a small notebook like Heather so I can take notes). Fourth or 2nd century B.C., I think. But don’t quote me on that.

Hellenistic Bath House

This (the forum underneath this forum) was likely the place Paul’s host Jason was dragged when they caused such turmoil in Acts 17. This is a great distance from Jason’s “traditional” house, which our guide pointed out makes it even less likely that is really Jason’s house.

We next headed to the Museum of Byzantine Culture, which only had 3 of its 11 rooms open due to Greece’s budget issues (they apparently can’t afford to keep it fully staffed). Thus, we got to learn about the early Christian or early Byzantine period (4th-7th century), but missed out on the middle, late, and post-Byzantine periods (8th-19th century). One interesting exhibit on cemeteries and funeral customs during the early Christian period stated that crosses didn’t begin appearing on tombs until after the official adoption of Christianity as the state religion in the 4th century. I’ve also become fascinated by the fact that early Christians used the peacock as a symbol of eternity and heaven. Kind of cool, but seemingly random.

We next headed over to the Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki, where we cajoled our way into getting taken through the apparently closed main exhibit. This included a lot of cool stuff, including a marker from the Via Egnatia which declared who’d built it (Gnaeus Egnatius, the proconsul of Macedonia, go figure). It’s been interesting to learn about the other gods worshiped here (including Egyptian gods like Isis and Osiris), but the most fascinating aspect on that front was a mention that Demeter was worshiped in her roles as both a mother and a virgin. Huh.

Marker from Via Egnatia

The most exciting artifact, though, was an inscription that used a longer form of the word “politarch.” This was a word Luke used to describe civic officials in Thessaloniki and for a long time people used that to discredit Luke, since no one thought that term had been in use that early. However, now numerous inscriptions have been unearthed revealing that Luke was in fact accurate and that term was being used here at that time. Most such inscriptions are now in the British Museum and our guide was happy to find that there is one still here.

After getting a break to go grab lunch (gyros, yum!), we headed to the Arch of Galerius, an interesting triumphal arch that once spanned the Via Egnatia, then to the Rotunda of St. George, which had served as a mausoleum for Galerius (most likely), then as a church, then as a mosque, and now as a museum. At this point I was struck by our guide’s off-repeated mentions of the “Turkish occupation” that lasted 500 years – interesting that such a long time was still considered an “occupation” especially when we consider our own country’s history of being around for less than half that amount of time.

After that we got a bit of free time, so we headed over to Starbucks (partly to check out their Greece- and Thessaloniki-specific mugs), then down to what we think is the Aegean Sea (or possibly a bay off of it, you know how those things work) to visit a statue of Alexander the Great. We then headed back to the Roman forum to shoot some videos for Heather’s missions team that will be headed here and for her blog in general.

Gyros!

Dinner was next (lots of good meats – I’m glad this is what my professor referred to as a “meat culture”), where we met Mike and Maria Long, who pastor a church here. Mike is American, while Maria is Greek and hysterically funny, which we’re realizing seems to be true of most Greek folks we know. We then headed to their church service, where Dr. Wilson (my professor who’s leading this trip) shared about what’s going on at the church he pastors in Turkey (in the city known Biblically as Smyrna – see Revelation 2), as well as in Iran, Iraq, and other countries in this region. We prayed for the many refugees in Turkey, as well as for improved relations between Turkey and Greece, which have historically been enemies, so that the Gospel can advance in Turkey. According to Dr. Wilson, Turkey is the least evangelized country in the world, with Christians (including Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant) making up less than .1% of the population.

Tomorrow morning we depart Thessaloniki to head through Veria (the Berea of Acts 17, about which I have to give a presentation) and Vergina to spend the night in Preveza. Not sure of the significance of those last two, so we’ll see what tomorrow holds.

Greece & Italy Day 2: Layered History

Lion of Amphipolis

Layered. That’s the word I’d use to describe history here. It’s layers upon layers – and I mean that quite literally – Byzantine architecture on top of Roman architecture on top of Greek architecture. Today we drove down a major highway – that in large part corresponded with the ancient Roman road Via Egnatia – to visit Neapolis, where Paul first landed when he sailed from Troas; Phillipi, where Paul met Lydia, his first convert in Macedonia (northern Greece); and Amphipolis, which Paul next travelled to (and which has an amazingly large stone lion from 400 BC!) en route to Thessaloniki (which we returned to at the end of the day).

The layered history was very evident in Amphipolis, with its three concentric circling walls – if I remember right, the outermost was Hellenistic, next was the Roman, and then the Byzantine. Amphipolis had a small museum where our guide told us about pre-historic and archaic Greece with the Cycladic civilization on islands in the Aegean Sea, the Minoan civilization in Crete, and the Mycenaean civilization in the Peloponnese, all pre-dating the ancient Greek culture with which we are more familiar.

In Phillipi we visited the remains of an ancient Roman forum (agora, in Greek) where our guide pointed out the bema, or podium. Interestingly, this was also called the “judgment seat” and was doubtless what Paul was referring to when he talked about us appearing before the “judgment seat” of Christ (Paul was dragged before a number of these himself, possibly including this one).

We also saw the remains of several Christian basilicas. It was fascinating to be able to trace the format of the narthex, nave, and apse, which we’d seen the day before at St. Demetrius Church, and realize that these had been active churches so very long ago. One seemingly impressive basilica had never actually been used – its dome collapsed in the course of its construction. Our guide used it to make the point that large buildings aren’t necessary when you compare that unused structure to what Paul was able to accomplish at the riverside.

Unused Basilica

The riverside was our next stop, where Paul met, converted, and baptized Lydia. Although they can’t be sure of the exact spot, they know which river and approximately where it must have been. Very fascinating.

River in Phillipi where Paul met Lydia

Greece & Italy Study Tour: Day 1: It’s Tradition

I’m a day late posting — this refers to yesterday.

After our overnight flight from DC, we arrived in Thessaloniki at 1:30pm their time (6:30am our time).  We were the last contingent to arrive, so we all clambered into the bus to head to the hotel.  Our education began immediately as our guide from Aristotle Travel began pointing out the sites to us en route to the hotel.  We learned a great deal about the history of Thessaloniki and the major role it played in various empires.  Our hotel is at the edge of the Aristotelous Plaza, which runs all the way down to the sea.  Hopefully some night we’ll have time to walk down there.

View of Thessaloniki from the tower on the wall

We did a driving tour of the city and got to visit a portion of its ancient wall, which repelled numerous attacks throughout history.  We visited a tower on the wall overlooking the city – an incredible view.  We also visited St. Demetrius Church, named after a saint in the Greek Orthodox Church.  It was fascinating to learn about the structure of the churches – the narthex, nave, and the “holy of holies” (in the apse) where only the priests could go.

Inside St. Demetrius Church

Another interesting site included the outside (we couldn’t get in) of the supposed house of Jason, Paul’s host in the city who was dragged before the city council.  In explaining that there isn’t an exceptionally large chance that this actually is in fact Jason’s house, our guide made one of my favorite statements thus far:  “It’s tradition.”

We ended the day by meeting up with Philip and Nina from the A21 campaign, who Heather will be working with when she leads a missions trip here in a couple months.  It was fun hanging out with them and learning their stories  – he’s from Denmark, she’s from Norway, they met in Australia, and they’re getting married in August.  They are doing incredible work in this country and our missions team is going to have an awesome time working with them — I wish I was going to be on that trip!

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