After a long day of travel through Greece we arrived at Athens. On the journey we hit it off with two other couples and shared a lot of laughs together. Here are the better halves, Pamela, Tara, and Sarah.
Athens
We found our hotel rooftop, where breakfast and dinner were served, had a great view of the acropolis.
Acts 17:16 (LEB): Now while Paul was waiting for them in Athens, his spirit was provoked within him when he observed the city was full of idols.
The next day we (and hundreds of thousands of our closest friends) visited the acropolis, and the signature landmark of western civilization, the Parthenon, which was a massive pagan temple to Athena.
Just down the hill, is a place known as the Areopagus or Mars Hill. We can read about this at the end of Acts 17. There are some important lessons for us as disciples from Paul’s brief time in Athens:
Mars Hill Devotional
The rest of the day, we have free time to walk around Athens. It is a fun city. We had a great lunch of gyros and kebabs. I found a Greek bookstore that had a copy of the Odyssey in Greek and English. My kind of souvenir!
Corinth
Acts 18:1 (LEB): After these things he departed from Athens and went to Corinth.
The next day, we visited Corinth, which as a biblical site outside of Israel, might be the best we saw. From the excavations, we really got a feel for how wealthy (which leads to carnality) and pagan the town was.
There were two harbors that brought goods from the ancient world, making Corinth more strategically significant than even Athens. Only five miles separated the Agean sea to the east from the Ionian Sea to the west. Today there is a canal but in ancient times merchants would pay to have their ships towed overland from one side to the other, avoiding the treacherous journey around the Peloponnese and through the Greek islands.
There were numerous pagan temples, most of which had some sort of ritual prostitution associated. A "Corinthian Girl" was a euphemism for a prostitute, and to "Corinthianize" was to…well you get the idea.
Yet, read what God told Paul:
Acts 18:9–11 (LEB): And the Lord said to Paul by a vision in the night, "Do not be afraid, but speak and do not keep silent, 10 because I am with you and no one will attack you to harm you, because many people are mine in this city." So he stayed a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them.
It was to this church, struggling to maneuver yet remain separate from this culture (not so successfully at times), that Paul poured years of his energy. Romans is the longest single epistle but when we combine both Corinthian letters and combine with the length of time he spent here, Paul had the most to say to the Corinthians.
This should get our attention. Corinth is a lot like America. Wicked, idolatrous, the chief exporter of everything God hates, yet we pray that God also can say "many people are mine," or as Jesus would later say,
Revelation 3:4 (LEB): But you have a few ⌊people⌋ in Sardis who have not defiled their clothing, and they will walk with me in white, because they are worthy.
May we all be kept pure from the contamination of the world yet at the same time, have Paul’s patience and passion for the perishing even in the most pagan of societies.
Tomorrow (10/9) we board a plane for Rome and the final leg of our journey!