In the footsteps of Paul

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Today I write as I rest alongside the beautiful Aegean Sea, the same body of water that St. Paul would have crossed on his journeys between Asia Minor and Greece. This morning, as we speed along the highway in our air conditioned van, I imagined Paul walking along ancient roads in the stifling heat. Doing so because he believed deep in his heart that he had been sent by the Resurrected Christ to share the Good News with the Gentiles of Asia Minor, Greece and beyond. We are covering the same distance in a matter of hours and days that would have taken him days and months, yet the experience of the majestic mountains and intense heat is so similar.

When we arrived at Miletus, we saw the ruins of the arena that was originally constructed by the Greeks in the 3^rd Century BC. Perhaps it was under reconstruction by the Romans when St. Paul delivered his farewell address in the middle of the 1^st Century AD to the people of Miletus. Luke records Paul’s closing words in Acts, “In every way I have shown you that by hard work of that sort we must help the weak, and keep in mind the words of the Lord Jesus, who himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’ When he finished speaking he knelt down and prayed with them all” (20:35-36). In the shadows of this grand arena, I simply knelt down and quietly prayed the Our Father as I continue to hold family, friends and readers with me along this journey.



I invite you to kneel down wherever you may be and simply offer your own prayer as St. Paul did roughly 1,960 years before us…

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Photos

Temple Ruins (Priene)
Paul would have walked passed this majestic mountain in the background.

"God-fearers"
Part of are group sitting in a section inscribed "Reserved for God-fearers" in Greek. God-fearers are mentioned in the New Testament and other non-biblical sources. They were likely, Gentiles who had started to believe in the Yahweh, but did not fully convert to Judaic religion.