Hello and welcome to Van Life Devotions. Our trip to Turkey and Greece was truly a wonderful experience. Five from my church joined 12 other Christians from other Australian states, and together we explored many ancient areas that are mentioned in The Book of Acts and Revelation. I want to honour our tour leader, my friend and colleague Robbie Townsend who led us well, sharing devotions and prayers at each of these unique places. For me, visiting such places gave me perspective and context to the stories Luke tells in Acts and why Jesus said what He said in Revelation to each of the seven churches.
I want to share a few observations that I noticed. I’ll start with something that unsettled me a bit and I am still processing. It’s not a biggy but it has me thinking. It had to do with the church buildings we visited at the archaeological sites. We know that church buildings weren’t really built until Christianity was made lawful in the 4thcentury. I must say, I was blown away to walk through church buildings that were built in the 4th, 5th and 6th centuries – even though they laid in ruins due to earthquakes.
What is unsettling is that it appeared to me that Christians adopted some of the furnishings from other religions and cults. An altar is a table or platform used in religious offerings, for sacrifices, or for other ritualistic purposes. We saw some altars in Temples, including Synagogues. When Leisl and I went to Egypt, some of the Ancient Temples had altars that were used for sacrifices. I can see why church buildings included elaborate altars as communion elements were placed on them ready for believers to remember the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. But is this what Jesus had in mind?
The fourth century buildings that I walked through were originally large and probably costly. I’m not surprised because Temples and Synagogues were also large so why not church buildings? And this has continued through the centuries with incredible costly and elaborate basilicas and cathedrals built around the world. While I can appreciate the architecture, it again made me think, is this what Jesus had in mind?
On the positive, I was heartened to see that several of these church buildings had baptisteries indicating that these churches were obeying our Lord’s command to baptise new believers. As a pastor who has had the privilege of baptising hundreds of people, seeing these ancient baptisteries was exciting.
We know from the earliest days of the church as recorded in Acts and then in the first few centuries there was always a constant battle to keep Christian beliefs and practices orthodox. Worship of multiple gods was the norm when the Early Church was spreading. Being a grass roots movement there were little structures, the apostles including the likes of Paul and Timothy and all their disciples had since died, and the bible wasn’t canonised until the fourth century, and so there were often people who tried to introduce new ideas to this young faith that either added to how a person is saved or robbed Jesus of His deity. Fortunately, God inspired councils such as when the Apostles and Paul came together in Acts 15 and then through the centuries bishops met to discuss what was orthodox teaching and what was heresy. One such meeting was the Council of Constantinople in 381 to vote against a popular heresy at the time. We visited the Hagia Irene Church and saw where they sat to debate the issues. I thank God that today we have the Word of God and pray against heresy that continues to challenge the fundamentals of our faith.
Similar but different, walking through nearly every archaeological site, I gain a greater understanding how challenging it would have been for the early believers not to worship other gods. We know that the worship of gods, idols and even the emperor was huge, a part of everyday life. Temples to the various gods were built everywhere throughout the known world and many of the sites still have such temples though ruined due to earthquakes over the centuries. Many of the column structures that are still standing that we saw and that you may see on TV, or the internet were once Temples dedicated to gods.
Rome was tolerant of most religious expressions. However, that tolerance was largely limited to religions that were polytheistic -- meaning, the Roman authorities didn't care who you worshiped as long as you included the emperor. That was a problem for both Christians and Jews during the middle of the first century as they proclaimed that there is only one God. In Romans 3:30, Paul wrote “There is only one God…” (Romans 3:30 NLT) and because of this Christians and Jews refused to worship the emperor or acknowledge him as any kind of deity. Christians and Jews experience persecution with many fleeing to places as far as Cappadocia.
In Cappadocia we visited two of some 1300 churches that they have since been discovered carved inside volcanic rock. We also went to their underground mini cities that they also carved out housing many Christians who hid from Roman emperors’ murderous threats. Peter’s letters were written to such people who fled as refuges. I can’t imagine what life was like for them living in such cramp conditions all becaue they follow Jesus as Lord.
In Ephesus, Philippi, and Sardis we saw this cartwheel carved into the marble roads. Archaeologists believe that the wheel was used as early as the 1 and 2 Century AD by Christians as it was a cryptic message. The Christians took the first letter from the Greek word for Jesus (Iesous in Greek), Christ (Christos in Greek), God’s (Theou in Greek), Son (Yios in Greek), Savior (Sotor in Greek) and combined them. Together the five Greek Letters are IXOYE. They then took those same first letters and overlay them one on top of the other and you will see the Cartwheel which stands for, “Jesus Christ, God’s Son, our Savior.”
Now, here’s something amazing, if not divinely inspired. Together those five Greek letters “IXOYE” literally spell in Greek “fish”. Jesus calls Simon and Andrew to “fish for people” (Matthew 4:19, Mark 1:16-18). Soon after the symbol of the wheel came the symbol of the fish – still meaning Jesus Christ, Son of God, our Saviour. Both the fish symbol and the cartwheel were used to help Christians know where safe places were to purchase item or hide.
Despite the constant threat of persecution, not only did these early Christians remain faithful to Jesus, they also actively shared their new faith resulting in the growth and spread of this new faith. Going to places by plane like Cappadocia, Rome, Athens, Ephesus, Pergamum, Alexandria, Troas, Thessaloniki, Philippi, Corinth I saw how within 50 to 100 years these early believers fulfilled the Lord’s mission boldly taking the gospel from “Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8 NIV). May God grant me the same boldness.
It was a wonderful spiritual pilgrimage. Filming our devotions was challenging as Leisl and I are not professionals and being with a group you need to fit into their timeframe. Robbie and the group were patience with us for which we are grateful. Thank you for watching Season 3 of Van Life Devotions. Our prayer is that God gave you some insight from each location the successes, challenges and hardships our brothers and sisters in Christ went through for the sake of His kingdom.
Van Life Devotions will have a break over December, but we will be back with four devotions from our time in Egypt. Can I please ask you to pray as we seek God’s direction for Season 4 of Van Life Devotions. Thank you once again for your ongoing support and encouragement.
David Moyes
