Ronnie's FaceBook post - April 24, 2024
As a final post on our pilgrimage to walk the steps of Paul and John in Turkey, Greece and Patmos, I wanted to highlight the most impressive site we saw—ancient Phillipi, where Roman magistrates jailed Paul and Silas. Their jailer became a believer as did Lydia at a nearby river. Amazing history to move around the places where Paul, Silas, Timothy and Luke walked and understand many of the “why” questions I had.
By way of trip review, we started in Turkey touring the 7 sites of churches John mentions in Revelation 2-3. They would have later become John’s responsibility after Nero beheaded Paul in Rome. We sailed from Turkey to Patmos to see the cave that held John prisoner. He wrote Revelation while in the cave.
According to Acts 16:11, sailing from Troas, Turkey, Paul would have first set foot on European soil at the modern city of Kavala and then walked up to Phillipi, a Roman colony (populated by ex-Roman soldiers) located on the Via Egnatia, the Roman road to Rome. An earthquake destroyed the city, originally Greek, but the architecture revealed its conversion to Roman culture. Seeing the Christian “fish” and understanding the symbolism of an octagon were highlights for me.
We surely stood on the spot where Roman’s tried Paul and Silas as Jews. We saw the grotto that imprisoned them overnight and released. We walked the Agora they would have walked. We saw the remains of large churches that would later spring up because of his missionary work.
We had lunch nearby and went a short distance to a river where Lydia believed, becoming Paul’s first Christian convert in Europe (Acts 16:13-15). The pastor baptized 3 people from our group of 12, one for the first time and two who reaffirmed their faith.
I encourage you to take the Steps of Paul and John tour if you can. It was a marvelous adventure. Thanks for following along via these posts on FB.
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