Cycling through

The island of Crete is the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean. Three hundred years before the time of Christ, Homer wrote about Crete’s hundreds of villages. It was a heavily populated island at that time, which means at the time of Paul’s visit there were that many more inhabitants.

In Acts 14 is an account by Luke of how extensively the Apostle Paul was getting around:

[19] And there came thither certain Jews from Antioch and Iconium, who persuaded the people, and, having stoned Paul, drew him out of the city, supposing he had been dead.
[20] Howbeit, as the disciples stood round about him, he rose up, and came into the city: and the next day he departed with Barnabas to Derbe.
[21] And when they had preached the gospel to that city, and had taught many, they returned again to Lystra, and to Iconium, and Antioch,
[22] Confirming the souls of the disciples, and exhorting them to continue in the faith, and that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God.
[23] And when they had ordained them elders in every church, and had prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord, on whom they believed.
[24] And after they had passed throughout Pisidia, they came to Pamphylia.
[25] And when they had preached the word in Perga, they went down into Attalia:
[26] And thence sailed to Antioch, from whence they had been recommended to the grace of God for the work which they fulfilled.

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An old VCR tape I picked up from a bargain table at last month’s Soldier’s Conference has Jordan, in 1994, talking about his trip to Bulgaria with Oscar Woodall and Nick Tercziski.

He started out by reading this same passage from Acts, commenting, “It’s real clear what Paul does. He goes into a town and preaches the gospel, people get saved and then they gather together and are taught. When he leaves the territory, he establishes the Believers together—he’s identified some elders and then leaves them in charge of the ministry.

“In Acts 17, Paul goes to Thessalonica and spends two weeks in the Jewish synagogue and the result was a local church was established. If you go to Philippians 4, you’ll notice he stayed in Thessalonica more than two weeks.

“Philippians 4:15: ‘Now ye Philippians know also, that in the beginning of the gospel, when I departed from Macedonia, no church communicated with me as concerning giving and receiving, but ye only.’

“Philippi was a major metropolis of the area at the time of Paul’s travels. When it says it was a ‘colony,’ the Romans had a way of establishing a city. You know the term ‘city-state.’ You actually had to have citizenship in the city.

“The commentaries say this city was built by Alexander the Great in honor of his dad Philip (the ruler of Greece prior to Alexander). If that’s true, that city is not located down on the coast by Thessalonica; it’s rather in what is modern-day Bulgaria, which at that time was called Macedonia.

“At one time the city was called Philipopolis. Plavdiv is the city now and it is a considerable distance north of when Thessalonica is. If it weren’t for verse 12, you would assume it would be the Philippi down at the coast.

“If it’s the city down on the coast, you could compress the time some. If it’s Plavdiv, which is way up north in the Baltic mountains, you’re going to expand the time. Paul is at Thessalonica and twice the Philippians send offerings to him. What that means is somebody had to go from Philippi to Thessalonica and then go back to Philippi and then go back to Thessalonica and then go back to Philippi. Two round trips.

“In Paul’s day, you’re talking about a five-mile-an-hour clip on an animal to travel somewhere and it’s better than 120 miles to Plavdiv down to Thessalonica, so you’re looking at him taking a little bit of time.

“My point is Paul was there maybe, tops, 3 months. I Thessalonians 1. Here’s a bunch of people where Paul goes in, evangelizes them, then teaches them, and in a period of only a few months, leaves them. He goes on down to Berea, then Athens, then goes to Corinth. While he’s in Athens and Berea, he sends Timothy back to Thessalonica to get a report. Timothy meets him in Corinth and Paul writes I Thessalonians in Acts 18.

“Notice what he says in verse 3: ‘Remembering without ceasing your work of faith, and labour of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, in the sight of God and our Father;
[4] Knowing, brethren beloved, your election of God.’

“These folks had gotten busy in a hurry! There’s only just a few months from their conversion, and the establishment of the church in Thessalonica, that Paul writes this back about them.

“Notice verse 4. You know how many people still fight about election?! These people know all about it; he doesn’t even explain . . . he says, ‘You know these things.’ And you go through I Thessalonians and it’s amazing the doctrines that he refers to that they know about.

“I’ve always wondered about how in the world is something like that possible because I’m used to dealing with people like you—wonderful, sweet, kind people but just a little thick-headed. People who like to argue a little bit; got your own ideas.

“Well, we went up into the area where Nick is from, into the country there, went into some homes, shared the gospel, people got saved. You began to sit around and instruct them.

“More than once people would get saved, you’d talk to them about the clarity of the gospel, being complete in Christ, living under grace, right division, the difference between Peter and Paul, Israel and the Body of Christ, the one Baptism and the Bible version issue, all in a two-hour period of time after they got saved! And they would understand and grasp.

“There were several times I just wanted to stop and say, ‘Wouldn’t somebody like to argue?’ But people were just receiving it, coming out of tradition, coming out of religion and superstition, and standing in grace.

“You see, what was happening is more or less what Paul was experiencing there. He took the pattern of soul-winning and then teaching the converts, establishing leaders among them, and then having the leaders go back and repeat the process. That pattern is what the work of the ministry is all about. It’s not building buildings, and dogma developments, and tradition and institutions.

“We’re talking about the life of the Body of Christ functioning through the doctrines of grace and that’s where they work.

“Consistently down through church history, based on that pattern, the one thing that you can take to the bank and cash and never run out of is that as soon as a movement, or a group, lets down the issue of soul-winning (nowadays people call it evangelism) . . . when that element is missing from a group, or a local assembly or movement, the road to apostasy has been joined.

“Now maybe they won’t get there right away, but the people that they hand the ball to will get there. I’m talking about the cycle of life of that Body working and the way you see that cycle of life is in that reproductive process of the giving of life.”