The People Paul Admired: The House Church Leaders of the New Testament by Beulah Wood

Author:Beulah Wood [Wood, Beulah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Christianity, General, History, Religion
Publisher: Wipf & Stock Publishers
Published: 2011-06-15T07:00:00+00:00

1. There is still a huge pile of murex shells near the coast of Sidon, in Lebanon, the remains of the city’s profitable trade in purple dye two thousand years ago.

7

Jason Takes Responsibility in Thessalonica

Relationships that Reach Out

Other leaders: Aristarchus, Secundus

Main scripture sources: Acts 17:1–10; Romans 16:21; Acts 19:29, 20:4, 27:2

Luke’s report of the beginning of the church in Thessalonica in about AD 51 is a summary by a visitor. What would an insider like Macedonian Aristarchus perhaps be able to tell us?

I came to know Paul well indeed during the years after his key visit to our city, so I am keen to talk. I first met him in Thessalonica. Later, my friends and I were with Paul in Ephesus during the riot over the goddess Diana. Shortly after that, Secundus, also from Thessalonica, and I traveled with Paul farther north in Macedonia, turned south toward Greece, back north to Macedonia, and then Paul sent us and a few others ahead to Troas in Asia where he met us again. More than two years after that, I was with Paul and Luke on the ship going to Rome and then imprisoned with him there.

Back when Paul, Timothy, and Silas left suddenly from Lydia’s home in Philippi, they hurried southwest about a hundred miles on the Egnatian Way through the next two towns, Amphipolis and Apollonia. They stopped when they reached Thessalonica, on its large gulf on the Aegean Sea within sight of 9,600-foot-high Mount Olympus. We first met Paul and his friends outside the synagogue and welcomed them to Thessalonica.

“What’s special about this city?” Paul asked.

“It began about three hundred years ago to take advantage of the fine harbor for shipping and overland caravans of horses and mules traveling the Egnatian Way,” I told him.

“It will suit us,” Paul retorted. “I prefer to teach in cities on trade routes with well-built Roman roads. That way, our good news travels farther.”

“Then you will like it here, Paul. Thessalonica is the chief city of Macedonia. Since Emperor Octavian made it a free city, it has kept its Greek republican government, mints its own coins, and does not have a Roman garrison inside its walls. Still, there are many Roman officials, and alongside them a few thousand Jews, many of them merchants. I note you speak Greek. The majority of the more than 200,000 people are Greek, and the leading culture is Greek—different from the Latin upper echelons of Philippi. Many Greeks have become God-fearers, honoring your Jewish God.”

“That’s good. We’ll start telling the gospel in the synagogue. Is society like it is in the other cities influenced by Greece and Rome?”

“Yes, it is. Most upper-class people view those who work with their hands as uneducated and lacking in virtue, but there are large numbers of them, and the city would not function without them. Lining the streets are the shops of weavers, potters, fullers, barbers, bakers, butchers, booksellers, blacksmiths, cobblers, sculptors, and moneylenders. Proud of their skills, they work from sunrise to sunset with two hours of rest after lunch.

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