Turkey, Day 2 - The Restored Life

Good morning friends and family! It was another great day in Turkey. Today some of our team had an early start at 5:30am with an incredible experience of going up in hot air balloons! This gave us great perspective looking down over the region we would be visiting today. It was definitely a memorable experience for us all. 

Our first official stop for the day began in Hierapolis. This was a large site with multiple stops, the first of which was a vast array of tombs. They are aware of at least 1200 tombs in this area. And the church of Hierapolis was pastored by Epaphrus, whom we learn about in Colossians 4:12-13. It says, “Epaphrus, who is one of you, a servant of Christ Jesus, greets you, always struggling on your behalf in his prayers, that you may stand assured in all the will of God. For I bear witness that he had worked hard for you and for those in Laodicea and Hierapolis.” (You’ll want to remember Laodicea!) Many of us agreed that Epaphrus was not a pastor we see as famous. He is not well known. He is not a pastor we place on our top ten list. Yet in the midst of this “dead” environment with many tombs, Epaphrus was a definition of 1 Corinthians 15:58 as a man who was steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of The Lord. He was a bond-servant of God, faithfully serving. He knew what it was to live the true ‘prosperous life’, looking through the lens of the resurrection and the immortality to come. He taught the grace of Christ. It caused many of us to reflect on our own lives and ask the question, “how many people have learned the grace of Christ from you?” 

It was here in Hierapolis where we also climbed a very large ‘hill’ which was the equivalent of 45 flights of stairs! At the top was a large structure known as a martyrium. This memorial of sorts was built in honor of the disciple Philip. Here we focused our attention on this young boy from Bethsaida, which was a small fishing village. He began with a “yes” to the invitation to “Come. Follow me.” Philip left his earthly father’s business to take up his heavenly Father’s business! And he would become a man who followed Jesus in faithful obedience with his life. It was on this hill where this martyrium stands that Philip was crucified upside down on a cross for his willingness to follow Jesus in a Roman world. Yes, on this hill he died. We even saw the tomb of Philip which is located on this hill. It was here that we remembered Philip and asked ourselves if we are being propelled forward by our faith like he was. Are we willing to obey and fear God with faithful obedience? As it says in Proverbs 10:7, “the memory of the righteous is a blessing.” He had restored eyes, knew “the good life”, and the memory of his life is still blessing us as an example of faithful service to the end.

We then moved from this idea of “the good life” to “the restored life” as we ventured to Colossae. This site was not excavated, so to us it simply looked like a large hill. But the history under this hill was worth hearing. It was here that we discussed how much of Colossians was written by Paul in an attempt to restore life and remove heresy. In Colossians 2:13-14 we see that “...you who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.” We transferred this idea to Philemon where we learned about the relationship between Onesimus and Philemon, slave and master, who were at odds because of Onesimus breaking his commitment of servitude to Philemon. Paul challenges Philemon by appeal to forgive Onesimus and receive him, not as a bond servant but as a brother. This would have been so countercultural in the Roman world! A movement of this kind of forgiveness and equality in relationship would be a catalyst of great power! We pondered this idea in our own lives. What relationships need restoration in our lives? Who do we need to sit with and see as brother rather than indebted or in opposition or maybe just on the other side of the fence than us? As people who have experienced the forgiveness Paul speaks of to the church of Colossae, we can forgive and come together as the church. I encourage you all to go read Philemon more closely with new eyes.

Finally, we set out for Laodicea, which you have already heard mentioned in the beginning of the post. This is one of the seven churches written to in Revelation 2 and 3 that we visited. We will visit all seven by the end of this trip (if The Lord wills!). This city is massive! There was so much to see here, and it is a fairly “young” excavation which makes it very exciting because new things are being unearthed year after year. To give you some framework: Laodicea was wealthy! That’s important to know. It had banking, medical advancement, high end shopping, sporting events that drew in the crowds, just to name a few. So this city was considered rich by Roman standard. And with a population of 120,000 people, it was booming! So now imagine the church of this city. So much opportunity with so many citizens and outsiders coming through. Now let’s break your visualization of this “church”. In these times, a church was not a building; it was the people. And they would have begun meeting in a home and expanded from there. When we think about this church, we are talking ‘early church’.

We had the unique privilege of sitting in a very freshly excavated courtyard that is believed to be the location of this early “house church” of Laodicea. The church of Laodicea may have very well been sitting in this exact spot when receiving this letter for the first time. How exciting?! You would think... but look at the letter they receive in Revelation. Read Revelation 3:14-22 and you will see that this letter would have been hard to read if it was your church. They were referred to as lukewarm, wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. They received no commendation from Jesus in this letter. This church was full of “self-sufficiency” believing they had everything they needed. They were consumed by the “prosperous” culture of their city and were not dependent on The Spirit of God. Thankfully we see Good Grace. We see Jesus say “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice, I will come in...” (Rev 3:20). This is Grace; that Jesus would come in, restore life, and begin to work through this church. It challenged us to realize he can do the same with us; the same with our churches. Brian asked us the question,  “what would a letter to our church sound like?” Would any of this apply? Thankfully we see a beautiful invitation to restore life. That is what Jesus does. 

If you made it this far, we applaud you! It’s likely that is a lot to digest and I’ll tell you this is just the fringe of what we are seeing with new eyes and learning from His Word and this land. Pray we would be able to digest these truths. It is not an accident that each of us are on this trip. And it is not an accident you are following along. We thank you for joining us in these lessons we are learning and are praying for a great night of rest and energy for another big day tomorrow!