Day 03 - West Central Turkey: Hierapolis, Colossae, Laodicea

Our day started well before dawn as we headed over to a big open area where a dozen or more hot air balloons were being inflated. A surprise to most of the group, we lifted off and flew over one of the sites that we were going to visit later in the day. It was a beautiful way to start the day and catch the sunrise. We did have some fun creating sunrises and sunsets by lowering and raising the balloons!

After our balloon ride, we gathered back at the hotel for breakfast and morning devotions before heading out to our first stop of the day, Hierapolis.

In Greek, Hierapolis means "holy city". Hierapolis at one point had 15,000 Roman troops stationed there. The residence of this town enjoyed its mineral hot springs. The city was known for its excellent hot water.

One of the highlights of this area was visiting a large structure that was dedicated to Philip, commemorating the place where he and his daughters were killed.

According to church tradition, Philip moved his family here from Jerusalem and they crucified him for teaching about Jesus. Before he was crucified, he had to first watch his daughters each be crucified. Even after watching that horrific thing… he, like Jesus said while he was being crucified, “forgive them for they do not understand what they are doing”. 

After hearing about Philip and his faith, we spent time talking about what it means to sacrifice… both in Phillip's time, as well as in our time. In quiet reflection, we spent time reflecting while listening to the song "Gratitude".

After the video and a group photo, you will see a picture of Philip’s tomb which was just discovered and unearthed in 2015.

We then walked over to the theater. The theater was a very important place in each of those cities. It is where Rome educated people, shared new ideas, and reinforced what they believed were important social norms. It is the way they developed and maintained culture. As you can see in the photo, the theater could seat thousands of people. Amazingly, one person could speak on the stage and the acoustics would carry the voice throughout the whole theater. It is quite an experience to sit together as a group while Brady dove into the different aspects of the theater, what happened in the theaters, and how the theater played such an important role in that culture. It really highlights the contrast of the Jesus world vs. the Roman world.

It was back on the bus and over to another of the Seven Revelation Churches, Colossae. This church was the recipient of one of Paul’s letters we named Colossians. The church in Colossae was likely a small house church. You will see behind the Colossae sign that it is just a large mound of dirt. It’s called a Tel. A Tel is a city, built upon a city, built upon a city, built upon a city over the ages. Colossae has yet to be excavated. So, we know little about what the city actually looked like, but there are a few things that we do know.

Another book of the New Testament called Philemon was written to this house church. Paul, while in prison, penned that letter to give instructions to Philemon who was a leader of that church. It is believed that both of those letters would’ve arrived near the same time. 

We did this teaching time under a tree next to a running brook that originates from a mountain that has snow on it nine months out of the year. Colossae was known for its excellent, pure, cold water.

Back on the bus and down the road we went until we arrived at Laodicea. It was considered one of the wealthiest cities in the whole region. And that provided an interesting opportunity to draw similarities between us and them.

While John was in prison at Patmos, he had a vision where Jesus instructs him to send messages to the Seven Churches. In Revelation chapter 3, we see the message that John was to deliver to Laodicea. This is where it gets a little interesting. Laodicea had a water problem. There is no fresh water in the area so it had to be brought in via aqueduct from about 10 miles away. As a result, people found the water there terrible tasting, full of minerals, and neither hot nor cold, lukewarm.  In fact, the town was known for its lukewarm, poor water. The people who would have received this letter would have quickly identified the contrast of their city versus the cold water city Colossae and the hot water city Hierapolis. 

This town was reliant on its own wealth. When the earthquake happened, they even refused rebuilding funds from Rome because they wanted to be self-sufficient. Yet as they rebuilt their own city, they did not help their neighbor city Colossae as it stood in ruins.  There seems to be a warning that Jesus was expressing about apathy, self-reliance, and how easy it is just to stay in water/culture that is lukewarm.

Well, those were the highlights of the day!