Day 03 - Pisidian Antioch & Colossae

So, you think there is tension in the world? I’m convinced that it’s nothing new: that the greatest tension that has existed throughout history is whether we will follow the wisdom of our own ways or that of God.

It is largely this tension that Paul addresses in his missionary journeys to Asia Minor; modern-day Turkey, where nearly a third of the New Testament is written or takes place. Today, as our GTI group walked the Greco-Roman city of Pisidian Antioch, I was impressed with the reality of this tension that Paul encountered.

The local cultures had their gods for different needs. The Greeks’ answer to the tension was to celebrate their bodies and with entertainment and pleasures. The Romans went on to perfect this with their military conquests and power; erecting their own temples to worship themselves. These leaders were so confident in their control over their dominions that some Caesars claimed to be deity: God himself, and set up systems in which all were to pay tribute to and worship them. Even the Jewish leaders of Paul’s day were caught up in the tension, trusting in their human efforts to follow their laws and traditions. Paul’s message of the good news of the Messiah challenged this tension. The news of Jesus brought the question to a head: do you trust the empires of the world or do you trust the kingdom of God? 

Standing today in the imposing temple of Pisidian Antioch, surrounded in every direction by the majestic mountains, I was humbled by the reality that the “great tension” is not answered in this place. Heaven and earth do meet in the temple, nor in the law, nor in anything that “we” can do. The good news of Jesus that Paul was trying to communicate is that Jesus is THE answer to our attempts for heaven and earth to meet. Jesus is our access to God. Jesus emptied himself so that we might be filled. Jesus “flips” all these worldly thinking and our views of the temple, of laws, and of our own prides. It is all about him. As Jesus said to the woman at the well in John 4:23-24, “Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in Truth, for they are the kind of worshippers our the Father seeks. God is spirit and his worshippers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” 

Jesus IS the answer to the great tension! 

January 14, ‘22

Tim Broyles

Dexter United Methodist Church