Day 06 - West Central Turkey : Sardis, Pergamum

Today we started off in Sardis and we were given a lot to process. Sardis was a thriving city with an indefensible wall to fortify their city. On the surface, Sardis was doing everything right. We learn that they got confident and lazy, maybe even fell asleep in defending their city. This lapse in judgment caused them to fall to Persia by a spy finding a secret passage into the city. One take away that we had was to not pull a “Sardis” and lose focus on Jesus.

Our other major stop was at the city of Pergamum where we saw eleven different temples that were used for various types of worship. Pergamum was built on a hill that communicated power and prestige. Pergamum offered many different gods to worship if you were a person seeking help. To stand for Christ in a dark city that has “Satan’s throne” is a tall order for a Christian. Pergamum is a large city that taught us a lot about power and worship during the era of the first church.

It was a fun day filled with laughter and deep insights into the Bible. We have learned that gas stations in Turkey are glorious and we like making those “bathroom facilities” stops. We had great food and a lot of it, so much lunch that we had to help feed the cats to finish it all. We got to take a gondola ride to the top of Pergamum and then walk down the mountain to our awaiting bus. It was a long day full of hiking and fun - we will sleep well tonight.