Athens, Greece

We wrapped up the month of November in the beautiful city of Athens, Greece. We started by seeing the magnificent canal of Corinth and then made our way to the ancient city of Corinth. We wrapped up Athens by exploring one of most epic famous structures in the world, the Parthenon and a few even made it up the steps to Mars Hill.

In Corinth, Brad gave a powerful sermon on sexual immorality based on 1 Corinthians 5:15 : Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take away the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? May it never be! 16 Or do you not know that the one who joins himself to a prostitute is one body with her? For He says, “The two shall become one flesh.” 17 But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him. 18 Flee immorality. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body. 19 Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? 20 For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God with your body. As he spoke we viewed the temple of Aphrodite/Venus; the Greek\Roman ‘goddess of love’ where a thousand women worked as temple prostitutes by day and descended upon the streets of Corinth at night. There was so much sexual immorality in Corinth that the city literally became synonymous with the concept. The Greek verb ‘korinthiazomai’- literally translated, “to act the Corinthian” - meant ‘to commit sexual immorality.’ After having Paul take the gospel to Athens, a city particularly enslaved by pagan philosophies and idol worship, the Lord was having Paul take the gospel to a city where satan enslaved people particularly through lust.

We then made our way to the acropolis where the Parthenon dominates the hill above the city. The Parthenon once housed a magnificent stature of Athena made with gold and marble. A few of our group made it up to the view from Mars Hill where Paul was greatly distressed and called out the people regarding their idol worship. “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ “Acts‬ ‭17:24-28‬

We then made our way to the airport and yet another flight.. viva la Rome!