I stood in the harbour at Antalya, a port on the Mediterranean in southern Turkey. I thought about the history this place holds, the people that have landed there, what that place represents. No doubt, it is a beautiful place, and a natural deep water port used for millennia by shippers, travelers, traders, pirates, armies, dignitaries…
This is the place, I thought, where Paul and Barnabas landed on their first missionary journey to Asia Minor in the first century AD. They came to an unfamiliar place, to people that did not know them or the message they brought. They had set out by the early church, motivated to take the Good News to those who had not heard about Jesus. They faced, storm, and danger, opposition, and good reception – they faced the unknown – head on. Wow! They were living an adventure. What must it have been like to enter those Roman cities, spectacular in their architecture, and impressive in their technology. These places would have been teaming with people, local and distant visitors, engaging in commerce, trade, sports, entertainment and the arts.
Then I mused, the Romans with their aggressive infrastructure programs and building efforts, had built a system of roads and cities that made a way for people to move interact, and spread the Roman Empire. Unknowingly they had also constructed a system and gathering places that suited the spread of the gospel and the establishing of the church.
Hmmm….I wonder if the systems and electronics, the digital pathways and networking systems built today for all kinds of purposes and reasons, are a similar infrastructure for the move of the church today….what do you think?