Greece in the Bible

I mentioned that we had a very good feast in Greece, and along with what, 13, 12 or 13 other people from this congregation. We were over in Greece for the feast this year. I'll have to say, every single feast is good. I wouldn't trade any of them that we've ever been to, because you learn something from every single feast you're at. But this year, I'll have to say that in Greece, I learned a lot. Not just about Greece, it was very good to see the sites and to see what some of the history was.

But you learn a lot about the Bible when you're in a land like Greece, and when you are walking the same places that Paul and some of the apostles walked. You get a feel of history, and you get a feel for what they went through that is really unlike anything you can do. Being together with a group for eight days, I watched as that dynamic occurred. Over the eight days, you could see the group come together.

I began to understand more what God wants of us as children, and as we're together more and more and more, and become family and very easy with each other and very comfortable with each other, that's something we all have to look forward to. The feast affords us those eight days a year. But in Greece, it was unlike the times we've been at the feast before, because the group moved with each other and did tours together and ate together. It was just a very nice experience.

I wanted to talk today, and I haven't done this before, but I'm going to share some pictures with you. Maybe you won't like this, and if you don't, we'll never do it again. Well, maybe we'll never do it again. But I want to talk about some of the things that I learned from Greece. Again, there will be some secular stuff in there, but mainly spiritual, because if it was just a slideshow, I wouldn't waste your time on it.

There are some things that I learned that came alive, and I hope that maybe you take some of the walk through Greece with us, that they will go on you as well. The Bible will come alive in certain passages that talk about Greece and the people that have lived there and that have traveled there in New Testament times. First, let me just give you a brief background of Greece. I don't know that we in America often think that so much of what we do, so much of what we live, really has its foundations in ancient Greece. We go to school, and we have geometry, and we learn of the Pythagorean theorem that Pythagoras was a figure in ancient Greece. He figured out those mathematical formulas. We just have to remember them. He's actually figured them out. We talk about Euclid, Archimedes. As you tour the sites in Greece, you see Archimedes' name come up, scientist. He was able to figure out how to use the levers to get those huge stones in the Parthenon all the way up that hill. We talk about people like Aristotle and Socrates and Plato, who didn't have the Bible, but they were very good thinkers, deep thinkers. They came to some truths and realizations about human nature, what it was that we could use in sermons because we could back it fully from the Bible.

Greece had a climate in it that was democracy in one way. We live in a democracy today, but they were very prone and very dedicated to everyone becoming a wonderful, a very productive member of the state. You might remember a few years ago, I talked about Pydaea and nurturing people. In Greece, it was a matter of the whole mind, the whole body, the whole spirit that people developed because they wanted the young men especially to grow up. They wanted them to be ideal members of the state. So they became great thinkers, or they became great scientists, or great mathematicians, or they became great athletes. But they were well-rounded in everything they do. As we talked about that fact whenever I gave that sermon, we talked about how God does the same thing with us. He wants us to develop spiritually, mentally, and physically in all areas of our life so that we reflect what His will is and we reflect what His way of life is. We can talk on and on about the Olympics. We can talk about Hippocrates, one of my favorite statements of Hippocrates. He's the father of medicine. They still give him credit for that. I still think and I believe we can learn as people, and I believe our physicians can learn so much from Hippocrates. He said, let food be your medicine and medicine be your food. I think we all have a lot to learn about that because when God created the earth, He put the things on it. He put the things on it that He wanted humankind to be ingesting, and if we would follow His principles, we might have a lot less need for some of the other things that we have. But that's the subject for another day. Let's get into Greece because, you know, Greece has a very good secular history, and so much of what we do in this country is based on that. I mean, it's so good that even the Koine Greek that they spoke, God used it to have the New Testament written in because it was so expressive and it was so detailed in its views.

And people could follow it so clearly. And it has so much significance in the New Testament as well because as Paul and Silas and Timothy and Titus all were over there in Greece and the surrounding countries, they were facing a new challenge. They had grown up in areas, well, Paul, where the Jews lived. Everyone around Him, everyone around Him kept the Sabbath, everyone around Him kept the Holy Days, everyone around Him went to the synagogue, everyone around Him even wrongly kept the traditions of the Jews that were more of the Sabbath. And they lived in a society where everyone believed the same thing but as they went into Greece and as they went into Achaia and as they went into these other areas, people were being called that didn't have that same background. People were being called out of the world that had a totally pagan and foreign experience in their life. And they had to unlearn all of that over the course of time. And as the New Testament is written, and we read Paul's officials, the Corinthians and the Romans and the Ephesians, the Philippians, the Galatians, we can identify with that because all of us were called out of the world. We didn't, well, some of us did grow up in the church and we were used to it, but not all our friends kept the Sabbath, not all our friends kept the Holy Days. We were faced with dealing with people who had other beliefs. And the New Testament Christians who were being called in these lands and in Greece had faced the very same things we did. And many of Paul's epistles were related to that because it was a new dynamic they were working with at that time.

Well, I'm going to start here with a slide. I'll give you...you know, when we went to the feast, we spent half of the feast in Crete and the other half in Athens. We took some tours out from Athens over to Corinth and another place in Delphi. But in Crete, it began, and that's a full moon over the, some people call it the Aegean Sea, some people call it the Mediterranean Sea.

It's interesting because they say Crete is the largest island in the Aegean Sea and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. So they kind of are in the middle between Europe, Africa, and Asia, and they can claim many things. So the feast started and we had services, a very nice location that we stayed in at the resort there. And we had services at this credit merits convention center, which was part of the hotel, the resort, I should say, that we stayed at. Very pleasant time.

One of the things on the very first Holy Day. I don't know if this has ever happened before, except maybe in a very small church. There are 238 in attendance, and the attendance on the first Holy Day was 238. It's kind of amazing. So anyway, very good. Didn't stay that way the rest of the time. Would have been more impressive if it had been in all eight days of that. There's a picture of Greece, you know, from a mountain. One of the days before the feast, we took an eight-hour tour up into the mountains.

And I didn't know what that was going to be like, but I did learn a lot from it. And I had some impressions that I was very glad we did because as the feast began, I had some very good feelings about what we were seeing. This is a very nice scene from up on one of the mountains. And as you look down at all that green there, you might think that that green is grass. It's not. It's all olive trees. It's all olive trees, that green. In Crete, they championed themselves on the olive industry, the tourism industry.

And the reports are, and the people there in Greece, if I have this number wrong, you can correct me afterwards, 35 million olive trees in Greece. 35 million on a little island that's 155 miles wide. And they are a big exporter, number three in the world, just the island of Crete itself, and the extra virgin olive oil is supposed to be the best in the world, they say.

I have no reason to doubt them. But those are all olive trees. And as far as you can see, on the southern part of Crete, there are olive trees. Now, I didn't get a good picture. I should have asked someone else that was there. Did you get a good picture of an olive tree? This is the closest that I had in my stash. And you can't see much of it, but if you can go online and see or ask someone else, they probably have an olive tree.

One of the interesting things on that tour is we went around the... He was showing us some of the vegetation stopping to see that. And that little brush there that kind of looks like, I don't know, kind of looks like a sponge, right, as you look at it. He had a fancy name for it. And then he said what the common name for it was, and I didn't write that down. It had the word crown in it. He said that that little brush, that was what the crown of thorns that was put on Christ's head was made of.

And when you look at that crown, when you look at that little mass there, it looks like it's just maybe very soft and it wouldn't hurt at all. But when you reach down and touch it, very strong, very brittle, and very pointy. So I could only imagine, as I thought about that being wrapped into a crown and forced onto my head what that must have felt like, along with all the other agony that Jesus Christ had.

Just amazing what man can look at and use to cause pain for someone else. Now there's that picture of a goat. You probably think, what on earth does a goat have to do with a kreet? And how do you have an impression of a kreet from a goat? But you know, one of the things that dawned on me near the end of the day that we did this tour, and it gave me a good feeling as we started the feast. As we toured around the mountain and we went through various villages and stopped and the villagers were very friendly, they had things laid out for us, and it wasn't all about just selling things.

And our tour guide would explain to us some of the customs that they have there in Greece. The visitors are always welcome. And he was even explaining how, in an orchard, if a local person doesn't want anyone to take some fruit from their tree, they would plant hedges around it. But if there was no hedge, anyone was free to go and take anything they wanted. It reminded me of Leviticus 23 and the gleaning and leave something for strangers.

But he said, never for visitors. He goes, if you're a visitor and you go take something from a tree with a hedge around it, everyone's going to say, you know, you're very welcome to it. So it was very outgoing people. But I noticed as we went through these villages, and even at the hotel, I mean, the resort we had was very, very nice.

But there were these cats that were walking through the hotel, and the hotel had signs about the cats. And, you know, most places in America, if you have these cats, you know, these kind of, I don't know, I don't want to say wild cats, because they're just little cats, I mean. But, you know, they didn't belong to anyone. Often it's like, get them out of here, get rid of them. But at the hotel, they pretty much had a place for the cats to be.

And it was almost as if they recognized that these cats had a place in nature and they were doing their job as well. And as we went to the villages, we would see cats. And I remember one time, as we were coming around the corner, there was a cat sitting there and they were walking there in front of it as we were pulling out. And I thought, you know, well that cat needs to get out of the way. And I thought the tour guide would just honk the horn, the cat would go running, but he didn't.

He just kind of said something nice and whatever, like, you know, little cat, you need to get out of the way. And we just kind of followed the cat until it got out of the way. And I thought, well, that's interesting. And as we went around, I would see these dogs that didn't belong to anyone. A lot of us had dogs, but these dogs didn't belong to anyone. They just lived in the villages. And as you would walk around the places, the dogs would come up to you and they would be friendly.

They weren't afraid of people. It was just like they belonged there. And again, this is later in the trip. We had, there were like six tour buses at a place and there was a dog laying right in front of the tour bus that we were leaving. And I mean, a big dog, and he was just laying there. He was just happy. He didn't feel any fear at all about anything around him. And as the bus was ready to leave, again, I thought, I was watching, and I thought, so he'll be laying on the horn or someone will come and give that dog a little kick or whatever.

And they didn't. Someone, a guard came over and he just kind of came over to the dog and kind of touched him a few times and her incursion got in. I thought, well, how nice, how nice is that? Well, this goat, this goat kind of reflects that same attitude that the people in Crete had for their animals.

You know, we went to, we went, they still have shepherds in Crete. And so we went into some of their areas where they make goat cheese and these other things. And these goats would roam freely. And that was interesting because they had little bells on them. And they said that the bell rings loudly. That means we know the goat is a little more ambunctious than other goats and whatever. And other goats that have none, they're very friendly and whatever.

So I thought, they knew each of their animals and whatever, but the goats roamed freely. They had no fear of humans. And again, it was the feeling that they are here for a purpose. They are here for a purpose. And they have their place on earth just like you and I. Humans have on purpose. And as the day ended, I had this very good feeling because while the tree is by no means the Garden of Eden, it's by no means perfect people, I got a feeling that I've only had one at a time in my life, and it wasn't on the farm that my grandparents were, that it was a feeling that creation was at peace on that island.

The people, the animals, the olive trees, the goats, they all worked together. They all knew they had their place on this planet. And they respected each other and they were able to live together. And as we were entering in, or that was the day before the feast started, I thought, well, that's exactly what the kingdom will be like. There won't be anyone hurting or destroying in God's holy kingdom. People will be at peace and they will be at one with one another.

Not like maybe we see the peace today because when you experience it in a different way than we've seen it, it makes you want it more and to see everything working together. So this little goat kind of represents that. And as the feast started, I had that on my mind and it continued throughout the feast. Well, Crete is very prominent in the Bible. Let's go back to Titus. Let's go back to Titus. Well, I won't say very prominent. It is in the Bible. Titus, you know, Paul was over in Crete a couple of times on his third or fourth journey around the churches that were developing over there.

And as the island of Crete, as the gospel was preached in it, the churches were beginning to be raised up. And Paul was there as they were beginning to be raised up. And again, we have to put ourselves in that time frame. Here's the people that are beginning to understand the truth of God. They're putting away their false gods, they're putting away their false ideas.

They're beginning to understand who Jesus Christ is. They're understanding how to live God's way of life. And churches are raising up as God puts people in bodies because He wasn't calling them individually. Well, He's calling them individually, but He called to be part of a body.

And Paul's over there with Titus at that time, and he's beginning to raise up churches. And as they go around, he sees a need in the church because of some things that have happened that we're very used to today. But back in that time, it was something that he realized what God was leading him to do. Verse 5, Titus 1, For this reason, Paul writes, I left you, Titus, in Crete, that you should send in order the things that are lacking, and appoint elders in every city as I commanded you. So Paul saw the churches developing. He saw things that were lacking. The churches weren't doing the things that they should do. They needed a leader. They needed someone who would preach the gospel. They needed someone who they could count on, that was reliable in the truth of God. And as we go through verses, you know, you read down through the qualifications. And when we read these verses today, we read them as qualifications of elders. And indeed, they are. But put yourself in the time when Paul is, and he's saying, Titus, this is the type of people you've seen me do this, you've seen us work through Crete. I'm now leaving you behind to do this. These are the people you look for that need to be appointed in every city, because there were churches raising in many of the cities there that need to be the shepherds of the church. And the shepherds need to be, they need to love the flock, they need to watch out for the flock, they need to be able to teach the flock, they need to be committed to sound doctrine, they need to be above reproach in their lives, and they need to be a good example of the way that God called us to. So let's drop down to verse 10. He says, Do this, Titus, because this is necessary, for there are many insubordant, both idol talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision, those Jews who came out of the Jewish faith, whose mouths must be stopped, whose subvert whole households, teaching things which they ought not, for the sake of dishonest gain. So he saw what was happening, and he saw that people could get involved in things, and in the new era of people coming into the church and being called, they needed guidance, they needed leadership, they needed to be able to go back and see the things of God. And then he gives an example. One of them, he says, the prophet of their own said, Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, and lazy gluttons. Makes a very generic statement now. Whoever said that, we know he had some issues with Cretan somewhere along the line, right? Because we may have said something not about Cretans, but somewhere like that in ours. But certainly that isn't something you would ever say in a church. That isn't something you would ever say if you were a leader of the people of God, because there are good and bad among all. Now we might, even today, generalize and say, this about this or this about that, not in the church of God. You know, if we take another thing along that way, you know, today one of the things that is very popular in the world are...

Well, that's right on the tip of my tongue, conspiracy theories. Conspiracy theories, right? Everyone's got a theory about what's going on and they've become kind of commonplace in the world today. And from time to time, in fact, I've been asked not by anyone in this church or in Jacksonville, or in Ocala for that matter. So, just so no one's... You know, would I talk about some of these things? No, I won't talk about any conspiracy theories during church, because church is for teaching the Bible, right?

This is what we teach. This is what we're here for. Not to hear a conspiracy theory. I won't teach about things that are someone's suppositions or the... conspiracy theories even about when Christ is going to return or what is going to happen. I know there was something going around on this past September 23rd. If you follow the Internet, I don't follow the Internet, but it came to my attention. Those things aren't of God.

We look and teach, and in the church of God, we teach the truth. And we teach from the Bible and only the Bible. And if we have something that's wrong in the Bible that we've said wrong, and I'll repeat it again, if I ever say anything wrong, I want you to bring it to my attention so we can correct it.

Because none of us are here to learn truth or to learn error or to mislead anyone. I hope we're all here, because we want each other to be in the kingdom. And that's what Paul is telling Titus there. And there on Crete, as the church was beginning and new churches were growing up, he set the standard.

Later on in Ephesians, he wrote what the standards were and of how a church should be ordered and things like that. But that's one of the things in Crete. And as you walk around that island and you know what Paul is doing, you kind of feel that and look back, because the island is rich with history as well. The other place that it is mentioned, Crete, is back in Acts. Acts 27. Acts 27 and verse 8. Now, I'll pick it up in verse 7. Paul, writing, there on a ship, he says, "...when we had sailed slowly many days and arrived with difficulty off Canitis, the wind not permitting us to proceed, we sailed under the shelter of Crete off Selmon.

Passing it with difficulty, we came to a place called Fair Havens near the city of Lecia." And then they decided not to winter. If you remember the story, they decided not to winter in Fair Havens, but they decided to go on. They had many problems. God was involved. Paul had the faith in that, and God saved them through that whole experience. But Fair Havens is there on the southern part of Crete. I wasn't able to find. I looked for a tour down to Fair Havens.

It goes by a different name today. I couldn't find one, which kind of surprised me, because usually if there's something of significance, someone's taking a tour there someplace. But the southern island of Crete, the southern sea, the southern border of Crete is very beautiful. There's a lot of natural harbors. And so, as you look at that, you can kind of see where Paul was sailing from at that time of year. And then they were headed off into another direction. Let me talk a little bit about ancient history of Crete.

One of the tours that everyone in the church, everyone that was on the group took was to a palace called or a place called Knosis, K-N-O-S-S-O-S. And I hadn't really heard of Knosis before, but it is a, it is a, and you can see an overview of it there, all the white there. That's a whole palace complex there. And it dates back, the tour guides will tell you, to 7000 B.C. We know it doesn't date back to 7000 B.C., but it's a very ancient city. The thing about Knosis is that they didn't even know it existed this until the 20th century, the early 20th century, when a man named Arthur Evans, an architect or an archaeologist, uncovered it.

He was looking at a palace at ruins of a Knosis that was built on top of this one. And it came to see that there was another palace underneath that far predated it. It goes back to the Minoan dynasty, if you will, on Crete. And the Minoans had quite a storied history. It was a pagan. There's a picture of part of the temple there, because everywhere you go in Greece and in Crete, there's a temple and there's a pagan god associated with it.

And the Minoans, among many things, they did seem to have a lot of advancements. There was even a place where they had flushing. They could show that for the royals, they had flushing toilets in Knosis, something that it took thousands of years later for the rest of the world to catch up with. But they had that. This road is the Minoan way. They say it's the... I wrote down in my notes the oldest... the first road in the world, but I have a feeling it's the first road in Europe. But you can see, as they uncovered these ruins, they find the type of things that they had found out about.

Now, the ancient Minoan culture seemed to be thriving there. They had quite a large area there in the southern part of Crete. But the tour guide said that it finally came to destruction because there were two years of earthquake. Two years of earthquakes and tsunamis that totally decimated and did away with that area. And so it was buried under that. The Mycenaeans came in and they tried to rebuild it. But when they rebuilt it, their palace was destroyed by an earthquake as well. It made me think because a few times during our time in Greece, I heard earthquakes. Earthquakes destroyed this place. Earthquakes destroyed this place. Corinth had an earthquake in 800 BC.

They had another one in 1856 that decimated the ruins there. You go to Delphi and they talk about the earthquakes there and all the tectonic plates that merged there between Africa and Europe. And earthquakes is something that the Greeks look at for some reason, but something that's been very much in their history. Now, one of the things the tour guide alluded to in our tour is, she said, many people will ask the question, in this ancient, kenosis palace, the one that predates all the way to almost the beginning of time, were there human sacrifices? Were there human sacrifices going on in that temple? And she said, the answer is, they can find at least one incident where it sure looks like human sacrifices were going over there in there, or at least one.

And if there's one, there's probably many. And it made me think about the Bible. It made me think about what God thinks about human sacrifice, about how pagans honor their God. And you remember the many times in the Bible that God talks about how he hates human sacrifice, and how the children of Israel would even sacrifice their children to Molech.

And he absolutely hated it. In King Manasseh in Judah, God was still going to destroy Judah, even after Manasseh repented, because they were so heinous in doing this sacrifice that he says, and also in Jeremiah, he would have never even thought of. Human sacrifices and anything that God would ever do. And I had to wonder, and this is pure speculation on my part, did God see that civilization back then? Was it so corrupt? Was it so evil? Was it beyond what God would have it be that he took it and destroyed it?

Two years of earthquakes, tsunamis, total destruction. Because we see in the Bible when God sees a community or an area that is so far apart from him, he destroys it. Sodom and Gomorrah progressed to the point where God said, destroy it, and fire and brimstone rain down from heaven. Other places as well. God talks about Abraham. Your descendants will come back here when the iniquity of the Amorites is completed, and then he would displace them.

And earthquakes are significant in the Bible. And I've listed some of them here. I'm not going to go through all those things. But I went back and I thought about earthquakes and how God uses earthquakes. But someone can correct me on this if they want. I wondered, does God ever let Satan use an earthquake for something? I couldn't find any examples in the Bible or in the commentaries where Satan was ever allowed to use earthquakes.

Earthquakes may come just by natural occurrences as the plates, the tectonic plates in the earth move around, or God sends them. So we have the Minoan civilization. They were destroyed by earthquake. I had a subsequent thought on that, too. The archaeologists say, this is such an ancient city. I had to wonder later, could it have been that that was a society that was in existence before the time of the flood? It dates back so many thousands of years, did the earthquakes that they're saying occurred and the tsunamis that covered them up, was it really the great flood that covered up that civilization?

But we have the earthquakes there. In Isaiah 29, verse 6, God says He'll use earthquakes and send warnings to people by earthquakes. In Amos 1, verse 1, as Israel was departing further and further from God, He sent a great earthquake to them. And then, as you read through Amos, you see. And then, subsequently, of course, God allowed Israel to go back into captivity, and He used that as a warning with them.

At the time of Christ's death, there was an earthquake. At the time, He died. God got people's attention. It was something that He wanted them to realize what they had done. At the time of the end, Babylon the Great, its destruction is accompanied by an earthquake so great, it says in 16, that there hasn't been an earthquake like it.

And when God thunders and when God roars, and when earthquakes come, it's something that we should be paying attention to. Let us do a look at Matthew 24, verse 7, though. Matthew 24, verse 7. In the Olivet prophecy, the verse we all know, Christ is talking after these disciples asking Him, what will be the signs of the end of the age?

In verse 7, He says, Nation will rise against nation, kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places. Now, we see earthquakes in the news. Mexico's had a few of them in the last month or two. I know there are earthquakes that have been around, but as God, and as it gets closer to the time of Jesus Christ's return. Earthquakes, earthquakes, and earthquakes as warnings, earthquakes for nations that may not be living or doing the things that God wants and have no appearance of even looking that they would turn back to Him. It might be something in our future and something that we will see even more and more, just like some of these civilizations have done.

So, that was the first half of Crete. Then, in the second half, we moved over to Athens. I'm going to talk about Athens last, but let me give you a little bit of geography here of Crete. That whole green area that you see is modern-day Crete. It's got some of the ancient names on it for you there.

I wanted to show you how Paul traveled around that area. You see up there where it says Neopolis, Philippi, and Phyphilus. Over in here is Antioch. As Paul journeyed from Jerusalem, I think it was on his third or fourth. You can see a creek down here in the bottom, where there's Fair Haven right there at the southern border.

Anyway, let's trace Paul here a little bit through Acts. Turn back with me to Acts 16.

Acts 16 and verse 11.

Let's pick it up in verse 10. Verse 10 says, Now, after we had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go to Macedonia. You see where Macedonia is here. It's northern Greece that is today. We sought to go to Macedonia, concluding that the Lord had called us to preach the gospel to them. Therefore, sailing from Troas, we ran a straight course to Samothrace, and the next day we came to Neopolis. So, up here. They came up here. Thrace is here. Neopolis. We came to Neopolis, and from there to Philippi, the city that's right next to it, up there next to Neopolis, which is the foremost city of that part of Macedonia, a colony.

And we were staying in that city for some days. Now, Paul, if you recall, at that time when he was in Philippi, he was in prison because of what he was preaching. And he and Silas were in prison, and they sang hymns to God. They weren't worried. They weren't dismayed about being thrown in prison. And God supernaturally gave them the exit from prison. Let's pick it up in verse 25 here, of Acts 16.

At midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. Verse 26, suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken, and immediately all the doors were opened, and everyone's chains were loosed.

And they exited. The prison keeper was baptized as a result of that. Certainly, if that happened on your watch, you would be a believer, I would hope, of the power of Jesus Christ. Okay, Philippi. Let's move on to chapter 17. Now, when they had passed through Amphipolis, you see Amphipolis up there. You can kind of see the journey that he's on as he comes to Athens and Corinth. Now, Corinth, when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews. So, you can see what's going on there. Now, Thessalonica today is the second largest city. They call it Thessalonica. It's the second largest city in Greece, actually named after Alexander the Great's half-sister.

There was a synagogue of the Jews. Then Paul, as his custom was, went into them. And for three Sabbaths, reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and demonstrating that Christ had to suffer, and rising again from the dead, and saying, This Jesus, whom I preach to you, is the Christ. So, Paul, as you see him go from place to place, remember, there are no existing churches at that time.

People are being called. People are together. He's going to these places. And when he goes, he's there in the synagogue on the Sabbath, and he's preaching to people. He's not a tourist, and he's going into the synagogues on the Sabbath day to preach to them. He goes around to Thessalonica. If we drop down to verse 10, he runs into some problem for what he's preaching there in Thessalonica. He says, The brethren immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea. And when they arrived, they went into the synagogue of the Jews. These were more fair-minded than those in Thessalonica, and that they received the Word with all readiness and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so.

Therefore, many of them believed, and not a few, also not a few of the Greeks, prominent movement as well as men. So we see him make the trek around here to Thessalonica and Berea. And down in chapter 17, verse 15, he goes on to Athens. Verse 14, Immediately the brethren sent Paul away to go to the sea, but both Silas and Timothy remained there. So those who conducted Paul brought him to Athens.

And so you can see that down on the southern Peloponnesus, they call it. Just fifty miles from Corinth, Paul is there in Athens. And his eyes are opened when he is in Athens to some things that go on that I think all, everyone who was in Greece, and the feast, would say the same thing.

It is astounding. And when Paul says in Acts 17 about what he found in the city, you can just fully understand what he was thinking and what he saw at that time. But let's come back to Athens and let's go on to Corinth right now. In chapter 18, they move on to Corinth. Chapter 18, verse 1, After things, things, Paul departed from Athens and went to Corinth. And so he had a day trip, or an afternoon trip, over to Corinth.

Very interesting trip. It's amazing the ruins that are over there in Greece, the way they've been maintained. But this is the Isthmus of Corinth. And if you go back to that map, you see where Corinth is. It became a very prosperous city. And one of the reasons that it became prosperous is because of its location. You can see there to the north of it, there's the, I think it's called the Saronic Gulf that's north of them. And then just right on the other side of that little Isthmus in there, where the Corinth dot is, you have the Gulf of Corinth.

And so there was that area right in there, and it turns out there's a four-mile stretch that actually is in between the Saronic Gulf and the Gulf of Corinth. And back in Paul's day, it was a road that went there. So boats that were going to go to Corinth, they would actually transport somehow the boats from Corinth across that four mile so that we'd get into the Gulf of Corinth, and they would be able to avoid going around the peninsula there.

So, very interesting. Today, today, back in the 1800s, I think it was, or maybe the early 1900s, the canal was finished. And that's what it looks like. It's a very narrow, a very narrow strait that goes there for that four miles. Very high walls, very high walls, even more than it looks like there. You can see that large boat coming through there.

And today, it's a very active center as well. Corinth today is right on the sea. Back in that day, it was back a little bit from the sea. They didn't build things right on the seashore the way they do today.

And as you come into Corinth, you're greeted by what you are greeted. Most of the time, you're in Greece, a temple. And these are the remains of a temple. I think to Apollo, but I don't know. They've got so many gods, I lose track of who the temple belongs to. But that's what you see. And throughout Greece, what you see over and over again is temple, temple, temple. I mean, they had some amazing architecture. They had some amazing and skilled craftsmen. But all too often, it was dedicated for very wrong reasons, if you will.

Let's go back. Let's leave it there. Let's pick it up in Acts 18 and follow the story here. Acts 18 and verse 1, after Paul comes to Corinth and says, He found a certain man, a certain Jew, named Aquila, born in Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla.

And he came to them. Verse 3, So because he was of the same trade, he stayed with them, and worked for by occupation, they were tentmakers. And he reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath, and persuaded both Jews and Greeks. When Silas and Timothy had come down from Macedonia, you remember the map, Paul was compelled by the Spirit, and he testified to the Jews that Jesus is the Christ. But the Jews opposed him. And they opposed him and blasphemed. When they opposed him and blasphemed, he shook his garments and said to them, Your blood be upon your own heads. I am clean. From now on, I'll go to the Gentiles. I'll preach the gospel to them. They're more willing to hear the truth. This is what he was saying to the Jews at that time. And he parted from there, entered the house of a certain man named Justice, one who worshipped God, whose house was next door to the synagogue, and Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue, believed on the Lord with all his household. And many of the Corinthians hearing believed and were baptized. And the Lord spoke to Paul in the night by a vision, Don't be afraid, Paul, but speak, and don't keep silent. For I am with you, and no one will attack you to hurt you. For I have many people in this city. And there would be a sizable church in the city of 800,000, they say at the time Paul was there. That would grow in that area.

And Paul went forth boldly, and he preached the truth. Now you have to remember again, it wasn't a free society in that regard. The Greeks were very good thinkers, and they engaged in a lot of give and take and thought. But this was something that was totally foreign to them, because they believed in all their pagan gods, the whole arena of them. And they have a story for every single one of them. When you go on a tour bus, even though the Greeks say they're a Christian nation today, boy, they take pride.

They take pride in their mythological stories, because they know every bit of the detail of them. And you can kind of see, well, whatever. I think part of them wishes it was true, even though they know. No, it's not. But they're still well alive, and they're in Greece, certainly in Corinth. So, Paul is out there, and he is speaking the Gospel. And he stayed there for 18 months, it says, teaching the Word of God among them. Well, he ran into some trouble, because people were going to bring him and hold him to account.

And so, the pro-council of that day, Gallio, he was brought into him because the Jews didn't like what he was preaching, much like they didn't like what Jesus Christ did. So, they brought him, and they wanted Gallio to offer a pronouncement against him to keep him from preaching about this man, Jesus Christ. Now, Paul is in Corinth here, and Paul finds himself in a position in a large city with a lot of people opposed to him.

Because he's going to have to teach the teacher, he's going to answer, to the chief magistrate of that day, his beliefs. Now, you have to put yourself in his position again, or maybe put ourselves in our position somewhere in the future, where we will be asked to defend our beliefs and stand up and talk about what we believe. Paul had no fear. Paul was ready to do it. He had talked in Athens, and he was prepared in Corinth to do the same thing.

But it wasn't God's mission for him in Corinth to speak. Let's read what happened here in verse 12. Verse 12, when Gallio was pro-counsel of Achaia, the Jews with one accord rose up against Paul and brought him to the judgment seat. Now, this is the scene from the judgment seat. It's called, in your Bible, mine says the Greek word is bema, B-E-M-A, or bima, however you want to say that. This is the scene from the bima in Greek that looks out into the main street of Corinth.

There would have been shops on either side of each of the road here. This is the actual bema. This is the ruins of it today. This is where Paul was brought, so that he was able to stand before Gallio and talk about what the truth was and to, I guess, defend himself if we have nothing.

This was the judgment seat. This is where people were brought, that a decision was going to be made about what was going to happen to them. So, Paul was about, anyway, he was brought to the judgment seat. Verse 13, it was said, This fellow persuades men to worship God contrary to the law. He's teaching them something that we don't want him to teach. And when Paul was about to open his mouth, notice he didn't have to open his mouth. God intervened at that time, and Gallio said to the Jews, If it were a matter of wrongdoing or wicked crimes, O Jews, there would be reason why I would bear with you.

But if it's a question of words and names in your own law, look to it yourselves, for I don't want to be a judge of such matters. And he drove them from the judgment seat. So, Paul didn't have to, if we want to put it in that terms. He didn't have the opportunity that maybe he was looking forward to, to witness on that thema, judgment seat at that time, Gallio took the words right out of his mouth and he said, I'm not getting involved in this.

He can teach what he wants to teach. You Jews can deal with it on your own. Now, remember at this time in history, the Romans had control of Greece and the Greeks were no longer in control, and Gallio wasn't about to let that happen. Now, what's interesting is we can say, was that a missed opportunity? Why would God allow that to happen? Looking at the commentaries and looking at one of the write-ups on thema there, the Corinth thema, I found this about the thema and Paul's experience there. Let me just read from BiblePlaces.com and it quotes Sir William Ramsey, a commentator regarding this. It says, Sir William Ramsey regarded Gallio's ruling as the crowning fact in determining Paul's line of conduct because it provided a precedent for other magistrates and thus guaranteed Paul's freedom to pursue his apostolic mission with the assurance of the benevolent neutrality of the imperial authorities for several years to come.

What he's saying in very flowery languages is, when Gallio said, I'm not getting involved in it, he said to the president, that other Roman consulates wouldn't say, yes, just like in Corinth, we don't want you preaching that here. He opened the door for the gospel to be preached in other areas as well by his silence. One thing at least is certain, he said, if Gallio had given an adverse effect against Paul, it would have been pleaded as a precedent by Paul's opponents for the rest of his life.

And a precedent established by so exalted and influential a magistrate as Gallio, a much more important person, as in the polytarks of Thessalonica, would have grained great weight. The mere fact that Gallio refused to take up the case against Paul may reasonably be held to have facilitated the spread of Christianity during the last years of Claudius and the earlier years of his successor.

Thank God it had something to do with that? Yeah. Paul may have been ready, but God knew what was going to occur at that time. So the demo was an important place in the history of Corinth and the biblical history of Corinth as well.

Corinth, you've heard over the years, it was quite an interesting city. It was wealthy, it had commerce, and a couple of their main industries are pictured in that picture.

We'll get to them in a minute. But Corinth was a corrupt city in many ways. When you look at, you know, Acro-Corinth and some of the people that were here in Greece went up to Acro-Corinth, they had temple prostitutes in the city. It was a very lewd and a very sinful city, if you will. I think one, I heard one person compare it to Las Vegas. If there was a Las Vegas of that day, a sin city, it was Corinth in that day. It was an area that many people, God says they have many people here in the city that believe. We live in a society that's much like Corinth. When we look at the situations around us and how we live our lives, not we personally, but how our society lives our lives, when we read the books of 1 and 2 Corinthians, we can look at those books and we should be able to relate to what Paul was writing there, because we live in very much the same society. We live in a society where the world would tell us all these things are okay and you don't have to worry about it, but we know that we have to live God's way and not the way the world would. A couple of the things that the commerce in Corinth, one of them represented there on the left, you all know that Corinth was known for its pottery. Pottery was one of the chief things they did. In fact, in listening to the tour guide speak, it was almost like there was a contest between Athens and Corinth, which wouldn't have the best pottery. Eventually, Athens overtook Corinth, I guess, if we can put it in that way. But Corinth was known for its pottery and it had very fine pottery. Paul, we learned something about him because I had remembered when I was hearing about pottery something I had heard years ago, and I know you've heard it, but we could refresh our minds on it a little bit. There is something when Paul talks about pottery, and he speaks to the Corinthians. He knows what their major industry is. He knows what they're about. He knows how they think. Paul uses common things in people's minds to get a point to cross. The same thing we would do today. Paul was very good at applying the Scriptures and bringing it to the level of the people and giving them an analogy that they could readily identify with. Pottery was one of the things that he used in Corinthians to help them understand some of the calling they had and what their responsibilities were.

Let's go back to 1 Corinthians three times in Corinthians. He uses a word that has to do with pottery. Let's go back to 1 Corinthians 5.

1 Corinthians 5 and verse 8. Well, now in verse, in another six months, we'll be talking about this verse, I'm sure.

It says, And he used the word sincerity there. For the Corinthians who heard that, sincerity meant something to them because it related to the pottery and its cheap industry in that area. Now, you remember, or you may have heard, our sincere comes from two Latin words that mean, if you translate them, literally means without wax. And in Corinth, the Greek word is...

It begins with an E-I-K. My eyes aren't going to fall at it right now, but I can give it to you later. Oh, Ila, Ila craniya, translated sincerity. What it really means, or what the Greek words mean, genuine, without deceit, unmixed and unadulterated.

In Corinth, pottery, in any society you have this, pottery, if it's perfect, if it's absolutely flawless, it sells for a lot of money. And if you're wealthy, you want to buy something that is absolutely flawless and say, I've got this piece of pottery. But if it has a little crack and a little imperfection in it, it's going to go for a lot less. So some of the savvy, I guess, business savvy, worldly savvy people of Corinth would take wax and they would cover up some of those, very well cover up those imperfections in a piece of pottery so that they could sell it for more money. Paul, Paul knew, well, Paul knew, in order to find out whether you were buying a genuine and unadulterated piece of pottery, you could hold, they say, the pottery up under light and you could see the wax that was in it.

So Paul knew, this is a common practice, and so people would do that, that they're going to buy a piece of pottery, they'd hold it up to light, see if there's any wax in it, if it was really sincere or not. So when he used that word sincere, it clicked with them. We want to be a sincere piece of pottery. We want to be without adultery, or unadulterated. We want to be without mixture. We want to be without wax. We want to be a pure thing.

The point that he was getting across to them, same point that we get across to them, is God has called us and we're vessels and He's looking to make us sincere pieces of pottery. And as we allow ourselves to be clay in His hands and as He molds us into the vessels that He wants us to be, that He wants us to be without sincere, not covering up the imperfections with wax, not covering up the imperfections, but when God reveals those two of us through the light of His Word, that we would take care of those things and allow Him to bring us to a complete and a blameless person, if you will, just as Jesus Christ was.

I won't take the time. Let me give you two other references. We have Paul Mates in 2 Corinthians 1-12 and 2 Corinthians 2-17. He... I'm sorry, I'm going to keep you a little bit over time today, so just bear with me.

I didn't realize it was that late, so I'll speed up a little bit here. So, the other piece, the other thing in that picture there... I don't know, do you know what that is? I didn't know what that was. That actually is a mirror. Back in Corinth, they learned to bronze, they learned to polish the bronze, so that it was a mirror, and it became an industry in Corinth. And so, we have pottery and mirrors. So, it made me think, when I heard, that's a mirror, and Corinth is a place that we can buy mirrors.

Remember when Paul uses it in 1 Corinthians 13? He uses the word mirror. And again, the Corinthians would have related to that and thought, oh, we can see ourselves. We have to see ourselves the way God sees us, and we have to let God see us the way He would have us be. So, in those areas Paul was very astute to use the language of his time to get his point to cross.

Back in Acts 18, right outside of Corinth is the port of St. Craig. And in verse 18, we were in chapter 18 before, chapter 18 when he was leaving Corinth, it says, So Paul still remained a good while, and he took leave of the brethren and sailed for Syria, and Priscilla and Aquila were with him.

He had his care cut off at St. Crea, for he had taken a vow. And he set sail from this port, this is the port of St. Crea today, and those are the ruins that you can see right along the harbor there, that they say are the remains of the harbor that would have been there when Paul was there. So you look out over that, you just get a feeling when you see those things that Paul was there and he was sailing away at that time.

Let me briefly mention Dacro-Corinth. When you're in Corinth, there's a very high hill, and at the very top of that hill, a very high hill, you can see all those buildings at the top, they're all temples. They're all temples that are up there. And the Greeks had a way of creating these high places. They would look for the highest place in the city, and that's where they would build their temples, that's where they would have their pagan gods. The theory being that religion was on top of everything else and people would look to their gods as they would look up, they would see them, and that's where they would be.

So, Acro-Corinth had that. Every city in Greece that would have a high place, they call it a crophalis, it actually means highest point in the city, they would have that and they would build their temples on that so everyone could see that with the gods being on top. So we moved from Corinth, no, we didn't move from Corinth. We were in Athens. In Athens, while we stayed there, that's the hotel. It was very nice hotel, it was real close to the Acrophalis, so it was very convenient in getting around.

And there's a view of the Acrophalis. You've all heard of the Acrophalis, right? Even from the time that I was in history, I remember the Acrophalis. It was a fascinating place to see pictures of. When you see it, it's even more magnificent in person because you see these remnants of what used to be, and you see it's up on a tall hill, and you just think about what the people had to do to build these structures back then.

It's just very interesting. There you can see. I'd love to get my family involved a little bit. You notice I'm not in that picture. There's many, many buildings on the Acrophalis in Athens. The one behind them there is called the Erechtheion. That actually was the most holy place on the Acrophalis. If I had focused it a little bit more, right before Patrick said there, there's five ladies, six ladies, I guess, called the Catarites or something like that.

Goddesses that hold up the ceiling, and there's some symbolic thing to that. But there's a picture of the Parthenon from the front view. Interesting. It took them only nine years, they say, to build the Parthenon. It was Archimedes who had a lot to do with it as they had these enormous stones coming up, a very high hill that was there. That's the side view of it. You can probably see that. You can see just how high that hill is there that was up on top. As you look in Corinth and as you walk around that area of town, it's very visible. You can see down into the theater.

They say that's the Thirst Theater in Europe. That's down at the base of the Acrophalis. We have Paul, who was in Athens. He made quite a splash in Athens. Athens made quite an impression on him. Let's go back to Acts 17.

Chapter 17. We were in Chapter 17 before Paul has left. He has left Maria. He's come down to Athens. He's waiting for Timothy and Silas to join him. In verse 16 it says this. Acts 17-16.

You can imagine Paul and his day. This was all complete. This is all complete, the Acrophalis. They weren't just ruins anymore. They were huge buildings and infrastructures. As he looked around and as he walked around that city, he would have the same feeling that I think every one of us had there. This city is consumed with idols. They are everywhere. Everything you talk about. You can buy souvenirs that are things of God's. They still talk about these. They still reverence them. Paul, as he was walking around there, I'm sure he was just absolutely overwhelmed by the fact that this was such a totally pagan city and had so much involved in it.

So much involved in it. Chapter 16. When he saw that the city was given over to idols, therefore he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and with the Gentile worshippers and in the market place daily with those who happened to be there. Well, you have to understand in ancient Athens, it's a city of four and a half or five million people today spread over a large area.

But it was a more condensed area back then. You didn't have roads. You didn't have transportation. This is the top of Mars Hill. You see them looking out over it. But when you're on Mars Hill, this is the view that you have. Mars Hill, called the Areopagus. In Greek it means the Hill of Aries, but when the Romans took it over, they renamed it after their God, Mars Hill. But there you have the Acropolis, all the temples on Mars Hill, all part of the complex. And then down below, as you're standing on Mars Hill, you see the market place that Paul would have been in.

So there he was, and you have the picture of what was going on in this sequence here. Everything was combined, and you know that was a very bustling and a very busy area of town. And Paul, in all that aspect, as he's looking around and realizing these people are steeped in paganism, he finds himself preaching about the truth of Jesus Christ, teaching them about what it is. And so he says that, and then he's of course encountered by the people. Remember, the Greeks were deep thinkers of the day.

We had the Epicureans, in verse 18, who believed, just eat drink and be merry. We had the Stoics, who believed, you should deny yourself pleasure. Paul was reasoning with both sides of that view, as he was talking about the truth of Jesus Christ. Others, they would talk to him, and they would ridicule him in some case. And some people actually did believe, because it says, in verse 18, he preached to them Jesus and the resurrection.

But they were not pleased with what he said. So just like in Corinth later, they took him to the chief's feet, Mars Hill. Areopagus, where he was going to be held to account for what he was teaching. Verse 19, so they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, May we know what this new doctrine is, of which you speak, for you are bringing some strange things to our ears.

Therefore, we want to know what these things mean. Now again, as you're standing there on Mars Hill, the Areopagus, you can just feel, as you look around what Paul must have been seeing in that day, and visualizing your mind, with all the people crowded around him, him, against all the people that were there, who didn't believe what he believed, but he was there and he was ready to teach them what the truth was, teach them about Jesus Christ.

And when you're there and you see it, then you see how right there on one side is the temple buildings, and on the other side is the marketplace with the people hustling and bustling in this area, all over the place, what he must have been through. And our guide, you know, is very, very moving, I thought, that he actually read through what Paul said. On Acts 17, as we stood there on Mars Hill. Let me read through a little bit of it here. And I'm not going to read through all of it.

You can take it. You can read through it a little bit later. Paul. And we learned some things in diplomacy from Paul, because he could have come out and he could have just chastised them all and told them all they were pagans and didn't believe anything and whatever. But notice how he approached this. It says in verse 22. Well, it says in verse 21, all the Athenians and foreigners were there. In verse 22, then Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, Men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are very religious.

He sought the common ground. He found the place with them that he could relate, because they were. They had a wrong religion. They had a false religion. But he could relate to them because he could see we are very interested in religion. And so he approached them on that level, so you know their ears were listening. He says, for as it was passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I even found an altar with this inscription to the unknown God.

And you know, in Greece, they had hundreds of gods. Some people said there were more gods than there were people, because they had a god for everything. But there was a, there's a, there's at least a belief in Greece today that the philosophers came to the realization that of all the gods, there was another god that was holding everything together.

And our tour guide, I don't know if this is factual or not, I didn't verify it, but I'll tell you what she said. She said that in Socrates, in his later years, came to the realization that there must be one god, one god that was over all these other gods, if you will. And because of what he was preaching, they put him to death. And I don't know if that's true or not, but it showed that they didn't want to hear that. But he came as he understood the universe and saw what was going on.

There's one god, one god that we should be worshiping. And Paul saw that as he saw this statue there, dedicated or alter, dedicated to the unknown god. And so he seizes on that and he says, therefore the one whom you worship without knowing him, I proclaim to you.

And he goes on with a beautiful message, the most complete message that we have of Paul's travels in Greece and through those countries that the church was developing. And he convinces some of them, because as you go down into later on, well, it wasn't him convincing, he spoke the truth and God opened their minds. But it says in verse 34, some men joined him and believed, among them Dionysius, an Areopagite, and a woman named Amaris, and others with them. So, Paul seized the opportunity and he was witnessing there in a very, a very moving and a very, a very significant part that is there in that area.

You know, we can look at that and we read the words. You know, we can be very, very thankful that we know who God is, that we understand the truth and who it is that is leading us and guiding us. We can be very thankful that he has given us his Bible, that it's absolute truth and absolutely pure truth. The Greeks didn't have that. They were an interesting society and they were a very successful society as the way the world would look at them.

They were eventually conquered by the Romans, but as we know, the Romans took many of the Greek, took much of the Greek culture, including their language. And the New Testament was written in Greek. Anyway, I failed to mention they actually have an inscription of Acts 17, Paul's words in Greek, at the base of the Areopagus there. Let me conclude with that picture. That's Parthenon by Knight. The picture doesn't do it justice. When you see the Parthenon by Knight and see the Acropolis lit up by Knight, it's absolutely spectacular.

It's probably one of the more beautiful sights in that respect that I've seen. And you can see it from so many places in the city. But you know, the last night that we were there, as I was thinking, how beautiful is that? A thought came into my mind. Does God see that as beautiful? I don't think God sees that as beautiful. I think He sees it as a testament to paganism. I think He may appreciate man and the nature in man that is able to make those things happen, to construct those things, to bring those stones up the hill, and to craft it in the way that they do.

But He doesn't see that as beautiful. In the Kingdom, as we come back from the faces, we look toward the Kingdom that you and I, I hope, will all be part of as we yield ourselves to God. There won't be people touring to Greece to see these monuments in the Kingdom. They'll no longer exist. All those things will be torn down. All the ravages of this society and all the paganism and everything that is in this society will be totally obliterated. It won't be there anymore.

And you and I may have a part in tearing down those statues and those structures that speak to an age that has brought on it so much suffering, so much agony, that has been so apart from God and the anti, the antithesis of everything that God would want. So as we look at those sites, we can marvel at the human endeavor.

We can marvel at the human ingenuity that fashions these fables about what gods can do and whatever their gods can do. But we have to remember that God has called us to tear down the high places. You can go back and you can read Deuteronomy 12. In there it tells Israel.

God tells Israel, when I bring you into my Promised Land, you go in there, you tear down the altars, you tear down the high places, you get rid of all the pagan elements of it. I want you to be a pure people living in a pure land. And when Christ returns, that's what we will be doing.

We will be living in a pure land and the vestiges of this earth will be gone. People won't be looking up to the high place on the hill in their city anymore. They will be looking to one place, as you heard at this piece of Tabernacles. They will be looking to the one place where the law comes out of and that's to Zion. They will be looking to one God. God will no longer be unknown to them.

There will be one God because Jesus Christ says, God will be known to all men. All people will know Me. That's what we have to be part of. And as we look at this world and as we look at our lives and we understand the spiritual significance of that as well, we need to be people who are about tearing down the high places and the vestiges of ourselves of the vestiges of this world, the vestiges of our thoughts and the things that hold us back and keep us tied to this society.

Because Jesus Christ and God the Father are looking for people who are sincere. Who are sincere without wax, unadulterated. He's looking to people who will worship and follow explicitly the one true God and don't need the vestiges or the altars of this, but we look to God and follow Him implicitly. So I hope maybe that has shed a little bit of... I know it was made a comment in one of our closing sessions that we'll never read the Bible the same way again after having been there and I would agree with that.

I hope that I've been able to shed a little bit of what it is like in Greece and that that helps your further understanding of what we've been called to.