Bible Reading: Part 5. From Olive Tree

“City located north of Israel in modern Syria. In the Old Testament Damascus served as the capital city of the Aramean people, a rival of the Israelites. King David subdued the city during his reign(2 Sam. 8:5-6), but its King Rezon caused a headache for Solomon (1 Kings 11:25). King Jeroboam recaptured Damascus (2 Kings 14:28) but it was later taken by Assyria (2 Kings 16:9). While visiting the Assyrian King in Damascus, King Ahaz was enticed by an altar he saw and made sketches to construct a replacement for the temple in Jerusalem (2 Kings 16:10-12). Isaiah, Jeremiah, Amos, and Zechariah each prophesized against the city (Isa. 17:1; Jer. 49:23-27; Amos 1:3-5; Zech. 9:1). By New Testament times, Damascus was one of the cities of the “Decapolis” – a loose league of “Greek” cities in Galilee and southwestern Syria. It prospered under Greek, then Roman rule. While on his way to Damascus to deliver letters to synagogues with permission to arrest Christians, Paul encountered the risen Christ (Acts 9:1-9). He continued on to Damascus where he met with Ananias and other disciples (Acts 9:10-19). At around the same time, Damascus was given to the Nabateans under King Aretas IV (2 Cor 11:32). Paul began preaching in Damascus until he had to escape arrest by being lowered over the wall in a basket (Acts 9:20-25; 2 Cor. 11:32-33). Paul went to Arabia, then returned to Damascus for a time before he began his missionary travels (Gal 1:17). Damascus soon became a center for early Christianity. Today a chapel stands in the city, commemorating Paul’s conversion, and made out of the Roman gate believed to be the one Paul escaped through. Ephesus Greco-Roman city on the western coast of modern Turkey. It contained a busy artificial harbor during Paul’s time and sat at the intersection of several major roads, making it a strategic place for his missionary travels in Asia. Ephesus was at its height in the first century A.D., hosting a population as much as 500,000 people. Paul sailed there with Priscilla and Aquila on his second missionary trip after meeting them in Corinth and preached at the local synagogue, promising to soon return (Acts 18:18-21). The early Christian evangelist Apollos arrived in Ephesus soon afterwards and was discipled by Priscilla and Aquila, who had stayed in the city (Acts 18:24-26). Paul came back to Ephesus during his third missionary trip and stayed for several years, during which he wrote several of his New Testament letters (Acts 19:1,10; 1 Cor. 16:8). He left when a large riot formed at the local theater to protest him for threatening local businesses that supported the world-famous temple of the goddess Artemis at Ephesus (Acts 19:23-41). Near the end of his life, Paul wrote a letter to Timothy instructing him to remain in the city (1 Tim. 1:3). Though the New Testament book of Ephesians bears the city’s name, a few important early manuscripts do not contain an address to Ephesus, casting doubt on whether the letter was written strictly to Christians there. It may be that the letter was intended for several churches in the region, of which Ephesus was the most important. The church in Ephesus is also one of seven who received letters in the book of Revelation, in which they are praised for being discerning, working for the name of Christ, and standing against the heretical Nicolaitans. But they are reprimanded for abandoning their first love for Christ (Rev. 2:1). It is possible that in their works and zeal for doctrine they had reduced Christianity to mere intellectual pursuit.” Sent from Bible Study