The city of Thessalonica, named after a sister of Alexander the Great, was 
built within sight of one of the great religious landmarks of ancient Greece. 
Southward, across the Thermaikos Bay, the people could see the distant 
slopes of Mount Olympus, traditional home of the gods in their culture.

Founded in 316 BC, Thessalonica became an important harbor and leading city in the region. When the Romans built the Egnatian Way to connect Rome to its eastern interests, Thessalonica was a major stop and the first point of the road that reached the Aegean Sea. It was a natural stopping point also for the apostle Paul as he began mission work in Europe.

If you only know a few Bible passages, Matthew 28:19 is probably one of them: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations ….” It’s an easy passage for the Christian heart to embrace.

Travelers from the west coast of Asia Minor would walk up the Maeander River Valley on their journeys east. If they continued passed Laodicea, along the Lycos River, they would reach the Phrygian city of Colossae in a mountain valley about 125 miles from the coast along a major trade route to Persia.

This blog is excerpted from an article by Rev. Dr. David R. Schmitt that was published in a previous edition of Concordia Pulpit Resources.

The bodily resurrection of Jesus is central to the understanding of the Gospel of John. The comfort that Jesus offers twenty-first-century Christians is rooted in His first-century words and actions. The Comforter brings the peace that Jesus spoke and did in all these words and actions for us. What He accomplishes in His resurrection thus directly impacts our lives in the present.

On the edge of the Datos plain, about six miles from the Aegean Sea, Greek colonists founded the city of Philippi in 356 BC. Philip II of Macedon soon took the city and named it after himself. The Roman Empire recognized the city’s worth, making it one of the last points along the Egnatian Way, which linked Rome with the east and was strategically located in the system of Roman roads for the security of the empire.

The mountain chains of western Asia Minor reach for the Aegean Sea. Where the Ayden range points finger-like toward the island of Samos and the Cayster River flows into the Sea, Ionian Greek colonists founded the prosperous port city of Ephesus (near modern Selcuk).

This blog post is adapted from Life Under the Cross: A Biography of the Reformer Matthias Flacius Illyricus.