
The apostle Paul visited Perga on his first missionary journey as recorded by Luke in Acts 13:13: “Now Paul and his companions set sail from Paphos and came to Perga in Pamphylia. And John left them and returned to Jerusalem, but they went on from Perga and came to Antioch in Pisidia”.
We do not have any record of a major event that happened to Paul and his company other than the rather discouraging comment that John Mark left them and went home. Scholars have surmised that Mark was discouraged or afraid because of the unexpected level of hostility directed toward them and thus decided he wanted to go home. Mark was younger than the other disciples of Christ, son of Mary in whose home the disciples were known to have assembled. His return was interpreted by Paul as cowardice, and thus, Paul was opposed to Mark’s joining them on the second journey. The result of the sharp disagreement between Paul and Barnabas, Mark’s uncle, was that Barnabas took Mark and went with him to his native Cyprus, and Paul took Silas with him and returned to Galatia and then Europe.

Perga today (Perge) is one of the better preserved of ancient sites in Turkey. As with most of the remaining ruins, Perga was originally Greek. Romans improved the Greek cities with roads, theaters, and sports venues. Either they improved these places with their special touch or built entirely new ones. For instance, Romans built covered entrances to theaters and in sports arenas removed front seats and built a protective wall. However, the cities remained essentially Greek. It is a fascinating study to walk through Graeco-Roman cities and note the Roman adaptations and the sites that have remained as the Greeks built them originally.

These are some of my thoughts as I walked through Perga and admired what has been preserved of the ancient past. One thought I always had was that when Paul visited these cities, they were already hundreds of years old!
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