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Here I Stood: Thessalonica

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Before arriving in the Macedonian city of Thessalonica, Luke records that Paul and his

company passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia. Amphipolis was the site of a significant battle in the long, drawn-out and exhausting war between Athens and Sparta known as the Peloponnesian War which Sparta eventually one. At Amphipolis (the city looking both ways because of the configuration of the harbor), the Spartan general Brasidas won a significant battle but was killed in the next engagement (424-423 BC). Today a lion monument marks the site of the battle, a monument that the apostle Paul would have seen as he passed through.



Thessalonica, today Thessaloniki, is the second largest city in Greece and the largest city of Macedonia. We had time to walk through the streets of the city, and I observed archaeological excavations, but there seemed to be nothing specific about Paul’s visit there that I could notice.


From Luke’s account, Paul had some measure of success when he visited the Jewish synagogue, always the first stop on his agenda. However, the unbelieving Jews were enraged and succeeded in causing an uproar, focusing much of their attention on Jason who was obviously a synagogue leader whom Paul converted. Of course, a church was founded there to which Paul would write two letters.


“Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to

Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews. And Paul went in, as was his custom, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead, and saying, ‘This Jesus, whom I proclaim to you, is the Christ.’ And some of them were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a great many of the devout Greeks and not a few of the leading women. But the Jews were jealous, and taking some wicked men of the rabble, they formed a mob, set the city in an uproar, and attacked the house of Jason, seeking to bring them out to the crowd. And when they could not find them, they dragged Jason and some of the brothers before the city authorities, shouting, ‘These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also, and Jason has received them, and they are all acting against the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, Jesus’. And the people and the city authorities were disturbed when they heard these things. And when they had taken money as security from Jason and the rest, they let them go”. (Acts 17:1-9)


I did stand in front of the church of St. Demetrius, the patron saint of the city, a Roman

soldier converted to Christ in the late third century. Constantine erected the original church on the site of his martyrdom and next to the Roman baths.




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