Greetings from the Five Cities region of California.
Hope and pray you had a spiritually productive week.
We worked on many matters, including trying to get some literature in Chinese out with one of our pastors who is going to visit China (not with CCOG funds).
I also was a guest on two podcasts.
One had to do with proof that God exists, including promoting our booklet: Is God’s Existence Logical?
The other was with Wade Fransson of the Created in the Image of God podcast. As it turns out, Wade Fransson is a former Worldwide Church of God minister who now is part of the Bahai faith. He stated that he believes he and I met in the early 1980s when we were both WATS line volunteers for the old Worldwide Church of God, which basically meant we took telephone calls from people who watched WCG’s telecast and were interested in the literature. That said, beyond discussing our backgrounds, we discussed aspects of personal responsibility to act on the truth and I promoted our literature, with more focus on the book Universal OFFER of Salvation, Apokatastasis: Can God save the lost in an age to come? Hundreds of scriptures reveal God’s plan of salvation.
Podcasts continue to be doors to reach people we would not otherwise reach.
The Seven Churches of Asia Minor
We have been considering putting out a Behind the Works video about going into Asia this year.
As it turns out, Richie White and his wife Shirley Gestro, recently got back to New Zealand from visiting Turkey and the locations of the seven churches of Revelation 2 & 3. My wife Joyce and I have also visited them many years ago.
Anyway, I asked Richie White if he could send a photograph and report. So, he did:
Dear Dr Thiel,
In March, Shirley and I travelled to Turkey to visit the seven church sites of Revelation 2 & 3. Not only did we experience the remains of these historic cities of Asia Minor, but we also got a little taste of modern Turkey.
All these historic sites had basically one common theme in their architecture and construction, paganism and idolatry were embedded everywhere. If it wasn’t carved into marble or granite it was painted on walls like wallpaper or laid into the floor with mosaics. Any form of true Christianity seemed far removed.
At Selcuk we walked up Aysasuluk hill, the site of the Citadel, St John’s Basilica and tomb. This hill overlooks today’s Selcuk town (some several km from the ancient site of Ephesus) so there we got a better sense of the surrounding landscape and where the ordinary people of the day would have lived and worked the land.
As for the location designated as the apostle John’s burial place, if it was a place that he spent a lot of time at for solitude, prayer, and writing, well it was a cool site with incredible views.
At Hierapolis, we walked up to the site identified as the apostle Philip’s tomb, located above the Theatre and the ancient city, and below the Martyrium of St Philip. If he and his daughters had lived there, they, like John, would have shared the similar views, they looking across the Lycus Valley toward Laodicea and the distant mountains.
We drove about 1000 km to cover the old Roman mail route that connected the seven churches, a small area of Turkey. It’s hard to comprehend that Paul walked the length and width of Asia Minor from Antioch in Northern Syria to Troas in the northwestern part of today’s Turkey, twice, taking a different route each time to spread the Gospel message.
Today Turkey has an extensive and very modern network of concrete highways 2 & 3 lanes travelling in opposite directions They cut across valleys and mountain sides, through tunnels and allow for travelling speeds of up to 140 km and run the length and breadth of Turkey.
I kept thinking of how a united European army and its logistical support could quickly travel across Turkey and towards Jerusalem.
Regards
Ritchie White
Yes, Turkey has a lot of modern roads.
Also there are signs of paganism all over the world, and yes, also in the areas that once had the seven churches of Revelation.
In these end times, there are spiritual remnants of at least three of them, during this Laodicean time.
For information about connections of the Continuing Church of God to the Philadelphian one, check out the article: Why is there a Philadelphian remnant of the true Christian Church of God?
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