All Greek To Me

Our day was spent with our private driver & guide, Sakis, transporting us around Athens & Corinth in a luxury sedan offering expert commentary & insight. Sakis works 7 days a week for the 7-month tourist season in Athens offering privately-guided tours. We began the day at 8 am, earlier than we wanted after a day of travel, but our guide advised that we wanted to get to the Acropolis early to beat the crowds. He was right. By the time we got there, it seemed we were touring with a few thousand of our closest friends. 10,000-12,000 visitors a day ascend to visit the Acropolis.

When we told Sakis that we were very interested in sites associated with the Apostle Paul, he tailored his commentary to include those specific details. Acropolis is actually two words: Acro meaning the end of & Polis meaning city… thus, Acropolis means the end of the city. It was the most strategic location on top of a mountain overlooking all of Athens & thus easier to protect. Its history dates back 2500 years. Wow! We were seeing history from 500 BC. Just down from the Acropolis is Mars Hill where the influential men of Athens gave the Apostle Paul an audience. Paul’s sermon on Mars Hill is in Acts 17.

After we toured the Parthenon, Temple to the Goddess Nike & other sites atop the hill, we took a quick ride the the Ancient Greek Agora. An agora is the marketplace. Paul originally addressed the men of the city in the Agora before they took him up to the Areopagus on Mars Hill. There are still many family owned shops near here as it remains the Greek Agora.

From there we traveled to Ancient Corinth stopping for a quick snapshot of the Corinth Canal. The city of Corinth became wealthy transporting boats over land from the Aegean Sea to the Ionian Sea. The trek around the entire Aegean Peninsula would add about 250 nautical miles. The Corinthians would unload the shipping vessels & transport cargo & ship up & over the Isthmus of Corinth… for a fee of course. This is the reason why Corinth became such an influential city in the ancient world – they controlled the trade. This also made Ancient Corinth a metropolitan melting pot as well as a den of iniquity. The second most profitable industry in Corinth was prostitution. There were over 4000 prostitutes in Corinth serving at the pleasure of the mariners passing over the Isthmus. This is largely the reason the Apostle Paul came to Corinth about 50 AD in the last phase of his second missionary journey. You can read in Acts 18 about how the Jews in Corinth rejected his message so he took it to the Greeks.

Needless to say, today was sort of surreal trying the process the thought that we stood where Paul stood 2000 years before & proclaimed the Gospel of Jesus Christ!