Pergamum

For our first adventure in Turkey, we headed for ancient Pergamum (Bergsma) about 90 minutes from the hotel for our first taste of pagan ruins and to visit the ghost of the church at Pergamum. 

 

As we arrived at the foot of an enormous brown mountain, we entered the site (complete with turnstiles, as though walking into Disneyland) and boarded an eight-seater cable car to the top of the dry, brown crag.  Once atop, we ascended further by step-climbing huge slabs of marble on a path to the foot of the foundational rubble once known as the Temple of Zeus. 

 

After learning a brief history from our guide, Ibrihim (the Turkish version of Abraham), we climbed the final few feet of marble path and rounded the edge of the face of the hill to see an amphitheatre built into the side of the hill.  It was a massive site in and of itself, seating at least 10,000.  After momentarily gaping incredulously, we turned to see the view from the seats: a fantastic view of the valley below.  What a sight! 

 

Once the bubbling excitement quelled, we scurried down the steps toward the front of the theatre for a front row seat. The film crew was already set up and Pastor Mark was preparing to begin the first sermon of the series, the letter to the church at Pergamum (Mars Hill is filming all of the sermons on the trip to use as part of the Ephesians series next year).  Even though it was probably nearly 100 degrees and I could feel the sweat running down my back and pooling under my thighs, I hardly noticed. It was something truly incredible to read scripture and learn the history of a place while you are sitting in the midst of it.

 

In his letter to the church at Pergamum, Jesus commends the believers there for enduring suffering.  However, that suffering doesn't give them the right to sin and sadly, the church has become steeped in sin, namely false doctrine, sexual sin and apostasy (professing faith but not practicing it; don't worry, I didn't know what that meant either).  Pastor Mark taught on the letter to Pergamum (which can be found in Revelation 2: 12-17, by the way) and then followed up the sermon with a Q&A. I learned a lot and all in all – between the location, the view, and the context – it was pretty amazing.

 

From there we climbed the 218 steps from the bottom of the theatre to the very top and surveyed the few remaining ruins before heading back down the mountain to board the bus and head to our next stop: Thyatira, the smallest of the seven churches.

 

After an hour-long bus ride and the fantastic morning, the teeny-tiny remains encircled by the fenced wall in the middle of a city block was….well, let's just say less impressive.  Nevertheless, we read the letter to the church in Thyatira (Revelation 2: 18-29) and reflected on the warning about false teaching and sexual immorality. Interestingly, despite being the smallest church, Thyatira received the longest letter.

 

At this point we were pretty wiped (and still jet-lagged) as we filed back onto the bus for the 2+ hour bus ride home.  After a quick dinner at the hotel and a glorious rainfall shower in our rooms, we were passed out for the night.