This morning I was reading the introduction in my study Bible to the book of Titus. It was talking about the early church that Paul planted in Crete, and that got me thinking. Having spent my whole life living in America, there is oh so very much about the Mediterranean region that I do not know.

Is there still an active church in Crete?

Ha! Well, if you’re from that region, you might laugh at this question because Crete is statistically reported to be around 98% Christian.

But how would I know?

Crete is an island in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Greece. I often get it mixed up with Cyprus, which is also in the Mediterranean but closer to Syria and Israel. Here’s a map from my study Bible, enhanced by me with this circle I drew around Crete, to give you the basic idea of where Crete is:

Okay, great, some of the church is still there, but what about those areas just north of Israel, where Paul traveled and wrote letters to the people that make up parts of the New Testament? Like Ephesians and Colossians, for example.

I always find it discouraging that the very place where Christianity began is now not a Christian area at all.

Israel? Eh…Well, it’s a center for Muslims, Christians, and Jews alike, but Jesus followers are certainly not in the majority there.

Ephesus, Lycia, Laodicea, Colossae, all mentioned in Paul’s letters? Well, that is modern day Turkey, which is now 98% Muslim. When the Arabs came in and take over, they did an extremely thorough job of it. Christians now make up less than 1% of Turkey, as Christians have fled the country due to religious persecution over the years.

But once you get into Greece, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Crete, and Italy you see that Paul and his contemporary’s missionary voyages had quite a long-lasting impact, as these areas are now predominantly Christian nations.

Even in Paul’s day, they persecuted Christians in all of these cities for converting to Christianity, but what about now? How much of these cities are Christian now? Just out of curiosity, I looked up the modern numbers.

Christians in Modern Day Places from the New Testament:

Jerusalem: 5% Christian

Antioch: now lies buried in ruins

Ephesus also in ruins

Malta: 98% Catholic

Rome: Italy is about 83% Christian, and obviously Rome is the long-standing center for the Roman Catholic Church. This is so amazing when you stop and realize how many Christians died in Rome, to include Paul and Peter.

Colossae: also a city that no longer exists, located in modern day Turkey

Corinth: Ancient Corinth is gone, thanks to the Turkish invasion of 1458, as well as an earthquake that leveled the place. There is a modern day Corinth, located near the old one, in the peninsula of Peloponnese of Greece. Greece is 98% Eastern Orthodox Christian.

Philippi: Philippi of the Bible was abandoned after the Ottoman Conquest. However, there is a present day Filippoi nearby. It is now part of Greece, so that area is also 98% Eastern Orthodox.

Thessalonica: It’s located in modern day Greece, so we’ll go with the 98% Eastern Orthodox number, though that’s not exact for the specific city. This one is actually still a thriving metropolis, the 2nd most important city in Greece. Thessaloniki is in the exact location of ancient Thessalonica.

…..And America: The early church’s reach wasn’t just to the missionary journeys made by the apostles. Their teachings passed to generation after generation after generation, so the early church is obviously still affecting us today right here in America.

Just out of curiosity, I looked up our current Christianity numbers in the United States.

According to the 2017 Gallup poll, about 75% of Americans are Christian, with 48.5% of Americans as Protestants and 23% as Catholics.

75% of Americans are Christians. The next biggest group is basically atheists and agnostics, at 21% of the population. All the other groups make up a tiny percentage. Did you notice that more people in Italy and Greece claim to be Christian than in America?

All in all, I’d say the church is alive and kickin’. We aren’t always united or even practicing what we preach. However, the church never was perfect, was it? From the get go, we made mistakes. I think that is because it’s an entire organization run by humans, and humans are fallible. We are not above errors or even sin.

Also, perhaps as a modern day church we are relying too much on our own power and understanding, rather than relying on God.

However, we serve a just, powerful, and merciful God who loves us where were are, in spite of our imperfections, and helps us to become better. Now it’s up to us to rely on the Holy Spirit to teach us to act more like Jesus so we can keep passing on the love of Jesus to our future generations.

The post What Remains of the Original New Testament Church? appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

This weekend is a big deal.

-Tomorrow is Caleb’s 24 hour EEG to test for seizure activity.

-We have family arriving to help us out.

-JD has a double ear infection and conjunctivitis.

Poor thing just fell asleep without me even trying to put him to sleep.

-Daniel has a touch of croup. Don’t worry. Croup is not contagious. It is a barking cough resulting from the size of his air passages when he is sick. Only some small children get this problem, and Dan is our only child to ever have it. It happens every single time he gets sick. We are giving him cough meds and making sure he’s breathing okay.

-Alan is back from being out of town.

-We are going to see Yosemite National Park–which as it turns out, is not all that far from our house.

You should have heard the boys. Caleb had to write sentences using days of the week in his seat work time this morning. He wrote:

“Monday is the worst day ever.”  (Hmm It starts young–the disease of Mondaycomplaineritis)– I see lots of funny cat pictures complaining about Monday on social media in your future, Caleb.)

“Tuesday is when Dad comes back home.”

He actually asked me, “Mom, can we hang the big ‘Welcome Home’ sign and bake cupcakes that say ‘Welcome home, Dad’?”

Dear Caleb, he was gone ONE night. Apparently, Caleb remembers nothing of his early childhood, the time he ran to the wrong dad at the airport, or the months that they only saw Daddy on the weekends. One night away from Daddy is now a big deal. This struck me as really funny!!

You know, I was never one to judge the women who complain because their husbands work late hours or take frequent trips with work. No, it’s not the same as a deployment, but it can be equally as stressful. I remember the two years that Alan worked in Alabama and got home each night between 7:30-9:30. I was way more miserable during that phase than I was during any deployment. When Alan was gone for months on end, I would build a new routine and new circles of friends that didn’t include Alan, or I would just move close to my parents and hang out with them. It’s a little sad that it has to be that way, but you deal, and you move on.

I found the phases where Alan was only sort of present much harder. That’s one thing that’s difficult about graduate school. There have been quarters that weren’t too bad, okay, really there was one good quarter, and the rest have been terrible. Even when Alan is not in class, he has so many projects, papers, and homework problems to do that he does not have much time for kicking back with the family.

Alan does a wonderful job of prioritizing us in, though.  It’s hard, but we make it happen. It just means he does family time between 5:30 and 8, and then he hits the books until midnight. Then he begins the whole cycle over again bright and early….sometime before I’m even conscious. Some nights the bed is empty when I fall asleep and empty when I wake up! The man doesn’t sleep! He makes breakfast for the kids and he helps every single way he can. I can’t tell you how thankful I am!

Having a husband in graduate school can be stressful, but in other ways it can be good. Alan works on school work while I work on the things I didn’t get done that day. I have lots of hobbies, so this is not a problem. You know, I haven’t watched t.v. since Caleb was a baby.

Speaking of Caleb……I can’t even explain this one:

I can’t even….I have no idea.

I want to share these WONDERFUL, ENCOURAGING things that have been going on around here:

1. This morning at 3am, I texted my friend Kristen that I would not be able to walk with her. I was up with JD from 12-3am. He was hurting. He puked on Alan. It was one of those nights. No way would I be awake at 6am.

Kristen arrived at my house in the late morning bearing muffins. Thank you, Kristen!!  They were so yummy and moist!

Can you tell that she’s a minister’s wife? Ya’ll. Minister’s wives are a whole other breed of person I have decided. I don’t know a single one that doesn’t give all she has in serving the Lord. They are the most dedicated, dependable, cheerful women. I praise God for them, and I feel like I also am learning a lot from them.

2. This afternoon I called my nurse practitioner friend, Hillary, over to examine JD. We live in dread of doctor visits. You would too if you had to drag four boys into a room the size of your bathroom. Hillary assured me that JD did in fact need antibiotics. I’m happy to report that he now has them.

I also told Hillary that Coach Cox from coachcox.com is going to be so disappointed in me. I was supposed to start my kettle bell workouts on Tuesday, and here it was Wednesday night, and I had still had no opportunity to go to the store and purchase a kettle bell. Tuttutut.

Coach Cox, I will be be working out tomorrow!!

In true Hillary style, she came through with a loaner for me until I can make it to the store. She’s a minister’s daughter. Do you see a theme?

I think only the negative stories get told about generally good groups of people. I’m going to make it my mission to tell more of the positive things that God and his people do!! This is an idea that I got from a book I’ve been reading in the Bible study that Hillary leads. The book is called Praying with Paul, by D.A. Carson and Brian Tabb. The authors of this book remind us of how Paul got excited about the good deeds done by Christians, and he encouraged others by boasting about the faithfulness of their friends! It’s like that feeling you get when you read about heroic or noble deeds. We need to hear these things!!  We need to fill our minds with good because goodness knows the evildoers of this world will commit enough horrors to make our hearts feel down!

So excited about reading more of this book with my friends!
Do you know I would have never met Hillary if it weren’t for my friend Susie? She gave me Hill’s contact information while I was still in Virginia. I sent Hillary a Facebook message way back before we even moved here, but I never heard back from her. I thought, “Oh, hmm, maybe I was too weird,” and I decided not to bother her again.

Thankfully, Hillary contacted me once I arrived in California, and without her I would not know so many of the darling women that I call friends! What a blessing!!

God blesses us at every turn. He provides friends where we had none. He gives, and gives, and gives.

I’ll leave you with one humorous quote from today, and then I had better go to sleep:

Joshua asked me this morning, “Mom, can I please trade one of these seat work assignments for reading the Periodic Table book and writing about an element? Please! I just want to read and write about elements.”

Is this my kid because I would never???

Then a few minutes later he asked, “Can we get this Physics book?”

I might have choked on my water. So here’s my tip for the day. For your 3rd grade and up kids, buy one or two of this series of science books. They are really good, but I can’t promise that you will love them as much as Joshua does.

“We ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers, as is right, because your faith is growing abundantly, and the love of every one of you for one another is increasing.

Therefore we ourselves boast about you in the churches of God for your steadfastness and faith in all your persecutions and in the afflictions that you are enduring.”   2 Thessalonians 1:3-4

Have a great weekend!

This post is listed in the Weekly Wrap up at Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers! Check it out!

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