Tag: Italy

Bible Land Tour (Mediterranean)(3)

Neal Pollard

The ship left dock yesterday evening to begin our tour through the Mediterranean. Today, we visited an iconic site that at first glance may seem to have no biblical significance. The city of Pompeii and its lesser-known neighbor, Herculanum, were destroyed by a massive volcanic explosion in 79 A.D. Herculanum, much closer to the blast, was much more destructive to its inhabitants while the city of Pompeii was almost perfectly preserved due to its being covered by ash which did not vaporize buildings and houses.

There is some theory that there were a small band of Christians in the city when the catastrophic natural disaster occurred. Beyond that, the city was thought by Jews and even Romans to be a judgment against the rampant sin and immorality of the city or a divine judgment, from the Roman historian Cassius to the Sibylline Chronicles. While we cannot know that, we know that there will be a judgment none will escape at the end that God wants us all to be prepared for.

Before we returned to the ship, we were able to see where Paul docked in Italy. The small port in Puteoli is near the modern city of Naples (Napoli). Luke records this fact for us in Acts 28:13.

It was impressive to see what the first-century world was like where Christians had to swim against the massively immoral tide of their culture and society. Spiritual darkness must have seemed eclipsing at times, but they had the boldness to live their faith even in wicked cities like Pompeii. We have so much to be thankful for as we consider the relative ease with which we can express our faith and share it today! It is not always that way. It did not seem to be in southern Italy near the end of the first-century.

Bible Land Tour (Mediterranean)(I)

Neal Pollard

56 Christians from Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, Nebraska, South Carolina, Texas, and Virginia converged on the Hotel Gioberti in Rome, Italy, to begin a tour of places where the great preacher, evangelist, writer, and leader, Paul, shared the gospel of Christ. We began where it all ended for him: Rome. While our visit to where it all began for him, Israel, will sadly not be a part of our itinerary due to the tragic events now occurring there, we will visit a great many places where he helped fulfill Christ’s Great Commission in incredible, far-reaching ways.

He longed to get to Rome to “obtain some fruit among” them (Rom. 1:13), converting the citizens of that city the same as he had in so many other places. We know from Acts 28 that he did reach this city. This weekend, we saw what he found in his day. Emperors who would be declared gods by their senate, idolatry and the worship of gods of war, water, the sun, and a pantheon of others, and immorality like that described by Paul in Romans 1:18-32. Perhaps the first Christians came to Rome after hearing the first gospel sermon and obeying it (Acts 2:10). There are plenty of Christians to greet Paul as he approaches Rome in chains (Acts 28:14-15).

We encountered a city with stunning architecture, engineering marvels, Renaissance giants, and rich history that spans across, as John Moore eloquently put it, three eras–the pagan era, the Christian era, and the modern era. In a few hours, we will assemble with the saints at the church in Rome. It will be an exciting opportunity to meet in the capital city of what was, in the first century, the center of a global empire into which Christianity was born (Dan. 2:40-44). Standing in the midst of that city, imagining what our first-century spiritual family not only encountered but also endured, is a rare and beautiful opportunity to appreciate the power and spread of God’s eternal truth even in unfavorable social and political circumstances. It is a reminder, as Paul first put it, of the power of the gospel of Christ that brings salvation (Rom. 1:16). As Paul exhorted the Christians at Rome, I must not be ashamed of that gospel!

Now That’s REALLY Staying Together!

Neal Pollard

You may had heard once about the couple archaeologists dug up in an excavation in Rome, Italy. They found the bones of a couple who would have possibly lived before Noah, but how they found them was most unique. The skeletons were found in embrace, suggesting especially to the sentimental the profoundest expression of love and togetherness possible (source here).

Who knows what it truly means, who they were, and if they were even husband and wife? Yet, I would like to think that they were a couple so close and whose lives were so intertwined that their repose in death was symbolic of how they were to each other throughout life. We certainly need good role models, wherever we can “dig them up.”

Society does not do so much to encourage married people staying together. In fact, infidelity and fornication are idolized character traits. Those who stick together through thick and thin are portrayed as foolish or at least boring. Yet, God laid out a blueprint for the whole that includes a bond much stronger than an embrace for couples staying together (cf. Gen. 2:18-24; Mat. 19:3-9; 1 Pet. 3:1-7; etc.). The Lord’s church needs men and women who are committed to staying together, to building healthy, happy and close marriages. Societies, to long endure, need such values embraced and encouraged. You, if you are married, need to rededicate yourself to your spouse each day, finding ways to stick close and reasons to stay together.

Motivation For Attending Church Services

Neal Pollard

“An Italian newspaper recently carried an interesting story about a young couple in Milan who had a wonderful attendance record at a particular cathedral. The priest assumed they were very devoted to their faith because they regularly spent an hour before one of the statues in the church’s worship area.  He thought they were doing some intense praying.  Only later did he discover the couple simply came to re-charge their cell phone from the electrical outlet behind the statue” (King Duncan, via Waterview, Richardson, TX, 3/16/14).

My first reaction to that was to chuckle, then be a little indignant, and then become introspective.  The thought that someone may come to church services for apparent honorable intentions but be serving some baser motive may be shocking, but it is not unheard of.  Jesus taught, “This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far away from me” (Mat. 15:9).  Jesus is quoting Isaiah, and it was a problem in that prophet’s day, too.  Think of what another prophet wrote.  Ezekiel said, “They come to you as people come, and sit before you as My people and hear your words, but they do not do them, for they do the lustful desires expressed by their mouth, and their heart goes after their gain” (Ezek. 33:31).

When I come before the Great I Am, not only must I keep from distractions.  Deeper than that, I must examine my overall motivation for being at worship or serving the Lord.  Why am I a Christian?  Self-examination is as important as any spiritual exercise there is (2 Cor. 13:5).  Nobody else may know why we are before the Lord in worship, but He does.  May He see our motivation as transparent and true, honest and sincere!  

Blessed Assurance

from a different Ukraine trip (2003)

Neal Pollard

In the spring of 2002, I went with Keith Kasarjian, who is currently the assistant extension director of our Bear Valley Extension Program, to Kramatorsk and Slavyanagorsk, Ukraine.  One of the first things I recall doing the day after arriving there was meeting to fellowship with the Christians from that general area of Ukraine.  Several other foreigners in addition to Keith and me had travelled over for the first graduation of the first Bear Valley foreign extension in Kramatorsk, but they had travelled up to Slavyanagorsk to see the Christians there.  That gave the small room of the house where that church met an international if an over-filled feel.  It was decided that we sing some hymns.  The first hymn sung, as I recall, was “Blessed Assurance.”  Most present sang the song in Russian.  The Americans scattered around the room sang in English.  As Italian Sylvia Gaddio and French Canadian Sylvain Arsenaux were in the room, they each sang in their native tongue, too.  At one point, I stopped singing to listen to the voices blending in multiple languages.  I remember being completely overwhelmed and overcome at the thought of what tied us all together.  People native to Ukraine, Russia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Canada, Italy, and the United States (we also had a Romanian and Chinese who came over for the graduation who might have been in the room, too) were hampered in their ability to interact by their language limitations, but the love, unity, and spirit of fellowship created by our common bond in Christ seemed to eclipse whatever our differences may have been.  Never before that moment had I felt the power of the oneness Jesus causes.

In our congregations, we have different interests, incomes, spiritual backgrounds, education levels, temperaments, personalities, ethnicities, maturity levels, and dozens of similar variables that make us unique, even dissimilar.  But, do we emphasize often enough how our service, obedience, and allegiance to the Lord is meant to overcome all these?  The Philippian congregation needed the reminder that practical unity was necessary and not just desirable (see Philippians 2:1-4).  We need to frequently emphasize the beautiful nature of unity in Christ (cf. Psalm 133).  It’s as touching to think about how the Lord makes all of us in our local congregation one as to think about times like that special moment I recall from a tiny house in a tiny town across the world!  That’s the power of Jesus, His blood, and His church.  “O what a foretaste of glory divine!”