Friends,

Here is Common Christianity column #851 (3-7-23), Antioch ‘Devastated’. Antioch, the Christian landmark noted in the Book of Acts, was destroyed by the recent earthquake in Turkey.  Hurts my heart. - Bob

-- -- --

Spirituality Column #851

March 7, 2023

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Antioch ‘Devastated’   

By Bob Walters

“And in Antioch the disciples were first called Christians.” – Acts 11:26

This weekend’s Wall Street Journal headline, lower right on the front page, hurt my heart in unexpected ways: “Ancient Antioch Faces its Devastation.”

The bustling, multicultural, religiously calm city known for hundreds of years as “Antakya” – the “Antioch” we know from the Bible – is today, WSJ reports, “a moonscape of broken concrete, stray dogs,” and soon-to-be refugees surviving in tents. The horrific Feb. 6 earthquake in southeastern Turkey near Syria has evidently stopped Antioch’s civilizational clock at 2,400 years: throughout the region are ruins everywhere, 51,000 known dead, with countless more missing and assumed dead under rubble.

Antioch, third largest city in the Roman empire, crown jewel of the ancient “Silk Road” trade route, and the first place the disciples of Jesus were called “Christians,” rose from the ruins and ashes of a similarly devasting sixth century earthquake to grow into the modern city of Antakya. It was a thriving, peaceful, multi-cultural city of 400,000.

All I had previously known, specifically, about Antioch, is encapsulated in that Acts 11:26 quote above; it was the first place anyone was called a Christian.  Details of the surrounding scriptural text in Acts 10 and “The Church at Antioch” section of Acts 11:19-30, were not on my radar.  The WSJ story sent me back to my Bible.

In Acts chapter 7 we see the stoning of Stephen, the first martyr, killed under the supervision of Saul of Tarsus, who in chapter 9 is converted by Jesus to a life of faith and discipleship as the Apostle Paul.  After Stephen’s stoning in Jerusalem and in fear of Saul’s then-murderous ways, Christians scattered to places like Antioch, and there spoke not only to Jews but to Greeks as well.  The Spirit was obviously with their efforts.

“And the hand of the Lord was on them, and a great number turned to the Lord,” (Acts 11:21).  The apostle Barnabus, the disciple who replaced Judas the Traitor, was sent by the church in Jerusalem to Antioch, “saw the grace of God” (v23), fetched Paul from Tarsus, brought him to Antioch, and for a year they “taught a great many people” (v26).  Antioch was perhaps the first great multi-cultural mission field outside Jerusalem.

And now … it’s gone.  Or may as well be.  Politicians, according to the WSJ, say they “will rebuild it in a year,” but of course politicians always say those kinds of things.

“Founded along the Orontes River in 300 B.C. by one of Alexander the Great’s generals,” WSJ recounts, “what’s now known as Antakya was once the capital of the Roman province of Syria.  The empire built Antioch into a grand metropolis of theaters, aqueducts, and baths.  It was also an entrepot (shipment center) for caravans linking Asia with the Mediterranean world in what would become known as the Silk Road.”

WSJ adds, “The apostles Peter and Paul made Antioch a center of their new religion with Cathedrals and churches springing up.” And noted, “It was there their followers first became known as Christians.”

Modern Antakya was a calm, religious melting pot of cooperating neighbors of Muslims, Alewite (branch of Shiite Islam), Sunnis, and Jews, along with Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant Christians.  The city had indeed carried forward the grace Barnabus, in perhaps 46-48 A.D., had noted in the first decades of Christianity.

Considering all the religious turmoil in the region, not to mention the Syrian civil war raging only miles away, Antakya was a beacon of hope … sadly extinguished,

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) was initially encouraged that WSJ used B.C. instead of B.C.E., but notes its failure saying these followers were of Peter and Paul, not Christ.