SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 1/29/2015
10:16 AM
My Worship Time Focus: The Church
and City
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Revelation
2:12a-b
Message of the
verses: “The church in Pergamum.”
There is nothing mentioned in the book of Acts as to when
this church was founded. The city was in
the region of Mysia and Paul passed through that city as recorded in Acts
16:7-8 “7 and after they came to Mysia,
they were trying to go into Bithynia, and the Spirit of Jesus did not permit
them; 8 and passing by Mysia, they came
down to Troas.” After that Paul saw a
vision of a man in Macedonia calling to him to come over there and this is what
he did, so we don’t know how long he was there in Mysia, but probably not long
enough to begin a church or Luke would have recorded it. Again I want to bring up Act 19:10 “This took
place for two years, so that all who lived in Asia heard the word of the Lord,
both Jews and Greeks.”
The City (Revelation 2:12b): “Pergamum.”
I find it interesting to look at what can be found on
these ancient cities and whether or not they are still around today as in the
case of Pergamum. We mentioned that
these cities were in the postal route and if you followed that route you would
come to all of these cities. With that
said we find that Pergamum was about one hundred miles north of Ephesus, and
the last city we studied, Smyrna located about half way between.
I quote this from the last time that I studied the book
of Revelation from my SD of Feb. 20, 2005:
“The city of Pergamum was the first city to build a temple for the
worship of the Roman Emperors, and the city also had a temple dedicated to
Aesculapius, who was the god of healing, and its insignia was the entwined
serpent of the staff, which is still a medical symbol used today.” Now in that temple there were many snakes
which were the non-poisoned kind and when a person was sick they would go into
the temple and lie down to sleep and allow the snakes to move over them. I wonder how they would get any sleep.
I want to quote from John MacArthur’s commentary for this
interesting fact: “Pergamum’s huge
library (200,000 handwritten volumes) was second only to that of
Alexandria. So impressive was Pergamum’s
library that Mark Antony later sent it to his lover, Queen Cleopatra of Egypt. According to legend, parchment (or vellum)
was invented by the Pergamenes to provide writing material for their
library. Seeking to build a library
rivaling the one in Alexandria, a third century B.C. Pergamene king attempted
to lure the librarian of the Alexandrian library to his city. Unfortunately, the Egyptian ruler got wind of
the plan, refused to allow the librarian to leave, and in retaliation
prohibited the further export of papyrus to Pergamum. Out of necessity, the Pergamenes developed
parchment, made of treated animal skins, for use as writing material. Through parchment was actually known form a
thousand years earlier in Egypt, the Pergamenes were responsible for its wide
spread use in the ancient world. In
fact, the world parchment may derive
from a form of the word Pergamum.”
The following is a note from the “Wycliffe Bible
Encyclopedia” “Pergamum, capital of
Asia, was situated on a hill about 1000 feet high commanded the fertile valley
of the Caicus River in southern Mysia.
The city stood opposite the island of Lesbos about 18 miles from Aegean
and communicated with the sea via the Caicus, which was navigable by small
craft. Pergamum was also located on the
great N_S road which ran from Ephesus to Cyzicus on the Propontis or Sea of
Marmara.”
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: I see from this section that although there is
not any history as to when this church began, I know that it began because it
was in the will of the Lord to begin it, and it was also in the will of the
Lord to rebuke it and give encouragement to it.
He continues to do this in my life and in the life of the church that I
attend for which I am thankful.
My Steps of Faith for Today: To love the Lord with all of my heart, soul,
mind and strength, and to allow the love of the Lord He has for me to be used
in my life.
Memory verses for the week: 2 Peter 2:1-9.
5 Now for this very reason
also, applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence, and in
your moral excellence, knowledge, 6 and in your knowledge self-control, and in
your self-control, perseverance, and in your perseverance, godliness, 7 and in
your godliness, brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness, love. 8 For if these qualities are yours and are
increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge
of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 For he who
lacks these qualities is blind or short-sighted, having forgotten his purification
from his former sins.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “Righteousness” (Ephesians
6:14).
Today’s Bible
question: “Who wanted Jesus to tell her
sister to help her?”
Answer in our next SD.
1/29/2015 11:07 AM
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