Category: Acts for a 21st c. Church

Our cover photo may look like an intelligence map for a modern military operation in Syria. That’s right. War in Syria is hardly anything new under the sun.

So you ask, what does this have to do with a first century Syria of the Roman Empire and Jesus’ great commission?

Syria: A frequent field פַּדָּן of battle for all of the world

Follow the link above and you will discover that we have journeyed to these fields of Syria many times in the Bible.

• And Jacob came to Shalem, a city of Shechem, which is in the land of Canaan, when he came from Padanaram; H6307 and pitched his tent before the city. – Genesis 32:18 KJV
  • Padan or Padan-aram = “field”
    • a plain or tableland in northern Mesopotamia in Aram, a region of Syria

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Today’s lesson on Syria sets the scene of ACTS in maps and history.

IF we are successful in this lesson in cartography from a former C-minus geography student, we may all learn something about how Syria became a most important ‘where’ to go on our mission journeys of the first century Church.

From the shores to the mountaintops

Credits & Disclaimer:
I have taken due diligence to link sources of this publically available material; however, PLEASE NOTE: In spite of the reliable information included in these website sources, MANY write from an Anti-Christ and ANTI-GOD perspective, quoting theorized dates & other unsubstantiated editorial commentary as facts. Nevertheless you should gain an understanding of the lows and highs of these journeys on the roads of Acts through Syria. 

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War near Israel:

This is presentation about the new DCS map: Syria made by Ugra Media, and it is focused on the area between the north of Israel and the neighbouring countries of Syria and Lebanon..

The goal is providing a solid background, both for building realistic DCS scenarios and for historical interests.

What struck the most was seeing places such as Tyre on the map, and many others that recur through history since ancient civilizations, I did not think about that!

Source: Digital Combat Simulator

Contemporary Squabbles, Wars, Conflits, etc & so on..

At least three Syrian children are dead this month from inadequate protection against the snowstorms and subzero temperatures that have made 2022 the coldest winter in 40 years in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Turkey. Their mothers are among Syria’s 6.8 million internally displaced persons.

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THE JERUSALEM POST By HASAN ISMAIK
 Published: FEBRUARY 19, 2022 

Perhaps you recall or have studied the Six-Day War, or Arab-Israeli War of 1967, War between Israel and the Arab countries of Egypt, Syria, and Jordan.

Again, these same areas at issue surrounding the Promised Land had become areas where opposing military groups could lay siege of terror from the heights above the fields and towns of Israel just as has happened for thousands of years.

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Meanwhile, returning to the Roman Empire and Syria

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Fleeing another Empire

Truly, there was more than one Jewish diaspora;

most notably the one where Israel and Judah fell and the Jews were sent to other lands, mostly to the east.

These lands were later captured by Alexander of Macedonia to their west, riches of a world which Rome sought to control beyond Syria and the Jordan.

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In the early days of Judea, Herod the Great negotiated with Rome to build a shaky autonomy. But a generation and several Caesars later, Judea’s political alliance would be decimated by Rome with its imposing brand of a military peace.

So another diaspora (of sorts), one of Jews AND these new Messianic Jews or Christ–followers would take place.

Roman, Greek and Syrian towns would eventually try to send them all away.

Christ followers would read Luke’s account of ACTS 7 & 8 at a time of new persecutions to both Jews and Christians after A.D. 60.

Jerusalem, too, would once again fall to Rome’s Legions in A.D. 70.

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In the Timeline of ACTS

If you had been following events back in Jerusalem (during the time Philip strategically fled to Samaria, ended up in Gaza and then amazingly found himself in Azotus), you would have observed several political attempts by Jerusalem’s rulers to follow such disciples of Jesus into all of the world –
anywhere these men might threaten the rule of Judea-ism [sic].

Roman soldiers, as in years prior, were never far from the political wrangling between the Sanhedrin and Christians like Peter and Stephen who stood against Judea’s adopted Jewish traditions.

• 27 BCE – Tarsus is capital of Roman province of Syria-Cilicia Phoenice
• 66 CE – 73 CE – Syrian troops participate in the First Jewish-Roman War.
  • source [additional detailed timeline below]

This second diaspora occurs after Rome tramples Jerusalem, when Christians have already fled to gentile and Roman cities. Disciples of Jesus in these places hear encouragement or read the record of earlier events in ACTS, which have taken place a generation or so earlier [30+ years].

“anno Domini nostri Jesu Christi”

Historical ACTS ‘in the year of our Lord Jesus Christ’

A.D., as world calendars denoted for nearly two millennia when men dared not overtly call any era 'common.' i.e. the anti-Christ designations of: BCE or CE
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Dates below approximate from multiple sources:
- including Historical Atlas of the Bible

• AD 6-AD14 – Judea is a ‘prefectorial’ province of Rome
• AD26-AD36 – Pontius Pilate is Procurator of Syria-Cilicia Phoenice and its client states
• AD27 – John the Baptist, a prophet-preacher popular in Judea is jailed then beheaded by Herod
• AD30 – Pontius Pilate agrees to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, who surrendered to the Temple police, was subjected to a mockery of a public trial and attracted multitudes of men and women wherever He taught in Syria’s towns and deserted places, not to mention this troublesome town of Jerusalem.
  • AD30 – JESUS appears to more than five hundred men in various places for forty days RISEN from death!
  • The APOSTLES remain in Jerusalem, working miracles and challenged by the Sanhedrin.
• AD34 – AD36 EVENTS RECORDED BY LUKE IN ACTS 7-8
• AD37 – Caligula becomes Caesar of Rome
• AD38 – Persecution of Jews in Alexandria in Aegyptus [Egypt}
• AD39 – Mission of Peter in Samaria (More on that later from ACTS)
• AD41 – Claudia becomes Caesar of Rome and Herod King of Chalcis [Lebanon]
  • AD44 – Judea returned to status as prefectorial province of Rome
• AD45 – Paul begins his first of three mission trips (Much more later in ACTS)
• AD48 – Famine in Judea [SEE above & current similar situation in Syria]
  • Learn more [map & census data]: Syria’s Wheat Crisis Foreshadows Famine – January 10, 2022

• AD54 – Nero becomes Caesar of Rome
  • AD50’s – Gospel of Mark most likely written, shared and preached
    • More mission trips of Paul, finally ending in Rome
• AD60 – Estimated date Luke’s Gospel first published;
  • also Paul’s hearing before Portius Festus, Procurator of Judea, who hearing his appeal to Caesar sent him to Nero in Rome, where he writes and sends many letters to the Church throughout the Empire until he is beheaded in Rome in AD67.

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~AD 64 – ACTS of the Apostles published

• AD64 – A fire beginning near Rome’s Circus Maximus destroys two-thirds of Rome. Nero blamed the Christians. Note: ‘the first Roman Christians were Jews and probably lived with the other Jews.’
• AD66 – Jewish war against Rome: Zealots rule Jerusalem, which is attacked by Rome;
  • Gessius Florus, seventh Procurator of Judea, crucifies some Jews in Jerusalem
  • Christians flee from Syria to Pella, capital of the 3rd administrative division of the Roman province of Macedonia
    • [Familiar scene?] At the end of 2021, the UN Refugee Agency estimated that Greece was hosting 125,000 refugees and 62,450 asylum seekers. 
• AD67 – Vespasian (who will become Emperor in AD 69-79) recaptures Galilee, then subdues Judea in AD69, where Titus later lays siege to Jerusalem (one of four holdout cities) and burns down the Temple after its capture in AD70.

Most readers of Acts reading about Persecution beginning with Stephen have already experienced more persecution in the ensuing generations.

Starting with that day, there arose intense persecution against the Messianic Community in Yerushalayim; all but the emissaries were scattered throughout the regions of Y’hudah and Shomron.

2 Some godly men buried Stephen and mourned him deeply. 3 But Sha’ul set out to destroy the Messianic Community — entering house after house, he dragged off both men and women and handed them over to be put in prison. 4 However, those who were scattered announced the Good News of the Word wherever they went…

14 Now when the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent them Peter and John, 15 who came down and prayed for them that they would receive the Holy Spirit…

Meanwhile, Sha’ul, still breathing murderous threats against the Lord’s talmidim, went to the cohen hagadol..

Acts of the Apostles 9:1 Complete Jewish Bible

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