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The Seven Churches from Rvelation: Day 4

Today was another lengthy day but it offered a tremendous opportunity to visit numerous places. The day was spent visiting various sites of the ancient churches who were mentioned in the early chapters of the book of Revelation, those in "Asia Minor."
The day started with us visiting the Church of St. Polycarp in downtown Izmir (formerly Smyrna). Polycarp was a disciple of John the Baptist, and contributed much to the first century church as the Bishop of Smyrna. The church is named in honor of him, and it's interior is covered with images that depict the life of Christ as well as Polycarp's martydom. Smyrna (Revelation 2:8-11) is also one of the seven mentioned in Revelation, and Dr. Wakefield, Dean of CUDS and the trip leader, led us in a wonderful devotion reflecting on the letter to Smyrna in Revelation.

Next we made stops at three other locations from "the seven" as we continued to move up the Aegean  Sea coast of Turkey. First was Sardis (Revelation 3:1-6) where we where able to see portions of the excavated city which allowed us to see a large Roman gymnasium, the synagogue, and a large temple to the god Artemis. Second we visited Philadelphia (Revelation 3:7-13), present day Alasehir, where there is very little exposed because only a small portion has been excavated due to modern apartments and such around it. However, what was exposed showed that this church had in fact been quite large in its day. The third we visited was Laodicea (the famous lukewarm church/passage). This excavation was much more intricate, revealing only a portion of the 6 mile long city. It allowed us to see the heart of this ancient Roman city with its shops, theaters, trading, and temple. Here one of the CUDS students in our group led us in a devotion from the letter to Laodicea in Revelation.

We finished the day visiting the ruins of the city of Hieropolis (present day Pamukkale) which does not appear in the Bible but it was a close neighbor to Laodicea, actually providing them with hot water as the city of Pamukkale is known for their hot springs. (Our hotel actually had a hot spring pool to swim in and it was amazing!) the springs create beautiful, white, calcium-deposited rock and provides for one heck of a view.

Tomorrow we will take a three hour drive north to spend the day in Epehsus to visit the Church of St. John, the best preserved of "the seven" churches and where the remains of St. John were buried. We also will visit the house of Mary where she spent her final days. 

Good night from Pamukkale, Turkey.

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