Abstract
They could hardly be more different—Philippi and the New Jerusalem. But they were then, and are still, significant realities for those who hear and accept the gospel of Jesus Christ, whether preached by the great Apostle, or by a humble parson in the tiniest of chapels.
Paul, accompanied by Silas and Timothy, has travelled through what is now Turkey, encouraging the congregations founded during his previous journey in that region. Foiled in his attempt to bring the good news to the people of Bythinia, to the north east, and Asia Minor, to the south west, Paul heads to Troas, a port at the north west tip of Turkey, which looks directly across the Aegean Sea to Greece. For at last they had learned why the Holy Spirit had not allowed them to deviate neither to the right nor to the left on their journey, for Paul has had a dream in which a man from Greece beckons him across the sea, to preach in the Roman province of Macedonia. (N.B., This is not the present Republic of Macedonia, which is further north.)
Although geographically at the heart of Greece, ancient Macedonia was a thoroughly Roman province, and Philippi a city with a strongly Roman culture. Here, even the inscriptions on public buildings and monuments were written in Latin, not Greek. Philippi was on an important trade route from the Levant into Europe, therefore wealthy, and its citizens received special privileges and tax exemptions, above those even of regular Roman citizens. Those who lived there, or travelled through, not only traded, but enjoyed all the comforts of a well-developed metropolis of the time, including a range of opportunities to worship. As well as the Roman cult of the emperor, there were shrines to other Roman gods, Greek gods, Egyptian gods, but nowhere within the walls of Philippi was there a place to worship the God of Israel. There was no synagogue, which suggests that the Jewish population in the city must have been tiny, too small even to supply the ten adult men required for public prayer.
The apostles and missionaries of the early church generally began their preaching, in any new town or city, at the synagogue. In Philippi, however, they had to look elsewhere. They had to look outside the city entirely, to an informal gathering of women, beside a river. Their apparent leader was neither male, nor particularly well educated, nor even a Jew, but a Gentile business woman who had turned her back on the gods of her own people, in order to worship the God of the Jews.
Worship of God found no place among the many temples of Philippi. Paul and his companions have taken their first steps into Europe and found an environment even more hostile to them and to the gospel than any they had yet experienced.
By contrast, the New Jerusalem, revealed to John the Elder, has no temple at all. Its life-giving river flows from the very centre of the city to refresh all who come seeking God. Rather than coming to trade—to make profitable deals, to climb the social and political ladders for status and privilege—nations gather in the heavenly city solely to honour God. How do you and I live according to the values of the new Jerusalem, bringing hope, light, and healing to a world of war, selfishness, and environmental degradation?
Philippi was the clearest possible statement of the power of Rome—political, economic, and military—an object lesson for a conquered people: that attempts to assert their own identity were dependent upon the grace and goodwill of Rome. Anyone who aspired to success here was required to accommodate themselves to their captors’ religion and law, either alongside a person’s own affiliations, or in place of them entirely. Here too, the Word of God quickly established its opposition to the values of that day; there could be no dual allegiance to both God and Rome.
The gospel found a warm reception, however, among a group of women who lived and worked in Philippi but were effectively excluded from public life by their sex. Lydia may have been successful in business, but it was the early Church that brought her fullness of life within a welcoming, accepting, and mutually supportive community.
The power of Rome was displayed clearly in Philippi. Amidst their struggles, however, the Christians were able to find encouragement and hope in a vision of a new world, depicted as the new Jerusalem. In that heavenly city, the power of God and Jesus is pitted against worldly powers, defeating them comprehensively. In the new Jerusalem, all who will come to worship are accepted. In the new Jerusalem, the gates are never shut in fear of darkness, violence, or threat. The light of God and the Lamb, the river of the waters of life, and the trees whose leaves and fruit will heal the nations of war and corruption, show the power of the gospel.
Life for the new Christians of Philippi, as elsewhere in the Mediterranean world, would prove challenging, as we see in Paul’s letters. The Philippian congregation suffered under the powers of local civil systems, a foretaste of which they received very early on, as Paul and Silas were imprisoned after they freed a young woman from possession by a spirit of fortune telling.
You and I, in the UK and other parts of the western world, may not realise at first that we live in a modern-day Philippi, in the midst of a culture founded on principles of competition, wealth, ambition, and success. Let us then look up, look ahead, and let us not remain or become bound in the entanglements of this world. We are citizens of heaven, hard though it may be to believe it at times.
Important as it is that Christians are active in political life, at all levels, in industry and commerce, how easy do we find it to live and work by the light of the gospel, when all around us undermines and challenges our efforts? Such challenges are more subtle, perhaps, than those of outright opposition in countries such as Pakistan or Egypt, but they are no less real.
Let us read and study the stories of our predecessors in the faith. Let us keep always before us the promise of a new earth, and a new Jerusalem where peace and the power of God reign supreme.