#Paul
6 · Paul
First of the seven churches — Ephesus.
Library of Celsus. A theater seating 25,000. The Temple of Artemis, one of the seven wonders. The verse names the city. The marble names everything else.
The city that named the religion — Antioch.
Two billion people now answer to a label first applied in this city. Read Acts 11:26 — the verse names the place. The modern earthquake of 2023 has reshaped what's left.
The wedding-day verse came from a port — Corinth.
The most-read wedding text in human history was written to a quarrelsome harbor town. Read 1 Corinthians 13:4 — and notice the address. The city is still on the map, the Bema is still standing.
The road that named a turning — Damascus.
Damascus appears 60 times in Scripture. The road outside it is where one of history's most quoted reversals happened. The city is still on the map — and still in the news.
First church on European soil — Philippi.
A purple-cloth merchant. A jailed apostle. A midnight earthquake. Europe's first church started in a riverbank prayer group and became one of the most cited verses in Christian history.
Same name as 2,300 years ago — Thessaloniki.
Most biblical cities are ruins. Thessaloniki is a million-person modern city under the same name. Read 1 Thessalonians 5:17 — the verse Paul wrote to a place that never stopped being a place.