Day 5 Revisit - To Istanbul

Roman Aqueducts

Day Five Revisit - Thursday June 10th - on the Via Egnatia headed to Istanbul, Turkey

Today was basically a travel day on the bus to get from Kavala, Greece to Istanbul, Turkey. On the bus and started out at 8:00. On the way out of Kavala, we saw some nice Roman Aqueducts from the bus.

We went through the borders (customs) and switched buses. We had to leave behind the Grecian tour operators Aliki and Spyros (we'll see Aliki again when we get to Athens) and we say hello to a new bus with Hasan the driver, Hakan the tour guide, and George the assistant. We went a little further down the road and had lunch, our first dining experience in Turkey. We found that Turkey was very 'currency neutral', most places (at least the tourist places where we went) would accept Turkish Lyra, Euros, or Dollars - the exchange rate was posted everywhere and not too bad. We got into Istanbul in time for some bad traffic jams. We saw the Column of Constantine from the bus. We went to Punto of Istanbul, a reputable carpet place that the Stuckeys knew, arriving a little after 5:00 and saw the presentation of the carpets. This place put on a very good demo of the carpets, with some education on how they were made, the various styles (wool, silk, cotton, combination), the different quality and sizes. Some people bought some carpets. Then we got to the Feronya Hotel about 7:45, had dinner, and that was the end of the day.

On the bus today, Pastor Wayne taught on Acts 17:17 "Paul reasoned with them". There were three major prerequisites for the spread of the Gospel:

1. Language
2. Roads
3. Reasoning approach

First, the universality of Greek in the first century provides a common language for the spread of the Gospel. Second, the Roman Road system provided a easy way for the physical spread of the people and the written communication (i.e. letters). Third, the reasoning approach was added by Democritus, possibly the world's first scientist, who argued that if your only knowledge comes from your five senses, then that knowledge is subjective and incomplete. The way to get to genuine knowledge is taking the observed data and reasoning through it - you have to THINK about it, and think critically. Democritus used the term inductive reasoning, possibly the first person to do so. Democritus's ideas had been absorbed into the Greek and Roman thought by the time of Jesus.

This brings up the question of absolute truth. Those that say "there is no absolute truth" have just made an absolute statement. Obviously there IS an absolute truth, and God is it. Just like in Bible study, there are multiple observations, but only a single correct interpretation - one answer that is right (like algebra or geometry). After you get to the correct answer, there are then multiple correlations and applications.

Later on, Pastor Wayne gave some history in regards to to brothers from Thessaloniki, Cyril and Methodius. These were geniuses especially around language in the ninth century. These brothers were very infuential in the development of world events - Cyril invented Russian (Cyrillic), for instance, and is probably a big reason why the Russians adopted the Orthodox church.



Tomorrow is a day around Istanbul. We don't have to pack for a whole day!


Prev: Day 4 Part 3 <=> Next: Day 6 Part 1
Dale's Pics for Day 5: here
Approx Miles Traveled Day 3: Bus 279



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