The Reflectionary

Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs

What the …? Who the …? Huh?

If you’ve ever puzzled over this bewildering list of places and people, bewilder no more!

I have a handy-dandy guide to the nations represented at the Acts 2 gathering, and a fun activity to put ourselves in the passage – plus links to a plethora of peppy Pentecost resources.

What was Where?

Here’s a map showing areas of the Roman Empire with labels showing who came from where. (click to enlarge)

• Some are obvious: Rome is the same as today. Ditto Crete and Egypt.
• Careful with Asia, though. It’s not China / India, but the western part of Turkey.
• Mesopotamia does what it says on the tin:
  meso = between
  potam = river (like in hippo-potamus = horse of the river)
  ia = land
  so Mesopotamia = land between the rivers – the Tigris and Euphrates in this case, so modern Iraq.
• Cyrene is on the coast of modern Lybia (to the left of Egypt if your geography is as poor as mine).
• Arabs covers anywhere to the right of ancient Judea, as far as Yemen.
• Parthians, Medes and Elamites are all from what is now Iran.
• Cappadocia, Pontus, Phrygia and Pamphylia are regions of modern Turkey. Now you know.
• Anywhere beyond that was the land of the barbarians and therefore not worth mentioning.
• Incidentally, the word ‘barbarian’ is cos the wild, uncultured oiks who didn’t speak Greek (eg, Brits) sounded like they were babbling ‘bar bar bar bar’.

Now that we know more ancient geography that we ever thought necessary, where’s the fun activity? Grab some friends and coloured pens and a world map (there are a couple below you can print out), and let’s dive in.

First, draw on a stick figure to show where you are now, and add others for where you’re all from, if that’s different.

Now think about anywhere you have been – either for a visit or to live – and add stick figures in those places too. I bet you’re already having fun conversations along the lines of, “Oh, you used to live in Llandudno? I went there on holiday last year. Do you know that little tea shop …?”

Now add family and friends – do you have rellies who live elsewhere? Friends who’ve been on exotic holidays?

What about other connections? If you speak another language, you can add that to your map. Or if you’ve read a book set somewhere else, add that. (We’re not counting Middle Earth or Gotham City, sorry.)

By now you should have a lot of stick people on your map. Join them all back to you, like the map above showing people travelling to Jerusalem.

Just as, at Pentecost, the Good News about Jesus spread out to all corners of the (then known) world, so we can be part of spreading the Good News to all corners of our world.

Of course, it’s probably going to start with the folks you meet day by day, rather than the place you went on a school exchange trip when you were 11, so have a think about it. How will you be Good News where you are, today?