Why Am I a Christian: For the Love of Travel

The greek word for ‘to come’ and ‘to go’, ερχομαι, is the third most used verb in the Greek New Testament, after ειμι ‘to be’ and λεγω, ‘to speak’, if my word counting program works properly. It is also the first command God gives in the Bible that cones with a great reward, as Abraham was commanded to “go from your country”, the word in the Septuagint is ἀνέρχομαι. The same word is used in Hebrews 11, Abraham “was called to go out”, ἐξέρχομαι. Christians, the spiritual descendants of Abraham, are also sojourners on the earth, who desire a better country. If one doesn’t travel, he will never enter the Promised Land.

It was no mere historical coincidence that the New Testament was written in Greek, and the first city churches established outside Jerusalem were in Greek cities, namely, Antioch, Corinth, Ephesus, and Thessaloniki, all prominent cities in the ancient world in large part due to their central geographical location for travel and commerce. The historian Thucydides wrote in The Peloponnesian War, when contrasting the character of the sea-powered Athenians with that of the land-based Spartans, the eyes of the Athenians “are always set on the distant horizon”, “adventurous beyond their power, and daring beyond their judgment”, “born into the world to take no rest themselves and to give none to others”. I would venture that, without the love of travel, the Greek Empire would not have existed, and Athens would not have become the cradle of Western civilization; Without the love of travel, Antioch would not have become the cradle of Christianity, and Christianity would not have become the dominant religion in the Western world.

I was born and raised on the coast, and my love of travel is inborn, like the ancient Greeks and the earliest Christians. But it was not until I became a Christian, that I discovered the true meaning and purpose of travel.

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