02.25. Cities by the sea

Cities by the sea

Phoenicia was one of the great maritime nations of the ancient world. Its merchant ships, beautifully made and sailed by skilled seamen, carried a great variety of goods and brought it much wealth.¹

Wealth brought with it two main problems. One was that Phoenicia became arrogant. It saw itself as all-powerful, a god among the nations who could use its economic strength to do whatever it wished.² Its oppression of weaker neighbours was not through military might but through commercial power. The second problem was that Phoenicia’s wealth made it a target for other greedy nations, who wanted to break through its defences and capture its wealth for themselves. As often happens, God used thefruits of wrongdoing to punish wrongdoing. He used the greed of other nations, first the Babylonians and then the Greeks, to punish the arrogance of Phoenicia.³ As the years passed, the Phoenician cities recovered from the devastation and by New Testament times were well populated again. They were, however, now part of the Roman Empire and under the rule of Rome-appointed governors. Jesus visited the region on at least one occasion, and people from the region visited Galilee to hear him preach and seek his healing.⁴ A few years later, when fierce persecution drove the early Christians from Jerusalem, many of them fled to Tyre, Sidon and other cities of Phoenicia and planted churches there. They supported Paul’s international mission, and Paul visited them whenever possible.⁵ 1. Ezekiel 27:1-9; Ezekiel 27:12-25 2. Isaiah 23:1-18; Ezekiel 28:1-23

3. Jeremiah 27:3-6; Ezekiel 26:2-14. The Babylonian attack, under Nebuchadnezzar, was in 587 BC; the Greek attack, under Alexander the Great, in 333 BC.

4. Mark 7:24-26; Luke 6:17; Acts 12:20 5. Acts 11:19; Acts 15:3; Acts 21:2-6; Acts 27:3

Mediterranean coast at Tyre