The first missionaries were not Europeans, but were from a part of Asia just a few days’ walk north of Africa. Yet even at an early time, they brought their message to Europe.
When God gave Paul a dream of a Macedonian inviting him to Macedonia (Acts 16:9), Paul and his companions set sail for Macedonia and began the first recorded missionary successes Paul had experienced since he parted ways with Barnabas. Yet there is a possible geographic significance of this journey that we might miss.
Paul was in Alexandria Troas when he had this vision, and Greeks and Romans typically associated this large city with nearby Troy. Greeks had long considered Troy the entry point for Greek invasions of Asia. In Greeks’ most prominent epic story, the Greeks warred against Troy. Centuries later, the Macedonian prince Alexander the Great claimed to repeat the earlier Greek conquests when he invaded the Persian empire—starting at Troy.
Troy was on the northeast coast of Asia Minor, and Greek and Roman sources regularly treated it as a major boundary point between “Europe” (their own continent) and “Asia.” These boundaries had always been arbitrary—early Greeks had defined everything to their east as Asia, and to their south as Africa, and themselves as Europe. By this period, Greek and Asian culture had interacted with each other for centuries.
Paul’s movement into Europe from Troas might strike many first-century readers as significant. By Greek and Roman standards, Paul and his companions were Asian, and preached an Asian religion (Judea and Galilee were part of the Roman province of Syria in the continent of Asia).
Greeks and Romans sometimes boasted that they were conquerors of Asia, although by this they could mean only part of Asia. (Rome’s most serious military challenge long remained the Parthian empire, which controlled regions now including Iran. Beyond Iran, Rome merely had trade ties, for example with India, Vietnam and China.) Yet now Asian representatives of a universal, but initially Afroasiatic, faith were moving in the reverse direction. Yet these messengers did not go simply as colonialists in reverse. In this case, they brought not violent conquest but good news about God’s universal, transforming kingdom.
Since that time the message about Jesus has spread among many nations. In the first few centuries, north Africa and what is now Turkey were the places where Christianity was strongest; later it spread elsewhere, sometimes diminishing in areas where it was once strong. The east African empire of Axum, in what is now Ethiopia, converted to Christianity in the early fourth century, and has remained predominantly Christian since that time; Syrian Christians evangelized further east, including parts of India. Later, for a period of time, the west was a dominant center of Christianity, but all scholars now agree that Christianity is stronger and growing much faster in Africa, Latin America and much of Asia.
It has never been correct to view Christianity as a “western” religion. Geographically, it originated in what Europeans called Asia, not far from what Europeans defined as Africa. Yet from the beginning, God intended it not only for Israel, not only for Asia, not only for the Mediterranean Roman empire. From the beginning God intended a people for his name from among all the nations. God who created all peoples also sent his Son to redeem members of all peoples. Paul’s dream in Macedonia was just one reminder of this: “Come over into Macedonia and help us.” God loves all peoples. If we love him, we must also love and serve all peoples.
Craig Keener is author of 17 books, including the IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament and a four-volume commentary on Acts, as well as coauthor with Glenn Usry of Black Man’s Religion.
