When you're reading your Bible and you see the word Galatia, or Bithynia — those are real places, and they exist today. You can actually go visit them. When you're reading the first couple of chapters of the book of Revelation and the seven churches are named, those are right here in modern-day Turkey. That area was known back then as Asia Minor, but you can go and see those places today.
People understand that they can do that in Israel — that they can go and see places which were actually part of the story, the history that the Bible tells. But actually, all over the Mediterranean world, there are places named in the Scriptures that can be visited today. These are real places, real people, real events in real human history — and we can go back and learn from them today.
I love being in Turkey because so many of these places associated especially with the missionary journeys of the Apostle Paul are there today, where you can go and see where Paul preached and where early Christians were raised up.
The Bible's not a fairy tale. It's filled with real people, real places, real events.
And then, not only from Bible times, but from the times of the earliest history of the church: some of the most important events in all of Christianity happened in the early days of the church, in the second and third and fourth centuries, right here in modern-day Turkey. I have always loved the theologian Irenaeus. He grew up in Smyrna — Izmir here in Turkey — and eventually went to a Roman city in Gaul named Lugdunum, which is the modern town of Lyon in France. You can actually see where these people lived and ministered, and see the proof of the things that they did.
The Bible's not a fairy tale. It's not a mythical story. It's filled with real people, real places, real events. And you can learn about those things by coming right here.