THOUGHTS ABOUT TIME

THE QUAILS

Greece was suffering greatly under the heel of the German invader. The worst famine the country has ever known in all of its long history was mercilessly and indiscriminately taking a heavy toll on young and old, and in cities like Athens, Salonica, Patras et. al., the dead were picked up from the streets by carts and taken out of town for massive burials. Our family, consisting of mother and seven children, six girls and myself, father having died of pneumonia a little earlier, lived up in northern Greece, in Pogoni of Jannina and a village called lower Ravenia. The house we stayed at was, of course, old, but large enough, having a front yard as big as a small farm. I remember during a long and severe winter, when the snow stayed on the ground for weeks and months, mother would take a shovel and going out would clear the snow of about a space of two square meters, then would take a sieve, of those used to sift sand, gravel and suchlike, and set it one side on the ground the other somewhat elevated, being supported that way by a stick on which a string, long enough to reach inside the house through a purposely kept a little bit open window. The distance was about fifteen meters. Under the sieve she'd spread crumbs of bread. Then she'd summon us to prayer and we would hear her say «Father, send your quails», thank you, amen! Did God hear that prayer?
Glory to Him, He sure did! Shortly birds of various sizes swarmed under the sieve and started swallowing the crumbs of bread! Then mother would pull the string and the sieve would capture them. Thus we would have meat to eat for more than one day! This was done many times and when the birds wouldn't seem to come, mother would call us to prayer and God would answer the same way. God is still the same! Remembering some of His many wonderful provisions in the past, the petition «Lord, increase my faith» is never missing from my prayers! To God be the glory, great things He has done!

View of ancient Corinth from some point of the Acrocorinthus. One can see ruins of the Temple of Apollo, of Krenes (Springs) and the Agora, as well as of other important structures, that the archaeological spade, brought, at times, to light. One also sees modern buildings, mostly houses, developing not far from the archaeological site. There is no doubt that, from the Christian point of view, Corinth presents a special interest. To this ... »

The picture is certainly beautiful. It shows one of the many spas Greece is endowed with. Here people come, according to doctors' advice, to have mineral therapeutical baths. But that is not the purpose for which we placed this picture here. It is rather to refer on the one hand to Bethesda and Siloam, which by God's merciful intervention seem to have been something similar, and on the other to point to Jesus Christ, Whose precious blood shed ... »

Philippi was an important city, in many respects, when the Apostle Paul visited it. He had been waiting for divine direction at Troas of Asia Minor with his companions in the ministry of the gospel, when the Macedonian call came. Philippi was about fifteen kilometers inland from Neapolis, the port town, where the Apostle disembarked. From Luke's narration one should think they spent no time at Neapolis, today's important and thriving Greek ... »

View of Mars Hill and partial of Athens from some point of the hill of the Acropolis. As we have also noted elsewhere, Athens was the only city of all that Paul visited, where not only was he not persecuted, but rather treated well and given the opportunity from, in all probability, the most official platform, Areopagus, to address one of the most cultivated audiences of the Greco-Roman world, with the message of Christ and the Resurrection. ... »

ÔѺÔÇ, 3 ÉÁÍÏÕÁѺÏÕ 2012
THE HELLENICITY OF ANCIENT MACEDONIA
The Hellenicity of ancient Macedonia, even in a larger geographical sense, can be proven in many ways, but I believe the book of Daniel alone would be enough. In chapter 8 verse 21 we read: "And the rough goat is the king of Grecia", referring to Alexander the Great. Notice the fact that he is not referred to as the king of Macedonia, which wouldn't make any difference anyway since Macedonia was part of the Hellenic World, but as the king of Hellas (Grecia, Greece!). Alexander himself had been born of Greek parents, and raised up as Greek under the tutorship of the greatest of the Greek philosopher, Aristotle, and spoke and spread all over the vast empire he had formed by his speedy conquests, the Greek language, which, with some slight variations, Greeks speak today, the language known among scholars all over the world as the Koine. And, together with the language he also spread the Greek civilization which is the civilization of the Western World up to this day. It was also the Koine in which the Septuagint was translated from the Hebrew by orders of Ptolemy Philadelphus about 250 BC, and it was in the same language that the New Testament was written, too. This is much stronger a proof that Alexander the Great was Greek than that Everest is the highest mountain in the world! Markos Boussios.