Asia

Asia, in the New Testament, does not mean the continent but the Roman province of Asia — the western third of Asia Minor (modern western Turkey), a rich and populous region administered from Ephesus. It embraced the famous cities of Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea, the seven churches to whom the Revelation is addressed (Revelation 1:11). As one of the most thoroughly evangelized regions of the apostolic age, Asia occupies a central place in the spread and consolidation of early Christianity.

Asia first appears in the missionary narrative as a door God closed: on the second journey Paul and his companions were "forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia" (Acts 16:6), and were redirected toward Macedonia and Europe. The province's evangelization waited for the third journey, when Paul settled at Ephesus, its capital, and taught daily in the hall of Tyrannus, "so that all the residents of Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks" (Acts 19:10). The gospel's advance there was so great that it disrupted the trade in silver shrines of Artemis and provoked the riot of the silversmiths in the great theater (Acts 19:27). On his way to Jerusalem Paul summoned the Ephesian elders to Miletus and gave them his moving farewell, mindful of the whole province he had served (Acts 20:17–18).

From this base a network of churches spread through the Lycus and Maeander valleys, including Colossae and Laodicea, which Paul addresses though he had not personally visited them (Colossians 2:1). Asia was the destination of much of the apostolic correspondence: Ephesians was written to its chief city, and Peter directs his first letter to the elect exiles "in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia" (1 Peter 1:1). Paul notes both the defections — "all who are in Asia turned away from me" (2 Timothy 1:15) — and the faithful, like the household of Onesiphorus.

Asia reaches its theological climax in the Revelation, where the risen Christ walks among the seven golden lampstands and dictates letters to the seven churches of the province (Revelation 1:4; Revelation 2:1). Through these particular congregations — commended, warned, and called to overcome — the Spirit speaks to the whole church of every age. Thus the province of Asia, more than any other region named in the New Testament outside the Holy Land, stands as the proving ground of the maturing church and the addressee of the Bible's final prophetic word.