Asia

Asia in the UPDV epistles and Revelation is the Roman province of western Asia Minor — a region that turns up in apostolic letters as a destination, a stage of suffering, and a household of churches addressed by name.

Churches Of The Province

Asia is reported as the home of multiple congregations whose corporate greeting Paul forwards to Corinth: "The churches of Asia greet you⁺. Aquila and Prisca greet you⁺ much in the Lord, with the church that is in their house" (1 Cor 16:19). The province is exhibited as already supplied with a plurality of churches, and one of them — the house-church of Aquila and Prisca — is named alongside the regional whole.

The same network surfaces again in Peter's address to "the elect who are sojourners of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia" (1 Pet 1:1). Asia is the fourth-named of a five-province catalogue, and its resident elect-Dispersion population is placed under apostolic address.

John's circular to Asia is more specific. The vision is sent "to the seven churches that are in Asia: Grace to you⁺ and peace, from Him Who Is and Who Was and Who Is To Come; and from the seven Spirits who are before his throne" (Rev 1:4). The seven are then named individually: "What you see, write in a book and send [it] to the seven churches: to Ephesus, and to Smyrna, and to Pergamum, and to Thyatira, and to Sardis, and to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea" (Rev 1:11). Asia here is mapped as a circuit of seven cities, all of them addressable by a single book.

Asia As The Site Of Apostolic Affliction

Paul names Asia as the province where his company underwent extreme tribulation: "we would not have you⁺ ignorant, brothers, concerning our affliction which befell [us] in Asia, that we were exceedingly weighed down, beyond our power, insomuch that we despaired even of life" (2 Cor 1:8). The trouble suffered there is described as exceeding power and reaching the point of despairing of life — Asia is exhibited as the location of a power-exceeding, life-despairing trial.

Asia As The Site Of Apostolic Abandonment

Asia is also the province from which Paul reports a comprehensive turning-away. To Timothy he writes, "This you know, that all who are in Asia turned away from me; of whom are Phygelus and Hermogenes" (2 Tim 1:15). The location is the stage of the defection, the scope is universalized — "all who are in Asia" — and two men, Phygelus and Hermogenes, are singled out as representatives. The same region that hosts the seven churches and forwards greetings to Corinth is, in this letter, the scene of a known and witnessed abandonment of the apostle.