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• Put very simply, in the history of Aramaic and the Aramaic New Testament, think of ‘west’ as being everything west of Israel. Think of ‘east’ as everything east of Israel. Jerusalem, after all, is the centre of the world, both geographically and religiously.
• Now, let’s first think about what we mean by Christianity spreading ‘west’. It is, of course, very well known that the Gospel message spread west. ‘West’ means west of Israel - that is, the Gospel spread west into Asia Minor (now Turkey) and further west into Europe (Greece, Macedonia and Italy). This all happened very early on - within the first century, under Paul’s missionary journeys, as well as the journeyings of other apostles after the death of Jesus. As we saw in the previous lesson, this history is repeated again and again, in all Sunday School lessons, in all churches. It is the history that is recorded in the New Testament itself, in the Acts of the Apostles, and Paul’s many epistles.