Through Scriptures, Babylon is represented as a city of rebellion against God, a center of civilization built on selfishness, pride, and other sinful agendas. Regardless, God calls his people not to attack this city or withdraw from it, but to love it, pray for it, and take care about its wellbeing. It shows that the relationship between the people of God and the city of man becomes a key aspect of God’s plan to redeem the world (2012, 143).
We can see that in both of these accounts, the story of Nineveh and Babylonian exile, God does not treat these cities as irredeemable places. In addition to compassionate attitude toward them, he develops a strategic plan that involves his call upon the people of God, the call to engage, to establish relationship, and to become conduits of God’s merciful love toward humanity. Let us further examine how this missional call of God is fulfilled through the life and deeds of the apostles and the first century church in the New