By and large we have no problems attaining a certain amount of cultural quotience in our 21st century context. For example, we know that football is the number one sport in Brazil, whereas in the South Asia nations (India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh) it is cricket. We know that Taiwan is using traditional Chinese writing, whereas China uses the simplified. We know that American English is different from English as we know it. And we know that even within the UK, they speak English rather differently depending on where you are. We know that the Middle East's greatest export is oil, and China is a manufacturing behemoth, and many similar things. These are cultural things we can observe about different places. But unless we are avid historians, we wouldn't know much about Philippi, Ephesus, Galatia, Thessalonica, and many of these places where Paul writes to. Certainly not in the same way we know football obsessed-Brazil, cricket-loving India, and the d...