Day 7 - June 15

Wednesday, June 15

Woke up at 6 again this morning. Sad, that's all I can remember without Beka's help! =( She is reading her Bible now so I don't want to disturb her to ask what we did. I haven't been living for God alot lately. I have been trying too though, but it hasn't seemed to be working. Anyways, today I was thinking about things I could do pretty well or things that people compliment me on and I started thinking that I could be really useful for God because of that, He could really use me fore alot of good. I know, that is totally wrong thinking from what I've been hearing all my life, so why do I even think it!? How do you make yourself humble? How do you make yourself believe things you don't? Well... back to this morning, after devotions and sh'ma under the tree in front of the hotel we went to Gamla. This was a Jewish zealot town, in fact, it was the birthplace to the zealot movement. One of the oldest synagogues ever found is located here. We sat in it and learned about the customary synagogue service in Jesus' time. When they first men together they talked and discussed what was going on in eachother's lives. Next, they spoke the Shema. Next, was 18 benedictions (prayers)/praying Scripture. Then came the reading from the Torah. This sounds like it was the most anticipated part of the service. The umm...someone... would go to the Torah closet and touch his hand to it then kiss his hand. He would then bring it out and there would be much rejoicing and praising because of it's value to the people. Then each person would do the kissing thing as it was brought around. Someone (usually anyone including 13 year old boys or 12 year old girls, unless there was an important person or Rabbi present) would read approximate 8 chapters then roll it up. That person would then follow with a short sermon (dercsha) concerning the passage. Next the people would have a time of discussion about the dercsha and if a priest was present, he would give their aaronic benediction. So anyways, this city was one of Roman's first stops in their raid. There was a man named Joseph who lived among them who, when the time came for these men to kill their families rather than be captured, ended up being the last one. Either he was captured fast or became chicken, but he ended up getting away. He told the Roman leader that he fulfilled the prophecy in the Bible of the statue with like a head of gold...the guy was religious and thought that was pretty neat. Many good things kept happening to him so he believed this guy. He made him like a son to him and renamed him Josephus. Josephus' main job was to follow the Roman army around and record every raid on a city. Some Jews saw him as a traitor but he has given us so much valuable historical information! Next, we can't remember what it was called but it was like you typical Jewish city. It was really cool because alot of Jesus' parables/stories make so much more sence now. First we saw what your typical two story house looked like. We went through Jesus' saying "there are many rooms in my Father's house, I go to prepare a place for you." We discussed your typical Jewish process of marriage and engagement and how Jesus is the bride groom. He goes to His Father's house to prepare rooms for believers (his bride) and noone knows when He is returning. Next we went into one and looked at the roof. The type of roof the paralytics friends would have had to dig through to get him down to Jesus when the house was so packed. Then we saw waht a lamp looked like and how it sat on shelves ont he wall. Purpose was to give like to the whole place. Obviously, we wouldn't want to cover it up or hide it. Next, we went to the second level outside and saw an oven. They used to mix dung and salt together. The salt would help cook/flavor the food but after it had been used once it was good for nothing else but thrown out onto the street to be trampled by men because it had lost it's saltiness. We then took a rabbit trail and talked about how open the topic of sex was in those times. It is SO SO different in our culture today! Hardly any parents bite the bullet and talk to their children. That is the place kids need to see and learn what a good things it is and that is the only place they don't learn that. Lunch was next, bees were over everything like crazy! After Lunch we went to Tel Dan. My first impression was how absolutely beautiful the city was! The first thing we noticed was the sound of super fast rushing water. There was a beautiful river rushing through the city that just came from nowhere it seemed. We walked a path for a bit, through the woods. It was kind of like a jungle or rainforest or something. One of the things he mentioned was that because the first thing we noticed was the natural beauty, why wouldn't one want to build a city there. First of all the city was Laish, center of Baal worship. It was captured by the tribe of Dan and renamed. They ended up having a golden calf that they worshipped, like they used it to represent God. The sin is obviously that God told them not to make any graven images but Kent mentioned a different point as well. He said the sin of the golden calf is taking something that man is comfortable with, something we we can see and understand. We/they didn't take enough time/care to listen to what God already said about worship. Our final stop today was Caesarea Phillippi. This is another beautiful town/city. Another water source to the Jordan flows through here and that just adds so much life to it. The problem was that this was a terribly pagen city. It was the center of worship to the god Pan and had temples to Augustus and Zeus. This was all going on during Jesus' time and Jesus takes His disciples (at least some) down here. These are the religions in Jesus' day that He/His disciples had to put up with and rival against. It is here that He asks "who do people say that I am?" "Who do you say that I am?" That how much easier it would have been to answer that back at their own town with people/things they are comfortable with as opposed to a place like this where these type of gods are worshiped and the practices are going on? On our way out we stopped by a 1000 year old olive tree who's branches were still growing good because the farmer had taken time/care to graft them in. There were also shoots on the ground and there was a cool verse for that.... of course I can't remember it now.