Day 8 - June 16

Thursday - June 16

This morning Kent's devotion was on 'who is my neighbor?' We read the parable of the good sameritan. We did a background check before we went on to learn a little more. First, he said parables were never made up stories, they were always from a story in the O.T. text. This one I can't exactly remember which one it came from but it has something to do with Jews captucing Sameritans (or the other way around) and brought them back to their own city but then felt bad so they put balm on their wounds and sent them back on donkeys. So you get to the parable and the first two travelers pass by this sameritan because if they had gone near him, they would have been unclean for wherever they were headed. the third guy stops and helps this enemy to people in a like way to the O.T story. 'we love God only as much as the person we love the least." First place we went today was a modern Jewish synagouge. It was mostly young boys there at this time but it was interesting to see some of their traditions and stuff. From there we drove to Beth She'an. This city was I guess a good example of hellenism. Hellenism was the beginning of western thought. It included things like the theatre, arena, gymnasium, temples, art, library and practice of medicine. Their philosophy was that man is at the center of everything and man is the measure of all things. They had very broad roads, compares to the "narrow gate" we saw in the Jewish village. Had co-ed bathroom with a stage where live music was played! We discussed how everything is done and made for a reason. Nothing is neutral, everything has a worldview behind it. The disciples and Jesus had to struggle with these things a little bit (or a lot) whenever they went into a greek or roman city. Following lunch we drove down to the Jordan River. We talked about Michveh again and kent said we could all do that if we wanted to as a covenant to remember changes or whatever. Next we went to Susita. Another Hellenistic city, temple to Ceaser and also a Christian church. Here we talked about the story of the naked, bloody, deamon possessed guy. That story took place here and the herd of pigs ran into the sea after the deamon was transfered to them. Jesus told the guy to go tell the city about what happened to him and the text says they were all amazed!