Because you say so, I will

As we awoke today near the Sea of Galilee, the sun was out and the birds were singing (and we had no rain the entire day!).

How fitting that our first two stops would center around Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, where the "birds of the air" help us understand Jesus' charge to entrust our lives to our Father's care.

Our first stop was atop Mount Arbel, which overlooks the Sea of Galilee and many sites of Jesus' Galilean ministry. As we stood in this remote place, Terry highlighted Jesus' habit of going to isolated places to pray. Perhaps Mt. Arbel would have been one such place. While there, we were given some time to read, pray, and leave our anxieties there.

"In our modern lives, anxiety runs rampant," Terry said, "But God is still in the business of building trust in the hearts of His people." One way He does that is taking our cares upon Himself (Philippians 4:6-8; 1 Peter 5:7), so at Mr. Arbel, we started our day casting our cares on our Father's strong shoulders.

Mount of the Beatitudes:
From Mt. Arbel we traveled to a lush, gentle ascent on the north shore of the Sea, which may have been the setting of the Sermon on the Mount. From where we stood, we could hear birds singing, and we could see the flowers of the field. It was easy to see why Jesus used the simple realities of people's lives to teach indelible truths.

Here are some summaries of the other places we visited today:

Chorazin:
-We observed the ruins of this ancient city and sat in what remains of its synagogue, where Yehuda (our guide) and Terry explained the layout of a typical Jewish village and how the Jews practiced daily living.

-Here we also listened to the account of Jesus reading from Isaiah in the synagogue in Nazareth. Becoming familiar with the customs of synagogue worship helped us to understand how the readings in synagogue functioned and how providential it was that Jesus read from the Isaiah passage on that day.
-We also noticed something we would observe in every other village--the synagogue was always at the center, and homes were built outward from there. This was to show that the Lord should be the center of Jewish life, and families were the community meant to point to Him.

Every home was centered around an "insular," (courtyard), where extended families would dine together and tell stories at the end of each day. They might also discuss what the children had learned from the Torah in school.

So just as God was the center of Jewish life, the family was essential to its thriving. And the families lived so close together that privacy was not as prevalent as today.

But was less privacy a bad thing? Are we better off than they were?

"Sin likes privacy," Terry reminded us.

But when you live in a tight-knit community like the Jews of old, or even in close relationships in a church family, your life can become more communal and less prone towards the things that drive you toward inwardness, privacy and secrecy.

"It is no wonder the New Testament often refers to the church as brothers and sisters," Terry said.

So one key lesson from Jewish villages is simply this: For our own good, the Lord does not want us to live in isolation, but community. Sin thrives where privacy thrives. A life centered around God, though, is one of shared community and mutual encouragement (Heb. 10:24-25).

The North Shore of Galilee:
-Most likely three major gospel events occurred near our next stop.

Matthew 4:18-21: Jesus called his first disciples

Luke 5:1-11: Jesus taught from Peter's boat, then told Peter to cast out into the deep waters for a catch.
Here, Yehuda explained how fishermen operated--often at night and in the shallow waters. So when the son of a carpenter told a skilled fisherman to cast out in the deep, and in the day, one would have expected Peter to say anything but "Okay."

Peter, though, replied, "Because you say so, I will." Peter trusted Jesus so much, he was willing to do what made no sense in human understanding.
What a huge lesson for us when we tend to think our way is the best way. When we obey God, though, even if our way seems better, we find that he always has something better for us in the end.

John 21: It was probably in this area that Jesus called to his friends from the shore, following his resurrection. What joy they must have felt, sensing the correlation between this event and the one in Luke 5; so much so that John exclaimed, "It is the Lord!"

This location seemed to be one that really impacted our group. What an experience to find ourselves in a place where Jesus and the early disciples must have spent a lot of time.

Capernaum:
When you arrive at Capernaum, it becomes obvious why it was the hub of Jesus' Galilean ministry, as it is located near so many places Jesus visited, often more than once.

One thing we learned in Capernaum: if a synagogue was torn down or destroyed, nothing other than another synagogue could be built on the same property. In this case, remains of a fourth century synagogue still stand, but obvious signs point to an older one underneath. The former one is almost certainly the synagogue mentioned in Luke 7:5, financed by the centurion who asked Jesus to heal his servant.

Bethsaida:
This remote village is mentioned in Luke 9:10-18, where Jesus and the disciples were nearing the end of the day (as we were), and they asked Jesus to send the people away to eat (there just isn't much in that vicinity). Jesus replied, "You give them something to eat." You know the rest of the story.

Here Terry stopped to ask why Jesus did this and other miracles? Was it simply because tummies were growling or because people were in need?
No. It was more than that.

It was as if Jesus was saying, "You want food? I can provide it just as easily as God did when your forefathers were in the wilderness." He wanted them to know He was more than a prophet or great teacher; He was the giver of food, of life, of sustenance, of hope.

Bonus stop:
On our way back to the hotel, we stopped by the only possible place where the healing of the Gerasene demoniac could have occurred (see Mark 5). In fact, we likely stood on or near the very place where the demon-possessed pigs fell down down the steep hills and into the sea, after Jesus cast them out of the man.

Whew! What a day.
We head out early in the morning for a boat ride across the Sea, followed by another full day of fascinating discoveries and some time at the Jordan River.

What a great group this is.
Thank you for praying for us. We are so enjoying our time with one another!