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Israel Study Tour with Northpointe Community Church
February 19 - March 2, 2018
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Into the water
Day three of our tour was has been one of the coolest days for me. Our day began at a place called En-Gedi. This is the spot that we believe David hid from Saul in the caves found in 1 Samuel 24. Before we explored the area we took time as a group to center our hearts and minds on the Lord through a time of singing and devotion. Pastor Ronnie walked us through that story in 1 Samuel and offered some great challenges for us as a group concerning the qualities that David showed through this story. Our tour guide, Ronin, walked us down to a waterfall and taught on living water and some of the places that we see it in scripture.
Ein Gedi
En Gedi is the largest oasis along the western shore of the Dead Sea. The springs here have allowed nearly continuous inhabitation of the site since the Chalcolithic period. The area was allotted to the tribe of Judah, and was famous in the time of Solomon (Josh 15:62). Today the Israeli kibbutz of En Gedi sits along the southern bank of the Nahal Arugot.
The next location that we went to was not a biblical sight, but it is a place that is very important for us as Christians because this is where the Dead Sea scrolls were found. This place is called Qumran. The significance of this is that we were able to compare the text and translations of scripture that we have now, with original texts from the first century. What we discovered was that the words that we have in our bibles today are 99% accurate to the original scrolls.
We moved from there to a very important spot on the Jordan river. This was the place that Jesus came to, to be baptized by John the Baptist. There is much more significance to this spot that can be found in scripture, but for the sake of keeping this post fairly short I’ll let you do your own research :)
Qumran
10 miles south of Jericho, Qumran was on a “dead-end street” and provided a perfect location for the isolationist sect of the Essenes to live.
The site was excavated by Catholic priest Roland deVaux from 1953-56. More recent excavations of the site have taken place under the direction of Hanan Eshel.
My favorite part of the day was the last thing that we did. After we checked into our hotel, we walked down as a group for baptisms in the Sea of Galilee. Walking down the beach and into the water was a surreal moment. To be in the water that was walked on by Jesus, the water that Jesus rebuked waves in, was wild. It was incredibly humbling. This is my favorite part of this post: 31 people from our team walked into that water to be baptized. It was an incredible time to set our eyes on Jesus, and to praise him for the works he has done, and continues to do. Continue to journey with our team through prayer for health, safety, and moldable hearts. God is so, so good.
-Josh Manning
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