Month: July 2021

In our last post, Jesus took a decided turn in His ministry. 

From that time, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and the third day be raised up. (Matthew 16:21)

But before beginning that final long journey to His destiny, He had one more thing to show them. To prepare them for His suffering to come, and their own suffering to follow, He fully revealed His glory to them.

After six days, Jesus took with him Peter, James, and John his brother, and brought them up into a high mountain by themselves. (Matthew 17:1)

Scripture doesn’t tell us of which mountain this passage speaks. Historically, many have believed that it was Mount Tabor. 

Mount Tabor is about 6 miles east of Nazareth, but a full two day walk from Caesarea Philippi. Mount Tabor is only about 1400 feet high, but there are no other tall hills or mountains nearby, so it is visible from all around.

Mount Tabor is best known in Biblical history as the place where Deborah and Barak gathered the armies of Israel to face the Canaanite army under Sisera. From its heights, they witnessed God’s mighty victory (Judges 4-5).

I think a more logical choice, and one favored by many recent Biblical scholars, is that the transfiguration took place on Mount Hermon. This mountain towers above Caesarea Philippi and, at 9200 feet, is the tallest point in Israel. You can see snow on its peaks most of the year. 

Psalm 133 makes an interesting analogy:

See how good and how pleasant it is
    for brothers to live together in unity!
² It is like the precious oil on the head,
    that ran down on the beard,
    even Aaron’s beard,
    that came down on the edge of his robes,
³ like the dew of Hermon,
    that comes down on the hills of Zion;
    for there Yahweh gives the blessing,
    even life forever more. (Psalm 133)

As I mentioned last week, Hermon is the source of the Jordan River. The dew of Hermon feeds this river of life on its long journey from the highest point in Israel to the lowest point on earth, the Dead Sea. And Jesus would now begin His long journey from this height of glory to His great humiliation and death for our sake.

But before we go there, let’s focus our eyes for a moment on Christ’s glory! Like His disciples, let us be encouraged by the truth of who He is.

He was changed before them. His face shone like the sun, and his garments became as white as the light. ³ Behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them talking with him.

⁴ Peter answered and said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here. If you want, let’s make three tents here: one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”

⁵ While he was still speaking, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them. Behold, a voice came out of the cloud, saying, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Listen to him.”

⁶ When the disciples heard it, they fell on their faces, and were very afraid. ⁷ Jesus came and touched them and said, “Get up, and don’t be afraid.” ⁸ Lifting up their eyes, they saw no one, except Jesus alone.

(Matthew 17:2-8)

In scripture, the Law and the Prophets continuously speak of the Messiah to come, and here we have Moses, representing the Law, and Elijah, representing the Prophets, acknowledging Jesus as that Messiah. As if that weren’t enough, God the Father confirms His pleasure in Jesus His Son.

Listen to Him!

—

The map at the top of this post is a snapshot of a portion of the gameboard for Journeys with Jesus.

If you’ve found this interesting and would like to continue to read these stories of the journeys and places in Journeys with Jesus, sign up in the sidebar to receive updates.

Note: all scripture quotes, unless otherwise noted, are from the World English Bible which is in the public domain.

For about the past month, we have been following Jesus as He has journeyed through primarily gentile lands including the regions of Syria and Decapolis. We continue that trend today, but we are approaching a critical turning point in Jesus’ ministry.

Jesus continued His Galilean ministry, teaching, preaching the Kingdom, and performing miracles especially in the towns we have already visited around the Sea of Galilee. In Mark 8:22-25, we see Him back in Bethsaida, healing a blind man. And then, He and His disciples turn north.

Jesus went out, with his disciples, into the villages of Caesarea Philippi.  (Mark 8:27a)

Caesarea Philippi was in the Tetrarchy of Philip. Philip was one of the sons of Herod the Great. Herod had made a great temple here (some say the temple was to Caesar and some say to the Greek god Pan). Philip made the city his capital and renamed it Caesarea in honor of the Roman emperor. The longer name (Caesarea Philippi) distinguishes this Caesarea from the one on the Mediterranean coast (Caesarea Maritima).

Previously, the town was called Panias (after Pan), and today it is known by the Arabic variant Banias. The town was built on the bank of a six-mile stream coming from a cave at the foot of Mount Herman that is one of the four sources of the Jordan River.

Caesarea Philippi was 30 miles, or about a 10 hour walk north of Bethsaida, so Jesus and His disciples had plenty of time to discuss important theological topics.

Above, I only gave you half of a verse from Mark’s gospel. The second half is the beginning of one of those topics.

On the way he asked his disciples, “Who do men say that I am?” ²⁸ They told him, “John the Baptizer, and others say Elijah, but others, one of the prophets.” (Mark 8:27b-28)

What came next is the most important question any of us can answer.

He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” (Matthew 16:15)

What is your answer to that question? Who is Jesus? Was he a great teacher? A moral leader? A prophet? A myth?

Peter got the answer right. 

Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” (Matthew 16:16)

Jesus is the Messiah, God’s Anointed One, the promised Savior of the world. Do you believe that? Have you put your faith in Him and His finished work on the cross?

This great confession of Peter’s was just the beginning of his journey of faith. 

Immediately after Peter’s confession, Jesus began His final journey towards His destiny in Jerusalem.

In Mark we are told:

He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. (Mark 8:31)

And in Matthew:

From that time, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and the third day be raised up. (Matthew 16:21)

His disciples didn’t want to accept this. The gospels tell us that Peter took Jesus aside and rebuked Him saying that these things must never happen. Jesus, who had just praised Peter’s faith, now cursed his resistance to God’s plan. Not much later, Peter would even deny Jesus three times. And yet, Jesus restored Peter, and the disciple’s understanding grew.

Much later, Peter wrote:

But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts. Always be ready to give an answer to everyone who asks you a reason concerning the hope that is in you, with humility and fear,  (1 Peter 3:15)

Do you have an answer? Are you ready?

—

The map at the top of this post is a snapshot of a portion of the gameboard for Journeys with Jesus.

If you’ve found this interesting and would like to continue to read these stories of the journeys and places in Journeys with Jesus, sign up in the sidebar to receive updates.

Note: all scripture quotes, unless otherwise noted, are from the World English Bible which is in the public domain.

We have been looking at Jesus’ ministry in and around the Sea of Galilee. His home base has been Capernaum. In the next couple of weeks, Jesus will take a dramatic turn towards Jerusalem, but before we get there, I want to go back to a journey that I should’ve covered earlier, from early in his Galilean ministry.

The journey we are looking at today is recorded in Matthew 8:23-28, Mark 4:35-5:2, and Luke 8:22-27.

 
On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, “Let’s go over to the other side.” ³⁶ Leaving the multitude, they took him with them, even as he was, in the boat. Other small boats were also with him. ³⁷ A big wind storm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so much that the boat was already filled. ³⁸ He himself was in the stern, asleep on the cushion, and they woke him up, and told him, “Teacher, don’t you care that we are dying?”

³⁹ He awoke, and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” The wind ceased, and there was a great calm. ⁴⁰ He said to them, “Why are you so afraid? How is it that you have no faith?”

⁴¹ They were greatly afraid, and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”

5 They came to the other side of the sea, into the country of the Gadarenes.

(Mark 4:35 – 5:1)

I’d like to focus on two geographical features in this story.

The obvious one is the destination. Matthew records it as the country of the Gergesenes, and Mark and Luke call it the country of the Gadarenes. There is some conjecture about the source of the name Gergesenes. I think the most likely is that Gergesa was a town near the Sea of Galilee in the general vicinity of Gadara. We have previously mentioned Gadara as one of the 10 cities of the Decapolis.

Gadara was about 6 miles from the Sea of Galilee. Given the story reported in the gospels, it is unlikely that Jesus actually visited that city, but where He and His disciples landed would’ve been considered within the region of Gadara. As with the rest of the Decapolis, this was largely a Gentile area, as evidenced by the herd of pigs being fed there (Mark 5:11,14). Jews would have nothing to do with these unclean animals (Leviticus 11:7).

This herd comes into play in the miraculous exorcism shown here (Luke 8:33). Afterwards, the man Jesus had rescued from the demons wanted to go with Him, but Jesus sent him to share the good news of the gospel with his own people:

“Return to your house, and declare what great things God has done for you.” He went his way, proclaiming throughout the whole city what great things Jesus had done for him. (Luke 8:39)

The second geographical feature worth examining is the Sea of Galilee itself. On this journey, we see a storm suddenly arising on the lake, which is a demonstration of the unique characteristics of this body of water.

The Sea of Galilee is really a medium sized lake. It is thirteen miles long (north to south) and seven miles wide at it’s broadest (east to  west). To give you a sense of context, that’s about the same size as Clear Lake in California, Table Rock Lake on the Missouri-Arkansas border, or Cayuga Lake in New York.

The Sea of Galilee is surrounded by hills. It is fed by the Jordan River flowing in from the north. The Jordan continues south of this lake, continuing down to the Dead Sea. The Dead Sea is the lake at the lowest elevation in the world, and the Sea of Galilee is the second lowest at about 700 feet below sea level. The Dead Sea is a salt water body, but the Sea of Galilee is fresh water – the lowest freshwater lake on earth. At its deepest, it is about 140 feet deep.

The hills surrounding the lake make it susceptible to rapid weather changes, with violent storms surprising sailors as we see in this passage.

Christ mercifully calms the meterological storm on the lake, but by doing so, he raises storm clouds in the minds and hearts of his disciples. Have you come face to face with this One who is sovereign even over the wind and sea? Do you know Him? 

Put your faith in Him and do not fear the storms of this life.

—

The map at the top of this post is a snapshot of a portion of the gameboard for Journeys with Jesus.

If you’ve found this interesting and would like to continue to read these stories of the journeys and places in Journeys with Jesus, sign up in the sidebar to receive updates.

Note: all scripture quotes, unless otherwise noted, are from the World English Bible which is in the public domain.

The last couple of posts have followed Jesus as He has ministered in Gentile territories, first in the region of Tyre and Sidon, and then in the region of the Decapolis. The Gospels of Mark and Matthew both record these journeys, but they handle what comes next in ways that are subtly different, so that the next journey is not exactly clear.

In Matthew’s account, the Gentiles saw Jesus’ miracles and “glorified the God of Israel” (Matthew 15:31) and then the writer immediately flows into the miraculous feeding of the 4,000 (Matthew 15:32-38). If this occurred in Decapolis, these almost definitely would be mostly Gentiles.

In Mark’s Gospel, chapter 7 ends with the miracles referenced in Matthew 15:31 (Mark 7:37) and chapter 8 begins with “In those days” (Mark 8:1), implying that the feeding of the 4,000 that follows is not immediate, but generally during the times of His ministry around the Sea of Galilee. The location is much less clear. 

In either case, this was an amazing miracle, demonstrating Jesus’ divinity and sovereignty over creation. Immediately following this miracle, Jesus and His disciples sailed across the lake to Magdala (Matthew 15:39) or the region of Dalmanutha (Mark 8:10). Dalmanutha is an otherwise unknown place. One archeologist has claimed to have found it, very near Magdala.

(Note that, in the map above from the game Journeys with Jesus, as I’ve previously mentioned, I placed Gennesaret on the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee, when in fact it was located between Magdala and Capernaum. I did this, in part, to avoid crowding it in, while maintaining the close proximity of all these towns to each other and keeping them all located on the shore of the lake. We don’t know where in Decapolis the events of Matthew 15 and Mark 7 took place, but it’s logical they would be somewhere along the coast between Bethsaida and Gadara, so the white path shown connecting Gennesaret and Magdala may actually be very close to the route of the journey from Decapolis to Magdala.)

While the location of Dalmanutha is a mystery, Magdala is fairly easy to find. Today it is called Migdal. But we probably are more familiar with the name because many scholars believe that the name Mary Magdalene means Mary from Magdala.

This Mary was one of several women who travelled with Jesus (Luke 8:1-3) and served Jesus and His apostles from their own resources. Jesus had exorcised seven demons from her. She was present at Jesus’ crucifixion (Matthew 27:55-56, Mark 15:40, John 19:25), His burial (Matthew 27:61, Mark 15:47), and was the first to see our risen Savior (Mark 16:9, Matthew 28:1, Luke 24:8-10, John 20:1-18).

As significant as Mary Magdalene is in scripture, we know little of her hometown.

(The following paragraphs include affiliate links to Amazon. If you choose to buy using these links, my company will receive a very small commission from Amazon.)

To give you a sense for my process for learning about these places, I often start with Who’s Who and Where’s Where in the Bible by Stephen Miller.  I like this book because it is easy to use, with many people and places listed alphabetically. I usually like to verify the information here from other sources, but it’s a good starting point. There are two paragraphs in this book about Magdala, with the only “new” information being the unsurprising fact that it was a fishing village.

I often next turn to Understanding the Land of the Bible by O. Palmer Robertson.  This book is almost the opposite of Miller’s book, with long narratives giving a sense of the flow of geography and land and less details about specific places. I really like how it puts everything in a context that makes sense. Unfortunately, there’s no mention of Magdala in this book.

Third, I turn to a very old copy of The Wycliffe Historical Geography of Bible Lands, which I bought at a library sale and this edition has a 1967 copyright. This one falls roughly between the two I’ve already mentioned. It is organized by region and has longer descriptions of the regions and their history, but also has entries for specific places in those regions. It has good indexes, including a Scripture Index. It often strikes me as being written from a skeptical perspective, giving more credence to secular perspectives than what we know from scripture, so again, I verify what I read there as much as I can.  This book does have a one paragraph section on Magdala, telling me that it was 2 miles north of Tiberias, was known to the Greeks as Tarichea, and was at the junction of the lake road from Tiberias and a road coming down from the western hills.

Next I turn to The Holman Bible Atlas. This book is mostly organized by biblical chronology, starting with the Old Testament and then covering the New Testament. Places that show up at different points in the Bible will show up in multiple places in this book, so it can take a little more work to pull together the information on any given place. The index lists Magdala on 4 different pages. Here we learn that the Greek name for Magdala suggests a place where fish were salted and so it was the center of the salted-fish industry for this area around the Sea of Galilee.

Finally, I turn to the ESV Bible Atlas. The first two thirds of this big book are organized like Holman, chronologically, but the last third is why I love this one – big beautiful detailed maps and a very helpful map index (with latitude and longitude coordinates). There’s one reference in the text to Magdala, but it doesn’t give me any new information.

Of course, the most important reference is the Bible itself. The search function at Bible Gateway helps me find all references to any place in dozens of different translations of the Old and New Testament.  It appears that Magdala is only mentioned once, in Matthew 15:39 (which we’ve already seen).

Let me know if you have other favorite references or ideas that might be helpful.

—

The map at the top of this post is a snapshot of a portion of the gameboard for Journeys with Jesus.

If you’ve found this interesting and would like to continue to read these stories of the journeys and places in Journeys with Jesus, sign up in the sidebar to receive updates.

Note: all scripture quotes, unless otherwise noted, are from the World English Bible which is in the public domain.