Around the Galilee with NETS

During the month of November, Nazareth Evangelical Theological Seminary and Galilee Bible College organized three day trips in and around the Galilee Region. These were led by the Rev Dr Kamal Farah, an Anglican minister who is an expert in the biblical history and the geography of the Holy Land.

The trips were organized to include students, pastors and leaders, and 40 of them took part in the trips. Pastor Kamal gave some very interesting insights from his vast knowledge of the history of the Holy Land, and also led devotional Bible Studies relevant to each site.

The first trip was a visit to the Biblical sites around Tiberias and the Sea of Galilee, including Tabgha, Capernaum and the Mount of Beatitudes. This trip covered the teaching and ministry of Jesus described in Mathew 5-12. Visiting the places where Jesus spent days in prayer, fed the crowds, healed the sick, taught and preached was very much inspiring.

The second trip was a local visit to Nazareth churches, recalling the story of the Annunciation and parts of Jesus’ ministry in Nazareth. From there we drove to Mount Precipice, a place that overlooks several Biblical sites from both Old and New Testaments. This was followed by a visit to the Wedding Church at Cana. We then went to the archaeological site of Sepphoris, the city that Herod Antipas was building during the childhood of Jesus, and which according to tradition is the hometown of the Virgin Mary.

The third trip was a visit to the dramatic cliffs of Mount Arbel, to the recently excavated site of Magdala, both by the Sea of Galilee, and finally to Banias – the site of Caesarea Philippi. We managed to combine this trip with a visit to the local Druze market to buy their fruit and produce.

Many of those who attended really enjoyed this combination of teaching, prayer, visiting the sites, some of which were situated in National Parks, and of learning new things about these special places.

MWOP 2:3, "Caesarea and the Mission of God"

NETS is please to share with your third Occasional Paper for 2013: Caesarea and the Mission of God.

Download the file by clicking here.

Here is the Abstract:

The article explores the theological significance of a location, what is today the impressive archeological site of Caesarea Maritima. In the Book of Acts, Caesarea, as the primary setting for the story of Peter and Cornelius, becomes a critical pivot in Luke’s unfolding story both of the movement of the Gospel from Jerusalem to Rome and of the transformation of the latter-days community of Messiah from a Jewish-only movement into a multi-ethnic family, a Jew-Gentile New Creation. The article emphasizes the literary patterns and devices Luke uses to present and reinforce the message of the universal Kingdom, especially in the Cornelius story. As the apostles proclaim the crucified-and-risen Jewish Messiah across boundaries of election, religion, ethnicity, and history, the Kingdom of God comes and the healing of a primordially fractured world begins.

According to ancient prophecy, though contrary to the expectations of many, the cosmic promises to Abraham, the enacting of a new covenant, and the emergence of a New Creation are actively realized when not only Jews, but also Gentiles, are incorporated as one chosen people of God in Christ. In the New Testament, this culturally, even spiritually, jarring transformation is central to the story of salvation, even to the eternal design of God. Peter’s experience in Caesarea is a microcosm of that reality; Caesarea becomes the site of a key breakthrough, if only in kernel form, in the expansion of the Good News and the eschatological reign of Jesus into the nations, to the ends of the earth. 

And Keywords:

Caesarea / Cornelius / early church / Gentile inclusion / Luke-Acts / narrative design / Peter / Salvation-History / typology

Christianity in Palestine: Lecture 6, Constantine and Helena

Lecture 6_Constantine and Helena

Constantine, a controversial figure, was influential for the development of Christianity after the 4th Century. In relation to Palestinian Christianity, Helena, his mother, was equally important but in a different way, as the one whose mission to the Holy Land would lay out the basic map of holy places for all future generations, including ours.

Lecturer: Duane Alexander Miller Botero

Assigned Reading: St Constantine the Great: an Orthodox perspective by Marina Shelley Havach