Israel Trip Day 6
Thursday 3/8/18
This morning we started our day at the Mount of Beatitudes! We enjoyed David Phelps singing again as he sang a beautiful rendition of “It is Well With My Soul.” Then Chuck Swindoll shared a fabulous message about the Beatitudes! It was all very moving & meaningful! God provided a beautiful day & it was easy to imagine Jesus as he talked with the people about these beatitudes! Our lesson in all this is that we need to trust God & not worry about things!
From here we continued on to St. Peter’s Primacy! This church recalls Jesus restoration of Peter after Jesus resurrection! This rocky shoreline is where Jesus asked Peter to “feed my lambs!” The church is built on a huge rock! This same place is thought to be where Jesus first called the disciples from their fishing boat to follow him!
After this we traveled to Nazareth for a quick stop through a model first century depiction of the Nazareth that Jesus would have experienced growing up! This village included a working farm with livestock & crops! We saw a working olive press & a carpenter’s shop & a weaver’s loom! Next we went to lunch at a hotel in Nazareth! Here we had the opportunity after eating to ask Chuck Swindoll any questions we had for him! It was very interesting to here his answers to the questions! I’ll tell you more about this when we get home! As we left Nazareth we saw the cliff where the townspeople wanted to push Jesus off as they rejected him as the Messiah!
From here we traveled to Capernaum for a quick stop as we were running late for the next two stops! We learned that Jesus performed several miracles here—see Matthew 8:5-13, Mark 2:1-13 & 5:22-24 & 35-43, & John 4:46-54, & Matthew 8:14-15. This is also the place where Jesus called the fishermen Peter, Andrew, James, & John to be his disciples! He also called Matthew, the tax collector to be his disciple from the city of Capernaum!
We hurried back to the bus to get to the boat museum where they had an actual boat that had been found & preserved from Jesus’ time! We saw a short movie on how they had discovered it & how they preserved it for this museum!
Next it was our turn to board “The Faith Boat” to travel out onto the Sea of Galilee! Once all the boats were out there in the middle of the sea, we enjoyed a time of worship with singing & praising God! Chuck had another message for us about how the storm blew up while Jesus was sleeping & just as he talked about it a storm began blowing in! We headed back to shore shortly after his message as the Sea was beginning to get rough! We walked to dinner after this where we enjoyed another delicious meal! Afterwards we enjoyed another portrayal of the man named Legion who had many demons cast out of him & into the pigs! It was a very moving presentation! We headed back to our hotel to finish packing as we leave Tiberius early tomorrow morning! As you can see we had a very full day & are looking forward to another great day tomorrow as we travel into God’s holy city of Jerusalem!