Like the title says, it has been a while since i have posted anything or written anything on my blog. I feel like it would now be a great time to start again!
Some updates for you all, I am graduated from Bethel University with my BA in Biblical and Theological Studies and I am now officially a youth pastor of the High School ministries at Woodcrest Church, along with my partner Becki Smith, we share the duties of this job! It has been the best thing that has ever happened to me! I could not of asked for anything more! I LOVE MY JOB!
Now on to the blogging! I honestly forgot how much fun this can be:)!
Okay here we go for real...So i have been learning so many different things from God over the last 6 months in my life! It has been so awesome just to have that experience in my life of how God is moving and how I can clearly see it! I think the most important thing that I have learned since graduating from college is that no matter what is going on in life and no matter what I want to do with my life it will not matter unless God is in it! God will do whatever He has to in my life to make me understand that He is who He says He is and that i need to be faithful to Him. He is taking things away that have been so important to me over the last few years and is adding things that are now becoming more important! As a youth pastor God has shown me so many different things, especially the way He can move in kids lives by just showing up on a Wednesday and playing a game of dodgeball (dodge, duck, dip, dive, and...dodge). Learning to trust God in everything is so difficult and can result in some painful times but when you get on the other side of just saying, "you know what, I have nowhere else to go but to God", He will pour out more blessings on your life than you could of ever imagined!
Some really important themes that God has brought up in my life have been fear and freedom! Granted these are two of the topics that we have spoken on in youth group but it is funny how God can use a topic that we are teaching about in youth group and put it into my life! Fearing God is so stinkin hard to understand and fully grasp but I would stand by the word and say that we need to fear Him to truly know Him! TO fear Him is to really Love him! In my study of this over the past month or so, there has been revelations abound on how God really wants us to view Him. The most important thing that I have learned from God throughout this study is the whole idea that once we come to actually fear God then we really have nothing to fear at all! Once we are truly on the side of God coming to him humbled and in fear we will fully understand that we have nothing else to fear because we have the most powerful AWESOME creator God behind us saying that we are His children whom He loves! If we look back on the Biblical times and what the Word has to say about this it is clear that God wants us to fear Him. Many times did God show Himself and guys like Moses, Abraham, Jacob, John, etc.. were actually afraid and like John talks about in Revelation 1 He collapsed at the feet of Jesus as though dead and Jesus had to reassure him not to be afraid! And a good question by Francis Chan is, "Why would we have a different response than what they did?" And he goes on to say that if we could only see God for like 5 seconds we would understand! But again I want to reiterate that once we get to this point of fearing God we will then be able to be know that there is nothing to fear because God is on our side and if God is for us, who can ever be against us? That is a great promise from our God!
To move on to some freedom talk! It is very interesting to me that freedom being such a big topic is relatively hard to break down without saying the same thing over and over! We are truly free in Christ but there has to be more right? RIGHT! There is so much more that we need to understand about the freedom that we actually have in Christ! We are not to hide behind this freedom and go on with our sinful lives and argue that we are free so it is okay. No we are to live as free people and Jesus said it best when He said that just as we freely received we are to freely give (Matt. 10:8). We are to share this awesome freedom that Christ has given us from sin and spread around to everyone in love! Man i cannot wait to keep learning about this! So interesting what God can show you in just a manner of an hour of being in his presence and reading His word!
So i leave you with this....
"If God is for us, who can stand against us?" Is that not the best thing to hear? God is on your side through everything and whenever the enemy tries to stand up against you just know that God standing next to you saying alright Koby we got this!
God bless and it was so much fun just being able to just get all of this down on something kuz my mind has been going crazy for so long that i finally just needed to share this with ya'll!
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Monday, February 7, 2011
Biblical Authorship!!!
Okay so in my class today, Biblical Seminar, we were talking about whether or not it matters if we know the author of a Biblical book.
So my question to you is do we need to know the author of the Biblical texts or does it not really matter? Here is what i think. What i think is that we don't necessarily need to know the author of a Biblical text. The books of the Bible are not meant to be about the ones that are writing it, it suppose to be about the content in the text. I also think though that from a historical aspect we need to know the author and to understand the context of where the writer is coming from it would be helpful to know about the author.
When i read the Bible i go into it reading from a standpoint of wanting to learn and wanting to get closer to God. I am not explicitly interested in knowing about the author when I read the Bible, i read it as truth and the word of God. The authors of the Gospels are actually anonymous if you look into it, besides Matthew but even his is vague. So to me that says that the authors were not concerned with saying who they were but they knew what they were doing and that the importance of there writings was not about them but about Jesus. Paul, however, does acknowledge himself multiple times in his writings but he uses himself and his life as an example of discipleship and honor and glory to God!
So what do you think? Should the author of a text be important to the writings of the text? think about i!!!
So my question to you is do we need to know the author of the Biblical texts or does it not really matter? Here is what i think. What i think is that we don't necessarily need to know the author of a Biblical text. The books of the Bible are not meant to be about the ones that are writing it, it suppose to be about the content in the text. I also think though that from a historical aspect we need to know the author and to understand the context of where the writer is coming from it would be helpful to know about the author.
When i read the Bible i go into it reading from a standpoint of wanting to learn and wanting to get closer to God. I am not explicitly interested in knowing about the author when I read the Bible, i read it as truth and the word of God. The authors of the Gospels are actually anonymous if you look into it, besides Matthew but even his is vague. So to me that says that the authors were not concerned with saying who they were but they knew what they were doing and that the importance of there writings was not about them but about Jesus. Paul, however, does acknowledge himself multiple times in his writings but he uses himself and his life as an example of discipleship and honor and glory to God!
So what do you think? Should the author of a text be important to the writings of the text? think about i!!!
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Experience!
Since being home for a couple days and actually having had time to reflect on my experienes i feel like now is a good time to post my final blog about Israel!
This trip is probably one of the best experiences of my life! I honestly had some of the most amazing experiences of my life and i couldn't of had a better trip! I will never forget the places, people, and the spiritual aspects of this trip. I have learned so much about myself and about God especially visiting a lot of Biblical sights. I have learned that I not only can do anything with God's help, i mean i went to Israel, the Holy Land, the place Jesus walked, if God can give me the funds and the transportation for something of that magnitude than anything with God is possible. I also learned that I can be my own person, and i can pretty much do anything i set my mind too! God gave me a gift to see the Holy Land and i will never take that for granted!
I learned so much about who God is and how awesome He is in the last month than i have almost my whole life! I was thinking the other day about the geographical aspect of the Bible and the actual land that Jesus and the patriarchs have gone through and lived in and it amazes me that God chose this type of terrain and area to have the setting of the Old Testament (OT) and the New Testament (NT). I think that God chose this place because if you look at it in the time of Jesus and the OT then you can see that it was very fertile and also very strategic in nature. Jerusalem is placed almost at the center of everything! That is what made me think about how God placed Jerusalem, His city, in the middle of everything, whether it was at the center of worship, military progress or just being in the middle of traffic for major traveling routes. That is just so interesting to me to think that God did that for a reason! God shows up in the most coolest places, especially in nature! Seriously the land of Israel is just beautiful! It is amazing, looking at pictures can give you the awe factor but actually being there and experiencing it gives you the Holy Crap factor, because it is just beyond words it is so beautiful! God made this beautiful land for His people, He is showing them how much He loves them by giving them this land! God shows love through nature! How awesome is that? Seriously if you don't agree just go look at the mountain someday or go to the woods, lake, plains, it is just beautiful what He has given to us! God also showed up in very unlikely situations, when i was taking communion, they were serving real wine, i didn't really want to take part in the actual wine but i was thinking that it is just a little bit and wont be too bad, but i still felt that I didn't want to do it, and as I was up there the priest took the cup and tried to give me some and it literally wouldn't go into my mouth, like i tried to drink some and it literally wouldn't go in. I am not saying that wine is bad at all, I personally just don't want to drink any and God knew that and He protected me from something I thought would be compromising to me. God is so awesome! JUST AWESOME!!! God showed up when i got hurt, I didn't get seriously injured, thank God, but to be honest i probably should of, God protected me and gave me some of the best care I have ever received from a stranger, the bus driver Khalid, that guy is pretty cool! I think God was working through Him, again God is AWESOME!!! God showed up at the sites we went to! Not a physical presence but you just knew that at those places God's presence was there, no doubt in my mind! Things that we saw and learned is truly a gift from God. So if you didn't get what i was trying to say in the last paragraph then i will say it again...GOD IS AWESOME!!! GOD IS LOVING!!! and GOD is willing to show Himself to all who are willing to open their eyes and see! If you truly want to see what God has for you, just open your eyes! Its that simple, look through the eyes of God and you will truly see what God has for you and for everyone!
Thank you everyone for being so great during this trip and praying for me and for the group, travels, professors, and so on. Thank you to everyone who read my blog, it has been so much fun to tell you about my experiences!
I am not going to get rid of my blog now that i am home i actually like being able to share stuff with all of you, this blog thing has grown on me. I will be posting at random times so check back every once in a while and there might be a new one!
God Bless and DO GOOD!!!!
This trip is probably one of the best experiences of my life! I honestly had some of the most amazing experiences of my life and i couldn't of had a better trip! I will never forget the places, people, and the spiritual aspects of this trip. I have learned so much about myself and about God especially visiting a lot of Biblical sights. I have learned that I not only can do anything with God's help, i mean i went to Israel, the Holy Land, the place Jesus walked, if God can give me the funds and the transportation for something of that magnitude than anything with God is possible. I also learned that I can be my own person, and i can pretty much do anything i set my mind too! God gave me a gift to see the Holy Land and i will never take that for granted!
I learned so much about who God is and how awesome He is in the last month than i have almost my whole life! I was thinking the other day about the geographical aspect of the Bible and the actual land that Jesus and the patriarchs have gone through and lived in and it amazes me that God chose this type of terrain and area to have the setting of the Old Testament (OT) and the New Testament (NT). I think that God chose this place because if you look at it in the time of Jesus and the OT then you can see that it was very fertile and also very strategic in nature. Jerusalem is placed almost at the center of everything! That is what made me think about how God placed Jerusalem, His city, in the middle of everything, whether it was at the center of worship, military progress or just being in the middle of traffic for major traveling routes. That is just so interesting to me to think that God did that for a reason! God shows up in the most coolest places, especially in nature! Seriously the land of Israel is just beautiful! It is amazing, looking at pictures can give you the awe factor but actually being there and experiencing it gives you the Holy Crap factor, because it is just beyond words it is so beautiful! God made this beautiful land for His people, He is showing them how much He loves them by giving them this land! God shows love through nature! How awesome is that? Seriously if you don't agree just go look at the mountain someday or go to the woods, lake, plains, it is just beautiful what He has given to us! God also showed up in very unlikely situations, when i was taking communion, they were serving real wine, i didn't really want to take part in the actual wine but i was thinking that it is just a little bit and wont be too bad, but i still felt that I didn't want to do it, and as I was up there the priest took the cup and tried to give me some and it literally wouldn't go into my mouth, like i tried to drink some and it literally wouldn't go in. I am not saying that wine is bad at all, I personally just don't want to drink any and God knew that and He protected me from something I thought would be compromising to me. God is so awesome! JUST AWESOME!!! God showed up when i got hurt, I didn't get seriously injured, thank God, but to be honest i probably should of, God protected me and gave me some of the best care I have ever received from a stranger, the bus driver Khalid, that guy is pretty cool! I think God was working through Him, again God is AWESOME!!! God showed up at the sites we went to! Not a physical presence but you just knew that at those places God's presence was there, no doubt in my mind! Things that we saw and learned is truly a gift from God. So if you didn't get what i was trying to say in the last paragraph then i will say it again...GOD IS AWESOME!!! GOD IS LOVING!!! and GOD is willing to show Himself to all who are willing to open their eyes and see! If you truly want to see what God has for you, just open your eyes! Its that simple, look through the eyes of God and you will truly see what God has for you and for everyone!
Thank you everyone for being so great during this trip and praying for me and for the group, travels, professors, and so on. Thank you to everyone who read my blog, it has been so much fun to tell you about my experiences!
I am not going to get rid of my blog now that i am home i actually like being able to share stuff with all of you, this blog thing has grown on me. I will be posting at random times so check back every once in a while and there might be a new one!
God Bless and DO GOOD!!!!
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Holocaust and Israel Museums!
So today was a pretty awesome day! It was our last real day in Israel, tomorrow we have our final exam, then we have a review of going home and then we have like a certificate thing at the end! So we now have to get ready to go but we have free days on Saturday and partially on Sunday. So I have no idea what i am going to do those two days, probably visit the house of Ciaphas (the priest that judged Jesus before he was sent to Pilate), and then who knows what, i don't two free days in Israel is hard to think about because there isnt a lot to do without spending a lot of money!
Today we went to the Museums and we first stopped at the Holocaust museum and it was so powerful and emotional. It was just heartbreaking to even think about going there because of everything that we already know about the Holocaust. I really think it was a good way to start the day but it was just so powerful, because we are in the Holy Land that is the Land of the Jews and walking around Israel you see so many people that are Jewish and then to think about them and the history of the Jewish people is very hard to comprehend. I have never been to the one in DC but i have heard that it is more of a personal experience with you and someone from the Holocaust and with the one in Israel it is so much information and if you really wanted to you could spend an entire day there just walking and listening to people tell their testimonies of what happened to them during the Holocaust. It was a very powerful way to start the day and brings you to a point of realizing that it was the worst act of humanity in history, it was terrible, and then when you hear some of the testimonies you hear about people that kept their faith, amazing. In the worst act of humanity there were people keeping their faith in a death camp like Auschwitz. That to me makes me think about how awesome God can be and that He is the ultimate, the Alpha and Omega!
Then we traveled to the Israel Museum where we saw some really cool things. To start we saw a huge replica of Jerusalem during the time of Jesus. I am not talking like a little one but it was huge! The whole thing itself had to be a couple hundred feet long and a hundred feet wide. I mean this thing was huge, i may be wrong on those numbers but it was just amazing! Then we went and saw some Dead Sea Scrolls. These were just awesome! I love seeing the Dead Sea Scrolls, i mean they are the first document we have from the Bible, that is so awesome!! Just amazing! It is so great to be able to see history like this, especially the archeological dig finds. We have talked about some of them and then saw them in person that was just awesome!
Today was a good day and this trip ended great! I am so glad i got to come here because it has been an experience of a lifetime! It is so great here! If you get a chance, come here and experience it for yourself! God can show you the most amazing things in life through nature and however He wants.
God Bless you and DO GOOD!!! I will post one more from Israel before i leave on Sunday! So stay tuned for one last blog from Israel on Sunday!!!
Today we went to the Museums and we first stopped at the Holocaust museum and it was so powerful and emotional. It was just heartbreaking to even think about going there because of everything that we already know about the Holocaust. I really think it was a good way to start the day but it was just so powerful, because we are in the Holy Land that is the Land of the Jews and walking around Israel you see so many people that are Jewish and then to think about them and the history of the Jewish people is very hard to comprehend. I have never been to the one in DC but i have heard that it is more of a personal experience with you and someone from the Holocaust and with the one in Israel it is so much information and if you really wanted to you could spend an entire day there just walking and listening to people tell their testimonies of what happened to them during the Holocaust. It was a very powerful way to start the day and brings you to a point of realizing that it was the worst act of humanity in history, it was terrible, and then when you hear some of the testimonies you hear about people that kept their faith, amazing. In the worst act of humanity there were people keeping their faith in a death camp like Auschwitz. That to me makes me think about how awesome God can be and that He is the ultimate, the Alpha and Omega!
Then we traveled to the Israel Museum where we saw some really cool things. To start we saw a huge replica of Jerusalem during the time of Jesus. I am not talking like a little one but it was huge! The whole thing itself had to be a couple hundred feet long and a hundred feet wide. I mean this thing was huge, i may be wrong on those numbers but it was just amazing! Then we went and saw some Dead Sea Scrolls. These were just awesome! I love seeing the Dead Sea Scrolls, i mean they are the first document we have from the Bible, that is so awesome!! Just amazing! It is so great to be able to see history like this, especially the archeological dig finds. We have talked about some of them and then saw them in person that was just awesome!
Today was a good day and this trip ended great! I am so glad i got to come here because it has been an experience of a lifetime! It is so great here! If you get a chance, come here and experience it for yourself! God can show you the most amazing things in life through nature and however He wants.
God Bless you and DO GOOD!!! I will post one more from Israel before i leave on Sunday! So stay tuned for one last blog from Israel on Sunday!!!
Trip to Ein Gev (Galilee area)
So for the past four days since sunday we have been in Ein Gev or Galilee however you want to see it! And when we were up there we did things such as a boat trip across the sea of Galilee, the beattitudes of Jesus (where he gave them), Caesarea, and so much more! Okay so here we go!
Jan. 16
Today we started our trip to Galilee and Ein Gev, it started out really great with the trip to Caesarea! I really liked this place because it was really fun to see the Hippordromes, those were the best. I think I liked them because of the historical things that came out of them, such as the Herod games, which was really interesting because of the mentioning of it being almost as big as the Olympics at the time! When we were in the palace that looked out over the Sea it was really cool to know that Paul was possibly in or very close to the rooms that we were in at the time! I think that really was my favorite part of the day because Paul is such a great man of God and looking up to him I see him as somebody that went through a lot for the ministry of Christ. I think that Caesarea, other than me falling in the Sea, was a really cool place. We traveled on to Megiddo and that was really cool to see because of the significance it has in the end times of being either the place where the armies of the world will meet against Jesus or where the actual battle will take place. I just think being in a place like that where it has the potential to change everything and where Jesus will gain victory over evil. I really liked this place. Then we went and visited the church in Nazareth that commemorates Mary and Jesus being there. It was cool to be in the place where Jesus grew up and where he learned how to be a kid and a person. That is really cool to me. Then we traveled to our humble abodes where we stayed in Ein Gev. The lodging was awesome to be right along side of the Galilee Sea where so many times Jesus had crossed and walked on the water and preached, it was just cool to finally get to see it and be there! At this point after seeing all of the sites of today I was getting exhausted from all the sites that we were seeing. We just go so fast through it all and then we move on, it is just hard to take it in and really soak in the moment of the facts that Jesus was there and that He preached or lived or was buried there, it is really hard to take that in fully without sitting down and just thinking about it instead of running around Israel.
Jan. 17
Today we started out in Hazor and this place was actually pretty cool. It was really big and contained a lot of people, 200 acres with roughly 20,000 people at the time that it was inhabited in the Iron age and then again during Solomon’s reign and was eventually destroyed in 732 by Tiglath Pileasar III. I really liked this place because of how big it was and because of how preserved the ruins were from this point. The lower city ruins were not really there at all because it would take almost 2000 years to complete all of it, but the ones in the upper city were just amazing! I really like that kind of stuff! Then we traveled up to Dan where we saw a really cool 6-chamber gate. Even after seeing so many of them and knowing what they look like it is still really cool to see them and just know that during jeroboam’s time these were actually in use. It was interesting to see a gate outside of the actual gate; I thought that was really interesting. It must have been from a later time period. I really liked Dan because of all the cool ruins and because of the chamber gates, I thought that was a really fun place to visit. Today was a really fun day, I love seeing all of the ruins and it made the time go so fast though. It is always hard to keep track of which day is which because of how many things like this we see. I think that if we all wanted to go into archeology it would actually work out because we now know a lot about what we are looking for, and we are usually able to tell what things are by now.
Jan. 18
On the third day we took a boat across the Sea of Galilee! That was so stinking awesome! I loved every second of it! The best part was being on the Sea where Jesus calmed the sea, walked on water, called peter on the sea and told a lot parables to His disciples while on the sea! I think that the boat ride really gave some insight to how things were back then and how the culture is now on the Sea of Galilee. We actually got a demonstration of what fishing was like on the Sea of Galilee! That was pretty cool and a couple of our guys went and pulled up the net as well. We docked at Gennasar and went in and saw and awesome ship that was recovered from the time of Jesus. This was a first century ship!! That is so amazing how they were able to preserve it. I think it was a really cool thing to see because it gave us more and more insight into what first century travel on the Sea was like. Then we traveled along the Sea shore and stopped at several sights where people believe that Jesus had either preached or taught! There was a church we stopped at that was built to commemorate the feeding of the 4 and 5 thousand. It is pretty cool to just sit back and think that we were in the place where Jesus actually performed miracles. That is just awesome to think about. Then we traveled to Capernaum, this place was just awesome! I really liked the idea that there were so many ruins there that we could see and below the synagogue there was another structure that many believe that Jesus actually taught in and there was a place where you could see the old temple! So if it is true Jesus actually was in the place that I just saw! So awesome and exciting! I just love that kind of stuff and the fact that there could be a possibility that Jesus was there. Again, it is not important though where the place Jesus actually but what He actually did!
Jan. 19
Today we were on our last day of our Ein Gev trip. It was kind of sad because the lodgings were so amazing, the food was great and everything we had seen up to this point was awesome! Today was no exception! We started out by going to Sepphoris, this place was actually really really cool! I really liked the painting things on the floor that show events or people. I think those are really cool and it helps us understand what was happening with those people at the time. They were worshipping Dionysus, the god of wine, was all over the place. The people here inhabited during the 2nd temple period so also during Jesus’ time. Sepphoris was also known as the capital of Galilee in the time it was a city. There were a lot of rich people here that Jesus did not preach too only a couple miles from His hometown. Jesus missed this place on purpose, when Dr Long was talking about the beatitudes he mentioned that Jesus was so heavy on the poor and weak and the people at Sepphoris were neither of these. The next place we traveled was back to Nazareth where we got to see a really cool view of the Jezreel Valley. It was just amazing to see the sites that Jesus was also seeing at his time!! I love that stuff He is just so revealing in everyway. Then we traveled to our last place Beth Shean. This place was awesome! There were so many ruins here that were so preserved it was amazing! There were theatres, pillars, baths, and a lot more! I was walking down to the place and started taking some pictures of this awesome site. I do my normal climbing on things and as I am getting down from one my ankle completely turns sideways and I hear something like pop but I have no idea if it is my ankle, which is killing at this point, or the rocks so I start checking to see if it is broken but I didn’t think it was so I walked about 200 yards and almost fainted from the pain. I knew it wasn’t broken but I knew it was hurt a lot! I then had to go miss out on the rest of the stuff that I could of seen but at least I am not sitting here with a broken ankle! I loved the day today, even with the bad stuff, but it was still awesome! I love all of this stuff! It is awesome!
Talk about an awesome trip!!! Everyday was something awesome! I love this place so many cool places to see and travel to!! To bad i got hurt but that is what happens when you climb on everything possible, it was almost like i am surprised i am not broken to pieces! It has been a blast and only one more day of actual stuff to blog about! I will post that later tonight!
God Bless and do GOOD!!!
Friday, January 14, 2011
Field trip to Arad!
We had a three day, two night field trip to Arad this past week and being there we saw some really cool sights!!
Day one:
We traveled a little ways down to Judah where we studied in Lachish and Beth Guvrin valleys, then we went down to the shephelah. The shephelah is also called the lowland because of how low it is in the spot that it is placed. We first stopped at Moresha, where we saw some really really awesome sights. There we saw like really old wine presses that still had wood in them, super cool. Then we stopped at this tomb in Moresha where there were at least 20 graves. It was really cool to step down into a tomb area with a bunch of animal carvings on the wall and know that people had been buried there, kind of creepy actually. In Lachish we saw a really cool mountain city/fortress. But in 586 BCE it was destroyed by Sennacharib, we didnt go up to this sight but we were able to take some pictures of it from below. This spot was pretty cool because from our view you could see the place where Sennacharib had built a ramp to get to the city of Lachish. He then attacked via the ramp and eventually overwhelmed and destroyed Lachish. It is also really interesting that in the palace of Sennacharib there were drawings or paintings of him laying siege to these people, so you can see how prideful he was when he destroyed the Israelites. We then traveled down to Ashkelon, and there we saw an archway that was probably in use the time of Abraham and Sarah, that is like 2000BCE, that is so awesome. I probably walked through an archway that Abraham and Sarah also did! That is just cool. At Ashkelon we got to swim in the Mediterranean Sea, that was really cool but it was so cold so i didn't stay in very long at all, but we also, as a group, built sand castle city of basically every major thing we had seen so far, it was so awesome!!! Our professors marveled in it! It was a good day. We then traveled to Arad where we spent the night. We went out on the tow that night and we visited the mall but seriously the mall was literally a seven minute walk through and then nothing was there it was so boring!!! All the sights that we saw were very cool and i learned a lot!! SO interesting!
Day two:
On the second day of our field trip we went to a place just outside of Arad and there we got to see the remains of this really cool fortress and a town below it!It just amazes me how people are able to keep these places from such a long time ago and then we are able to go and see how things were back in the day! I just love seeing the ruins! The best part of the Arad Iron age fortress and the early bronze age town was just the fact that at some point people lived here and then seeing their structures and how life was to them is just amazing to me!!! It was really cool to see the fortress especially because i really like the fortresses we have been to because of the idea that there were soldiers here. There was probably someone really important that might of stayed there once or twice. Also because a fortress was not only built for war but it was built to protect trade routes, goods and water. We then traveled down to Beer-sheba! This was the name of the town back in the day of the Bible and i can not remember the name of it now. At this place we actually got to walk through a city that had been there. It was really cool because the city streets had their original outline so you could see where things would lead to. We found out that in Beer-sheba people were actually using a four-room style house, with a main room, bedrooms, and store room. That was really interesting! My favorite part of Beer-sheba though had to be the water tunnels, they were actually preserved and we got to walk through them. The things that these people built that long ago were so sophisticated and seems ahead of their time. These water systems and cisterns were 20 feet belong ground and probably further, so imagine trying to chizel away with a tiny pick ax, it just blows my mind what these people were able to accomplish. The last place we went to that day was called Avdat! Avdat was a military base for the Romans and also had a lot of byzantine stuff as well. Most of the stuff on the surface was Byzantine, like the churches and wine presses, and then there was a military camp just south of the main area. At the military camp you could see that they built that to protect the valley below and also their water source, just very interesting stuff! I said that was the last place but our professor surprised us with another place and just before the sun went down we traveled to this place called the Super Bowl! The Super Bowl is basically a huge hole in the ground caused by erosion of the ridges. This place was so awesome to see and take pics of! It was just amazing of how big it was! We got back to the hotel and played about two hours worth of charades! IT was a blast! Best charades i have ever played.
Day three:
This was the last day of trip we went to the Dead Sea! We made our first stop in Masada which was really cool! Herod had built another palace on top of this huge mountain and you can actually see where his troops built a ramp to get up to Masada from the ground because it was a legit mountain. If you don't know anything about Masada what happened there was a city for jews and when Herod took over he built a ramp up to Masada and was going to storm the city and kill everyone and rape the women, so the Jews there decided to rather kill themselves than let Herod have the pleasure. So each man took his family and killed them and himself and it was a mass suicide as Josephus puts it. Herod then built one of his amazing palaces on top of this place and you can actually still see were a lot of his stuff was it was pretty extravagant. The next place we went was to En-gedi, and while at en-gedi we got to swim in the Dead Sea! It was one of the coolest things i have ever done! You literally float in the dead sea, it is so cool! It is like you are sitting in a lounge chair, coolest thing! But when it is all done you feel slimy and gross! But then we trekked up another valley close to the dead sea and got to swim in some fresh water under a waterfall! It was absolutely beautiful! So awesome!!!! The last stop of the day that we made was to Qumran, for those who do not know, Qumran is the place where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found! I thought this was going to be the best part of the entire trip, i had gone to see the Dead Sea Scrolls in Minnesota at the museum and i was super excited to be able to explore some caves and look around a bit, but that wasn't the case. We were there maybe 25 mins. before they announced that we had to leave. It was kind of a bummer because i will probably never get to go back and i wanted that time to go and explore some caves or just look around for stuff! I just expected a different experience than the one that i had! But it was a really good day! If not for the ending it would of been the best day by far! The Dead Sea was amazing and the waterfall was beautiful! Even though we didnt have a lot of time to go and explore at Qumran i still think it was a highlight of the trip because of the history of the place of Qumran. I really liked this day! It was awesome!!
So to wrap it up! It was a good three days, sorry i wasn't able to keep up with the blogs i was just so exhausted after each day! But they are all done now! Today is a free day so just going to bum around and study a bit for my test tomorrow!
I have learned that God can make Himself known is some of the best ways. We climbed this valley that was very steep and when we reached the top it was so amazing! The scenery was just spectacular! WE were all just in awe of what God has created! At that moment our whole team gathered around in a circle and we prayed! We just thanked God for this awesome trip and the place that we were! We knew that He was watching over us and just smiling at that moment! God is GOOD!!!!!! We thanked Him for all of the people back home praying for us and thinking about us because that means so much to all of us that we have people who care enough to send blessings upon us from the US! So thank you all of you for thinking and praying for our trip so far! It has been amazing and God is definitely opening our eyes and answering the prayers of us and you guys! Thank you so much!
God Bless and DO GOOD!!!
Day one:
We traveled a little ways down to Judah where we studied in Lachish and Beth Guvrin valleys, then we went down to the shephelah. The shephelah is also called the lowland because of how low it is in the spot that it is placed. We first stopped at Moresha, where we saw some really really awesome sights. There we saw like really old wine presses that still had wood in them, super cool. Then we stopped at this tomb in Moresha where there were at least 20 graves. It was really cool to step down into a tomb area with a bunch of animal carvings on the wall and know that people had been buried there, kind of creepy actually. In Lachish we saw a really cool mountain city/fortress. But in 586 BCE it was destroyed by Sennacharib, we didnt go up to this sight but we were able to take some pictures of it from below. This spot was pretty cool because from our view you could see the place where Sennacharib had built a ramp to get to the city of Lachish. He then attacked via the ramp and eventually overwhelmed and destroyed Lachish. It is also really interesting that in the palace of Sennacharib there were drawings or paintings of him laying siege to these people, so you can see how prideful he was when he destroyed the Israelites. We then traveled down to Ashkelon, and there we saw an archway that was probably in use the time of Abraham and Sarah, that is like 2000BCE, that is so awesome. I probably walked through an archway that Abraham and Sarah also did! That is just cool. At Ashkelon we got to swim in the Mediterranean Sea, that was really cool but it was so cold so i didn't stay in very long at all, but we also, as a group, built sand castle city of basically every major thing we had seen so far, it was so awesome!!! Our professors marveled in it! It was a good day. We then traveled to Arad where we spent the night. We went out on the tow that night and we visited the mall but seriously the mall was literally a seven minute walk through and then nothing was there it was so boring!!! All the sights that we saw were very cool and i learned a lot!! SO interesting!
Day two:
On the second day of our field trip we went to a place just outside of Arad and there we got to see the remains of this really cool fortress and a town below it!It just amazes me how people are able to keep these places from such a long time ago and then we are able to go and see how things were back in the day! I just love seeing the ruins! The best part of the Arad Iron age fortress and the early bronze age town was just the fact that at some point people lived here and then seeing their structures and how life was to them is just amazing to me!!! It was really cool to see the fortress especially because i really like the fortresses we have been to because of the idea that there were soldiers here. There was probably someone really important that might of stayed there once or twice. Also because a fortress was not only built for war but it was built to protect trade routes, goods and water. We then traveled down to Beer-sheba! This was the name of the town back in the day of the Bible and i can not remember the name of it now. At this place we actually got to walk through a city that had been there. It was really cool because the city streets had their original outline so you could see where things would lead to. We found out that in Beer-sheba people were actually using a four-room style house, with a main room, bedrooms, and store room. That was really interesting! My favorite part of Beer-sheba though had to be the water tunnels, they were actually preserved and we got to walk through them. The things that these people built that long ago were so sophisticated and seems ahead of their time. These water systems and cisterns were 20 feet belong ground and probably further, so imagine trying to chizel away with a tiny pick ax, it just blows my mind what these people were able to accomplish. The last place we went to that day was called Avdat! Avdat was a military base for the Romans and also had a lot of byzantine stuff as well. Most of the stuff on the surface was Byzantine, like the churches and wine presses, and then there was a military camp just south of the main area. At the military camp you could see that they built that to protect the valley below and also their water source, just very interesting stuff! I said that was the last place but our professor surprised us with another place and just before the sun went down we traveled to this place called the Super Bowl! The Super Bowl is basically a huge hole in the ground caused by erosion of the ridges. This place was so awesome to see and take pics of! It was just amazing of how big it was! We got back to the hotel and played about two hours worth of charades! IT was a blast! Best charades i have ever played.
Day three:
This was the last day of trip we went to the Dead Sea! We made our first stop in Masada which was really cool! Herod had built another palace on top of this huge mountain and you can actually see where his troops built a ramp to get up to Masada from the ground because it was a legit mountain. If you don't know anything about Masada what happened there was a city for jews and when Herod took over he built a ramp up to Masada and was going to storm the city and kill everyone and rape the women, so the Jews there decided to rather kill themselves than let Herod have the pleasure. So each man took his family and killed them and himself and it was a mass suicide as Josephus puts it. Herod then built one of his amazing palaces on top of this place and you can actually still see were a lot of his stuff was it was pretty extravagant. The next place we went was to En-gedi, and while at en-gedi we got to swim in the Dead Sea! It was one of the coolest things i have ever done! You literally float in the dead sea, it is so cool! It is like you are sitting in a lounge chair, coolest thing! But when it is all done you feel slimy and gross! But then we trekked up another valley close to the dead sea and got to swim in some fresh water under a waterfall! It was absolutely beautiful! So awesome!!!! The last stop of the day that we made was to Qumran, for those who do not know, Qumran is the place where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found! I thought this was going to be the best part of the entire trip, i had gone to see the Dead Sea Scrolls in Minnesota at the museum and i was super excited to be able to explore some caves and look around a bit, but that wasn't the case. We were there maybe 25 mins. before they announced that we had to leave. It was kind of a bummer because i will probably never get to go back and i wanted that time to go and explore some caves or just look around for stuff! I just expected a different experience than the one that i had! But it was a really good day! If not for the ending it would of been the best day by far! The Dead Sea was amazing and the waterfall was beautiful! Even though we didnt have a lot of time to go and explore at Qumran i still think it was a highlight of the trip because of the history of the place of Qumran. I really liked this day! It was awesome!!
So to wrap it up! It was a good three days, sorry i wasn't able to keep up with the blogs i was just so exhausted after each day! But they are all done now! Today is a free day so just going to bum around and study a bit for my test tomorrow!
I have learned that God can make Himself known is some of the best ways. We climbed this valley that was very steep and when we reached the top it was so amazing! The scenery was just spectacular! WE were all just in awe of what God has created! At that moment our whole team gathered around in a circle and we prayed! We just thanked God for this awesome trip and the place that we were! We knew that He was watching over us and just smiling at that moment! God is GOOD!!!!!! We thanked Him for all of the people back home praying for us and thinking about us because that means so much to all of us that we have people who care enough to send blessings upon us from the US! So thank you all of you for thinking and praying for our trip so far! It has been amazing and God is definitely opening our eyes and answering the prayers of us and you guys! Thank you so much!
God Bless and DO GOOD!!!
Monday, January 10, 2011
First exam and Free afternoon!
It is Monday Jan. 10 already, that is just insane, i have been here a week already! WOW!!!
So today we had our first exam, going into it i was a little worried to be honest, but i found out that this test was not that bad and i think i did pretty good on it!!! So that was a good, and early, start to the day. Then we had a two hour lecture on what we will be going into this coming couple of days.
Tomorrow we will be traveling to Arad, this is in southern part of Israel and we will be staying over there for two nights and then returning to lovely Jerusalem! I am pretty excited for this trip especially on the last day because we are going to Qumran. For those of you who don't know the significance of this then you were obviously living in solitude for the last 70 years or something because in the 1940s at the Qumran sight the Dead Sea scrolls were found! This is possibly one of the greatest discoveries of all time, because of the fact that it gave us a lot of text from the Bible! It is the most important textual find in the history of findings in my book! Then we will be able to actually swim in the Dead Sea, that is going to be awesome!!! I cant wait for that, should be very...interesting to say the least!
After lecture today we had a free day all day so seven of us set out on a journey to see the other sight that claims Jesus was crucified and buried there instead of at the Holy Sepulcher. This place is called the Garden Tomb. In the 1800s some time late, this guy named Gordon looked out his hotel window and saw a face on the side of the rock! From that point on scholars have argued that below that spot Jesus was crucified there, and just 200 feet from there is a tomb inside of a garden, hence Garden Tomb, and that is said to be the tomb of Jesus. They say this because the man, Joseph of Aramathea, the one who asked Pilate to bury Jesus, was a very rich man and they found that at the spot of the tomb there was a garden owned by a very rich man around the time of Jesus! Now whether or not this is the real tomb of Jesus or the Holy sepulcher, which has its historical roots from the mid 100s AD, it doesn't really matter. Like the guy that was guiding us today, whether or not we believe where the tomb is it shouldn't make us feel any different about Jesus! We should love Him no matter what. Just because one place has a whole bunch of shriney things, the Holy Sepulcher, or the Garden tomb, doesn't mean that we can have more closeness to Jesus if we know where He was crucified. We shouldn't worship the places Jesus was but the man that Jesus was! We need to follow the one who saved every single one of us from sin because that is all that matters!
Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength! Love Him for who He is and not where He has been!
God Bless! DO GOOD!!!
So today we had our first exam, going into it i was a little worried to be honest, but i found out that this test was not that bad and i think i did pretty good on it!!! So that was a good, and early, start to the day. Then we had a two hour lecture on what we will be going into this coming couple of days.
Tomorrow we will be traveling to Arad, this is in southern part of Israel and we will be staying over there for two nights and then returning to lovely Jerusalem! I am pretty excited for this trip especially on the last day because we are going to Qumran. For those of you who don't know the significance of this then you were obviously living in solitude for the last 70 years or something because in the 1940s at the Qumran sight the Dead Sea scrolls were found! This is possibly one of the greatest discoveries of all time, because of the fact that it gave us a lot of text from the Bible! It is the most important textual find in the history of findings in my book! Then we will be able to actually swim in the Dead Sea, that is going to be awesome!!! I cant wait for that, should be very...interesting to say the least!
After lecture today we had a free day all day so seven of us set out on a journey to see the other sight that claims Jesus was crucified and buried there instead of at the Holy Sepulcher. This place is called the Garden Tomb. In the 1800s some time late, this guy named Gordon looked out his hotel window and saw a face on the side of the rock! From that point on scholars have argued that below that spot Jesus was crucified there, and just 200 feet from there is a tomb inside of a garden, hence Garden Tomb, and that is said to be the tomb of Jesus. They say this because the man, Joseph of Aramathea, the one who asked Pilate to bury Jesus, was a very rich man and they found that at the spot of the tomb there was a garden owned by a very rich man around the time of Jesus! Now whether or not this is the real tomb of Jesus or the Holy sepulcher, which has its historical roots from the mid 100s AD, it doesn't really matter. Like the guy that was guiding us today, whether or not we believe where the tomb is it shouldn't make us feel any different about Jesus! We should love Him no matter what. Just because one place has a whole bunch of shriney things, the Holy Sepulcher, or the Garden tomb, doesn't mean that we can have more closeness to Jesus if we know where He was crucified. We shouldn't worship the places Jesus was but the man that Jesus was! We need to follow the one who saved every single one of us from sin because that is all that matters!
Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength! Love Him for who He is and not where He has been!
God Bless! DO GOOD!!!
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