The Chronic-What?-cles of Samaria

Samaria

Our adventures today were mostly centered around Samaria and the Sharon Plain. This is north west of Jerusalem, but south of Mt Carmel. We saw many thought provoking, sites that made you dwell on the glory of God, and the plan that God had to save the world. To start the day we headed straight to Shiloh. Shiloh has two major biblical passages that we looked at so that we could understand the events. First, we need to look at Joshua 18:1-10, 19:51. This passage is where the Tabernacle of the Lord, where the Ark of the Covenant and the table with the showbread, and the altar of incense all stayed. The Tabernacle was set up at Shiloh and the Israelites came there for the apportioning of the territories. Shiloh also remained an important center from this time through the period of the judges.
The Tabernacle would logically be placed at the north end of the city because of the geography. There are valleys that run behind the city and on the side. But more importantly there is some biblical evidence for that. In I Samuel 1-4, when the news that the Ark had been captured, Eli the Priest heard all of the commotion down in the city. So we can assume from that, that the way into the city would have been from the south. And with the layout of the land, this is most probable. And as the story goes, Eli was extremely fat because he was taking the Lord’s fat portion, and when he heard the news, he fell backwards broke his neck and died.
Also in I Samuel we have the story of Hannah, a barren woman who prays to the Lord for a child. When she was praying close to the Tabernacle, Eli the Priest thought that she was drunk for she was praying while just moving her lips and not an audible prayer. Hannah prays for a son and says that she would dedicate him to the Lord. So when God answered her prayer, she gave birth to Samuel, and after he was weaned she dedicated him to the Lord and he grew up to be a judge.
After Shiloh, we made our way to Mt Gerezim with a view down to Shechem and across the valley Mt Ebal. This is the site that impacted me the most. In our Life of Christ class we had just covered the beginning of Jesus’ ministry and one of the first things He does on His whirlwind tour of Israel, He stops in Shechem. During this stop, Jesus talks to a Samaritan woman, and asks her for some water. He continues to tell her that He is the living water, and later in the conversation, claims to be the Messiah. To see the place where this exchange of words happened was unreal to me. I couldn’t stop thinking about how clear Jesus was when He said that He was the Messiah. Because He was so clear, the woman and many more came to be saved in that village. Sometimes I think about how many people would just believe because the message is so clear. I ask myself, “Why don’t they believe? It is so clear!!!” But then I have to remind myself that I did not believe, and the only reason I do believe now is because Christ opened my eyes to the truth.
Soon after that, we went to Caesarea, the port town that Herod the Great built up. This was a beautiful beach city. This is where Paul was brought and shipped out to Rome from. There is some argument that this is where Paul wrote the prison epistles. This is also the place where Herod Agrippa, in Acts 12, was persecuting Christians. James had already been killed at the time and Peter was in prison. And after he made a speech God allowed him to die… a harsh death.
Hospitality can be summed up in one word: Naiel. This is the name of our bus driver who is an Arab believer in Jesus the Messiah. After a long, long day, we are talking thirteen hours, he invited us over for dinner at his house. Feeding one family of eight is an undertaking, but feeding 50 people is something that people don’t just beg to do every day! But he was kind enough to bring us all to his house and make us all dinner. We had some Arab pizza, and fresh pita with chicken. It was very good. Naiel is the man, and we are all thankful for him and his hospitality to us by showing us God’s love in that way. So thank you.


And I'm sorry that there are not any pictures on here. I tried 3 times to put some up but there was some sort of error.