Submitted by rondowney on Sun, 02/05/2012 - 11:40 from Ron Downey - Dean of Asia, View Original Posting
After a long journey and a short night in Manila we have arrived in Naga City. It certainly has been a place of Mabuhay…Welcome! Our journey began with the long flight from San Francisco to Manila via Seoul, Korea. We landed in Manila at midnight and got a quick 5 hours sleep before heading here to Naga City. Naga is the southernmost school our four in Luzon (the North Island of the three major island groups in the Philippines). It is a place of great beauty and fertile farm land. They grow mostly rice and plant and harvest it the old fashioned way…with hands and plows pulled by water buffalo. The Bicol region (like our counties) is also home to many volcanoes and mountainous areas.
Submitted by Sunset Alumni on Sat, 01/14/2012 - 15:42 from Lanny Partain, View Original Posting
After spending the night in the lovely Dan Panorama Hotel in Tel Aviv, we will begin our day in near-by Jaffa, the modern location of the ancient Biblical city of Joppa.
Key Biblical events:
1. The entry point for the Cedars of Lebanon that were floated down the Mediterranean for both the first and second Temple. 2 Chronicles 2:16 and Ezra 3:7
2. The place Jonah went to board a ship headed for Tarshish when God asked him to go in the opposite direction to Nineveh. Jonah 1:3
Herod the (not so) Great, a descendent of Esau, was appointed by the Roman Senate to be King of Judea. His number one job was to keep Caesar happy and to that end he built Caesarea Maritima, naming it in honor of his benefactor Augustus. He started building it about 22 BC and completed it around 9 BC.
The city was a center for Roman administration and offered Roman amenities such as a theatre, a sea wall, harbor, hippodrome, bath houses, a palace for Herod, and a governor’s palace. The city was built with underground sewer systems.
There was very little fresh water since there was little to no rainfall. Therefore, Herod erected a raised aqueduct (which we will see) that ran for 8 miles transporting fresh water from the natural springs on Mt. Carmel to the city.
Carmel is a mountain range. The name is from two Hebrew words: El for God and karm for vineyard, thus “God’s Vineyard.”
I Samuel 15:12 – Samuel went to find Saul and was told that he had gone to Carmel to set up a monument to himself.
I Samuel 25:40 – Abigail, who talked David out of killing her ill-tempered husband after Nabal insulted David, and later became David’s wife after Nabal died, lived at Carmel.
We gather now on a hill (“har”) named Migiddo (Har-Magedon; Armageddon) that seems to be the place John envisioned in Revelation 16:12-16 as the site of the final conflict. It is certainly a fitting symbol of such an event since it is the scene of over 100 significant battles.
Originally occupied by the Canaanites 5,000 years ago, it has been the battle ground of Pharaoh Thutmose III of Egypt, Joshua, Jehu, Deborah, Solomon, Shishak of Egypt, Pharaoh Neco, Christian Crusaders, Napoleon Bonaparte, and, in this century, General Allenby as he drove out the Turks, to name a few.
Scythopolis (Bet She’an) was one of the 10 cities that formed the Greek Decapolis. They were grouped together because of their language, culture, location, and political status. The Decapolis cities in Jesus’ time were centers of Greek and Roman culture in a region that was otherwise Semitic. The original city may be as much as 7,000 years old. It has been conquered and re-conquered many times.
Matthew 4:25, Mark 5:20, and Mark 7:31 make reference to the Decapolis region in relation to Jesus’ ministry. Jesus probably had more contact with Gentiles in these areas than anywhere He went. This would account for the herd of pigs being present that Jesus sent the evil spirit Legion into (Mark 5) since Jews would not have been raising them.
Joshua 17:26 Bet She’an was inhabited by the Canaanites that Manasseh failed to drive out.
