For the majority of my tour, I saw Jewish, rather than Christian sights. I was happy with this, because, (as previous diary entries have indicated) being connected to the land and to my Jewish roots has been a thrill beyond imagination, tapping hidden resources deep in the makeup of my very being, untouched, and awaiting the perfect moment God had decreed to bring them to life.
Still, as time went on, I did begin to crave some Christian sights. With my brother and his wife, we spent some time up in Galilee where Jesus gave the Sermon on the Mount, walked on water, calmed the storm, multiplied the fish and the loaves, etc. We saw a recovered ancient two deck boat, dated to be some two-thousand years old. This could even have been one of the boats Jesus sailed on with his disciples. I also loved the thorough remains of a Jewish synagogue in Capernaum, the very synagogue Jesus attended. Close by, were the archaeological skeletons of an ancient house, alleged to be the home of Simon Peter. Much as I would love to believe that, I try to be objective on these tours. It seemed suspiciously coincidental that Peter would just happen to have his place of residence right across the street from the synagogue! But none of this takes away from the fascination. If this was not Peter’s home, his real home looked similar and would not have been far off. In the same vein, if that was not Jesus’ boat, his own boat would have looked the same. Objectivity need not suppress religious/historical discovery.
One day later, when my brother needed to get back to work, I hired the same guide to take me to additional Christian sights; Garden Tomb, Mt. Golgotha, Garden of Gethsemane, etc. He was Jewish, but familiar with all the Christian places, as he’d been driving a variety of tourists around for many years.
Even though I do a lot in the area of evangelism and apologetics with major presentations, debates, dramas, etc, in one on one conversation, I never force the gospel upon those who do not care to hear it. In fact, I don’t even bring it up at all. If they ask me, that is another story. My Jewish guide did finally pose some questions. He had already heard (from my brother, evidently) that I converted to Christianity while in my youth, and he was curious to know why I, as a Jew, decided to follow Jesus. I told him the story, how my brother and I had been raised in a liberal home, (the Reformed Jewish sect) by parents who claimed to be atheists at the time. I became a Christian as a result of a supernatural experience with God while in my second year of college. Not long afterwards, Paul went to Israel for six months to work on a kibbutz, but then, through a comedy of errors (or divine providence) ended up at a rabbinical seminary (yeshiva) and returned home as an Orthodox Jew. My guide found it intriguing that despite our upbringing, we still became seriously religious, each so zealous and so committed in his own way, even though our beliefs traveled in opposite directions.
“One thing I just have to ask you,” he said. “How can you as a Christian take something like the Virgin Birth seriously?”
“Well,” I answered, “Is that really any more miraculous than some of the things you accept as a Jew? Look at the parting of the Red Sea.”
“But that can be explained naturally,” he replied.
“Yes, I’ve heard that argument,” I responded quickly, before he even gave the argument, “ I know there is a place along the Sea of Reeds with shallow waters that natural winds were known to push back, from time to time, but if that was what the Bible meant, we would then have an even greater miracle: How did such shallow water drown a whole army of Egyptian charioteers?”
He nodded and laughed.
I then continued: “But as for scientific explanations, I do not believe the Bible is talking about some kind of magic when it reports miracles. It’s just that man does not yet understand everything about science. If past generations could look ahead and see a rocket ship or a cell phone or computer screen, those wonders would look very miraculous to them. Likewise, a thousand years from now, we realize people will do things that will absolutely baffle our minds but we assume they will do it by harnessing some newly discovered scientific laws. If people can do that someday, why can’t God, who established all scientific law, do it right now?”
My words seemed to make sense to the tour guide. But for the most part, this was my day to learn. And so we continued the tour.
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