War and Peace

We begin our next to last day by ascending to an old Israeli war bunker. This site was near the disputed Golan Heights near the Syrian border. We climb down into a fortified steel bunker and see the maps for planning war strategy affixed to the wall. I was fascinated by this because I am not some war obsessed boy and all of this stuff is pretty new to me. We climbed to the top of the bunker and lookout over the gun turrets that were up there. This is now a tourist site with a great coffee house with a stellar view.
After this we go to another ancient fortress named Nimrod. At the entrance was a cool stone carving of a lion in one of the rocks. There were two lookout towers and a deep cistern. Tiffany and I climbed one of the towers and took pictures. We relaxed there and watched a lizard climbing along the rocks. The site also had a secret exit that was carved into the rock and was only visible if you were on that side of the fortress.

One of the most refreshing sites of the trip was Cesarea Philipi. This was the place of Peter's great confession in Matthew 16. Dr. V taught that he believes that the "Rock" that the church will be built upon is Peter himself. He asked the question: "If Catholics did not believe what they do about Peter from this passage, how would we then interpret it?" I tend to agree although I don't think we need to choose between the options. What if Jesus was implying all?

The site contained a waterfall and a temple for Zeus an interesting pairing. Tiffany challenges me to climb onto this tree limb over the water. I wouldn't go for it but still insists to this day that we would have...yeah right.

Another nice surprise of the trip was the shaded Tel Dan forest preserve. It was a nice walk over the rocks and streams picking our way through some trees along the way. At the Dan there was a cultic temple. This provided a good background for Wechsler to teach on the true God. 1 Kings 12:25 mentions the temple and then the nation begins to divide. Dr W. talked about what makes proper worship. He answers a good question: Do Jews worship the same God as we do? This is interesting knowing that we share the same Old Testament. Jesus himself deals with this issue in John 8. The answer is simply no. God is made up in there inseparable persons. You cannot worship one and not the other two. Jesus agrees with this in the passage I just mentioned. The men at Tuesday Bible Study wrestled with this question for weeks. It was fun.