An Unforgettable Journey

In May, my wife Candy and I visited the lands of the Bible for the first time. We were accompanied by our tour leader, Standard Publishing's Eileen Wilmoth, and 32 other travelers from across America.

There are several reasons I'm glad we took this trip. For one thing, our time in Egypt, Israel, and Greece reaffirmed the historical reality of God's Word. We took a boat ride on the Nile River, and recalled how Moses' mother put him into a papyrus basket and trusted her child to the care of God. Traveling through the hot, dusty desert of Sinai in our air-conditioned tour bus, we gained new appreciation for the hardships the Israelites endured during their 40 years of wandering. We visited the Sea of Galilee, where Jesus performed his first miracle. When aggressive merchants tried to sell us their wares in the crowded streets of Jerusalem, it was easy to picture Jesus casting the money changers out of the temple. Members of our group waded through King Hezekiah's water tunnel mentioned in 2 Kings 20:20, viewed the storage bins at Megiddo where Israelite kings stored their grain, and prayed at the Western Wall of Herod's temple.

Our travels afforded us some unforgettable moments of worship. We read the Ten Commandments and prayed at the top of Mount Sinai after hiking up the mountain as the sun began to set. We enjoyed a quiet boat ride on the Sea of Galilee, sang Christmas carols in a little chapel near Bethlehem, shared the Lord's Supper in the Garden of Gethsemane, sang "Because He Lives" outside the Garden Tomb in Jerusalem, and read 1 Corinthians 13 while standing in the ruins of first-century Corinth.

Our journey also helped us appreciate the courage of God's people. In Egypt we visited the Pyramids and viewed the golden treasures found in King Tut's tomb—and marveled that Moses dared to confront Pharaoh with an ultimatum from the God of Israel who said, "Let my people go." Near the Dead Sea we saw the ruins of Jericho, where God brought down the city walls and Joshua led the Israelites to begin the conquest of Canaan. From a high hill in Nazareth we recalled how Jesus' neighbors attempted to kill him early in his ministry by throwing him off a rocky cliff. In the ruins of a large synagogue in Capernaum, we studied the scriptural accounts that tell how Jesus went there and healed a man with a withered hand, incurring the anger of the Lord's opponents. In Athens we climbed Mars Hill (the Areopagus) and read Paul's sermon to the Athenians recorded in Acts 17. Standing in the shadow of the Acropolis, with the marble pillars of the Parthenon towering in the distance, we gained a new appreciation for the way Paul dared to tell the Athenians that the true God does not dwell in temples made with human hands. Standing among the ruins of Corinth, we recalled how the apostles preached Christ boldly and winsomely in a place where Greeks searched for wisdom in philosophies and myths.

It would be a mistake to say that our visit to the lands of the Bible made God's Word come alive. God's Word is already "living and active" (Hebrews 4:12), completely worthy of our trust. Perhaps it's more accurate simply to say that our journey made something new come alive in us. We're glad we made the trip to the Middle East—and even gladder that about 2,000 years ago God's Son made the trip himself.