Recently, I had the privilege to lead a group of about 70 Oklahoma Baptist pastors and wives on a trip to Israel. For almost every person in the group, it was their first time to visit the Holy Land. I am grateful to our friends at Imagine Travel who organized the trip and provided a discounted price as well as WatersEdge which provided a partial scholarship for each pastor. Though it was my third time to go to Israel, I so enjoyed seeing it all again through those who were seeing it for the first time. The fellowship with and among pastors was sweet and the conversations we had based on the things we got to see was rich.
Each time I have been to Israel, I am struck with the historical nature of our faith. The names and places we read about in the Bible are real, actual people, events and cities. Some want to mythologize or allegorize much of what we read in Scripture in effort to reduce its authority and supernatural nature. However, a tour of Israel reveals the historic reality and accuracy of the biblical text.
Looking at the Abraham Gate in Tel Dan that Abraham walked through to rescue his nephew Lot; standing in front of the caves at Qumran where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found which demonstrate the accuracy of copying the biblical texts over the centuries; sailing across the Sea of Galilee with Mt. Hermon in the distance where so many things occurred in the gospels; standing in the spot where the Tel Dan Stele was discovered (and seeing it in the museum) providing the first extra-biblical proof of David’s reign in Israel; looking at the pool of Bethesda where Jesus healed a paralytic and the Pool of Siloam where He told the man born blind to wash; sitting on the Southern Steps where Jesus often taught—all of these demonstrate the historicity, authenticity and authority of Scripture.
How grateful we should be that we can completely trust what we read in the Bible. Our commitment to trust and obey what we are told and commanded in Scripture and our faith in God Who inspired and gave us His Word are well founded.
“For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Heb. 4:12).
