Encounter the Bible, Come Alive in Israel

In early 2011 I received a call from a friend who is the principal of a Christian School in the US. They had decided that their Senior Class would be coming to Israel that year for their class trip. Usually, the senior class chose where they wanted to go. However, because that particular senior class wasn’t especially religious, their destination choices were mostly party cities. In frustration, the principal overruled them. So, I was asked, as a favor, if I would meet with them when in Jerusalem and show them around a bit.

I initially met them in a place known as the Davidson Center, located at the Jerusalem Archaeological Park. This small park encompasses an archaeological dig on the Western and Southern sides of the Temple Mount. As the kids approached the site, one said, “Oh great another pile of rocks.” Keep in mind: I knew of some of these kids, as they were children of some of my dear friends. Accordingly, I had picked the spot with care. So, knowing these teenagers, I prepared myself for some reaction, but not exactly one like that.

Undeterred, I started pointing out the significance of some of those “rocks.” I said, “Indeed, a pile of rocks. That rock is the ‘pinnacle of the Temple’ where Satan took Yeshua to tempt Him (Matthew 4:5). And around the corner, there is a pile of rocks called the ‘Southern Steps,’ where Simeon and Anna blessed Yeshua as a baby (Luke 2:22-38). This rock that I am currently sitting on in this stall-like structure is one of the money changer’s booths where Yeshua came and overturned the tables shouting, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it ‘a den of thieves’!” (Matthew 21:13)

Then I read them this passage,

The Jewish feast of Passover was near, so Yeshua went up to Jerusalem. In the Temple, He found the merchants selling oxen, sheep, and doves; also the moneychangers sitting there. Then He made a whip of cords and drove them all out of the Temple, both the sheep and oxen. He dumped out the coins of the moneychangers and overturned their tables. To those selling doves, He said, “Get these things out of here! Stop making My Father’s house a marketplace!” His disciples remembered that it is written, “Zeal for your House will consume Me!” (John 2:13-17) 

Of course, I included some fanciful embellishments of my own.

Touchstones:

That afternoon, wandering around “piles of rocks,” I watched as the Lord renewed—and in some cases, resurrected—the faith of these young people. Nearly all those kids had grown up in the faith. They had heard these same Bible stories countless times. However, in their minds, those stories were never much more than ancient history at best (and fairy tales at worst). They had no sense of personal connection to those events from thousands of years ago.

Yet now, these teenage American Christians were wandering around the Holy Land with a Rabbi who was retelling those same stories they had heard so many times—perhaps with a few unique takes—but with something they never had before: touchstones. Things that they could touch and experience. Tangible things that directly connected them to the events recorded on the pages of their Bibles.

You could see the wonder in their eyes, much like a young child opening a pop-up book for the first time. The Bible stories essentially leaped off the page into their personal experience in those powerful moments. There is a reason, after all, that historians tour battlefields: maps, diagrams, and written words ultimately fail to make history come to life.

This experience reveals an aspect of touring Israel that is impossible to overstate. You don’t need to be a professional or even an amateur historian to appreciate the benefit of having the Scriptures come to life in transformational ways. You only need two things in place to set up this experience:

1. make their way to Israel, to the land where it all happened, and
2. travel with a superb tour leader and guide who can help you make those deeper biblical, historical, and cultural connections.

There is a reason that pilgrims have braved dangers of all sorts for thousands of years to come to Israel and walk through these same sites that you can visit today.

A Rock, Road, & Rabbi Tour is a “Road to Emmaus” encounter. Your eyes are opened as the Old and New Testaments connect in high definition.

After experiencing this rabbinic study tour of Israel with Rabbi Jason Sobel, you will never see Jesus and the Bible the same way again!

We hope you join us!

Begin Your Israel Encounter Today