The LORD our God said to us at Horeb, “You have stayed long enough at this mountain. Break camp and advance into the hill country of the Amorites; go to all the neighboring peoples in the Arabah, in the mountains, in the western foothills, in the Negev and along the coast, to the land of the Canaanites and to Lebanon, as far as the great river, the Euphrates. See, I have given you this land. Go in and take possession of the land that the LORD swore he would give to your fathers–to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob–and to their descendants […]
Author Archive: Brian Johnson
Happy New Year!
The LORD said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites: ‘On the first day of the seventh month you are to have a day of rest, a sacred assembly commemorated with trumpet blasts. Do no regular work, but present an offering made to the LORD by fire.’” Leviticus 23:23-25 Shana Tova! Happy New Year! Today is Rosh Hashanah – the head of the Jewish year, marking the beginning of the year 5772. One of the traditions that became attached to this day was the eating of apples with honey, wishing for a sweet year. Each Wednesday evening we have cookie night, […]
A Parched Watered Land
I will make rivers flow on barren heights, and springs within the valleysI will turn the desert into pools of water, and the parched ground into springs. Isaiah 41:18 Sunday was our next field study day, touring from Jericho in the east along the Jordan River to Gezer in the west, which overlooks the coastal plain out to the Mediterranean Sea. Journeying from Jerusalem down to Jericho requires crossing the Judean Wilderness and descending over 3000 feet. The wilderness is a fascinating place to study. It is a vast wasteland full of bumpy terrain and deep, dark canyons. The desert […]
Four Weeks
It’s hard to believe I’ve been here four weeks already. The time is flying by too quickly. In between all the adventures around the city or touring the country, there are the general happenings around campus. I am here to study so therefore I’m taking classes and doing homework. So what does that look like? Here are my classes: Physical Settings is taken by everyone who comes here. This is the main touring class, studying the Bible where it happened. We’re studying the geography and geology of the land and how that impacts the Biblical story. Our journeys will take […]
Samaria
In the thirty-first year of Asa king of Judah, Omri became king of Israel, and he reigned twelve years, six of them in Tirzah. He bought the hill of Samaria from Shemer for two talents of silver and built a city on the hill, calling it Samaria, after Shemer, the name of the former owner of the hill. 1 Kings 16:23-24 We had another field study on Sunday, this time journeying north into the West Bank to the ancient region known as Samaria. One thing that made the day stand out was that all the sites we visited were new […]
The Land of the Shepherd
He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his armsand carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young. Isaiah 40:11 It was a very full and very fun weekend. I am falling in love with this land all over again. I’m hearing old lessons that I thought I understood, yet I am seeing them in a fresh light. If you stand in Jerusalem and look to the east, the Mount of Olives dominates the close, eastern horizon, rising above the city and blocking the view to what lay beyond. What is […]
Shabbat Shalom!
If you call the Sabbath a delight and the LORD’s holy day honorable… Isaiah 58:13 I talked briefly about the Sabbath in my last post. The Sabbath is a big deal in the Bible, starting from the beginning. God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh day and therefore commanded us to observe the Sabbath. He built it into the creation. We cannot keep going and going without a break without suffering consequences. It is a time to stop. It is a time to remember that I am not defined by what I do. The traditional […]
A Full Weekend
I’ve begun my second week of classes. I’m slowly getting into the rhythm. The atmosphere here quite different from when I was at JUC for the short term programs. Whereas the students in those programs were not real serious about studying here, this is a group of intelligent people who want to learn this stuff. This yields a more enjoyable study experience. Friday evening we had a BBQ in the garden. As we sat outside and the sun was nearing the horizon, we could hear the alert going out to the city so everyone would know that Shabbat (the Sabbath) […]
Sunrise
The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands….In the heavens he has pitched a tent for the sun, which is like a bridegroom coming forth from his pavilion, like a champion rejoicing to run his course. It rises at one end of the heavens and makes its circuit to the other; nothing is hidden from its heat. Psalm 19:1, 4-6 This morning, when most of you were starting to think about going to bed, I was waking up early to hike to see the sunrise. Leaving at 4:30 am (9:30 pm Eastern time), […]
The Garden
The LORD will surely comfort Zion and will look with compassion on all her ruins; he will make her deserts like Eden, her wastelands like the garden of the LORD. Joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and the sound of singing. Isaiah 51:3 I’ve been keeping busy attending classes and doing homework the past few days. I now understand the difficulty of going back to school after being away for a while. I’ll detail later what I’m taking, but these courses are certainly nothing like the computer science classes I remember taking. This will be a challenging […]