Agence France-Presse (AFP)

The Sea of Galilee is Israel's main source of water.

JERUSALEM — Israel on Sunday April 18 imposed a two-year ban on fishing in the Sea of Galilee, halting a practice that dates back to biblical times when tradition holds Jesus and his Disciples fished those waters.

“The government will pass a plan to halt fishing in the Sea of Galilee for a period of two years,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at the start of a weekly cabinet meeting.

The ban was called for to help preserve fish stocks which have plummeted dramatically.

“We will support the fishermen and make sure the lake is restocked with fish,” Netanyahu said.

The agriculture ministry blames the drop on overfishing and the use of illegal nets that trap young fish and prevent stocks from maturing. Migratory birds which feed on the fish have also been on the rise.

The sea, actually a freshwater lake in northern Israel, is the country’s main source of water and has been a center for fishing at least since biblical times.

The Bible describes how Jesus recruited some of His Apostles from among the lake’s fishermen, and how He performed many of His miracles there, including walking on its waters and multiplying loaves and fish to feed the multitudes.

The most popular fish in the lake is commonly known as the St. Peter’s Fish.

Netanyahu himself recalled fishing in the lake as a boy. “The fish were excellent,” he said.

By Hillel Fendel, www.IsraelNationalNews.com

Jaffa Gate refurbishment

The large black curtain covering Jaffa Gate, one of the two most famous gates leading in and out of the Old City of Jerusalem, was removed this morning, Wednesday, April 21, at the official Jaffa Gate Rededication Ceremony.

The celebrated large stone entrance underwent two months of preservation work, in the framework of a program to refurbish the Old City walls. The work was carried out by the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), underwritten by the Jerusalem Development Authority and the Prime Minister’s Bureau.

Present at the ceremony were Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat, Jerusalem Development Authority director Moshe Leon, and IAA director Shuka Dorfman.

The current walls of the Old City were built mainly by Sultan Suleimon of the Ottoman Empire in the 16th century. The current refurbishing work, which began three years ago, seeks to repair the damages of the ravages of time and neglect. At Jaffa Gate, large boulders and stones were strengthened, bullet marks were demarcated, designs and ornaments were restored, and the entire gate was cleaned.

Jaffa Gate was first dedicated in 1538, but only some 110 years ago did it become a flourishing and dynamic center of activity. In 1898, it was decided to break through the wall, adjacent to Jaffa Gate, to allow Kaiser Wilhelm II and his wife Augusta Victoria to enter the city in their chariot. It marked the first time in modern history that wagons were able to enter the Old City.

During the War of Independence (1948-9), Jaffa Gate was a focal point of difficult battles between the fledgling Israeli forces and the Jordanian Legion. At one point during the war, the gate became totally blocked by an armored vehicle that was disabled by shooting and became stuck in the gate. The ceasefire agreement that followed the war determined that Jaffa Gate would mark the Jordanian end of the no-man’s land that began there and ended at today’s IDF Square, at the end of Jaffa Rd. The armored car remained stuck where it was and Jaffa Gate remained closed until the end of the 1967 Six Day War, when Israel liberated the entire city of Jerusalem for the Jewish People.

By Leo Rennert, www.AmericanThinker.com

Jews all over the world will celebrate by the Jewish calendar the 62^nd anniversary of Israel’s independence this year on April 19. It has become traditional on such occasions to focus almost entirely on the events of May 1948, when a nascent Jewish state, authorized by a U.N. two-state partition vote the year before, faced half a dozen Arab armies intent on destroying it. In the ensuing battles, that Jewish state managed to survive and lay the foundation for a return of Jewish sovereignty in the Holy Land.

This year, however, I would argue that while reminiscing about the events of 1948, it would behoove us to focus more on 1967, when Israel again was under siege and marked for extinction by Egypt, Syria, and Jordan.

Why 1967 more than 1948? Because an exclusive focus on 1948 tends to abet a misleading impression that the events of that year permanently guaranteed Israel’s independence. They did not.

Instead, Israel has had to fight for its independence without much respite for the last 62 years — and at least three times has faced imminent threats of extinction. Such threats, while not imminent today, nevertheless continue into the present , as Iran with its surrogates (Hamas and Hezbollah) now seeks to pick up the mantle of Egyptian President Nasser.

To get a full sense of Israel’s repeated and continuing challenges to confront enemies bent on extinguishing its independence, the Six-Day War of 1967 offers a perfect paradigm, if fully and properly recalled. It’s all too easy and misleading, when examining 1967, to concentrate only on the totally unexpected and lightning-fast speed of Israel’s victory. That’s just the triumphant finale. What also needs to be recalled is what Israel actually faced in June 1967, in the days leading up to the Six-Day War.

Arrayed against Israel’s independence was a three-nation military alliance of Egypt, Syria, and Jordan, determined — in Nasser’s words — to “totally annihilate the State of Israel once and for all.”

To couple his words with actual deeds, Nasser moved his army and air force into the Sinai, ousted the U.N. peacekeeping forces, blockaded Israel’s Red Sea port of Eilat by closing the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping (an act of war under international law), and put Jordan’s army under Egyptian command.

Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol’s back was against the wall. In Washington, President Lyndon Johnson promised to assemble an international flotilla to break the blockade (which never materialized) and demanded that Israel not fire the first shot. In Moscow, the Kremlin warned of dire consequences if Israel dared to take preemptive action against Nasser.

In Israel, reservists were called up, and civilians prepared shelters and taped windows of their homes. Throughout the state, rabbis were consecrating parks for cemeteries. By some estimates, graves would have to be dug for as many as 40,000 Israelis.

It was in this context that Eshkol assembled a national-unity government, put Moshe Dayan in charge of the defense ministry, and invited opposition leader Menachem Begin to join the government. Having exhausted all peaceful means and left to fend itself to assure its survival, Israel struck at Egyptian airfields, destroying Nasser’s air force in a few hours and then going on to capture the Sinai and the Golan Heights.

But the key to survival and victory — then, as today — was Jerusalem. Cut in two by the 1949 armistice agreement, with the Old City and its religious shrines under Jordanian occupation, Jerusalem presented perhaps the greatest challenge to Israeli leaders in 1967. With victory assured on the other fronts, should Israeli military invade and capture the Old City, or — fearing high civilian casualties and damage to Muslim and Christian shrines — encircle the city and wait for it to fall?

Waiting, however, turned out to be no option. With the U.N. Security Council set to pass a ceasefire resolution that would have kept the Old City away from Israel’s grasp, Eshkol accepted Begin’s urgings to move without delay. Within three hours, Israeli paratroopers signaled: “The Temple Mount is ours.”

On this Independence Day 2010, I would urge one and all to peruse a new book by Yehuda Avner, an aide and adviser to Eshkol, Golda Meir, Yitzhak Rabin, Begin, and Shimon Peres, entitled The Prime Ministers — An Intimate Narrative of Israeli Leadership. Given the challenges and threats that Israel faces today — with Jerusalem again at the top of the list — I can think of no better reading than Avner’s memoir, with its intimate glimpses of how Israeli leaders overcame tremendous threats to ensure Israel’s continued independence.

Let me cite just one of a great number of fly-on-the-wall testimonies by Avner that compellingly bring to life — up close and personal — the real meaning of what it has taken for Israel to still be around to celebrate its 62^nd anniversary: the dedication and commitment of its people and leaders. I bring this up because challenges to Israel’s independence — yesterday, today and tomorrow — are inextricably intertwined.

The day after Israel captured the Old City, Menachem Begin arrived at the Western Wall, which he had not seen since 1948. He touched the Wall, spread out his arms in embrace, and then drew a lengthy sheet of paper on which he had written a prayer.

Invoking the three patriarchs — Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob — he thanked the Lord for Israel’s victory and prayed for the speedy return of its soldiers to their families — “children to their parents, fathers to their children, and husbands to their wives.” And Begin added:

For we are but the surviving remnant of a people harried and persecuted, whose blood has been shed like water from generation to generation.

Today we stand before the Western Wall, relic of the House of our Glory, in Jerusalem the redeemed, the city that is now all united together.

That evening, a journalist asked Begin what had gone through his mind as he touched the Wall.

“When I touched the Wall today I cried,” said Begin. “I suppose everyone had tears in their eyes. They are men’s tears. For the momentous truth is that on this day we Jews, for the first time since the Roman conquest of 70 C.E., have regained ownership of the last remaining remnant of our Temple site, and have won for ourselves free and unfettered access to pray there.

So when we toast Israel’s 62^nd birthday, it behooves Israel and all its supporters to refresh memories of 1967 because today, like then, Jerusalem beckons as the touchstone of maintaining the independence of Jewish sovereignty in the Promised Land.

Happy Independence Day!

www.jta.org

A German mediator’s meetings with Hamas officials to secure the release of captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit have not yielded any new progress, an Arabic newspaper reported.

The meetings came earlier this month in Gaza, the London-based Al Hayat reported Sunday, April 18. The mediator also met with senior officials in Israel and Egypt.

The German mediator reportedly raised anew the idea of a prisoner exchange between Hamas and Israel, the newspaper reported. Mediated talks between Israel and Hamas in Gaza for Shalit’s release broke down several months ago.

Meanwhile, the armed wing of Hamas on Saturday threatened to kidnap Israelis for use as bargaining chips in addition to Shalit to free Palestinians in Israeli jails.

The statement from the Izz-as-Din al-Qassam Brigades was faxed Saturday to reporters, Haaretz reported Sunday.

Brigades spokesman Abu Obeidah also said that a prisoner swap deal “is not the last and only hope for Hamas to release the prisoners. The hope is with the men of resistance who will continue their struggle until releasing all the prisoners.”

The letter came on Palestinian Prisoners’ Day; Hamas and Fatah staged protests together this year. It also came less than a week after Israel warned its citizens to leave Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula due to an imminent kidnapping threat.

www.YNetNews.com

Throughout Israel  heads are bowed as the nation marks Holocaust Remembrance Day and remembers the six million murdered by the Nazis during the Second World War. During a commemoration ceremony held Sunday (4-11-10) at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke of the lessons of the Holocaust and the Iranian threat.

“Israel is a wellspring of innovation in the world, with its face to the future,” he said. “But we still need to ask the question: Have the lessons of the Holocaust been learned?

“I believe that three of the lessons are: Strengthen yourself, educate for good, and fight evil. The first lesson – strengthen yourself – first of all concerns us, the people of Israel who were abandoned and powerless before the waves of murderous hate that broke against us again and again, in every generation. We need to gird our strength for our independence to ensure that the next enemy cannot plot his schemes against us. Maintaining our strength is the first condition for our existence. It is also the necessary condition for widening the circle of peace with those of our neighbors who have come to terms with our existence.

“The second lesson – educate for good – means educating to accept the other and accept different ideas,” the prime minister continued. “This is the awareness that lies at the base of Jewish thinking, that each human being is created in the image of God, that each human being has the right to freedom, to life, to choose his own path. This is the essence of a free society, this is the ground from which Nazi or fanatic ideology can never grow, ideology which strives for genocide and commits it also.

“This is how we educate children in the State of Israel, which is a light of tolerance in a region of darkness and zealotry. But this good state has a complementary side, and this is the third lesson of the Holocaust: to fight evil.

“A free society must ask itself what it should do in the face of evil forces who aim to destroy it and to trample human beings and their rights underfoot. There is no limitless tolerance, and we must draw the line. This is the question that all enlightened states must ask. The historic failure of the free nations before the Nazi beast was in the fact that they did not gather to oppose it in time, when it was still possible to stop it.

“We are witness today to the new-old fire of hate, hatred of Jews inflamed by organizations and regimes of extremist Islam, most of all Iran and its satellites. Iran’s leaders are scurrying to develop nuclear weapons and freely announce their desire to destroy Israel, but before these repeated declarations to wipe the Jewish state from the face of the Earth, at best we hear faint protest, and even this is fading.

“We don’t hear the forceful protest that is required, we don’t hear the strong denouncement, nor the angry voice. But as usual, there are those who direct their criticism against us, against Israel… The world accepts Iran’s declarations of annihilation and we still don’t see the international determination required to prevent Iran arming… I call on the enlightened nations to rise and denounce this intention to destroy, and to act with real determination to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.”

‘In our hearts, Shoah; in our deeds, hope’

Earlier during the ceremony, President Shimon Peres recalled the lessons of the Shoah [Holocaust]. He too emphasized that we must not be indifferent to Iranian threats.

“Israel will never forget two commands from the Holocaust,” the president said. “The strong command to maintain an independent Jewish state, whose security is in its own hands, and with peace in its heart; and the command to take seriously threats of annihilation, Holocaust denial, and incitement to terror.

“It is our right and our obligation to demand from the nations of the world not to be indifferent as they were once, which resulted in millions of victims, including their own. The UN must hear the threats of annihilation coming from one state, which is a UN member, against another UN member state.” Peres said that part of the Iranian nation itself is ashamed of the tyranny that controls it.

“The Arab states are aware that the anti-Israel incitement of Ahmadinejad is aimed at deflecting attention from his real aim, which is hegemonic control of the entire region,” Peres warned. “The world war broke out with the satanic incitement of the Nazis, with the claim that the Germans are a superior race.”

Peres said that the fire in which Jewish books were burned will continue to burn in our hearts as an impossible separation from “six million of our brothers, men, women, elderly. From a million and a half of our children. An incredible potential for live, for abilities, annihilated, a loss never to return.” He added that the state must bear the cry of the Holocaust together with the din of its construction.

“Our eyes will remain open to danger, at all times, and our hands ceaselessly extended in peace. In our hearts, Shoah; in our deeds, hope.”

Six Holocaust survivors who dedicated their lives to keeping the memory of the Holocaust alive, lit six torches Sunday evening at the Holocaust commemoration ceremony at Yad Vashem. The theme this year was “Voice of the Survivors.”

Eliezer (Lazer) Ayalon

In 1941, when he was 13 years old, Eliezer was imprisoned with his family in a ghetto in Poland. He forged his age and obtained work and a place to live in a German clothes store outside the ghetto. At work he would sing, and his singing caught the attention of his bosses, who asked him to sing at their birthday celebrations. In August 1942, the ghetto was shut down. Those with work permits were allowed to leave, but Eliezer refused to be separated from his family. Finally, his mother succeeded in persuading him to leave. The same night he left, his mother was sent to Treblinka where she was murdered along with her daughter and one of her sons.

In the spring of 1944, Eliezer was transferred to the Plashov, Mauthausen, and Melk concentration camps. In April 1945, a selection was carried out. The weak and sick were murdered, and the others were taken out on a forced march, the March of Death. Eliezer broke his leg but managed to get to the camp at the end of the march. On May 6, 1945 U.S. soldiers liberated the camp. In 1945 he came to Israel and fought in the War of Independence in the Etzioni regiment.

During the last decades, Eliezer has been lecturing at schools and military bases. He is also often invited to communities in the U.S. and has traveled to Poland many times, accompanying delegations and as a witness. “In 1993 I went with my wife, my children, and my grandchildren to the camps and we entered those cursed gates of Plashov and Mauthausen, and we decided to sing Hatikva (Israel’s national anthem). At the end I said to my children, We defeated Hitler, we won the war. You are the symbol of victory.” Eliezer married Rivka. They have a son, a daughter, five grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.

Baruch Shuv

In June 1941, when he was 17 years old, the Germans conquered Vilna and began slaughtering the city’s Jews in Punar. Baruch obtained work in a German garage where military vehicles were repaired. In the spring of 1942, the youth of the ghetto organized an underground group, collected funds, bought arms, and prepared to escape to the forests and join the partisans. The plan was stopped by their families – the Germans had threatened that they would kill them if anyone was missing from the ghetto.

When Baruch received a sign that his mother was alive in Vilna, he managed to get a permit to leave the ghetto and returned to Vilna where he worked in factories that produced for the Germans. Here he set up another underground with his friend Yaacov Kushkin, and they bought pistols. He later joined the FPO (United Partisan Organization) underground. He then joined a Russian paratrooper unit and took part in various operations such as derailing trains, blowing up communication posts and bridges, and attacking German units. In July 1944, the Red Army conquered Vilna. Baruch reached the city only to find that all his family had been murdered.

In Israel, he joined an aeronautics course, and advanced from shop floor managerial positions to become the aeronautics engineer of the company, chief aeronautics engineer of El Al, and instructor. He has been active for many years in maintaining the memory of the Holocaust. He is chairman of the Organization of Partisans, Underground Fighters, and Ghetto Rebels, and is a member of the Yad Vashem management and directorate. He also lectures on the subject of anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial. He and his wife Nelly have two children and eight grandchildren.

Yaacov Zim

Yaacov Zim was born in 1920 in Sosnovitz, Poland. He escaped the Holocaust thanks to a German who had heard of his talents as a painter and asked him to set up and manage a workshop for applied art. Here Yaacov, his two brothers and 120 other young people, most of them members of the Zionist youth movement, were temporarily safe from deportation. In August 1943, the ghetto was shut down, and Yaacov managed to escape the place where they had been told to gather before being deported to Auschwitz. He joined a group taken to a work camp in Silesia, which was later taken over by the SS and became a branch of Auschwitz.

As the Red Army approached, the prisoners were taken on the Death March. He and his brothers helped each other stumble through the snow, and reached Buchenwald where they were liberated. They were sent to France for rehabilitation, and from there came to Israel. Yaacov fulfilled his dream and continued his art studies at Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem, where he met Ruth who became his wife.

In his book Shevarim ve’Or he describes his life during the Holocaust, while a book of his art includes paintings that tell the story of the events of that time and express his optimism – the secret of his survival. Yaacov and Ruth have four children, eight grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.

Sara Yisraeli

When the Germans occupied Hungary in March 1944, when Sara was 7 years old, Sara and her family were sent to the ghetto. In June they were put onto the train trucks and taken to a factory for undergarments in a concentration camp on the way to Auschwitz. Instead of being sent to Auschwitz, the family was taken to Budapest and put into a camp on Columbus Street. When the communists came to power after the war, the borders of Hungary were sealed. Sara and her brothers joined the Gordonia underground movement, and with its help left Hungary illegally and came to Israel in December 1949.

Sara grew up on kibbutzim, and has been a member of Kibbutz Kiryat Anavim for 50 years. She has worked in various posts, including managing the kibbutz guesthouse, coordinating volunteer groups, and assisting in preserving archive documents. She also volunteers in an organization that supports Holocaust survivors. She and her husband, Bezalel Z”L, have two children and two grandchildren.

Leo Luster

Leo, now 83 years old, was born in Vienna to a traditional (religious) and Zionist family. On Krystalnacht, Leo saw his synagogue go up in flames. His father was arrested, and returned home some days later beaten up and injured. During the time he was detained, the neighbor refused to have anything to do with the family,which moved to a single-room apartment in the basement. In 1940, Leo’s sister Haya managed to enter Palestine illegally.

In 1942 Leo and his parents were sent to the Terezin ghetto. Leo worked in the kitchens and managed to pass on his food stamps to his parents and friends. In September 1944, Leo and his family were sent to Auschwitz. His father was sent to the gas chambers. Leo had a number tattooed on his arm and was sent to Gleiwitz camp where he worked as a carpenter for repairing rail carriages. In January 1945, he was taken on the Death March, after which he was sent to another camp. A few days later, the guards fled, and Leo left to look for food and his friends. In one of the huts, he encountered an SS officer who shot anyone looking for food. Leo hid himself among the bodies and thus managed to survive.

After the war, Leo wandered about Poland and Germany and found his mother. In 1949 they came to Israel and met up with his sister Haya whom he hadn’t seen for some 10 years. He began working in a hospital, and later worked for 30 years in the Austrian Embassy until his retirement in 1991. Leo is among the founders of an organization for people from Austria and remains active in its management. He assists survivors in claiming rights from the Austrian government and works to keep the memory of Austria’s murdered Jews alive. He and his wife Shoshana have a son, a daughter, and three grandchildren.

Hannah Gafrit

Hannah, now 75 years old, was born in Biala Rawska, in Poland. At the end of 1941 a ghetto was set up in the town, but the family was permitted to live outside the ghetto because Hannah’s mother sewed for the German occupation troops. Her parents wanted to hide Hannah with a Polish family until the end of the war, but Hannah refused to leave her parents and came with them to their hiding place – a hole in the ground used to store potatoes that belonged to a Polish family.

At the end of 1942, the Jews of the town were sent to Treblinka. Her father tried to obtain fake documents but their neighbor managed to get only two – for Hannah and her mother. The two were hidden in Warsaw for two years by Righteous Gentiles. Hannah’s mother helped in cleaning, cooking, sewing, and preparing lessons for the children. For two years, Hannah sat with her ear to the door to listen for approaching footsteps.

In January 1949, Hannah came to Israel, settling in Tel Aviv. She studied nursing and worked in public health in the Ajami neighborhood, where she managed the Tipat Halav center for young mothers. As a sign of her dedicated work, Hannah was awarded the Namir prize. She continued as a nurse in Tel Aviv until her retirement. With assistance from Naomi Morgenstern, Hannah wrote I Wanted To Fly Like A Butterfly, in which she describes her life during the Holocaust. She is married to Yitzhak, and is the mother of Ofer and grandmother to three grandchildren.

By David Klinghoffer, blog.beliefnet.com

Sinai from space

Where is Mt. Sinai? And does it matter? The second question is easier to answer than the first. If God’s giving the Ten Commandments to Moses there is a historical event then yes, wanting to attach a genuine geographical location to the mountain makes sense. But finding Mt. Sinai presents a problem different from locating the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, or the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron. Unlike those two holy sites, Mt. Sinai’s exact location isn’t attested by any clear tradition among the people you would expect to be most likely to remember — that is, the people whose ancestors actually stood at Sinai for the occasion, the Jews.

The famous “Mt. Sinai,” called Jebel Musa, in the southern Sinai Peninsula is known from Christian, not Jewish, tradition. It’s popular with modern tourists who hike up to see dawn break. Bible scholars have sought to identify other mountains in the Sinai as the true Mt. Sinai, but these have no traditional backing at all. You would think that if the Sinai event really happened, then somewhere, somehow, the Jews themselves would have kept a memory of its location preserved.

Well, maybe they did. Imagine you knew nothing about later scholarly opinions on the question. What if you were simply handed a Bible and some of the more prominent Jewish traditional sources, ancient and medieval, that explain the biblical text. Let’s say you had a map in front of you with the important surrounding countries and geographical features, including their ancient names, printed on it. You have Egypt, for example, on one side of the Sinai peninsula. And you have Midian, today’s northwest Saudi Arabia, on the other. The Sinai peninsula is framed on its south, by the Gulf of Suez to the west and the Gulf of Aqaba to the east, like two fingers raised in a victory sign.

Midian is the country where Moses fled from Pharaoh when the Egyptian king sought his life. When the English explorer Richard Burton visited in 1877, he reports the inhabitants still called the place Arz Madyan, the land of Midian. In Midian, Moses met his father-in-law, Jethro, and his wife, Zipporah. He lived there for 40 years before returning to Egypt to lead the Jews out to freedom. He was living there too when he first encountered God in the burning bush on the slopes of Mt. Sinai, the “mountain of God.” Many of the Hebrew prophets were shepherds, and so was Moses. The Bible relates that in search of pasture, he lead his flock into the “backcountry” of the wilderness, which is where Sinai was. The King James Version gives a good rendition: “Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father in law, the priest of Midian: and he led the flock to the backside of the desert, and came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb” (Exodus 3:1Exodus 3:1
English: World English Bible - WEB
3 ¹ Now Moses was keeping the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the back of the wilderness, and came to God’s mountain, to Horeb.

WP-Bible plugin).

Shepherds can be long-distance wanderers. But from Midian to the familiar Mt. Sinai would be an extremely long walk to take, all by yourself in a fierce uninhabited wilderness, with your family’s flock entrusted to you. It would require you to go all the way up and around the Gulf of Aqaba before descending on the other side and only then proceeding across the peninsula to “Mt. Sinai.” Why bother?

It’s for that reason among others that recent research suggests the true Sinai is not in the peninsula known now by that name but, instead, in today’s Saudi Arabia. Though the idea is controversial, a straightforward reading of the Bible and Biblical tradition would lead you to exactly that conclusion.

In describing Moses’ experience at the burning bush, the book of Exodus (3:1) intimates that Mt. Sinai was at least convenient to Midian. After that experience, God speaks to Moses again, in Midian, and tells him the time is right to return to Egypt and lead his people to freedom, since Pharaoh, who wanted to kill Moses, has himself died. On the way back, Moses meets his brother Aaron at “the mountain of God” (4:27), namely Sinai. We learn from this that the mountain was en route to Egypt. It was along the way — something that is not true of Jebel Musa. Meeting at the more familiar “Mt. Sinai” would have taken both Moses and Aaron on a wildly inconvenient and dangerous detour. It’s especially hard to picture them doing so when you consider that God had just instructed Moses the time was right now to free the Jews.

Is there a mountain en route to Egypt from Midian that suggests itself as a likelier candidate? The first-century Jewish historian Josephus clearly indicates there was. In his history of the Jews, Jewish Antiquities, he writes of Midian, or Madian in Greek, as a “city.” The mountain of God and of the burning bush, writes Josephus, was “the highest of the mountains in this region.” The Greek Egyptian geographer Ptolemy, who lived at the same time as Josephus, clarifies that Madian was on the east side of the Gulf of Aqaba, opposite the southern Sinai peninsula. The ruins of Madian are identified with al-Bad’ in Saudi Arabia. Local traditions there too associate the place with Jethro and Moses. You can even visit what’s said to be the “Cave of Jethro.” Such traditions are no more and no less credible than the Christian tradition, publicized in the 4rd century by the Emperor Constantine’s mother, that identifies Sinai with Jebel Musa.

The highest mountain in the region, and convenient to al-Bad’, is Jebel el-Lawz. Not coincidentally, the Saudi government has fenced the mountain off against foreign visitors seeking to substantiate its connection with Moses and the Exodus. It happens to be just east of the road you would take from Jethro’s Midian around the north end of the Gulf of Aqaba on your way by the most direct route to Egypt. In ancient times that route was called the Way of the Wilderness. It goes nowhere near the conventionally identified Mt. Sinai. By contrast, Jebel el-Lawz is on the way to Egypt, for Moses, and on the way to Midian, for Aaron. It could well have been the mountain in whose shadow the two brothers met and where Moses first met God.

The Biblical narrative gives us another clue when it tells how Jethro visited the Jews in the wilderness. This was after the Exodus, after the children of Israel had miraculously crossed the Sea of Reeds. Jethro appears and is greeted by Moses. Jethro gives his son-in-law some sound advice about sharing leadership responsibilities, and then takes his leave. He speaks of returning “to his land” (Exodus 18:27Exodus 18:27
English: World English Bible - WEB
27 Moses let his father-in-law depart, and he went his way into his own land.

WP-Bible plugin). That is just before the Israelites encamp at the mountain of God to receive the Torah.

Interestingly, we find Jethro taking his leave on a later occasion, in the book of Numbers, soon after God had given the signal to the Jews to pick up and leave Sinai for their journey to Israel. Their first stop is the wilderness of Paran. Jethro on this second occasion says goodbye once more, seeking Moses’ agreement that he should return “to my land and to my family” (10:30). Both of these statements may sound as if his land were far away — after all, it seems to be in a different “land” from Sinai.

The literal meaning of the Biblical verses may sound that way but ancient Jewish explanatory traditions, midrash, suggest otherwise. So does common sense. The midrash called Mechiltah, on Exodus, and the midrash called Sifrei, on Numbers explain that on his first leaving-taking, Jethro intended to convert the rest of his Midianite family, encouraging them to join the Jewish people at Sinai. Presumably he did not intend to miss the revelation at the mountain of God. He meant to be back quickly, in time for the great event. His second leaving-taking, after the giving of the Torah, was for a different but related reason. Returning “to my land and to my family” should really be translated “for my land and for my family.” (The Hebrew preposition, el, is used similarly elsewhere in the Bible.) He meant to sell his real estate and gather his family members. We know from the later Biblical narrative, in the Book of Judges, that Jethro’s family in fact did rejoin the Jews and settle in Israel in the city of Jericho.

Far from indicating that Mt. Sinai was distant from Midian, Jethro’s making these repeated back-and-forth trips between Sinai and Midian tells us the two places were, once again, convenient to each another. Jebel el-Lawz fits that criterion. The better known Jebel Musa doesn’t. Nor do any of the other suggested Sinais.

Later Jewish commentators on the Bible amplify the point. Rashi, the preeminent medieval rabbinic sage who explained the details of the Bible in great detail based on much older sources, transmits both of these midrashic explanations of Jethro’s reasons for making his trips between Sinai and Midian. Another great commentator, Rabbi Moses ben Nachman, called Ramban, devoted care to matters of geography. Ramban lived in Spain in the 13th century but migrated to Israel at the end of his life and added to his Torah commentary in light of physical facts about the Land of Israel that he only discovered on having moved there. He writes explicitly (on Exodus 4:27Exodus 4:27
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27 Yahweh said to Aaron, “Go into the wilderness to meet Moses.” He went, and met him on God’s mountain, and kissed him.

WP-Bible plugin) that “Mt. Sinai is between Egypt and Midian” and (on 18:1), “It is possible that [Jethro] went there [back to Midian] to convert his family to Judaism, and he returned to Moses while [Moses] was still at Mt. Sinai, for it is close to Midian.”

If these Biblical and extra-Biblical sources mean what they seem to mean, then that also helps us answer a related question about geography. With Mt. Sinai located in Saudi Arabia, the Israelites’ passage of the Sea of Reeds, the Yam Suph, can be pictured in a more suitable spot than as imagined by many Bible scholars. They prefer to see it as having happened, if it did happen, at a lake or lagoon by Egypt’s eastern border — Lake Timsah, Lake Balah, the Bitter Lakes. This is a disappointing and improbable spot for a miracle that God meant to cap the Exodus from Egypt in a most spectacular way, as the ecstatic Song of the Sea in Exodus makes clear.

The book of Exodus describes the Jews as having allowed themselves to be trapped by Pharaoh’s army, crying out in terror because, between the water and the Egyptian chariots, they have no route of escape. In front of a lake, and a fairly shallow one at that? Why not just go around it?

In fact, the Bible is unambiguous that Yam Suph was a much more awesome body of water than just a lake. The first book of Kings relates that King Solomon anchored his fleet on the Yam Suph, the Sea of Reeds, near Eilat (9:26). The city of Eilat is easily identified in Israel today. It’s a popular beach resort as well as being Israel’s port city. It’s at the northern end of the Gulf of Aqaba. The Gulf of Aqaba can lay a strong claim on being the Biblical Sea of Reeds. A lake in Egypt can’t make such a claim.

So here is the likeliest interpretation of the Hebrew Bible and Jewish traditional explanations of it. In the Exodus, the Jews left Pharaoh’s land and crossed the peninsula that is today erroneously called Sinai. Pursued by the Egyptian army, they miraculously crossed through the Gulf of Aqaba, perhaps at a gently sloping underwater land bridge, known to divers who have investigated there, which begins at Nuweiba in ancient times on the west side of the Gulf. The children of Israel then proceeded in good time to Mt. Sinai — in today’s Saudi Arabia.

reprinted from the May 2000 Levitt Letter

By Todd Baker Th.M.

Todd Baker

Today there is a growing movement within dispensational theology that is gaining influence among some leading dispensational seminaries and churches across the land. It is called “Progressive Dispensationalism.” Traditional dispensationalism has always maintained a clear distinction between Israel and the Church, and that the Messianic Kingdom, of which the Davidic Covenant (2 Sam. 7:8-16am. 7:8-16
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8 Yahweh said to me, “Amos, what do you see?” I said, “A plumb line.” Then the Lord said, “Behold, I will set a plumb line in the midst of my people Israel. I will not again pass by them any more. ⁹ The high places of Isaac will be desolate, the sanctuaries of Israel will be laid waste; and I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword.” ¹⁰ Then Amaziah the priest of Beth El sent to Jeroboam king of Israel, saying, “Amos has conspired against you in the midst of the house of Israel. The land is not able to bear all his words. ¹¹ For Amos says, ‘Jeroboam will die by the sword, and Israel shall surely be led away captive out of his land.’” ¹² Amaziah also said to Amos, “You seer, go, flee away into the land of Judah, and there eat bread, and prophesy there: ¹³ but don’t prophesy again any more at Bethel; for it is the king’s sanctuary, and it is a royal house!” ¹⁴ Then Amos answered Amaziah, “I was no prophet, neither was I a prophet’s son; but I was a herdsman, and a farmer of sycamore trees; ¹⁵ and Yahweh took me from following the flock, and Yahweh said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel.’ ¹⁶ Now therefore listen to the word of Yahweh: ‘You say, Don’t prophesy against Israel, and don’t preach against the house of Isaac.’

WP-Bible plugin; Ps. 89) is a main feature, still is a future earthly event that will occur when Christ returns to Jerusalem to reign over the earth for 1,000r 1,000
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Štetje svetopisemskih vrstic se začne z ¹! Vrstica ⁰ ne obstaja!

WP-Bible plugin years (Rev. 19:11 – 20:1-6).

However, proponents of Progressive Dispensationalism have changed some of this with their interpretation of Acts 2 (particularly verses 30-36). They teach from Acts 2:30Acts 2:30
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30 Therefore, being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that of the fruit of his body, according to the flesh, he would raise up the Christ to sit on his throne,

WP-Bible plugin that the throne of God in heaven where Jesus now sits is the throne of David. Hence, Jesus is currently reigning from David’s throne in heaven, and the Messianic Kingdom is now inaugurated and is beginning to be fulfilled! What was once clearly a future event is now, somehow, a present reality. This is a disturbing departure from a normal literal understanding of Bible prophecy that views the Throne of David as an earthly throne Christ will sit on and reign from Jerusalem when He returns (Is. 2:1-5; Ezk. 43:1-7Ezk. 43:1-7
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43 ¹ Afterward he brought me to the gate, even the gate that looks toward the east. ² Behold, the glory of the God of Israel came from the way of the east: and his voice was like the sound of many waters; and the earth shined with his glory. ³ It was according to the appearance of the vision which I saw, even according to the vision that I saw when I came to destroy the city; and the visions were like the vision that I saw by the river Chebar; and I fell on my face. ⁴ The glory of Yahweh came into the house by the way of the gate whose prospect is toward the east. ⁵ The Spirit took me up, and brought me into the inner court; and, behold, the glory of Yahweh filled the house. ⁶ I heard one speaking to me out of the house; and a man stood by me. ⁷ He said to me, Son of man, this is the place of my throne, and the place of the soles of my feet, where I will dwell in the midst of the children of Israel forever. The house of Israel shall no more defile my holy name, neither they, nor their kings, by their prostitution, and by the dead bodies of their kings in their high places;

WP-Bible plugin).

To believe this is now being “progressively” fulfilled blurs the distinction between Israel and the Church and minimizes the prophetic importance and position of modern-day Israel. The context of Acts 2 does not teach that Jesus is now reigning on the throne of David. Rather, the main point of Peter’s sermon is that God has demonstrated the man Jesus, who was crucified by the Jewish leaders, to be “both Lord and Christ” by the following three events in Acts 2: (1) By the resurrection v. 31; (2) By the exaltation at God’s right hand v. 33; (3) By sending the Holy Spirit of promise v. 33. The gist of Acts 2:30Acts 2:30
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30 Therefore, being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that of the fruit of his body, according to the flesh, he would raise up the Christ to sit on his throne,

WP-Bible plugin-36 is Christ’s resurrection and exaltation at the right hand of God on the heavenly throne that guarantees His future reign on the earthly Davidic thrones as David’s Lord and greater descendant.

Nowhere in Acts or, for that matter, in the entire Bible does one find the earthly throne of David and the heavenly throne of God explicitly identified as ever being the same.

They are always distinct and different in Scripture. In the book of Acts, it is even more evident that Christ is not presently reigning on the throne of David as Progressive Dispensationalism claims. Luke opens Acts with Christ’s post-resurrection ministry to the disciples for forty days. During that time, Jesus spoke to them “of things pertaining to the Kingdom of God” (Acts 1:3Acts 1:3
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3 To these he also showed himself alive after he suffered, by many proofs, appearing to them over a period of forty days, and speaking about God’s Kingdom.

WP-Bible plugin). Surely, in all that time, if Jesus were to shortly reign on the throne of David in heaven, He would have plainly told them of this important change and transference of David’s throne from earth to heaven when they asked Him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the Kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1:6Acts 1:6
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6 Therefore, when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, are you now restoring the kingdom to Israel?”

WP-Bible plugin). Christ did not reply, “You are mistaken about this Jewish misconception of an earthly throne and Kingdom in Israel. The throne of David has been transferred to the throne of God in heaven where I will ascend and shortly reign from.”

Instead, Jesus told the disciples that God the Father has appointed the time and season in the future when the Davidic Kingdom will be established in Israel (Acts 1:7Acts 1:7
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7 He said to them, “It isn’t for you to know times or seasons which the Father has set within His own authority.

WP-Bible plugin). In the meantime, they were to go out and preach the Gospel in all the world, starting in Jerusalem (Acts 1:8). The Davidic rule and Kingdom did not begin when the Lord ascended to heaven, or He would have obviously told them so when questioned about the time and season for the establishment of the Kingdom in Israel. If Jesus is currently reigning on David’s throne in heaven, then Acts 15:16-18 contradicts this novel idea of Progressive Dispensationalism. The passage in Acts 15 deals with the issue of Gentile salvation and whether or not Gentiles must be circumcised and observe the Mosaic law to become Christians. James answers for the group at the Jerusalem Council by saying the calling out of Gentile believers is in keeping with the future promise of a Davidic Kingdom in Israel. Once the present age ends after the taking out of a Gentile body of believers “for His name” (a distinct characteristic and divine work of the present age), Christ will return to rebuild and restore “the tabernacle of David.” The phrase “Tabernacle of David” is a descriptive synonym of the Davidic throne and earthly Kingdom that has long been in ruins (Acts 15:16Acts 15:16
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16 ‘After these things I will return. I will again build the tent of David, which has fallen. I will again build its ruins. I will set it up,

WP-Bible plugin). It still remains this way during the present age and awaits the final restoration at the return of Christ to earth. If Christ were reigning on the throne of David in heaven at this time, why then did James say the Davidic monarchy was still in ruins? The only reasonable and clear answer is that Jesus has yet to return to earth to repair and rebuild it when He comes to reign on an earthly throne of David in Jerusalem, not heaven.

Clearly, in the book of Acts, the Jewish disciples, along with the Jewish Church of Jerusalem, were looking forward to a future, earthly, literal Davidic Messianic Kingdom in Israel to be ruled over by the Messiah Jesus. It was not spiritualized and transferred to heaven where Christ presently is, contrary to the belief of Progressive Dispensationalism. Carried to its logical conclusion, Progressive Dispensationalism could lead to saying the Church is Israel followed by a denial of the Jewish people’s status as God’s Chosen People and the vital role Israel will play in the future Davidic Kingdom to come. Christ is King over the created universe and His Church. He will be an earthly King over a redeemed Israel as their Davidic ruler on David’s earthly throne when He returns to earth. Therefore, …

Christ’s rule from the throne of David totally awaits a future fulfillment currently not realized now.

By David E. Sanger and Peter Baker, www.NYTimes.com

WASHINGTON — President Obama said Monday, April 5 that he was revamping American nuclear strategy to substantially narrow the conditions under which the United States would use nuclear weapons.

But the president said in an interview that he was carving out an exception for “outliers like Iran and North Korea” that have violated or renounced the main treaty to halt nuclear proliferation.

Discussing his approach to nuclear security the day before formally releasing his new strategy, Mr. Obama described his policy as part of a broader effort to edge the world toward making nuclear weapons obsolete, and to create incentives for countries to give up any nuclear ambitions. To set an example, the new strategy renounces the development of any new nuclear weapons, overruling the initial position of his own defense secretary.

Mr. Obama’s strategy is a sharp shift from those of his predecessors and seeks to revamp the nation’s nuclear posture for a new age in which rogue states and terrorist organizations are greater threats than traditional powers like Russia and China.

It eliminates much of the ambiguity that has deliberately existed in American nuclear policy since the opening days of the cold war. For the first time, the United States is explicitly committing not to use nuclear weapons against nonnuclear states that are in compliance with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, even if they attacked the United States with biological or chemical weapons or launched a crippling cyber attack.

Those threats, Mr. Obama argued, could be deterred with “a series of graded options,” a combination of old and new conventional weapons. “I’m going to preserve all the tools that are necessary in order to make sure that the American people are safe and secure,” he said in the interview in the Oval Office.

White House officials said the new strategy would include the option of reconsidering the use of nuclear retaliation against a biological attack, if the development of such weapons reached a level that made the United States vulnerable to a devastating strike.

Mr. Obama’s new strategy is bound to be controversial, both among conservatives who have warned against diluting the United States’ most potent deterrent and among liberals who were hoping for a blanket statement that the country would never be the first to use nuclear weapons.

Mr. Obama argued for a slower course, saying, “We are going to want to make sure that we can continue to move towards less emphasis on nuclear weapons,” and, he added, to “make sure that our conventional weapons capability is an effective deterrent in all but the most extreme circumstances.”

The release of the new strategy, known as the Nuclear Posture Review, opens an intensive nine days of nuclear diplomacy geared toward reducing weapons. Mr. Obama plans to fly to Prague to sign a new arms-control agreement with Russia on Thursday and then next week will host 47 world leaders in Washington for a summit meeting on nuclear security.

The most immediate test of the new strategy is likely to be in dealing with Iran, which has defied the international community by developing a nuclear program that it insists is peaceful but that the United States and its allies say is a precursor to weapons. Asked about the escalating confrontation with Iran, Mr. Obama said he was now convinced that “the current course they’re on would provide them with nuclear weapons capabilities,” though he gave no timeline.

He dodged when asked whether he shared Israel’s view that a “nuclear capable” Iran was as dangerous as one that actually possessed weapons.

“I’m not going to parse that right now,” he said, sitting in his office as children played on the South Lawn of the White House at a daylong Easter egg roll. But he cited the example of North Korea, whose nuclear capabilities were unclear until it conducted a test in 2006, which it followed with a second shortly after Mr. Obama took office.

“I think it’s safe to say that there was a time when North Korea was said to be simply a nuclear-capable state until it kicked out the I.A.E.A. and become a self-professed nuclear state,” he said, referring to the International Atomic Energy Agency. “And so rather than splitting hairs on this, I think that the international community has a strong sense of what it means to pursue civilian nuclear energy for peaceful purposes versus a weaponizing capability.”

Mr. Obama said he wanted a new United Nations sanctions resolution against Iran “that has bite,” but he would not embrace the phrase “crippling sanctions” once used by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. And he acknowledged the limitations of United Nations action. “We’re not naïve that any single set of sanctions automatically is going to change Iranian behavior,” he said, adding “there’s no light switch in this process.”

In the year since Mr. Obama gave a speech in Prague declaring that he would shift the policy of the United States toward the elimination of nuclear weapons, his staff has been meeting — and arguing — over how to turn that commitment into a workable policy, without undermining the credibility of the country’s nuclear deterrent.

The strategy to be released on Tuesday is months late, partly because Mr. Obama had to adjudicate among advisers who feared he was not changing American policy significantly enough, and those who feared that anything too precipitous could embolden potential adversaries. One senior official said that the new strategy was the product of 150 meetings, including 30 convened by the White House National Security Council, and that even then Mr. Obama had to step in to order rewrites.

He ended up with a document that differed considerably from the one President George W. Bush published in early 2002, just three months after the Sept. 11 attacks. Mr. Bush, too, argued for a post-cold-war rethinking of nuclear deterrence, reducing American reliance on those weapons.

But Mr. Bush’s document also reserved the right to use nuclear weapons “to deter a wide range of threats,” including banned chemical and biological weapons and large-scale conventional attacks. Mr. Obama’s strategy abandons that option — except if the attack is by a nuclear state, or a nonsignatory or violator of the nonproliferation treaty.

The document to be released Tuesday after months of study led by the Defense Department will declare that “the fundamental role” of nuclear weapons is to deter nuclear attacks on the United States, allies or partners, a narrower presumption than the past. But Mr. Obama rejected the formulation sought by arms control advocates to declare that the “sole role” of nuclear weapons is to deter a nuclear attack.

There are five declared nuclear states — the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China. Three states with nuclear weapons have refused to sign — India, Pakistan and Israel — and North Korea renounced the treaty in 2003. Iran remains a signatory, but the United Nations Security Council has repeatedly found it in violation of its obligations, because it has hidden nuclear plants and refused to answer questions about evidence it was working on a warhead.

In shifting the nuclear deterrent toward combating proliferation and the sale or transfer of nuclear material to terrorists or nonnuclear states, Mr. Obama seized on language developed in the last years of the Bush administration. It had warned North Korea that it would be held “fully accountable” for any transfer of weapons or technology. But the next year, North Korea was caught aiding Syria in building a nuclear reactor but suffered no specific consequence.

Mr. Obama was asked whether the American failure to make North Korea pay a heavy price for the aid to Syria undercut Washington’s credibility.

“I don’t think countries around the world are interested in testing our credibility when it comes to these issues,” he said. He said such activity would leave a country vulnerable to a nuclear strike, and added, “We take that very seriously because we think that set of threats present the most serious security challenge to the United States.”

He indicated that he hoped to use this week’s treaty signing with Russia as a stepping stone toward more ambitious reductions in nuclear arsenals down the road, but suggested that would have to extend beyond the old paradigm of Russian-American relations.

“We are going to pursue opportunities for further reductions in our nuclear posture, working in tandem with Russia but also working in tandem with NATO as a whole,” he said.

An obvious such issue would be the estimated 200 tactical nuclear weapons the United States still has stationed in Western Europe. Russia has called for their removal, and there is growing interest among European nations in such a move as well. But Mr. Obama said he wanted to consult with NATO allies before making such a commitment.

The summit meeting that opens next week in Washington will bring together nearly four dozen world leaders, the largest such gathering by an American president since the founding of the United Nations 65 years ago. Mr. Obama said he hoped to use the session to lay down tangible commitments by individual countries toward his goal of securing the world’s nuclear material so it does not fall into the hands of terrorists or dangerous states.

“Our expectation is not that there’s just some vague, gauzy statement about us not wanting to see loose nuclear materials,” he said. “We anticipate a communiqué that spells out very clearly, here’s how we’re going to achieve locking down all the nuclear materials over the next four years.”

But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified.

He is risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid Him.–Mark 16:6Mark 16:6
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6 He said to them, “Don’t be amazed. You seek Jesus, the Nazarene, who has been crucified. He has risen. He is not here. Behold, the place where they laid him!

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By Ann Dunagan, www.ChristianPost.com

JESUS IS ALIVE!!!

It’s Easter weekend, and when could be a more appropriate time for our families to step-out of our comfort-zones, and perhaps make a “sacrifice” to share the Good News of JESUS with our relatives, friends, and neighbors?

As we remember the Passover, the Cross, and the Empty Tomb (and as we busy ourselves with the fun festivities of Easter) let’s instill in our kids the point of it all. Let’s remember that Jesus didn’t just die for the precious people around our dining room tables.

Jesus died, rose again, and IS ALIVE TODAY . . . for the people of the whole world.

Have a MISSION-MINDED EASTER!

Fun Family MISSION Ideas for Passover, Good Friday, & Resurrection Sunday:

Passover, Israel

The Jewish celebration of Passover is to remember how God delivered the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt and how the death angel “passed over” their homes. A special dinner called “Seder” includes unleavened bread (matzoh), lamb, and bitter herbs.

Jesus celebrated the Passover every year, and through His death on the cross, He fulfilled it.

God has provided freedom from the bitterness of sin and eternal death, for us and for the world world, for “. . . Christ, our Passover Lamb, has been sacrificed for us” (1 Corinthians 5:71 Corinthians 5:7
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7 Purge out the old yeast, that you may be a new lump, even as you are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, has been sacrificed in our place.

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Passover Prayer Focus: Pray for God’s blessing and peace for the people of Israel, and for Jewish people from all over the world. Pray for Jewish families, especially as they are celebrating the Passover, that they would recognize Jesus Christ (Y’shua) as their promised Messiah. Thank God for the blood of Jesus Christ, our Lamb of God. (And isn’t it amazing how Jesus Christ is the “Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” Rev. 13:8Rev. 13:8
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8 All who dwell on the earth will worship him, everyone whose name has not been written from the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who has been killed.

WP-Bible plugin. Even before God created our world, He knew there would be sin, and the need for the Cross. Yet out of His incredible love, He chose to create us anyway . . . and to die for us.)

Holy Week, Palm Sunday, Good Friday, Resurrection Sunday, International

Christians around the world celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus.

In many Latin American countries, such as in Antigua Guatemala, huge processions with large statues of Jesus and religious relics are carried through the streets. During many of these events, there is little or no mention of the Resurrection. In other places (such as in the Philippines, in Asia) men allow themselves to actually be nailed to a cross – stopping just short of death – all done as “penance” (a religious self-effort to pay part of the punishment for their sins).

Good Friday & Easter Prayer Focus: As we show our children these international examples, we can encourage our kids to pray for people who need Jesus. We can pray for our family’s missionaries, and pray for people (even this Easter weekend, both around the world and right in our local area) to hear the truth of the Gospel. We can remind our kids how that Jesus Christ died on the cross, once and for all, to pay the penalty for people’s sins, and how He rose from the dead to provide NEW LIFE and salvation by grace and through faith.

10 MISSION-MINDED Family Ideas for EASTER:

1. PRAY: Pray for families you know who are thinking about Easter eggs and baskets for their kids, but who have no thought about the real meaning of the Cross and the Resurrection. Brainstorm a few specific ways that your family make an impact, this weekend, for Jesus.

2. INVITE SOMEONE TO CHURCH: Think of the families in your neighborhood, and pray about who you could invite to church. Walk through your neighborhood, and pray for these families specifically. Make a simple effort (perhaps with a phone call, a stop at their house with a plate of cookies or a simple basket with Easter treats and a church bulletin or handwritten card) and INVITE them to come.

3. DRAW PICTURES OF JESUS: Have your kids make simple hand-drawn pictures about the cross of Jesus Christ and the resurrection, with an invitation to your church’s Sunday Easter Service; bring the drawings with you the next time you are in the vicinity of your home church, and have your kids look for someone specific they can invite to church.

4. READ THE BIBLE: Read the Biblical account of the Passion Week.

5. READ A BIBLE STORYBOOK: Read aloud from Christian children’s books which focus on the true meaning of the Cross and the Resurrection of Christ, such as any Bible storybook. Two of our family favorites are The Tale of the Three Trees, or The Little Rose of Sharon.

6. PUT JESUS PICTURES ON YOUR EGGS: If you decorate Easter eggs, include pictures of the cross and the empty tomb, and words such as “JESUS IS ALIVE!” (You can write these with color crayon, before you put the eggs in the dye.)

7. TAKE COMMUNION: Celebrate communion together as a family or even all by yourself during a quiet time – perhaps on Good Friday, to remember the sacrifice of the Cross. Play a CD, or sing together a simple song you know about the cross or the blood of Jesus, read aloud I Cor. 11:23r. 11:23
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23 They also, if they don’t continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again.

WP-Bible plugin – “For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, That the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread…”

8. WATCH THE TEN COMMANDMENTS: Watch the classic film, The Ten Commandments, starring Charlton Heston, and especially focus on the scene of the Passover and the blood of the Lamb.

9. WATCH A JESUS MOVIE OR PASSION PLAY: Watch a film about the Cross and the Resurrection – The JESUS Film by Campus Crusade for Christ (from the Gospel of Luke, translated into about 1000 languages, and utilized in missions and evangelism throughout the world), The Matthew Video, The Gospel of John, or The Passion. If your home church doesn’t do a special Easter program, perhaps look to see if there is a special LOCAL PASSION PLAY or LIVE EASTER PAGEANT that your family could attend (but unless you’re out of town, be sure to go to your own home church for Easter Sunday morning, even if your service is small and simple!!!).

10. LEARN HOW THE WORLD CELEBRATES HOLY WEEK: Look on-line to get a glimpse of Holy Week celebrations throughout the world (such as the ones above in Guatemala and the Philippines) – to focus your prayers on other nations and people who need to receive Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.