Well, the old town of Joppa is just a few miles out of Tel Aviv and some significant things happened in this town. One of the most familiar is that Jonah decided to run away from God by going to Joppa to catch a boat to Tarshish...the exact opposite direction from where God was calling to go to preach to the people of Ninevah...
So God called a Great Fish to swallow Jonah...and well, that changed things for Jonah! One of the pictures I've included is the fish that was created and interpreted by Ilana Goor, just outside her house...I always imagined it being a bit bigger!:)
We then went to the home of Simon the Tanner who, if you remember owned the home where Peter was staying when he had an amazing vision from God in Acts 10 (I encourage you to read the chapter) where Peter sees all the non-kosher animals coming down from heaven on a large sheet and God told Peter to eat, but Peter said because they were forbidden because of the law, he would not. But God then told him to not call something unclean that God has declared as clean. This was the way God was telling Peter that the Gentiles (unclean) were to be called to faith in Jesus (yay!)...Peter then went to the house of Cornelius, a Gentile, and saw the way he came to faith in Jesus...pretty cool!
Now, I understand there are several places in Joppa that claim to be the house of Simon the Tanner, but that is not important, just to remember the story...
We then went to the church of Saint Peter commemorating the miracle God did through Peter when he raised the young woman Tabitha from the death as recorded in Acts 9:32-43. The picture in the front of the church is a picture of that event, beautiful sanctuary!!!
We then walked around and had lunch (Israeli Gyros...um, um, good!) and spent some time in the market place...as you can see, Jeff was having a great time goofing off! The group is really enjoy each other! More later...
No comments:
Post a Comment