Sorry this is taking me so long. I have barely had time to go through all the photos to narrow them down. I took over 800 photos but didn’t want to put them all up so I’ve been trying to go through them to decide what is discussed and what isn’t. Anyway, on to day 3!
Day 3 started early for me! A handful of us decided to get up early and do a quick 3 mile run around the Sea of Galilee. That was AWESOME!
After showering and eating breakfast, our group headed to the Sea again and went to visit the Church of the Beatitudes. If you’ve read Matthew, you know the 8 beatitudes. Below is an example of one:
These stones were all over the grounds and each one had one of the beatitudes on it.
This is a picture of the Church that sits on the traditional location for where Jesus taught his famous Sermon on the Mount.
We had several people get up and read the beatitudes along with the Sermon on the Mount. Hearing the words while sitting in a place wondering if a disciple or another Jew that was coming to know Christ sat in that exact same spot was pretty powerful.
After visiting the church, we headed to another church on the Galilee. This one is called the Church of Multiplication. You may already know it’s significance by the name. This is where Jesus multiplied the fish and loaves and fed the 5,000.
Inside the church. It was beautiful!
At the alter is a rock that is well preserved. It’s said that this is the rock where Jesus prayed over the food and broke the loaves and handed them to the disciples to pass out.
We spent some time at this church, but then left and headed to yet another church. This one is called the Church of the Primacy. After Jesus was resurrected, he appeared to the disciples by the Sea and cooked them breakfast. This rock is where that was said to have happened. That hole you see in the middle of the rock? That’s where he would have cooked the fish by starting a fire in the hole. No idea how they did that….didn’t ask.
This is the Church of the Primacy from the outside. This is also the spot where Jesus asked Peter 3 times if he loved him and eventually Peter got offended, but Jesus told him to go forth and feed his sheep (his people).
This is me collecting some rocks from the Sea of Galilee for a friend. After leaving the church, we headed towards Capernaum. This is where Jesus lived and taught for the majority of his ministry. He lived her with Peter. Nothing has been built on top of Capernaum like it has been in other areas. The whole city is just ruins, which I liked, personally. Sometimes it’s hard to imagine what Jesus saw when it’s been covered up by buildings and churches and walls and shops, etc.
Bible study just outside the remains of the synagogue where Jesus taught.
The sign says it all. Basically the black rock you see at the bottom was the remains of the synagogue Jesus taught at. It was built on top of in the 4th century, which is the white section of the wall.
These are all remains of houses.
This is a pretty important house. It’s Peter’s mother-in-law’s house (and Peter’s too since he lived with her) which also means that Jesus lived here for a time while he was in Capernaum. After teaching at the synagogue one day, Jesus walked to Peter’s MILs house because she was very ill. He healed her and she got up immediately and started cooking for them.
View of the Sea of Galilee from Capernaum. This is also where Peter would have gotten the fish out of the water that had the denarius in its mouth that paid Jesus and Peter’s temple tax. The place where we ate lunch that day was very well known for its “Saint Peter’s fish” which memorializes Peter catching the fish that paid their taxes.
Remember when I said the thing about the cats?!?! Yeah I wasn’t kidding…
Everyone eating lunch. We had a great view of the Galilee during lunch. It was awesome.
This was the Saint Peter’s Fish that you could order. Made me want to barf. I got the pizza option.
After leaving that are we had one last stop for the day. It was a place called Kursi. Remember in the Bible where Jesus sailed across the Galilee into Gentile country and was met by a man possessed by so many demons that he referred to himself as “Legion”? Well, as the story goes, Jesus rebuked the demons out of the man and into a herd of pigs that subsequently jumped off a cliff into the ocean. Kursi is the cliff they jumped off. We had communion in the remains of a church nearby and then me and my father-in-law ran super fast up to the hill to get better pictures of the cliff.
The cliff :)
Another awesome day at the Galilee. This was our last day in this region. The next blog post will take you to Bethlehem and Jerusalem and so many more places!
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