News

Importance of Community

Kim Walker, Student Ministry Intern

I have so many memories from my recent trip to Israel, so many events that battle for the top spot as the experience of a lifetime. But, I’ll focus on the one aspect that my professors who accompanied me and my fellow students from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary felt was an important Biblical concept to grasp while in the Holy Land: community.

Throughout the Bible, the importance of community is highlighted. In the beginning the Godhead was in community: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. We were created in the image of God and thus we were designed to be in community. As I stood at the gate at JFK with 32 of my fellow seminary students, I did not realize how much the significance of community would be driven home during our 2 1/2 weeks in Israel.


Mount Sinai

We began our trip traveling towards the southern most part of Israel into the Wilderness of Zin. As we hiked the wadis (a valley or dry riverbed) and eventually left Israel for a few days to climb Mount Sinai in Egypt, we were reminded of the covenant God first made with Abraham (Genesis 12), and later His promise to deliver His people from the bondage of Pharaoh (Exodus 3:7-12). Before our climb, we spent an evening with the Bedouins, a nomadic tribe of shepherds that live now as they have for generations. They presented us an offering of a choice ram that was to be slaughtered for our dinner. Dr. Tim Laniak, current acting-dean of GCTS-Charlotte and an Old Testament scholar, read from Leviticus 16:7-10 as the Bedouins slit the neck of this docile animal; throughout the ceremony the ram was placid and gave of his life effortlessly. One of my classmates remarked later that the way in which the skin of the animal easily fell away from the body struck a cord with her of the humility and willingness of Christ to give His life so that the bridge of sin would no longer separate us from heaven. The price of our salvation was driven home through this experience: the Scapegoat that made the ultimate sacrifice for our transgressions.  

After climbing Mount Sinai for two hours on a camel’s back, an experience that lost its excitement within 20 minutes, we hiked the remaining 1,000 steps to reach the summit. The mountains in Egypt look nothing like the mountains here in North Carolina; they are void of vegetation and are massive stone rocks reaching towards the sky. It really drove home the statement that “God is my rock.” Once we had toured the top of Sinai, we began the tricky descent down what is known as “Elijah’s 3,000 steps.” The sun was going down quickly and the physicality of the hike took its toll when we finally saw St. Catherine’s Monastery at the foot of the mountain.

The following morning we were given a special tour of the monastery’s library by Brother Justin of the Greek Orthodox Church. The library houses the second largest collection of illuminated manuscripts -- the Vatican has the largest -- and consists of some 3,500 volumes in Greek, Arabic, Hebrew, and other languages. It was humbling to be in the presence of a group of monks who spend their lives in a remote part of the world, committed to preserving the original texts of our Christian heritage.

Jerusalem

We traveled back to Jerusalem where we spent five days visiting with a group of Samarians, touring the Old City in which the world’s three major religions converge at the site of the Second Temple: Christianity, Judaism and Islam. We stood on the very steps where Jesus, and later Paul, preached the Good News. We visited the archaeological sites associated with the City of David, the Mount of Olives and Gethsemane, and were given special access to the Palestinian-occupied territories of Jericho (the walls have been uncovered) and Bethlehem.

A wall and road are being constructed throughout much of Israel to separate Israelis from Palestinians. An Israeli woman in labor would take a more direct route to the hospital while a Palestinian woman would spend two hours driving on the designated Palestinian road to arrive at the same hospital. Many of us in the West wonder why anyone would fight so hard over a land that is typically desperate for rain, unbelievably hilly, polluted, as well as the rockiest of climates. But think about what it would be like if the land that your family and community had worked for generations was suddenly taken from you by the government. The land is your identity, your heritage, and it has been forged through communal work. For the Israelis and Palestinians that is the hinge behind their bitter contest over land. One thing I gleaned from my visit to Israel was that importance of group identity and that both sides in the conflict have reason to be upset. 

Bethlehem

Bethlehem’s poverty is noticed immediately when you cross into its town limits. It’s completely under Palestinian rule and signs of the wall are everywhere. Visiting Bethlehem Bible College we had a rare opportunity to speak with the dean and several of the school’s professors. Many Christian Palestinians have been forced to accept Islam and it was a valuable lesson to learn of the prayer needed for our Arab Christian brothers and sisters. We learned that one of the most important outreach services the school provides is to take both Israelis and Palestinians into the wilderness, force them to reconcile their differences and learn to appreciate one another’s perspectives. Throughout Scripture you will find the ‘wilderness experience’ motif: Moses, David, Jesus and Paul each experienced a time in which God used the wilderness to push them beyond their comfort zone in order to build them into men He could use to fulfill His plan for saving humanity. Another important aspect of the college is the inclusion of women in outreach, which has had great success in bringing mothers, daughters and sisters into conversation with those their community have deemed unworthy.

Sea of Galilee

We spent our final week around the Sea of Galilee, staying at a kibbutz -- another example of community building important to the Israeli people. We finally had some down time to spend with our own little community and many of us stayed up late talking about our experiences together and what it would mean to our future ministry. We took a boat out on the lake to catch a glimpse of what it must have been like for Jesus to conduct his ministry in this area. The water is deep and I couldn’t help but admire the determination, albeit short, that Peter had to step out of the boat and walk towards Christ as recorded in Matthew 14. Because of the valley in which the sea is located, it a common occurrence for such a terrible storm as the one experienced by the disciples that night.

Our tour included seeing the hill across from the Jordan River where Christ fed 5,000 with only a few loafs of bread and fish. We also had a chance to see the hillside where He gave the Beatitudes, and visited Capernaum where Jesus spent much of his time with Peter and his mother-in-law. Community was an important aspect of Christ’s ministry and he never shied away from doing what was necessary to build His followers into a kinship of believers. 

Our final stop was at Caesarea, where Pontius Pilate governed during the time of Jesus. This was where Simon Peter converted the Roman, Cornelius, the first non-Jew to believe in Jesus. Paul was also imprisoned for two years in Caesarea. In the fourth century, the site converted to Christianity and became a major center of the Christian Roman Empire. 

Community of Saints

As we prepared to say goodbye, Dr. Laniak reminded us that Paul was eventually taken west to Rome where he died because of his faith. Dr. Laniak said that soon we would find ourselves back in the West, but prayed over us that all we had experienced in Israel and Egypt would be forever held in our hearts as we pursue our various calls to ministry. We too could be sentenced as Paul was for his belief, but we had been grafted into the Community of Saints and no principality, nationality or foreign power could remove from us the knowledge that we are as much a part of the history of the Holy Land as those who strove to make their mark in our world and in history. It was a sad day. I had learned so much about the importance of community while in Israel, with all its different cultures and traditions, and yet, I was a part of the world in which my Savior had walked and that only through Him could I claim the 32 of my fellow sojourners as members of my immediate community. I could take home with me the importance of our Christian heritage and to strive to build community within my own everyday life.