Day 5 Blog by David Shinn

“Are you shopping for a new god?” I said to my two professors as they walked up to the ancient promenade of Caesarea Philippi.
“Why? Is your god not doing anything good for you?” My professors said to me.

Today we traveled to the Golan Height. Now, you know I will make my share of political analysis, but hold on, let me share a spiritual reflection first. Historically, it was called Paneas, naming after the god Pan because of the natural spring that flourished the valley below. Then for a short period of time, it was called Caesarea Philippi during Jesus time when the son of Herod, Philip, made the city his headquarter. The Arabic name for this beautiful spring is Banias. At the height of this city under Philip during Jesus time, this was the supposed location where Peter professed the Lordship of Jesus in Matthew 16:13. In a time when a person can walk down the main promenade and literally shop for a new god or go worship one god to the next, Jesus asked his disciples “who do you all say I am?”

When we have many gods, god of wealth, god of comfort, god of health, god of fame, god of victory, god of relationship, god of ____ (you can fill in the blank), how many gods do we worship? How many gods do we follow? And if the god we worship is not working to our liking, would we go shopping for a new god? What would you and I say to Jesus if He asks you or me “who would you say I am?”

Switch the gear a bit…as we traveled upward to the Israeli “controlled” territory of Golan Height from the Sea of Galilee, nearly all of us started to ask, “How is this related to the Israeli Palestinian situation?” As you know, through the 6 days war of 1967, Israel took back the Golan Height from Syria and thus completed the biblical territory under King David’s rule from “Dan to Beershiba.” Dan was one of the 12 tribes of Israel and its territory was in the Golan Height. Furthermore, by taking this land (back or not), Israel also gained control of the main water spring of the Jordan River, thus gave Israel control of 2 out of 3 water springs to the Jordan River. Land and water are once again the cause for warfare.

In this “controlled” territory, we witnessed a land rich with agricultural growth and potential. One can easily understand why this is indeed the disputed land between Syria and Israel. As a foreigner to this land, I am learning to be slow to judgment and quick to learn and understand. Yet I find it very hard to agree to the hostile take over of this land of one nation from the other nation. Yet, we from the west, while enjoying the privilege and power, must not forget our contribution to this conflict. After all, see below the picture of the Israeli solider guarding the boarder with all the arms we have supplied them with. By the way, we also made money from selling those arms to them.