Peter and Paul in Caesarea

It’s been a busy week. Spending 4 days in the Galilee trying to see as much as you can is pretty exhausting. Not to mention being in the mid-term season with all that goes into that. Nonetheless, I got to spend 4 days in the Galilee. It was incredible. This will be the first of 4 posts describing the time there.

The first stop was at Caesarea Maritime on the shore of the Mediterranean. Herod did it again. Where nature said that it was impossible to build a port there, Herod creates the first cement that hardens under water and builds a harbor out into the sea. And then built his palace out on the water so it looked like it was floating on the sea. Oh yeah, and he had a fresh water pool foundation inside his house. My dude.

This is strange, but I remember seeing this on the History channel, or the discovery channel or something when I was young. Maybe middle school? And I remember thinking how sweet it would be to visit there and see this. There was this hippodrome (horse racing track) that took up a lot of the sight and had stadium seating overlooking the track and the sea. It also had a amphitheater which was pretty awesome as well.

What made this sight more shocking was the Biblical history involved here. It was just a cool, old Roman sight that I remember seeing on TV at first. But the Biblical history here proved to be even more valuable. Both Peter and Paul have deep roots in this sight. First, in Acts 9-10, Peter brings the Gospel to Cornelius here. Peter has a vision telling him to eat the unclean animals. Later he interprets this dream as opening up the salvation invitation beyond the Jews to the “unclean” Gentiles. Immediately after the vision, Cornelius’ servants show up at the place Peter is staying and ask him to come visit their master. Peter does, preaches the Gospel to Cornelius household, they receive the Holy Spirit, and the Gentiles are now included in redemptive history. And I was standing at the place that this all took place. God’s had his eye on this place as the place where the non-Jews would first be included in the salvation message from the beginning of time. I’d like to think He’s still looking over it and over me as I’m visiting the place where all of this went down.

Next, Paul had a long prison captivity here recorded n Acts 24. We were able to stand where he would was thought to be kept as a prisoner. I could only imagine what his thoughts were as he was ministering to this people for over 3 years- the people that came and went; the epistles and letters he wrote to the churches; how the culture there influenced what he said; who had visited him; how he ministered in chains; etc. Arguably the two most effective and influential ministers of the Gospel in history Jesus aside had been standing in the same place less than 2,000 years ago. They served and suffered and obeyed well.

I hope God is preparing me the same way He did to Peter and Paul so long ago. I hope the Spirit will be poured out again afresh on a new generation. I pray for a revival like the early church where wicked, unbelieving sinners turn to the Gospel for peace and life where God is exceedingly glorified and seen as He is. God come and work.

Hoping God raises up a new generation of saints,
Sos