Along the Road

Jesus was born in Bethlehem, a village in which the Lord frequently delivered solutions for people in trouble. Matthew and Luke reference this village nine times in telling the story of Jesus's birth, highlighting that it too is a solution story.

After his baptism, Jesus faced temptation in the wilderness. Matthew tells this story to highlight five parallels and one major difference between Israel's and Jesus's temptation experiences in the wilderness.

Jesus traveled to Mount Moreh to raise a mother's son from the dead, just as Elisha had before on this same mountain. The locals saw the symmetry and proclaimed Jesus to be a great prophet.

Jesus rode a donkey down the Mount of Olives in the direction of the Gihon Spring on Palm Sunday. The crowd called for His coronation because they were seeing Jesus do what King Solomon had done in the same place on the day of his coronation.

Jesus made two trips to the east side of the Sea of Galilee, the Gentile Decapolis. The second miracle He performed there, the feeding of the 4,000, is precipitated by the first, the healing of a demon-possessed man.

Jesus took the disciples to the base of Mount Hermon to ask and answer the question, "Who do people say that I am?" Only when we realize how much this part of the Holy Land had struggled to understand who God was, will we appreciate Peter's confession and Jesus's confirmation of it using local geography.