Holy Land Bible Study
Sometimes God gives us gifts. He has given me one the fall of 2006, when I spent the semester studying at Jerusalem University College on Mount Zion, Jerusalem.
As part of that study, a few friends and I have been doing a weekly Bible study of Hebrews. Sitting in the old stone arches of the university’s student lounge, we have dug into the supremacy of Christ through the excellency of His Word. It has been a time of growth for all of us.
Although I have been a part of a variety of Bible studies in my life, this Bible study was special for two reasons. First, doing a Bible study of Hebrews in Jerusalem contextualizes the Word in a way that I’ve not experienced in North America. There is an incarnational quality to the Holy Writ that is made more earthy, more real, when it is punctuated by the bells of the Dormition Abbey marking off the rhythm of time over a likely spot of the Upper Room. Our Bible study has explored the Sabbath rest God offers His people in Christ, in the midst of the tumultuous clamoring of three faiths seeking such rest.
But more than the geography of a sacred place, the power of our Hebrew Bible study has been in the mysterious filling of a sacred space -- for where two or three are gathered, Christ promises to be also. That is true in Jerusalem. It is also true in Jenison, Michigan.
And that promise is radical, because it means Christ is present in some very unlikely places – from steamy jungles to searing deserts, from the society of urban sophisticates to humble farmers. It even means that Christ has been sitting in our Bible study as Calvinist and Armenians, Baptist and Pentecostals, dispensationalist and a-millennialist have together stood within their faith community, professing one Lord, one faith, one baptism.
That truly is a gift. Jerusalem is its box. Spirit-led Bible study is the treasure within.