“The Biblical References”

Megiddo isn’t exactly a household name in the Bible. Using the “search” feature in my Bible software program, I found only twelve total mentions of the city, all in the Old Testament, which at least beat out the nine mentions of Rome, but still fell far short of Jerusalem, which is mentioned a whopping 815 times.

We’re first introduced to Megiddo in Joshua 12:21 in a long yawn-inspiring list of cities that Joshua defeated after entering the Promised Land. Megiddo is buried between the mention of the cities of Taanach and Kedesh, so you’re forgiven if you didn’t remember that one. Megiddo is described as hilly in Joshua 17:11—that it is!—and there’s a water source nearby, according to Judges 5:19—absolutely right, for a spring still flows there today! So, it’s starting to make more sense that there’d be a settlement at this location—easy to defend and plenty of water to drink.

In Judges 1:27 we learn that the tribe of Manasseh failed to fully drive out the people of Megiddo with its satellite cities, showing that the Canaanites had slipped back into the area sometime after Joshua’s conquest and had maintained a presence there until the time of Deborah and Barak who once again defeated the Canaanites in battle (Judges 5:19). The next time we encounter the city, it’s populated with Israelites, having been transformed into a key administrative city by King Solomon (1 Kings 4:12) who expanded and strengthened it (1 Kings 9:15). Two later Jewish kings, Ahaziah and Josiah, both died at Megiddo from battle wounds (2 Kings 9:27; 23:29-30; 2 Chron. 35:22-24), highlighting the city’s military significance, and in the last of the twelve references, the prophet Zechariah associates “the plain of Megiddo” with a future time of great mourning (Zech. 12:11), a time when the Jews “will look on Me whom they pierced” (v. 10).

The city of Megiddo doesn’t show up in the New Testament even one time until you remember that Megiddo is the root word of Armageddon, a battlefield in Revelation 16:16, the mention of which follows these descriptive words of Jesus in v. 15, “Behold, I am coming as a thief. Blessed is he who watches….” Thus, the battle of Armageddon precedes the Second Coming of Jesus, a time when fighting and mourning will come to an end.

-Daniel McCabe

Trivia (Find the answer below)

Life in the Land: Jerusalem Syndrome

If you could meet any person from the Bible, who would it be? Perhaps Jesus, John the Baptizer, King David, Moses, the Virgin Mary, Mary Magdalene or Elijah? Did you know that every year in Israel as many as one hundred people are evaluated, resulting in roughly forty hospitalizations, for what is popularly known as Jerusalem Syndrome. In other words, they become so overwhelmed during their visit to the land of Israel that they lapse into a temporary mental state wherein they believe themselves to be a biblical figure, perhaps one in the previous list of seven names that comprise the greatest number of documented cases.

According to research psychiatrists at Kfar Shaul Mental Health Center, this phenomenon can affect Christian, Jewish and even Muslim pilgrims, and it generally follows a recognizable pattern: an intense preoccupation with a biblical person or place, an urge to separate from one’s traveling companions, a ritual washing, usually accompanied by a change into white clothing, a visit to one of the holy sites to teach or preach, and finally an identification with the biblical figure associated with that site. Fortunately, most cases result in a full recovery after only a few weeks once the person is removed from the area.

Several movies and books have centered around characters with the syndrome as well as television series, including The X-Files and The Simpsons. One tour guide even showed me a mattress once, located near the Ninth Station of the Cross in the Old City, that belonged to a man who identified as Jesus.

-Daniel McCabe

Divinity of the Holy Spirit, Part 1

Pneumatology

Pneuma is the Greek word for wind or spirit, and so pneumatology is the theology of the Holy Spirit. The first topic I’d like to take up in this series is the divinity of the Holy Spirit.

It is so very important to understand that the Holy Spirit is part of the triune Godhead. He is a member of the Trinity. We see this in Matthew 28:19 and in many other passages. He’s fully divine. He’s co-equal with the Father and the Son, and because the Holy Spirit is God, a sin against the Holy Spirit is a sin against God as is made pretty clear by Acts 5:3-4 when Ananias and Sapphire are confronted by the apostles.

Being God, the Holy Spirit is, of course, omniscient, according to 1 Corinthians 2:9-11. He is also omnipresent, omnipotent and eternal, and being divine, of course, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God, was active in creation, hovering over the waters. The Spirit regenerates people. He renews us upon our salvation and He sanctifies us. He even revealed all Scripture to us, which we see in 2 Timothy 3:16 and 2 Peter 1:20-21. We only know anything about God because we have the God-breathed Scriptures that are inspired works of the Holy Spirit. In 1 John 5:6 we read too that He is truth.

There’s also an interesting doctrine, known as the spiration of the Holy Spirit, that is viewed in two different ways within Christendom. I personally believe that the Spirit proceeds from both the Father and the Son, but the Eastern Orthodox branch of Christianity has held throughout church history that the Holy Spirit only proceeds (or is sent or spirated) from the Father. The Western view, the historical view of Roman Catholicism and now of Protestantism and Evangelicalism, holds that the Holy Spirit proceeds from both the Father and from the Son. Some Scriptures show that He proceeds from the Father (e.g., John 15:26; 1 Corinthians 2:12) and some verses that He proceeds from the Son, even calling Him the Spirit of Christ or the Spirit of the Son (e.g., Romans 8:9; Galatians 4:6).

Even though proponents of each view might view the other as unbiblical, it really is one of those things that you could almost argue for either view—the Spirit proceeding only from the Father or the Spirit proceeding from both the Father and of the Son. It’s one of those things where a lot of people scratch their heads and say, “What does it even matter? Whether I hold to double spiration or to single spiration it’s not going to affect my day-to-day life for the Lord in any way, shape or form. I just know that the Holy Spirit is God and that He regenerates me and renews me.” It’s one of those things about which people like me have fun theorizing and philosophizing, but in the end we cannot fully comprehend the Trinity because we’re created beings who are always limited by our finitude. Still it’s fun to think about it.

-Adam Keim

The Palestinians

From the Archives:, November 1, 2022

Although the word Palestinian comes from the word Philistine, it is widely acknowledged that Palestinians are not descendants of the Philistines who are mentioned in Bible stories like David and Goliath or Samson and Delilah. DNA studies of the bones and teeth of skeletons, which were unearthed recently in the biblical region of Philistia, lead to the conclusion that the Philistines migrated from Greece, Italy and Spain around the twelfth century B.C.

DNA also shows that Jews and some modern-day Palestinians share a common ancestry. In fact both have a long history in the land of the Bible with the former being descendants of Isaac and the latter being descendants of Ishmael.

Some modern-day Palestinians are descendants of people groups who have lived in the land of the Bible continuously for thousands of years, but many are also from the Balkans, Caucasus, Turkey, Egypt, Arabia, Syria and Lebanon. In the mid-twentieth century A.D. the moniker Palestinian was first adopted in order to identify this mixed group. Before that time (going back even before the time of Christ) the word Palestinian had been used in a general sense for anyone living in the region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. Today it is used almost exclusively for non-Jewish, Arabic speakers who live mostly in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, but the term Palestinian may leave some with the wrong impression that they are a homogenous group of people with a unified, national, historical claim to the land which predates that of the Jews.

-Daniel McCabe

Answer to the Trivia

C. 60%