The Sea of Galilee...a Geography Lesson

        Although Galilee is called a “sea”, it is, in fact, fresh water. As far as size goes, Galilee is less than one quarter the size of Lake Simcoe (744 km²) in Ontario. At minus 696 feet, it is “the lowest freshwater lake on Earth.”  For you geology buffs, note that Galilee, the Jordan River, the Dead Sea, and the entire Arabah, the Gulf of Aqaba and the Red Sea are on the edges of two tectonic plates (the African and the Arabian) slipping in opposite directions to each other and, in some areas, spreading away from each other (and causing several earthquakes mentioned in the Old Testament).

     The Sea of Galilee (Matt.4:19; 15:29), about 60 miles northeast of Jerusalem, figures so strongly in the story of Jesus that it’s worth learning a little bit about it. For instance, it has several other names in scripture too: Sea of Chinnereth (Num.34:11; Josh.12:3; 13:27), Lake of Gennesaret (Luke 5:1), and Sea of Tiberias (John 6:1; 21:1). The box shows a few statistics taken from Wikipedia:

Lake type	Monomictic [the waters mix completely once per year]
Primary inflows	Upper Jordan river and local runoff
Primary outflows	Lower Jordan River, evaporation
Catchment area	2,730 km2 (1,050 mi2)
Basin countries	Israel, Syria, Lebanon
Max. length	21 km (13 mi)
Max. width	13 km (8.1 mi)
Surface area	166 km2 (64 mi2)
Average depth	25.6 m (84 ft)
Max. depth	43 m (141 ft)
Water volume	4 km3 (0.96 mi3)
Residence time	5 years
Shore length	53 km (33 mi)
Surface elevation	-212.07 m (-695.8 ft)
Islands	2

        But statistics are dry; statistics are dull. What life-stories do we know about people around the lake?  

        Way back in Numbers, Deuteronomy, and Joshua, the slopes east of the sea of “Kinnereth” were to be the eastern boundary of the nine and a half tribes, and the western boundary of the two and a half tribes (Reuben and Gad and the half tribe of Manasseh). This is where the history of the name Gad-ara comes from, where Jesus let the demons go into the swine.

        Moving into the New Testament we read in Mark 1:16-19, “As Jesus walked beside the sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake…When he had gone a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John in a boat, preparing their nets.”

        This is the lake where our mind’s eye can see Him as He sits in a boat to speak to His audience along the shore at the water’s edge. We see Him calm the storm and the waves. We see Him walk on this water. We see Him direct His disciples to a miraculously huge catch of fish. And this is where, after His resurrection, He prepares fish on a fire of coals, feeds His disciples, and three times asks Peter to feed His sheep.

        Many of us will never “walk where Jesus walked”, in a physical sense, but we can still take His words to heart: To the disciples working on their nets, He said, “I will make you fishers of men.” From the boat, He said, “…other seed fell on good soil. It came up, grew and produced a crop...”  In the storm He said, “Peace, be still.” From His sure footing on this very sea, He said, “It is I; be not afraid.” After the failed all-night fishing trip, He said, “Cast the net on the right side of the ship, and ye shall find.” And on the beach of Galilee He said, “Come and dine.”

        What more can we say? Let’s fish for men and women for Christ. Let’s produce a good crop for Him; let’s be at peace and unafraid. Then we know that He will come in and commune with us, and we with Him.

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Christians in Rome: "Proclaiming the Gospel Without Fear"

     When the apostle Paul arrived in Rome in the spring of 60AD, after his shipwreck and his winter on Malta, he had already been in communication with the believers through his letter (“Romans”, dated 56AD). When Paul wrote later on, blessing the Roman believers for “proclaiming the gospel without fear” (Phil.1:14, from Rome in 61AD), even he couldn’t foresee the torment that was coming. After two years under house arrest, he was released in 62AD. He continued his missionary work away from Rome but in July, 64AD a tragic fire destroyed   two-thirds of Rome (with a population at that time of two million) and Nero blamed the Christians for causing it.

     When my wife and I were in Rome in 2012, we toured St. Peter’s. One of the most poignant stories our young Italian guide told us was of Nero’s “garden parties” not far from where we stood. She described how he “lit his garden parties with the burning carcasses of Christian human torches.”  Christians were tied to poles around his garden, covered in tar and pitch, and set alight! She told the story so well that I could feel the shock of it. Were some of them the believers whom Paul commended in his letter? We know Priscilla and Aquila escaped because Paul mentioned them in his second letter to Timothy at Ephesus in about 66/67AD. But was Phoebe in the group? How about Andronicus and Junia? Tryphena and Tryphosa and Persis? Were Nereus and his sister made into human torches? (See Romans 16).

     The letter to the Romans is full of gospel verses like 3:23, 6:23, 10:9, but after this brutality probably the key quotation is 8:18—“I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.” Paul, himself, came to his earthly end on the beheading block of Nero in Rome in 67/68AD.

     Maybe some of these very names are people whom the apostle John saw under the altar, in Revelation 6:9-11:— “the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained.” Terrible things have been done!

     Let us, therefore, pray for Christians around the world who face martyrdom even today. May they, like Paul, even though writing in his final days from the Mamertine dungeon in Rome still say, “Fight the good fight, finish the race, and keep the faith!” (2 Tim.4:7).

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