In our Bible studies here in the pew, we have followed a lot of different routes that occurred during Christ ministry, as well as that of the apostles as they went forward, there are four cities that I have given the name of the Gospel Trail…a few weeks ago we visited the city of Capernaum and sought to learn about its place on the Gospel Trail. Today’s blog will take us to Bethany and Bethphage.  We will start in the city of Bethany.

Bethany definitely has some significance in the Bible. It was a village in Judea about 2 miles east of Jerusalem which provides us with an example of Jewish law in that day and time. This City two miles east of Jerusalem, as we have written was considered a “Sabbath days journey.”without overwhelming you with a lot of background information we can just simply say that it was a Jewish law that you could only travel so far on the Lords day. And from Bethany to Jerusalem was a Sabbath days journey the city was located on a well situated and well traveled Road to Jericho. It’s been referred to in some writings as being like a modern subdivision or a neighborhood rather than an entire town, what is important about this city is that it reached to the Mount of Olives and also borders  Bethphage a suburb of Jerusalem. Bethany was known as the hometown of Jesus good friends, Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. And it was here that Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. Some other people that were known in the biblical stories would be Simon, who suffered from leprosy,  Mary, who anointed Jesus’s feet with perfume and other references that are made in Mark and Luke, which describe the preparations for Jesus’s triumph entry in Jerusalem. Bethany was the place where Jesus stayed overnight during his final week of earthly ministry between the entry into Jerusalem and his crucifixion. In my research for this blog, there are a couple little interesting items that turned up that you can either accept or not accept the name Bethany is translated to mean house of figs because there are a lot of fig trees and palms in the area, but also was translated to mean a house of mystery; because they believe that Bethany was a designated place for people to come that were sick or suffered from contagious diseases. In reading the information that I was looking through I definitely learned something that I had never really thought about. It came from Luke 24:50 -51, it is extremely significant because it is a place near where Christ ascended into heaven. Jesus gathered his disciples there and gave them final instructions before he left this earth. It was in the vicinity of Bethany, where he blessed them and commissioned them to go forth, and was lifted up into the clouds. This holds a special meaning also. There are those who have written that Act 1: 9–11 indicates that as the men of Galilee stood there watching Jesus going up into the sky the same Jesus was taken to be with the Father would come back in the same way to that very spot. So a small town that was seemingly insignificant would be the scene of a world changing event…the return of Jesus Christ King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

Next, we travel to Bethphage, that’s the biblical spelling of this small area or city, if we were to drop the H and simply write it as Bethpage it becomes a small city in New York…the Greek spelling included the H. Bethphage would mean “House of unripe/green figs”. It was located on the eastern slope of the Mount of Olives, close to Bethany and just outside of Jerusalem along the road coming from Jericho. Perhaps one of the things it’s remembered for the best, it was the place where Jesus sent to his disciples to find a donkey or colt tied up and to bring it to him so he could ride it into Jerusalem. That particular event fulfills a prophecy of Zachariah. We also find that it is consistently mentioned alongside Bethany, where Jesus stayed or visited during the final week leading up to Passover. I hope you appreciate the fact that these are real accounts, passed on by real people and are just a few of the examples of our faith…

Life is Good…Because God  is Good

jk