Banyas- Caesarea Philippi - "Upon This Rock"

 

One of the 'coolest' places in the Land of Israel is the archeological site Banyas.

 

What is the most important question we must answer in this life?

Why am I here?

What is life all about?

What must I do to be happy?

How can I get all the things that I need?

How can I be successful and prosperous?

Psychologists and counselors will often list these as the most often asked question that their clients deal with on a regular basis.

But there is one more…

 The Pharisees and Sadducees came up, and testing Jesus, they asked Him to show them a sign from heaven. ² But He replied to them, “ When it is evening, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red.’ ³ And in the morning, ‘There will be a storm today, for the sky is red and threatening.’ Do you know how to discern the appearance of the sky, but cannot discern the signs of the times? ⁴ An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign; and a sign will not be given it, except the sign of Jonah.” And He left them and went away.

⁵ And the disciples came to the other side of the sea, but they had forgotten to bring any bread. ⁶ And Jesus said to them, “Watch out and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” ⁷ They began to discuss this among themselves, saying, “He said that because we did not bring any bread.” ⁸

But Jesus, aware of this, said, “You men of little faith, why do you discuss among yourselves that you have no bread? ⁹ Do you not yet understand or remember the five loaves of the five thousand, and how many baskets full you picked up? ¹⁰ Or the seven loaves of the four thousand, and how many large baskets full you picked up? ¹¹ How is it that you do not understand that I did not speak to you concerning bread? But beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.”

¹² Then they understood that He did not say to beware of the leaven of bread, but of the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees.

¹³  Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, He was asking His disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” ¹⁴ And they said, “Some say John the Baptist; and others,  Elijah; but still others, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets.” ¹⁵ He *said to them, “But who do you say that I am?”

 ¹⁶ Simon Peter answered, “You are  the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

 ¹⁷ And Jesus said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. ¹⁸ I also say to you that you are  Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.

¹⁹ I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.” ²⁰  Then He warned the disciples that they should tell no one that He was  the Christ.       Matthew 16:1-20

Mark, who got much of is information from Peter, adds this:

³¹  And He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. ³² And He was stating the matter plainly. And Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him. ³³ But turning around and seeing His disciples, He rebuked Peter and *said, “Get behind Me, Satan; for you are not setting your mind on God’s interests, but man’s.”        Mark 8:31-33

 Here are a two Greek words that help us understand this passage:

“Peter”: Greek petros, a stone

“Rock”: Greek petra, large rock; bed-rock

 

Matthew records that Jesus had been busy performing many miracles:

Feed 5000 with two fish and five loaves,

Walked on Water,

Calmed a violent storm on the Sea of Galilee,

Feed 4000 people with seven loaves and a few small fish.

The next scene is the Pharisees approaching Jesus and asking him for another sign from Heaven, to back up His claims of being the son of Man.  His reply was simple: Understand the sign of the times.; look at what already has happened. Then finally “The only sign they will get will be the sign of Jonah”, who spent three days in the belly of a large fish and was resurrected to life.

He warned His disciples not to allow the suggestions of the religious elite to sway them and to remember what they have seen and experienced with Jesus.

Then Jesus took them far away from the Religious Jewish communities- up to the north to a place where the foothills of Mt Hermon rise up in significant rock formations, and where the water from the snowcap on Mt Hermon runs down forming waterfalls and underground streams that flow out. 

Here is the same waterfall during the winter rains.

Banyas is such a pleasant place that in the 12th Century, for a 20 year period, the Christian King of Jerusalem would meet the Muslim Caliph of Damascus and spend day playing chess, sharing meals, and deciding the politics of the region.

 

This is the Greco-Roman cultic site of modern day Banyas, then known as Caesarea Philippi.

The communities in this area supported an active worship center of altars and temples to the Greco-Roman gods. 

The Temple to Augustus covered the mouth of  large cave where an underground stream surfaced and flow out. The cave is very deep and locals often referred to this place as the ‘gates to hell’.

'

Next was the Court of Pan and the Nymphs, were rituals were performed honoring these gods.

 

 

To the right was the Court of Nemesis, a deep cave where archeologists have found thousands of pottery shards. Apparently, this was the place to write the name of an enemy whom you wanted Nemesis to curse on a pottery vessel, then throw the pottery into the cave, shattering it and activating the curse.

To the right of this was an altar to Pan, the organizer of the gods (‘pantheon’) and a place where there was a raised metal plate with a fire underneath, where the priests would shave the hooves of goats and throw them on the hot altar.

They would begin jumping around (dancing), attempting to escape the hot surface. When they jumped off the circular plate, a priest would cut off a limb of the goat with a sword and throw it back on the grill. Now there was a three legged goat squirting blood trying to escape. When he did another limb would be cut off, and now there was a two legged goat dragging his body over the hot grill, finally expiring from the blood loss.

The Remains of the Dancing Goats altar

This bloody ritual was the highlight of the worship experience at Banyas.

It was here at this center of pagan worship that Jesus took his disciples to ask them the final exam question:

“Who do people say I am?”

They replied “Some say John the Baptist; and others,  Elijah; but still others, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets.”

Then He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?”

This is the question that we all have to answer. Who de we believe Jesus to be?

Peter blurts out “You are the Christ, the son of the Living God”.  From his later comments, its is obvious that Peter doesn’t really understand who Jesus really is. He has accepted the common understanding that the Christ, the Messiah, would be God’s chosen instrument to kick out the Romans and reestablish the Jewish kingdom. When Jesus informs them that He will be rejected by the religious authorities and killed, Peter tells him “That isn’t going to happen on my watch.”

Nevertheless, he makes this bold declaration, “You are the Christ, the son of the Living God.” Jesus agrees with Peter, noting that God Himself revealed that to Peter.

That is a key for our understanding of the essential element in evangelism. Its is God Himself who is pursuing us, reaching out to us, revealing Himself to us. Our recognition of Him will only come from Him.

Then Jesus makes a cryptic response. “You are a stone (petros), but on the large rock (or bedrock) (petra) I will build my church and the gates of Hell (Hades) will not overpower it.”

Biblical scholars and ecclesiastic leaders have debated for centuries the meaning of this significant declaration by Jesus.

The Church in the Middle Ages was centered in Rome, and the accepted understanding was that this was the moment that Jesus declared that His church would be build on Peter and his ecclesiastic descendants, known as the Bishops of Rome, or “Popes”, who would rule over the churches on Earth with absolute authority. In fact, when the pope makes a declaration ‘ex-cathedra” it is considered to be an infallible statement- without error.

However, the scandalous lifestyles of the leaders of the Roman church in the 1500 and 1600’s prompted the leaders of the Reformation to rejected the leadership of the pope and his decrees. They were part of a movement that declared that the Bible is God’s Word and has ultimate authority over our lives, not the decrees, doctrines, and customs of the Roman church. Now these ‘Protestants’  consider that the “rock” that Jesus was referring to was not Peter and his descendants, but rather the truth that Jesus is the Messiah, the Savior, the Son of Man and Son of God. That is the “rock” that the church was going to be built on.

This seems like a logical conclusion and good interpretation of what Jesus is saying. But there may be an additional understanding.

When you come to Banyas, and are standing in at the entrance to the archeological park, one thing that is very obvious is a significant rock formation with a vertical cliff, where there is a large cave, a stream flowing from the area of that cave, and cultic sites carved into the face of the cliff and onto the surface of the rock floor in front.  It’s a very big rock!

 

Could Jesus have had another illustration for his disciples along with the truth that He is the Messiah and that the church will be built upon that truth?

Perhaps as they viewed this location of the cultic worship, and observed people coming to watch the slaughter of goats on the hot grill, others smashing the pottery vessels to curse their enemies, and still others participating in the probable sexual worship of Pan and the Nymphs, they might have had another thought:

Jesus is going to build His church right on top of the idol worship, and these people will become our brothers and sisters in the Kingdom of God, and there is nothing that satan can do to stop it.   

I find this to be the case in my life, as well as that of my wife Laura. We were far from God, involved in our self-centered life, worshipping our idols of personal fun and fulfilment through pleasure, adventurous experiences, and whatever else came along. Then we had a significant experience with God, who revealed Himself to us, and He invited us to become part of His Family.  We did.

Many of you have had a similar experience. We all had our idols that we worshipped: Good times; Financial prosperity; Travel.; Professional achievement; Prestige; Influence over our friends; Power to do things we wanted to do; Fine cars; Fine homes; Many Friends.

Jesus came in and built His Church right on top of us an other idol worshppers. It seems to be a historical trend. Its not the ‘religious’ people who often get saved, but those who pursued other avenues to personal pleasure and success.

Then Jesus said:

¹⁹ I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.” ²⁰  Then He warned the disciples that they should tell no one that He was  the Christ. Matthew 16:1-20

Spiros Zodhiates, Greek national from Cyprus, and a renowned expert in Biblical languages and author of over 200 books (half of them in Greek), offers this grammatical translation of this perplexing passage:

“I will give you the keys of the kingdom of the heavens. And whatever you shall bind (aorist subjunctive)  the earth shall be as having been bound (perfect passive participle) in the heavens; and whatever thou shall lose (aorist subjunctive) on the earth shall be as having been loosed (perfect passive participle) in the heavens.”

aorist subjective: simple undefined action not signifying any particular time, asserting some doubt, uncertainty or indefiniteness.

perfect passive participle: receiving action completed in the past but has continuing results while describing the source of the action.

The teaching here is that those things which are conclusively decided by the King in the kingdom of heaven, having been so decided upon, are emulated by the Church on earth.

There is much ‘binding and loosing’ happening in the church today. I find this understanding of this passage helpful in knowing what in fact God has done before I declare it.

This question by Jesus “Who do you say that I am?” is still the most important question in our present culture.

We all answer this most important question through our life response. Everyone does give an answer, even if they don’t acknowledge it.

I love the lessons of Caesarea Philippi: Jesus is the Christ, Our King, and He is reaching out to those who are distracted by worshipping the idols of their culture. "Pleasure, Power, Position" is how our friend Beth Stewart puts it. All cultures throughout history have offered these things, but Jesus offers us true life.

The  thief (satan) comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly. John 10:10

Look around for those 'idol worshippers in your community. They are prime candidates for an invitation into true life. Jesus has been pursuing them and we get a chance to play our part in the process.

Moselle on a rainy day in Banyas

 

Handy Links

Back to Biblical Places Spiritual Spaces

Ready for some delicious coffee? Check out our Rio Coco Beans!

Help out our school project.

Purchase Living In The Spiritual World