While traveling eastward toward the Galilee area, we passed through Nazareth, the boyhood home of Jesus.  Today, what was once a tiny Jewish village is now a predominantly Palestinian Arab city of 70,000, known by some as “the Arab capital of Israel.”

Luke 4:16-30 provides the account of Jesus returning to Nazareth as an adult and teaching in the synagogue.  In verse 24 He proclaims that no prophet is welcome in his home town.  As He continued to teach, people got offended and ultimately drove Him out of the city to the brow of a steep hill with the intent of throwing Him off the cliff!  Here is that cliff:

(That picture is from a couple years ago.  It was much warmer this time around, and we didn’t need to weight Pastor John down to keep him from blowing off the cliff himself!)

As a bonus, I want to share an interesting picture:

Just beside the roadway near Megiddo (also in the region of Nazareth) is an authentic tomb with a roll-away stone.  Research indicates that this tomb is fairly representative of the size of tombs in Jesus’ day.  However, in a previous post you saw the tomb of Jesus which is much larger.  That fact is consistent with Scripture (Mathew 27:59-60) which indicates that a LARGE stone was rolled against Jesus’ tomb.  (So large that several men would not have been able to move it.)  Jesus was laid in a rich man’s tomb (Mathew 27:57-60), which was larger than the normal  tomb.  In fact, we know that Jesus’ tomb would accommodate two!  In fact, here is the “floor plan” of the tomb Jesus was buried in:

God’s Word can be fully trusted!