ARTICLES

By Marc Turnage

Mount Carmel is a limestone ridge that bisects the coastal plain of the land of Israel branching off from the mountains of Samaria west towards the Mediterranean coast. It is most famous as the location for the confrontation between Elijah and the prophets of Ba’al (1 Kings 18:19).

Today, the Carmelite monastery of Mukhraka (Arabic meaning “burned place”) remembers that event. The mountain’s geographic location along the Mediterranean coast makes it fertile for agriculture (600mm average rainfall a year), which also led biblical writers and prophets to herald Carmel as a place of agricultural abundance (Song of Solomon 7:6; Isaiah 33:9; 35:2; Amos 1:2). Its fertility, rainfall, and proximity to the Phoenician coast, just to its north, made Carmel an appropriate location for the worship of Ba’al, the Phoenician god of storms and fertility. Even after Elijah, people continued to worship Ba’al of Carmel. 

The fertility, precipitation, and location of Mount Carmel play a key role in the story of Elijah and the prophets of Ba’al. Agriculture in the land of Israel proved difficult in the ancient world. The people depended solely upon God for rain to water their fields and crops due to the topography of the land (see Deuteronomy 8; 11:10-20). 

For this reason, God promised that as long as Israel obeyed Him and His commandments, He would send rain in its season; if Israel disobeyed, He would shut the heavens, so it wouldn’t rain. The concern for rain in its season (at the appropriate time) lead the Israelites to often look also to other local deities, like Ba’al, to provide rain, just in case.

The people had turned from God by worshipping Ba’al during the reign of King Ahab, and therefore, God sent drought on the land. Elijah called the children of Israel, together with the prophets of Ba’al, to gather on Mount Carmel. Mount Carmel receives some form of precipitation 250 days a year; it sits on the southern edge of Phoenicia where Ba’al worship originated. It also provided a high place. 

Ba’al is often depicted walking on the mountains, a god of high places. The drought that God sent offered a direct challenge to the god of rain. Elijah’s challenge, the god who answered with fire was God; Ba’al’s symbol was a lightening bolt. The heart of the story lies within the geographic setting of Mount Carmel. 

Of course, after God sends the fire upon Elijah’s sacrifice, and the people turn to the Lord as God, then He sends the rain. The setting and background of this story underline the challenges of daily life faced by the ancient Israelites; these challenges that raised the fundamental question that Elijah posed to the people, “If the Lord is God, then serve Him.”

Marc Turnage is President/CEO of Biblical Expeditions. He is an authority on ancient Judaism and Christian origins. He has published widely for both academic and popular audiences. His most recent book, Windows into the Bible, was named by Outreach Magazine as one of its top 100 Christian living resources. Marc is a widely sought-after speaker and a gifted teacher. He has been guiding groups to the lands of the Bible—Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Turkey, Greece, and Italy—for over twenty years.

Website: WITBUniversity.com
Facebook: @witbuniversity
Podcast: Windows into the Bible Podcast

“Now, Lord, look on their threats, and grant to Your servants that with all boldness they may speak Your word, by stretching out Your hand to heal, and that signs and wonders may be done through the name of Your holy Servant Jesus.” And when they had prayed, the place where they were assembled together was shaken; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spoke the word of God with boldness (Acts 4:29-31 NKJV).

When the chief priests of Jerusalem commanded Peter and John to no longer speak in Jesus’ name, the two disciples had a choice to make. They went to their community and together they prayed. 

They did not pray for favor with the rulers. They did not pray for deliverance. They did not pray for protection. They prayed for boldness to continue in their way.

They asked God to show forth His glory through signs and wonders. As a result of their prayer, they were filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the Word with boldness. 

How do you respond to adversity? Do you seek a way out or the removal of the problem? The followers of Jesus did not see adversity as a problem to be avoided or from which to be delivered.

They did not reason, “If we just gained favor with the ruling powers.” Rather, they sought to stay their course faithfully in doing what God had called them to do. 

Adversity does not mean we are out of God’s will, nor should we seek to avoid it. They sought boldness to do the task they had been given and believed that ultimately God would glorify Himself and His servant Jesus. 

When you find yourself confronted with adversity, how do you pray? Our true submission to God seeks His glory above our comfort; it submits to the challenges we face, recognizing that how we handle them provides an opportunity for Him to show forth His wonders. 

The followers of Jesus did not pray a prayer that focused on themselves. They could have—they had just been threatened.

Rather, they sought God to glorify Himself through them, and they offered themselves as vessels for Him to use for that purpose.  

Our daily prayer should be that in our lives, no matter the situation or adversity we face, God will glorify Himself.

PRAYER

Father, glorify Your name through our lives. No matter the situation, we will stay faithful to You; glorify Yourself in this world through us. Amen.

It’s hard to function well when you’re battling hunger. Yet, in Israel today, 20 percent of the population suffers from nutritional insecurity. Sadly, the most vulnerable tend to be the elderly, children, at-risk youth, and single parent families, usually living below the poverty line.

For many, it means skipping meals, going to bed hungry, or eating cheap, processed foods high in sugar and fat. This can lead to poor health, malnutrition, diabetes, and obesity. And low-income families often can’t afford fresh fruits and vegetables that are high in nutritional value. 

Meanwhile, according to a recent report, 2.2 billion pounds of nutritious food are wasted each year in Israel, even as 522,000 families struggle to put healthy meals on the table. In fact, 35 percent of all food produced in Israel ends up destroyed and not consumed, adding to environmental problems of waste disposal. Is there a smart way to solve both issues?

Fortunately, friends like you are an important part of a sustainable solution. Through CBN Israel’s strategic partnership with one of the country’s largest food banks, caring donors are rescuing quality foods, fruits, and vegetables that would otherwise go to waste, and bringing them to households that desperately need them.

This valuable project mobilizes tens of thousands of volunteers, hires professional pickers, and deploys drivers and vehicles to collect excess produce from fields, orchards, and packing houses. The rescued produce is then redistributed free of charge to partner non-profit organizations that bring it to local families and individuals.

And this is just one of the ways your gifts to CBN Israel can help those trying to survive in the Holy Land during these challenging times. You can supply groceries, housing, and other essentials to soaring numbers of refugees, Holocaust survivors, and war victims.

Please join us in reaching out to the people of Israel at this crucial time!

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By Stephen Faircloth

In response to a troubling surge in antisemitism across the United States, The Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN), CBN Israel, and Regent University have partnered with JewBelong, a New York-based nonprofit known for bold public messaging, to launch a powerful nationwide awareness campaign. The initiative features visually arresting pink and white billboards delivering a simple but urgent message: standing against antisemitism is standing with America. More than a public display, this campaign is a call to action for Christians, students, alumni, and communities across the country to unite in solidarity with the Jewish people.

The campaign begins August 11 in Virginia, with three prominent billboards positioned along major thoroughfares near the CBN and Regent University campus in the Tidewater area. These messages are intended not just to inform, but to spark conversation, reflection, and ultimately, action. The billboards will remain in place through September 29. CBN will amplify the campaign’s reach through its influential television and digital platforms, engaging audiences nationwide.

Following the Tidewater launch, the campaign expands to four key Ivy League campuses: Harvard, Yale, Brown, and the University of Pennsylvania. These universities, long esteemed for their academic distinction, have increasingly become challenging environments for Jewish students. The Ivy League campaign aims to confront this reality with bold, unapologetic messaging. By bringing the conversation directly to these campuses, the effort seeks to break the silence that often follows antisemitic incidents and to encourage students, faculty, and administrators to stand as allies against hate.

At the same time, the campaign will engage students and alumni across Southeastern Conference universities through a coordinated strategy of billboard placements and digital outreach led by Regent University. This SEC-focused initiative invites campus communities throughout the South to take part in a growing national movement that refuses to look away from antisemitism and instead embraces shared responsibility and moral courage.

This campaign is driven by alarming data. The Anti-Defamation League’s 2024 Audit of Antisemitic Incidents ranks Virginia among the top ten states for such activity, with 266 incidents reported last year alone, representing a 19 percent increase from 2023. Nationally, antisemitic incidents have surged by 893 percent over the past decade. These are not isolated occurrences. They are part of a persistent and intensifying pattern that must be addressed with urgency and resolve.

College campuses, in particular, have become flashpoints for antisemitic rhetoric and behavior. Jewish students have reported harassment, exclusion, and threats, often met with silence or inaction from university leadership. That silence not only fails to protect, it emboldens those who propagate hate. This campaign seeks to challenge that silence and to empower campus communities to speak out in defense of their Jewish peers.

Gordon Robertson, President and CEO of CBN and Chancellor of Regent University, emphasized the moral and spiritual significance of this initiative. He said, “It is vital that Christians in Virginia and across the country stand in solidarity with the Jewish community. Antisemitism is not just a Jewish issue, it is a human issue and a spiritual one. We are called to stand against hatred, to defend our neighbors, and to reflect God’s love through our actions. This campaign is one important step in that direction.”

This effort builds upon JewBelong’s previous campaigns in major cities including New York, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas, and near academic institutions such as Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and the University of Pennsylvania. With this expansion and collaboration with faith-based and academic organizations, the campaign marks a growing movement determined to challenge antisemitism wherever it takes root.

The message is clear. In the face of rising antisemitism, especially on the campuses shaping the next generation, silence is no longer an option. Every billboard, broadcast, and digital message is a call to choose courage over complacency, to reject hate, and to stand unwaveringly with our Jewish neighbors. Christians and Americans alike are urged to raise their voices, because defending others is not only right, it is at the very heart of what it means to love our neighbor.

If you are a Christian who believes in standing with Israel and the Jewish people while confronting antisemitism, lies, and misinformation, we invite you to join CBN Israel in making a meaningful difference today.

GIVE TODAY

Stephen Faircloth is the President of CBN Israel, an initiative dedicated to sharing the true story of the Jewish nation and inspiring a global community of Christians to stand with Israel and support her people in need. Our vision is to reshape the global conversation about Israel by fostering understanding, hope, and healing between Jews and Christians round the world. For more than 50 years, the Christian Broadcasting Network has supported Israel. By joining CBN Israel, you become part of this enduring legacy, transforming lives today and strengthening Christian support for Israel for generations to come.

Write to the angel of the church in Ephesus: “The One who holds the seven stars in His right hand and who walks among the seven gold lampstands says: I know your works, your labor, and your endurance, and that you cannot tolerate evil. You have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and you have found them to be liars. You also possess endurance and have tolerated many things because of My name and have not grown weary. But I have this against you: You have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember then how far you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. Otherwise, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place—unless you repent” (Revelation 2:1-5 HCSB).

We often read John’s letter to the community in Ephesus and think that they had lost their love for the Lord. But that doesn’t make sense within the context.

John commends the Ephesian community for testing those who call themselves apostles, not tolerating evildoers, and enduring patiently for the sake of Jesus’ name. They hadn’t lost their love for the Lord.

Rather, they had lost their love for one another. In their ardor for testing, not tolerating evil, and enduring in their faith, they had abandoned their love for others. It’s easy to do.

Throughout the New Testament, we are reminded to love one another and not judge, for in the manner we judge others, God will judge us (see Luke 6:37-38). We can become so focused on truth that we forget to love. It’s not an either-or, but as Paul says, without love, we are nothing (1 Corinthians 13).

The threat posed to the Ephesians is that if they do not change, they will eventually be removed. How we treat others is weighed seriously within the New Testament. In our zeal for truth, we can be both right and wrong. The Ephesians had lost the love for others that they’d had at first. 

Maintaining love is one of the hardest actions we do as humans. The gravity of life can tend to pull us in the opposite direction, and we can all too easily find our love gradually growing cold. 

Whether in marriages, families, friendships, or other relationships, we have to work and cultivate our love for others. In our fervor for the truth, we must guard against becoming cold and callous.

Let’s remember this powerful statement by Jesus to His disciples on the night He was arrested. “This is My command: Love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, that someone would lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:12-13 HCSB).

Jesus’ warning to the community in Ephesus serves as a sober reminder to us today in how we are to treat others. We must pursue loving rightly as much as we pursue doing right. May we follow the command of Jesus to love one another as He has loved us.

PRAYER

Father, we repent of those times that we have not loved others. We have judged when we should have been merciful. Forgive us, and may we be merciful as You are merciful. Amen.

Living in Israel has its challenges. But for many vulnerable seniors who call it home, those challenges are multiplied by not having enough to eat.

Tragically, one quarter of Israel’s elderly are facing food insecurity. And being malnourished can trigger health problems for them, requiring additional medical care and expenses—which can also worsen their financial and personal struggles.

In fact, seniors living in low-income government housing are often immigrants or Holocaust survivors. The majority are isolated, disabled, and without family nearby for support. They receive a government stipend of just $600 a month—barely enough to survive. Sometimes it means skipping meals to buy medicine or going hungry. So, who can they turn to?

Gratefully, friends like you are there for these precious older Israelis. Caring donors have enabled CBN Israel to partner with one of the largest food banks in the Holy Land to meet their needs.

First, surplus-prepared food is rescued from hotels, corporate cafeterias, and IDF military bases. It is refrigerated overnight at distribution hubs, and then delivered the next day to at-risk seniors in housing facilities, or through senior day centers. And for the past two years, donors have served over 40,000 hot, nourishing meals, four days a week throughout the year, to the elderly in need!

Your gift to CBN Israel can ease their fears and let them know they are not alone. And your support can also reach out to others in crisis—including immigrants fleeing war and poverty, single mothers, and terror victims—and show them that they aren’t forgotten.

Please partner with us in bringing hope to the hurting!

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By Marc Turnage

Mentioned more than any other location in the Gospels, apart from Jerusalem, Capernaum sits on the northern shore of the lake of Galilee. The Gospels indicate it served as an important base during Jesus’ ministry around the lake, with Matthew referring to it as “his own city” (9:1). He performed miracles in the village casting out a demon in its synagogue on the Sabbath, healing Simon’s mother-in-law, and caring for many who suffered. Jesus taught in the synagogue built by a centurion (Luke 7:5). 

Capernaum does not appear in ancient sources prior to the first century where both the Gospels and the first century historian Josephus mention it. Its name means the “village of Nahum,” although no indication of who Nahum was is known. Archaeological excavations indicate that some settlement at the site existed as early as the third millennium B.C.; however, the village that Jesus knew began around 330 B.C. and continued until the Arab conquest in A.D. 640, when the layout of the village was significantly altered. Archaeological excavations indicate a population shift and growth took place in the first century B.C., in which the population became markedly Jewish. 

The site of Capernaum today consists of two sites, one controlled by the Franciscans, which contains some houses, the synagogue, and the Christian shrine, and the other site belongs to the Greek Orthodox Church. Excavations on the Greek Orthodox property have been limited. Most of what they excavated dates to the Byzantine period (4^th-7^th centuries A.D.). They did discover a bathhouse (2^nd-3^rd century A.D.), a tomb, which dates to the 1^st century, and some suggest that the sea wall of the harbor goes back to the first century as well. The more popular and developed side of Capernaum belongs to the Franciscans; however, most of the remains that visitors see date to the Byzantine period.

The synagogue that stands in the site today was constructed out of limestone, which had to be brought to the village since the local stone is the black, volcanic basalt. Certain architectural elements of the structure suggest a 3^rd-4^th century date; however, pottery discovered under the floor indicates that the current building was constructed in the 5^th-6^th century. The limestone building rests upon a basalt wall. While visitors to the site are shown this wall and told it dates to the first century, the time of Jesus, this simply does not seem to be the case. The wall supports the limestone structure above it. It is possible that they built this structure on top of the earlier, first century synagogue, but the synagogue of Jesus would have been much smaller, as excavations under the floor of the Byzantine period synagogue have revealed houses in use during the first century. 

The excavated houses date primarily to the Byzantine period; however, excavators uncovered a large courtyard to a house, which dates to the first century. The homes in Capernaum reflect a style of home popular within the ancient world known as the insula. These homes surrounded a central courtyard in which much of the domestic life of the family took place. This style of home illustrates many stories in the Gospels. 

Visitors to Capernaum encounter a large modern church built over a series of ancient ruins, which consist of three phases. The earliest phase consists of an insula home (200 B.C.-A.D. 135). The second phase reflects an insula sacra in which a certain portion of the house became a shrine (2^nd-4^th century A.D.). The final phase (5^th-6^th century A.D.) preserves a Byzantine shrine with three concentric octagonal walls with mosaic floors. This structure architecturally reflects a Byzantine shrine, built over a sacred site, but it is not a church. The excavators explained these three phrases as evidence of this site being the “House of Saint Peter.” 

Marc Turnage is President/CEO of Biblical Expeditions. He is an authority on ancient Judaism and Christian origins. He has published widely for both academic and popular audiences. His most recent book, Windows into the Bible, was named by Outreach Magazine as one of its top 100 Christian living resources. Marc is a widely sought-after speaker and a gifted teacher. He has been guiding groups to the lands of the Bible—Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Turkey, Greece, and Italy—for over twenty years.

Website: WITBUniversity.com
Facebook: @witbuniversity
Podcast: Windows into the Bible Podcast

“If it had not been the LORD who was on our side, when men rose up against us, then they would have swallowed us alive, when their wrath was kindled against us; then the waters would have overwhelmed us, the stream would have gone over our soul; then the swollen waters would have gone over our soul” (Psalm 124:2-5 NKJV).

When things get difficult, whom do you turn to for aid? Do you try to figure it out yourself? Do you look to family or friends? Or do you look to God? This does not mean simply throwing a prayer heavenward in a moment of crisis; do you really look to God each day?

When you come out of moments of difficulty, do you recognize that God was near and that He was with you through it all? Do you acknowledge His deliverance and help? Do you recognize what would have happened had He not been by you?

Psalm 124 does that. It recognizes God’s nearness to His people, and it acknowledges what would have happened had He not come to their aid. The psalmist was not merely looking to God as a safety valve in a moment of trouble, although he acknowledged Israel’s reliance upon God. 

God wants to help His people; He desires to deliver them. Like any good parent wants to help and protect their children, God loves to help us, and He enjoys it even more when we recognize His divine intervention. He gains glory by what He does for us.

Of course, the question naturally comes: Why does God not deliver us from every painful or difficult situation? On the one hand, we can say that growth comes through hardship; we also gain a depth in our relationship with Him when He brings us through. But on the other hand, we have to acknowledge that within life, suffering is a great mystery too—and we do not have all the answers.

The crux of the matter, though, is that we pursue a relationship with God in which we invite Him into our daily lives and trust Him to be our God—even in the midst of our most painful moments and circumstances. And if our cries for help do not receive the exact answers we expect, will we still choose to believe that God is near and will see us through?

Where do you look for help? The psalmist declared, “Our help is in the name of the LORD, who made heaven and earth” (Psalm 124:8 NKJV). Is He the One you look to? When you come through hardship, do you recognize how God was with you?

PRAYER

Father, You are our help. You have been our help. If it weren’t for You, we certainly would have perished. May Your name be blessed for the protection and deliverance You have given for us. Amen.