{"id":498,"date":"2014-12-08T12:00:30","date_gmt":"2014-12-08T12:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/?p=498"},"modified":"2014-12-05T23:19:10","modified_gmt":"2014-12-05T23:19:10","slug":"matthew-724-29-the-wise-and-foolish-builders-geographical-backgrounds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2014\/12\/matthew-724-29-the-wise-and-foolish-builders-geographical-backgrounds.html","title":{"rendered":"Matthew 7:24-29; The Wise and Foolish Builders (Geographical Backgrounds)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s natural to think that the \u201chouse built upon the rock\u201d and the \u201chouse built upon the sand\u201d in Jesus\u2019 parable of Matthew 7: 24-27 refer to houses in different locations\u2014but geography of ancient Palestine leads some Bible historians to think otherwise. In fact, Jesus was probably referring to two houses built side by side, on the banks of the Sea of Galilee.<\/p>\n<p>In this familiar first-century location, \u201cThe sand ringing the lake was rock hard during the hot summer.\u201d Thus, the temptation for a foolish builder would be to build a house on that sand, assuming it would stay rock-hard all year long. A wiser person, though, would understand the vagaries of the seasons and, regardless of outward appearances in summer, would dig through the sand until reaching bedrock (about 10 feet down). Then the wise builder would use that bedrock as the foundation for his house.<\/p>\n<p>The house anchored to the bedrock would last for decades, regardless of stormy weather, high winds, or flooding. The one built on summertime\u2019s rock-hard sand would likely fall before a year passed, simply because that sand would moisten and crumble during rough-weather seasons, eroding the home\u2019s foundation and causing a spectacular collapse.<\/p>\n<p>If the Sea of Galilee was the location Jesus had in mind, it\u2019s easy to see that two houses could literally be built right next to each other on the edges of the lake, with one house on a firm foundation and the other on shaky ground\u2014even though they sat on the same land!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/workscited.html\">Works Cited<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p>[ASB, 1570]<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u2126\u2126\u2126<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"About: Bible Study Nerds\" href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/about-for-bible-study-nerds.html\">About: For Bible Study Nerds\u2122<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"About: Mike Nappa\" href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/about-mike-nappa.html\">About: Mike Nappa<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Copyright \u00a9 2014 to present by\u00a0<a title=\"Nappaland Communications Inc. official website\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nappaland.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Nappaland Communications Inc<\/a>. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s natural to think that the \u201chouse built upon the rock\u201d and the \u201chouse built upon the sand\u201d in Jesus\u2019 parable of Matthew 7: 24-27 refer to houses in different locations\u2014but geography of ancient Palestine leads some Bible historians to think otherwise. In fact, Jesus was probably referring to two houses built side by side,&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":571,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,2],"tags":[211,115,213,212],"class_list":["post-498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geographicalbackgrounds","category-matthew","tag-foundations","tag-parables","tag-sea-of-galilee","tag-wise-builder"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Matthew 7:24-29; The Wise and Foolish Builders (Geographical Backgrounds) - For Bible Study Nerds<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2014\/12\/matthew-724-29-the-wise-and-foolish-builders-geographical-backgrounds.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Matthew 7:24-29; The Wise and Foolish Builders (Geographical Backgrounds) - For Bible Study Nerds\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It\u2019s natural to think that the \u201chouse built upon the rock\u201d and the \u201chouse built upon the sand\u201d in Jesus\u2019 parable of Matthew 7: 24-27 refer to houses in different locations\u2014but geography of ancient Palestine leads some Bible historians to think otherwise. In fact, Jesus was probably referring to two houses built side by side,&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2014\/12\/matthew-724-29-the-wise-and-foolish-builders-geographical-backgrounds.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"For Bible Study Nerds\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-12-08T12:00:30+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2014-12-05T23:19:10+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Mike Nappa\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Matthew 7:24-29; The Wise and Foolish Builders (Geographical Backgrounds) - For Bible Study Nerds","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2014\/12\/matthew-724-29-the-wise-and-foolish-builders-geographical-backgrounds.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Matthew 7:24-29; The Wise and Foolish Builders (Geographical Backgrounds) - For Bible Study Nerds","og_description":"It\u2019s natural to think that the \u201chouse built upon the rock\u201d and the \u201chouse built upon the sand\u201d in Jesus\u2019 parable of Matthew 7: 24-27 refer to houses in different locations\u2014but geography of ancient Palestine leads some Bible historians to think otherwise. In fact, Jesus was probably referring to two houses built side by side,&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2014\/12\/matthew-724-29-the-wise-and-foolish-builders-geographical-backgrounds.html","og_site_name":"For Bible Study Nerds","article_published_time":"2014-12-08T12:00:30+00:00","article_modified_time":"2014-12-05T23:19:10+00:00","author":"Mike Nappa","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2014\/12\/matthew-724-29-the-wise-and-foolish-builders-geographical-backgrounds.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2014\/12\/matthew-724-29-the-wise-and-foolish-builders-geographical-backgrounds.html","name":"Matthew 7:24-29; The Wise and Foolish Builders (Geographical Backgrounds) - For Bible Study Nerds","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/#website"},"datePublished":"2014-12-08T12:00:30+00:00","dateModified":"2014-12-05T23:19:10+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/#\/schema\/person\/a0ce37903172885871b0c504c6694575"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2014\/12\/matthew-724-29-the-wise-and-foolish-builders-geographical-backgrounds.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2014\/12\/matthew-724-29-the-wise-and-foolish-builders-geographical-backgrounds.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2014\/12\/matthew-724-29-the-wise-and-foolish-builders-geographical-backgrounds.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Matthew 7:24-29; The Wise and Foolish Builders (Geographical Backgrounds)"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/","name":"For Bible Study Nerds","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Mike Nappa","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/#\/schema\/person\/a0ce37903172885871b0c504c6694575","name":"Mike Nappa","description":"Mike Nappa is an entertainment journalist at FamilyFans.com, a bestselling author\u2014and a notorious Bible Study Nerd. He's a former youth pastor who shepherded kids on staff at Chuck Swindoll's church in Southern California\u2014and he's a bestselling and award-winning author with more than a million copies of his books sold worldwide. Plus, he holds a degree in Christian Education with an emphasis in Bible Theology. So, you know, he\u2019s got that going for him. Mike is also a pop culture dork who watches too much TV, reads too many comic books, utters too many bad words, laughs at all the wrong jokes, and often gets in trouble because he says whatever he happens to be thinking at the moment\u2014like quoting an R-rated movie in the middle of a sermon. Yeah, he\u2019s a mess (just like you!), but he kind of likes it that way. Most of all, Mike Nappa loves Jesus, and he figures that covers over a multitude of sins. Learn more at nappaland.com\/mikenappa.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.biblestudynerds.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/author\/mnappa"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/571"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=498"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":499,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498\/revisions\/499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}