{"id":512,"date":"2014-12-24T12:00:24","date_gmt":"2014-12-24T12:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/?p=512"},"modified":"2014-12-12T22:59:57","modified_gmt":"2014-12-12T22:59:57","slug":"matthew-85-13-the-faith-of-the-centurion-geographical-backgrounds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2014\/12\/matthew-85-13-the-faith-of-the-centurion-geographical-backgrounds.html","title":{"rendered":"Matthew 8:5-13; The Faith of the Centurion (Geographical Backgrounds)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Jesus was in Capernaum when the centurion approached to request a miracle for his ailing servant (Matthew 8:5-13). Here\u2019s what we know about that ancient village:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Capernaum was the primary headquarters for Jesus\u2019 ministry in Israel. After his baptism, Jesus moved to this village and likely lived with Simon Peter\u2019s family while teaching, healing, and working miracles in this area.<\/li>\n<li>Capernaum, which in Hebrew means, \u201cVillage of Nahum,\u201d was about a day\u2019s walk (20 miles) from Jesus\u2019 hometown of Nazareth. Located on the eastern border of Galilee, it wasn\u2019t large. Its borders covered only about 15 acres in ancient times\u2014or about the size of three football fields by two football fields (300 yards x 200 yards). During the time of Jesus, the population of Capernaum was likely around 1500 people.<\/li>\n<li>Jesus performed a number of significant miracles in Capernaum, including the healing of a paralyzed man (Mark 2:1-12), a miraculous catch of fish that convinced his first disciples to follow him (Luke 5:1-11), healing blind men (Matthew 9:27-31), exorcising demons (Matthew 9:32-34), raising the dead (Luke 8:40-56) and many more.<\/li>\n<li>Located on the coast of the Sea of Galilee, Capernaum was known mostly as a fishing village. However, it also boasted a thriving farming community and a prosperous industry in the processing of olive oil. It\u2019s no wonder, then, that many of Jesus\u2019 illustrations involve these industries.<\/li>\n<li>Capernaum was also a busy border town, despite its small size. It was located on a trade route byway that connected Egypt and Arabia in the south with all the countries located north of Israel. As such, a customs station was placed in Capernaum, collecting taxes from merchants going to and from Syria.<\/li>\n<li>Jesus predicted the demise of Capernaum (Matthew 11:23-24) as punishment for their rejection of his miracle-working presence. This came to pass, at least in part, in the AD 600s when Muslim invaders came into Israel. Historians tell us that the residents of Capernaum fled, abandoning their homes to the elements. Over time, this ghost town was ruined by wind and earth until it was actually buried and forgotten\u2014a striking image when compared to Jesus\u2019 prophesy about Capernaum: \u201cAnd you, Capernaum, will you be lifted to the heavens? No, you will go down to Hades.\u201d Or as the New Living Translation renders it, \u201cto the place of the dead.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>Today, Capernaum exists only as a ruin, cared for by a community of watchful Franciscan monks who bought the property from Arabs in 1894.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/workscited.html\">Works Cited<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p>[WWA, 64-67]<\/p>\n<p>\u2126\u2126\u2126<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/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>Jesus was in Capernaum when the centurion approached to request a miracle for his ailing servant (Matthew 8:5-13). Here\u2019s what we know about that ancient village: Capernaum was the primary headquarters for Jesus\u2019 ministry in Israel. After his baptism, Jesus moved to this village and likely lived with Simon Peter\u2019s family while teaching, healing, and&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":[78,218,16],"class_list":["post-512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geographicalbackgrounds","category-matthew","tag-capernaum","tag-centurion","tag-jesus"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Matthew 8:5-13; The Faith of the Centurion (Geographical Backgrounds) - For Bible Study Nerds<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, nofollow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Matthew 8:5-13; The Faith of the Centurion (Geographical Backgrounds) - For Bible Study Nerds\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Jesus was in Capernaum when the centurion approached to request a miracle for his ailing servant (Matthew 8:5-13). 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Here\u2019s what we know about that ancient village: Capernaum was the primary headquarters for Jesus\u2019 ministry in Israel. 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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\/512","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=512"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":516,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512\/revisions\/516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}