A Small Gift from Israel
I have had the privilege and great pleasure of going to Israel twice, to help at an archaeological dig and also do some sight-seeing on the week-ends. The digs were conducted by the Associates for Biblical Research (ABR), a Christian organization specializing in archaeological projects related to the Bible and its historical accuracy. One point of historical accuracy of the Bible questioned by many scholars has been the existence of the walled town, Ai, and the historicity of its conquest as mentioned in Joshua chapters 7-8. The ABR dig site, known in modern times as Kh. El-Makatir, has now been shown to be the probable site of Ai, precisely matching the details of the Biblical account through multiple lines of evidence. (For more details see the ABR website at: biblearchaeology.org.)
When I went to Israel the first time I was eager to buy a quantity of some gift for friends, family and financial supporters who helped make my trip possible. The need was for something relatively cheap (considering my limited budget), and small (small enough for a quantity to fit in my luggage), as well as something that would be appreciated as a unique souvenir of Israel (even perhaps related to the Bible in some way). I was praying that the Lord would direct me to such a gift.
One day we were touring around Jerusalem. As I was following a Bible professor from the ABR staff as we walked on a path in the Kidron Valley near Gethsemane, at the base of the Temple Mount, he suddenly stopped and pointed to the ground at a very dusty and dead-looking plant. He said, “This is the kind of mustard plant to which Jesus referred in His teaching”, and then kept walking. An idea popped up into my head. I quickly broke off a small branch of the plant with a couple of attached seed pods, and, back at my room later, was delighted to open up a pod and find that it contained hundreds of tiny seeds about the size of the period at the end of this sentence. Perfect as small, cheap, unique, and biblically-significant gifts!
Back in State College later, I made cards with the related “mustard seed” verses and taped one of the seeds to each card. Since then I have enjoyed giving out hundreds of these cards, to bless people and make them think about Jesus’ lessons on the Kingdom of God and the power of even tiny mustard-seed faith. If you would like one, or a few, of these cards, just let me know.
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