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Southwestern News magazine: bound for the Promised Land


FORT WORTH, Texas (BP)–The winter issue of Southwestern News magazine features Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary’s educational opportunities, alumnus connections and influence among the places and people of Israel.

Readers also will see pictures of the people and places in Israel through the lenses of seminary photographer Matt Miller. The stories and photographs depict locations such as Caesarea Maritima, Bethlehem, the springs of En Gedi, the Valley of Armageddon, the Sea of Galilee, Jerusalem and the controversial Dome of the Rock.

The seminary’s Bible Lands Study program is described through the eyes of its organizers, Eric Mitchell and John Mark Yeats, two young professors whose passion for archaeology and history, respectively, led them to organize study tours in the Holy Land. This summer they will lead students on an archaeological dig at Tel Gezer, one of the three cities fortified by Solomon as described in 1 Kings 9.

The ministry of Jim Sibley, coordinator of Jewish ministries for the North American Mission Board, also is featured. Called to minister to Jews when he was only 14 years old, Sibley has planted churches and organized mass evangelism campaigns in Israel. Through his ministry with NAMB, Sibley travels throughout North America training Baptists to share their faith with Jews.

Southwestern Seminary President Paige Patterson outlines the history of the Jewish nation alternatively being dispelled from and returning to the land of Israel, and then inquires whether Israel’s survival is relevant or even necessary.

“Surrounded by hostile enemies, and with few friends on the face of the globe, does Israel have a chance to survive?” Patterson asks. “Should she even survive?”

Patterson answers these questions by pointing out that both the Old and New Testaments contain promises made by God to the Jews. Patterson concludes by describing how he witnessed and read Scriptures to Yassar Arafat during a meeting in one of Sadaam Hussein’s palaces in Iraq some years ago.

Patterson told Arafat “there is coming a day when there will be peace in the Middle East…. That peace can only come in the land and in the heart of an individual when Jesus is made the King.”

For a copy of the current Southwestern News or a free subscription to the magazine, contact Brent Thompson, Southwestern’s associate director of news and information, at [email protected] or (817) 923-1921, ext. 7220.
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