Saturday, May 23rd, 2015.
Eventually studying the Bible will necessitate the use of maps.
There are many Bible map resources you can get at a Christian bookstore or online, but beware that not all of them exhibit Bible belief.
Infamously, popular maps of the Exodus do not show Israel crossing the Red Sea as the Bible describes in Exodus 14. In these doubtful maps Israel skirts around the Red Sea instead of walking across it since their makers reject the miraculous.
Maps can also be mistaken when the findings of archaeology, history, or geology are simply wrong. These researchers are not inspired of God. Though their expertise may be appreciated, they are fallible.
God’s preserved words in the Bible are still the most reliable ancient resource. You will have to correct the map with the Bible when necessary. (Don’t ever do the opposite.)
The Bible is descriptive enough in some places for you to make your own maps, or at least the general relationships.
Maps do not tell you everything, and there are things that we simply do not need to know (e.g. the exact location of Thyatira, Sodom, or the landing of Noah’s ark).
Maps in Bible study are extremely useful for the following reasons:
2. They can tell you the relationship of a place or ancient civilization to the land of Israel, the twelve tribal allotments, and Jerusalem. This is useful for prophetic study.
3. They can tell you when two names cover the same place (e.g. Achaia/Corinth/Greece; Judah/Jerusalem).
In this dispensation there are no nationalities in the church(Col 3:11; Gal 3:28), Israel is fallen (Rom 11:11), prophetic locations concern the earthly kingdom yet future, and our conversation is not on the earth (Phil 3:20).
Boundaries on the earth are unnecessary for a person to do God’s will today.
The only lines needed on our map should divide heaven from earth so we can set our affections on things above where our life is hid with Christ(Col 3:2).
For His glory,
Justin “heading north” Johnson