We invite you to join us for worship!
Worship and study with us Sundays at 10:00am/11:00am/6:00pm and Wednesdays at 7:00pm
The Transfiguration and the Cross
-Chumbley
The disciples had returned from their first preaching assignment (Lk. 9.1–2,10), and Christ wanted time alone with them. But privacy proved difficult—departing “to a deserted place . . . by themselves,” they did not escape the notice of a large crowd (Mk. 6.31ff). Withdrawing to the vicinity of Tyre and Sidon, Christ “entered a house and wanted no one to know it,” but a mother with a demonized daughter found Him (Mk. 7.24–26). The group next revisited Decapolis, where Christ was once asked to leave (Mk. 5.17, 7.31), but now He was met by a very great multitude (Mk. 8.1) and His attempts to limit publicity—“Neither go into the town, nor tell anyone in the town” (8.22ff)—were ignored (Mk. 7.36). Finally, at Caesarea Philippi—a cauldron of paganism, Caesar worship, and Judaism twenty-five miles north of the Sea of Galilee—Christ found the quiet He needed to ask the Twelve a question.
