A Visit To Joppa

I visited Joppa in our messages yesterday at the church in Hollentown. I would like to share those visits with you today and tomorrow. The current name of that city is Jaffa. We enjoyed our visit there. The look out across the sea was beautiful. Joppa was a very important port and station on the ancient trade route of “Via Maris” which connected Egypt with Mesopotamia and the north.


Let’s talk about some activity that took place in the Old Testament at this sea port. We read in II Chronicles 2:1-18 that Solomon, who has taken over as king in place of his father David is preparing to build the Temple. Solomon sends a message to Hiram King of Tyre asking him to send cedar logs for him to use to build the temple. King Hiram replied “we will cut all the logs from Lebanon that you need and will float them in rafts by sea down to Joppa. You can take them up to Jerusalem.” (Vs. 16) Similar events happened in Ezra 3:1-13 with the rebuilding of the Temple after Israel‘s captivity. Verse 7 says “Then they gave money to the masons and carpenters, and gave food and drink and oil to the people of Sidon and Tyre, so that they would bring cedar logs by sea from Lebanon to Joppa, as authorized by Cyrus king of Persia.”

I want to move to Jonah 1:1-17 and reflect on that seaport activity in Joppa. Jonah was given a command from the Lord to go to Nineveh and preach against that wicked city. He choose to go to Joppa, buy a ticket, and board a boat for Tarshish instead of obeying the Lord. That was not a good move. We know the story about the big storm and the big fish.

I am going to draw a conclusion that Joppa became a good point of entry and a bad point of escape. I like the picture of those logs for the building of the Temple, floating into Joppa on the rafts. I don’t like the picture of Jonah getting on a boat in Joppa and sailing away from the will of God.

My question to us is this. Are we going to take the wisdom and knowledge that God gives us, like he gave to Solomon, and use Joppa as a good point of entry to build the Temple? Or are we going to reject the plan of God like Jonah and use Joppa as a bad point of escape? My challenge is this. I don’t want to see any boats leaving Joppa for Tarshish but I want to see rafts with cedars on to build the Temple floating into Joppa.