Most of us have heard people—sometimes even Christians—say, "What's all the fuss over the Land of Israel? After all, it's just a chunk of real estate."

This is a gross misconception. The geographical Land of Israel is in many ways central to the message of the Bible—including the NT.

Dr John Monson is one of Michael Hedrick's professors at Trinity Seminary in Deerfield, Illinois. Here's a link to a video of a lecture where Dr Monson does a masterful job of explaining what he calls "physical theology," which (in his way of thinking) forms a sort of nexus between geographical, textual, and theological ways of viewing the Bible and its message.

Link: click here

It will be an hour of your time well spent. Dr Monson is not an entertainer, like some speakers—but the info just pours out of him like a refreshing river. Note at around 36:30 of the presentation where he points out that the Abrahamic promise began to be fulfilled at almost exactly the same geographic point where the promise was given to Abraham in the first place (that is, the fulfillment when Joshua first led the new generation of Israelites into Canaan). With little tidbits like this, he masterfully shows how the Land itself is an integral component of the Bible's message to mankind.

Israel is NOT "just a chunk of Middle Eastern real estate." That's one important thing we would like you to take away from this.

Note at 39:00 the footage of the little statue of Baal that would NOT stand upright when it was being displayed on an Israeli television station—in Monson's words, "fascinating"!