THE CITY OF GADARA

The city of Gadara once belonged to the territory of the ancient commercial and geographical confederacy known as The Decapolis, The Ten Cities, which were scattered over a wide area of Syro-Palestine in Greco-Roman times.
The cities of the Decapolis are mentioned several times in the New Testament. Gadara, in particular, is famous for the symbolic record of the "Gadarene Swine,"in the Gospel of Matthew.
The Gospel according to Matthew tells the news that Jesus is the promised Saviour, the one through whom God fulfilled the promises He made to His people in the Old Testament. The news is not only for the Jewish people, among whom Jesus was born and lived, but for the whole world.
The Gospel presents Jesus as the greatest Teacher, who has the authority to interpret the Law of God.
The writings are carefully arranged. It begins with the birth of Jesus, describes his baptism and temptation, and then takes up his ministry of preaching, teaching and healing in Galilee. After this the records goes on to Jesus' journey from Galilee to Jerusalem and the events of Jesus' last week in the earth.
The record of the "Gadarene Swine"says:  When he came to the other side, to the country of the Gadarenes, 2 demoniacs met him, coming out of the tombs, so fierce that no one could pass that way.
And behold, they cried out, :What have you to do with us, O Son of God? Have you come here to torment us before the time?"
Now a herd of many swine was feeding at some distance from them. And the demons begged him, "If you cast us out, send us away into the herd of swine."
And he said to them, "Go." So they came out and went into the swine; and behold, the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the sea, and perished in the waters.
The herdsmen fled, and going into the city they told everything, and what happened to the demoniacs.
And behold, all the city came out to meet Jesus; and when they saw him, they begged him to leave their neighborhood.
Ancient Gadara is known for its fine tradition of man made philosophy and poetic satire. Its first great son was Menippus. He was a Cynic philosopher and satirist, but allegedly a slave by origin, who on earning his freedom, made money as a ship-broker, but hanged himself on losing it.
Men in Gadara were controlled by demon power and they were slaves of their own fleshy desires.
The way in which demon power worked over humans was symbolized through the crafty use of the aqueducts designed by Greco-Roman engineers The only purpose of the aqueducts were to connect water to cities to waste massive quantities of water.
The comparison that Matthew portrait in his narrative is about how Jews handled the spiritual water that God let them to drink and use and how the Roman's water,  coming from the world controlled by Satan served to overindulge themselves to the point that they were slaves to their own fleshy desires.
The demons there were so powerful because men decreased his spiritual level letting the unclean spirits take control over the heart and mind of all of them. Legions of demons possessed them.
When Jesus appeared there none of them recognized him in their spirit, the ones who did it were the demons themselves.
In Semitic languages, "Gadar" means a "wall" or "boundary." Later in Talmudic texts associatively connected "Gader" with the area of the "vineyard wall" ("Gader") where an angel is said to have halted the prophet Balaam. It was then that his ass was supposed to have miraculously addressed its master complaining of his ill-treatment. (Num. 22:24-29)
In the world that we are living with today, how many of us would recognize Jesus?

PAUL, the THIRD HEAVEN, and the SUPER APOSTLES.

No one, except for Jesus, influenced the development of early Christianity more than Paul. He was the foremost apologist for the gentile mission, and the most eloquent defender of the centrality of the Scriptures, and morality for his predominantly gentile churches. Thirteen of the twenty seven books of the New Testament are attributed to him.

Paul, an Israelite of the tribe of Benjamin, holding a Hebrew name, Saul, and a Roman name, Paul, chose to use his Roman name in view of his commission to declare the Gospel to the non-Jews.

Paul was born in Tarsus, a prominent city of Cilicia. His parents were Hebrews and he was a Roman citizen from birth. He learned the trade of of tentmaker from his father, and at Jerusalem, he received instruction from the learned Pharisee Gamaliel. Language-wise, Paul was versed in Greek and Hebrew.

At the time Paul travelled as a missionary he was unmarried. He had a sister and a nephew who resided in Jerusalem.

The Biblical record introduces Saul (his hebrew name) as the young man at whose feet the false witnesses who stoned Christ's disciple Stephen laid their "outer garments." Because of misdirected zeal for tradition, he began a campaign of vicious persecution against Christ's followers. He extended his persecution to cities other than Jerusalem as far as North of Damascus, and in Syria.

As Paul neared Damascus, Christ Jesus revealed himself to him in a flashing light and commissioned him to be an attendant and a witness of the things he had seen and would yet see.

Paul wrote :"Boasting is necessary, though it is not profitable; but I will go on to visions and revelations of the Lord. I know a man in Christ who 14 years ago -whether in the body I do not know, or out of the body I do not know, God knows -such a man was caught up to the Third Heaven. And I know How such a man -whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, God knows -was caught up to Paradise. He heard inexpressible things, things that man is not permitted to tell." 2Cor. 12:2-4

Who were the "super apostles" that Paul referred to? This is the title that the false apostles used to call themselves, because the title tends to misguide the Truth. This term is found in 2 Cor. 11:5; 12:11.

Paul made reference to them as "a lot (apostles) that defied the authority of the apostleship on what was then the theocratic authority. They even ridiculed on criticized Paul in respects to his speech. 2 Cor 10.

That is why he sarcastically referred to them as "super apostles."

Paul had divine backing as an apostle and that is the main reason that through divine inspiration Paul was able to indicate to the congregation in Corinth that these "super apostles" were not speaking Truth.

Just as Eve was seduced by the cunning serpent so the congregation was in danger of being corrupted in their minds.

Paul had not proved himself being inferior in his apostleship in comparison to them. he had endured so much: imprisonment, beatings, shipwreck 3 times, so many dangers, going often without sleep or food.

Yet through it all he never lost sight of the needs of the congregations and always felt compassion  when someone stumbled.

The true measure of a man of God does not lie in his claims of visions and experiences with God, or the force of his personality, or the size of his ministry, or his educational degrees, or any other human criteria.

A true man of God is marked by how much he had suffered in the war against the kingdom of darkness, how concerned he is for people, how humble he is, and how accurately he handles the supernatural revelation found in God's work. (2 Timothy 2:15).