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Joining Another Army (Luke 23:32)

A group of five soldiers in Jerusalem had the task that day of dealing with three crucifixions. There were four ordinary soldiers and a centurion. John tells us that four soldiers divided the outer garments of Jesus and then they gambled for his tunic, so maybe the centurion in charge did not take part in that activity. At one level, they were obeying the government; at another level, they were indifferent as to why it was taking place. They had no idea at the start of the day that they were about to take part in the most significant event in history. We have no idea where they came from. Yet here they were in Jerusalem. Why were they there?   Profession Recruits in the Roman army usually served for twenty-five years. People joined it because it gave them an income and some land when they retired, and if they were not Roman citizens already, they received that status when they retired. They had to be very fit physically, with good eyesight and good hearing, so these men had und...
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A Self-Assessment (Philippians 1:18-26)

Paul wrote this letter when he was in Rome as a prisoner. A few years earlier he had been arrested in Jerusalem and then was taken to Rome because he had appealed to Caesar to have his case tried by the emperor himself. Paul was able to do this because by birth he was a Roman citizen with certain rights, one of them being able to appeal directly to Caesar for justice. When he wrote this letter, his trial before the emperor had taken place, but the verdict had not been revealed.   Paul knew that he faced one of two options or two roads ahead of him. One road was that the emperor would set him free and he would be able to resume his Christian work as an apostle. This is what actually happened – he was allowed to go free, and he would remain free for several years, and during those years he continued to help Christian leaders and Christian churches around the Mediterranean as we can see from his final three letters (1 and 2 Timothy and Titus).   The other road, which also wo...
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What is a Christian?

for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith (Galatians 3:26)   If we were to conduct a poll about the question, ‘What is a Christian?,’ we would receive a range of answers, some partly true, some true, and some false. How would we answer the question if we were asked to describe a Christian in a few words? There is a sense in which the Bible answers this question many times without mentioning the question. The words in our text do so, and Paul mentions three obvious things in it that we will explore – they are ‘in Christ Jesus,’ ‘sons of God,’ and ‘people of faith.’   Who is the ‘you’ in the verse? As we begin, we should say something about the ‘you’ in the verse. Who were they? They are the Galatians to whom Paul sent this letter and for most of their lives they had not been Christians; those of them who were Gentiles would have been pagans, worshipping non-existent idols. But they heard the gospel of grace and believed savingly in Jesus. Yet after they di...
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