Sermons, Articles, and Other Things

It is interesting that John not only gives a lot of details about what happened to Jesus before he died. While the other Gospel writers refer to some of what happened to the body of Jesus after his death it is John who gives us the most information. In fact, as far as the details in the verses we are going to consider are concerned, they are only found in the Gospel of John. How to get the day wrong? The Jewish leaders were getting nervous in case God would be offended by having crucified victims still on their crosses when the special Sabbath arrived. Their nervousness indicates that it was not usual for people to be executed during that annual occasion. If it were a regular occurrence, then they would know that Pilate would ignore their requests. So there must have been something unusual about having victims on the cross at that time. They had engineered it, but they did not seem to have been concerned about that. Of course, the particular Sabbath that they were concerned abou...

Mark describes Jesus as continually on the move, moving from place to place. When he says that they came to Bethsaida, he could mean that it was their intended destination when they crossed the sea of Galilee (vv. 13-14). Or they may have berthed somewhere else and later travelled to Bethsaida. Mark is the only Gospel to record this incident. Shared features with other incidents As we look at his details, we can see similar features to previous incidents. For example, he states the fact that those who brought the needy person to Jesus begged him to help the blind man. Mark has already described several incidents in which those who asked Jesus to help someone begged him to do so. What is notable about some of the incidents is that they follow situations in which Pharisees disagreed with Jesus. The occasions when the women begged for her daughter’s deliverance and when the friends begged on behalf of the deaf and dumb man followed criticism from the Pharisees. And so does the incide...

Paul continues his walk along the summit of the Christian mountain range that is Romans 8, which many have regarded as the Alps of Christian experience possible in this world. The apostle is like a guide pointing out to his party several amazing sights that they would not otherwise observe without his direction. At each sight he gives time for them to stop and take in what is before the eyes of their souls. So here he invites us to take in a spiritual vista that stretches from eternity past to eternity future. And we can begin where he points to first with his heavenly marker. The past Paul mentions two details about what God did for his people in the past eternity before time commenced, before the creation appeared. The first detail is that he foreknew his people and the second detail is that he predestined his people for a particular goal. First, we must ask, what does the word ‘ foreknow ’ mean? There is a common idea connected to the word that suggests it means that God cou...

This set of verses by John contains three details connected to the death of the Saviour. Two of them are among the sayings of Jesus commonly called the Seven Sayings of the Saviour on the Cross. ‘I thirst’ is the fifth saying and ‘It is finished’ is the sixth saying. The connection to the seventh saying, ‘Father, into your hands I commend my spirit,’ is found in John’s description that ‘Jesus bowed his head and gave up his spirit.’ As we read this set of verses, it is obviously a very moving account of what happened to Jesus and it is not possible for a Christian to read them and not be affected by what they describe. In addition, John is describing Jesus here as the master of what is taking place. Although he is dying, he is in control, and in control of several crucial things. We can see that he is in control of the fulfilling of the Old Testament prophecies; we can see that he is in control of the work of atonement (he knew when it was completed); and we can see that he is in con...

We have seen in the Gospel of Mark various ways by which Jesus was teaching his disciples and preparing them for their future work as his ambassadors. Those different ways and location we have likened to classrooms and it is possible for us to regard ‘the feeding of the four thousand plus’ as being like repeat classes that dilatory pupils have to attend because they did not pay sufficient attention during the original class. The disciples had already been present at the feeding of the five thousand, but they did not profit as they should have done. So here they are now in a repeat class, and we should ask ourselves if they benefitted from attending it. Because it is surprising how much we do not learn from a situation as it is surprising how much we do notice in a situation arranged by God for our instruction. There are several differences between this miracle and the one when at least five thousand were fed miraculously by Jesus. One obvious difference is that Jesus and his discipl...