Sermons, Articles, and Other Things

Why was it arranged by the authorities that Jesus should be crucified with two criminals? The likely answer is that he was given the place that would have been occupied by Barabbas, who had been released in line with the government’s policy to release a prisoner at Passover time in line with the desires of the Jews. Although Barabbas was a vicious criminal, the Jewish religious leaders had led the crowd to demand his release instead of Jesus (Matt. 27:15-23). So, humanly speaking, that was why he was crucified with the two criminals. Behind the scenes, it was a divine arrangement. We noticed in the previous study that the soldiers for whom Jesus had prayed were led to confess him as the Son of God, with the centurion in charge of them also confessing that Jesus was an innocent man. In doing this, the centurion joined a list of others who had said the same in the previous twenty-four hours, including Pilate the Governor, his wife and Judas the Betrayer. The soldiers did th...

One of the themes of these parables is that of friendship. We can see that the religious leaders found fault with Jesus for eating with those they regarded as sinners (v. 2). In his response to this criticism, Jesus told the stories of the lost sheep, lost coin and lost son. In each of the stories, he mentions friends. When the man came back with the lost sheep, his friends and neighbours celebrated. Similarly, when the lady found her lost coin, her friends and neighbours rejoiced with her. In the parable of the lost son, we are not told about his friends, although we can assume that there were plenty who wanted to waste his wealth with him. We are told that the self-righteous son complained that his father had not given him anything to share with his friends, which is untrue because the father had given him his share of the inheritance which he had squandered.  Who is depicted by those friends? In the story of the lost sheep Jesus says that the friends and neighbours dep...

Sometimes important incidents occur surrounded by other activities. For example, we can be sitting in a restaurant looking at our phone and not realising that the couple at another table have just become engaged or that the three individuals at a different table have agreed to a business transaction that will bring benefits to millions. We can be close to very important occasions and not realise it.  Something similar can be said about this incident involving Jesus and the soldiers who crucified him. There were other people at the cross, including some women who followed Jesus, and the apostle John was there as well for a while, but they did not seem to notice this important event at the time it occurred. The soldiers must have heard the prayer, and they would have noticed its different tone from what others said when they were crucified. Why was it important? One way to discover its importance is to note that it was the fulfilment of Bible prophecy. There are two Old ...