John 20:1-18 (spring AD 30, Sunday morning of Passion Week) Jesus is alive! No seriously, he really is! This passage, other than containing the best news in history, also continues to provide evidence for that great news, despite so many people trying to debunk it. We looked at three alternatives to the reality of Jesus’ … More Day 134: JESUS IS ALIVE!
Mark 15:42-46; Matthew 27:62-66; Luke 23:55-56 (spring AD 30, Friday night to Saturday of Passion Week) Spoiler alert: Jesus rose from the dead, as we’ll see in the next reading. Now we’ve established that, it’s useful to note from today’s verses – regarding events before the resurrection – how the gospel writers inserted important details … More Day 133: God gives us history as well as hope
Mark 15:33-41 (spring AD 30, Friday of Passion Week) To start with a side note, Mark doesn’t expand on it but he does mention the only people left who stuck with Jesus. Not his twelve closest friends, not the biggest beneficiaries of his miraculous healing powers, but “Some women” (v.40). They had been faithfully serving … More Day 132: The Day of Atonement
Matthew 27:26-44; Luke 23:39-43 (spring AD 30, Friday of Passion Week) How did Jesus suffer in these verses? Let us count the ways: Whipped (Matt 27:26) Put a crown of thorns on his head (Matt 27:29) Spat on him (Matt 27:30) Beat him over the head with a large stick (Matt 27:30) Mocked him about … More Day 131: The many sufferings of Jesus
Matthew 27:15-31 (spring AD 30, Friday of Passion Week) Sometimes a Scripture passage will have me reaching for a shovel and a pile of wooden planks so that I can tunnel under the text and mine it for the infinite treasures that lie under an apparently barren surface. Sometimes I walk around the mango orchard … More Day 130: Sinkhole day
John 18:28-38; Luke 23:7-12 (spring AD 30, Friday of Passion Week) The religious leaders took the Son of God to the idolatrous Roman governor, in hopes of having the Son of God executed by the Roman authorities. As they went to the governor, they made sure to be ceremonially clean by not going inside, as … More Day 129: Jesus faced down temptation
Day 128: Matthew 27:3-10 (spring AD 30, Friday of Passion Week)https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+27%3A3-10&version=NIV Remorse is not the same as repentance, regret is not genuine sorrow for sin, and merely feeling bad achieves nothing. Judas Iscariot, a greedy thief during Jesus’ ministry, did what came naturally to him: made money any way he could, no matter the cost … More Day 128: An implosion of guilt
Luke 22:54b-62, 66-71 (spring AD 30, Friday of Passion Week) Jesus – throughout his ministry – had been claiming by words and actions to be God; to be the promised Messiah from God. Here, the rulers are hoping for a five-minute trial where Jesus commits ‘blasphemy’, after which they will go to the Romans to … More Day 127: Jesus claimed to be God. A lot.
John 18:13-14, 19-24; Luke 22:63-65 (spring AD 30, Friday of Passion Week) When you get enough people of the same, strong opinion together, there is a danger that opposing views are not deemed worthy to be engaged with or rebutted. Rather, the carriers of those views become the ‘other’, the ‘enemy’, which must be belittled, … More Day 126: Jesus vs. Bad-faith opponents
Luke 22:39-53 (especially v.43-44) – (spring AD 30, Thursday night of Passion Week) What does a ‘No’ from God really look like, anyway? For the purposes of this piece, a ‘No’ from God is any time you asked or expected something from him, and you didn’t get it. Famous examples in the Bible are the … More Day 125: What to do when God says ‘No’
Paul T Reynolds 