His name was Pontius Pilate. And as you will hear in this PODCAST, he was not a nice man.
This is the man to whom Jesus was handed over to be crucified.
This is the man who will live long in infamy.
This is the man who caved to political pressure in order to preserve his position of power, even if it meant crucifying an innocent man who though He was God, held no position.
This is the man who metaphorically drove the nails into Jesus’ hands and feet, and a stake through the heart of Peter. Peter, whose faith would fail spectacularly in the face of Jesus’ trumped-up charges.
There is a lot going on here, every salient detail of which will enhance your Easter season enormously.
Here’s the thing: As you are about to hear in this PODCAST, at precisely 6:13 this past Monday morning, I had an epiphany.
Fact is, between last Saturday night and Monday morning, I was stymied by one perplexing question:
“Here in 1 Peter 2, why in the world didn’t Peter use the word for stones that is his name? Petros?”
Or to put that another way,
“Why did Peter here in 1 Peter 2 use the word for stones, Lithos?
They are, after all, synonyms—Petros and Lithos—at least in English. Both are translated “stone.” So why didn’t Peter refer to himself—and to you and me—as a Petros? Why a Lithos?
Oh, my friends, the answer to that question is breathtakingly beautiful. Beautiful indeed.
As are you!
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Lifeless Stones. Photo courtesy of secrets-of-stonehenge-tours.co.uk
In 1 Peter 2:5a (NLT), Peter painted this amazing picture. Speaking of you and me, he wrote,
“And you are living stones that God is building into his spiritual temple.”
Living stones. As you are about to hear in the PODCAST, Peter may have been an uneducated fisherman. But he was inarguably the master of the metaphor.
Last week, he referred to us as “priests”—a metaphor rich with a wealth of meaning once we understand the role of priests throughout the biblical narrative.
For this week, “living stones.” What a meaningful metaphor that is—“living stones.”
As we are about to learn, this is perfect for us to consider as we close out 2018—a year that has dealt with most of us in a remarkably unkind way. The challenges we have faced, the trials we have endured, the obstacles we have overcome… And yet, and yet, like “living stones,” you are still standing. And for that, I applaud you!
Now to the point at hand: Does anything strike you about Peter’s reference to “living stones”?
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The hilltop mansion of Machaerus, the dungeon of which held John the Baptizer. Courtesy of ancientpages.com
In honor of this Christmas season now officially upon us, let’s go back to the beginning.
In this PODCAST, you will hear from the one, the prediction of whose birth shattered 400 years of a deafening silence and started the Christmas ball rolling—our old and dearly beloved friend, John the Baptizer.
This is his compelling story, as told in his own voice.
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As you will hear in this PODCAST, the exact same question that I asked of a couple of hundred of the best high school students you’d ever want to meet. Here’s my question:
Do you want to live your life in the midst of God’s blessing?
If your answer to that question is “Yes,” THIS is what God’s blessing means; THIS is what a God-blessed life looks like.
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If you have ever wondered how I present the Gospel to a camp filled with some pretty precious High School students, you can hear it for yourself in this bonus PODCAST.
This message was delivered just one month ago at Hartland Christian Camp. Please join them and me at the foot of the cross, listening to Jesus’ final seven sayings from that cross.
THIS is what a gentle Jesus sounds like, even while He’s dying—for you and for me.
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Think of it. As you will hear in this encore PODCAST…
(An encore because I am speaking at one of my all-time favorite places in the world, Hartland Christian Camp)…
Promptly at 3 PM…
Exactly at That.Very.Moment when Jesus breathed His last…
Precisely to the second when Jesus exclaimed, “It is finished. Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit”…
This happened:
“Then the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.”
Do you have any idea what that means? It will take the remainder of this discussion for us even to begin to understand What.That.Means.
Why did God tear the veil?
It was obviously God who ripped it. No human hand could possibly tear it. That veil was an elaborately woven fabric that stood 60 feet high, equal in height to a seven-story building. No one could tear that curtain. Only God could tear that curtain.
Which only amplifies the question, Why?
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And as you will hear in this PODCAST, Dorcas was her Greek name.
“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”
Well, she may have had nothing to do with Romeo and Juliet. But fact is, Tabitha by any other name, AKA Dorcas, would still be as sweet, kind, and beautiful. For both Tabitha and Dorcas both mean “Gazelle.” Distinctly beautiful names each, both of which speak to the inner beauty and kindness and sweetness that radiated from this singularly special woman.
So special that Luke singled her out in order specifically to tell her exemplary story. As did Peter, who at news of her untimely demise literally—at a moment’s notice—dropped everything in order to be at her bedside within hours of her passing.
What was it about this woman that would cause the lead apostle to rush to her side upon hearing sad news?
What was it about this woman that brought life in the prominent seaside town of Joppa to come to a screeching halt at the moment of her death?
What was it about this woman that so profoundly challenges each of us today to ask ourselves one profoundly challenging question, the answer to which is so stunningly simple?
Are you ready to meet Tabitha, the graceful gazelle?
I believe the best way to proceed is simply to read to you her story as recounted/recorded by Luke, inserting clarifying commentary along the way. This in order to add the colors and contours that Luke’s original readers would have enjoyed that we
might otherwise miss.
Trust me. As you meet her, you will never view your life the same way again.
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“The apostles (rejoiced that) God had counted them worthy to suffer disgrace for the name of Jesus.”
As you will hear in this PODCAST, a most-interesting word, “disgrace.” Both the NKJV and the NASB translate it “worthy to suffer shame for the name of Jesus.” In the ESV? “Worthy to suffer dishonor for the name of Jesus.
It’s a word that means to render infamous through insult, innuendo, and/or intimidation; to strip someone of their honor and dignity; to sully one’s name and reputation.
This is the exact same pattern that we saw with Jesus—a gradual escalation of opposition against Him, that we are now seeing intensify against the Apostles.
In Acts 4, Peter and John were arrested, imprisoned, warned, and threatened.
Here in Acts 5, all twelve Apostles were arrested, imprisoned, and flogged. They were publicly disgraced, purposefully stripped of their honor as well as their skin, insulted, rendered infamous, their reputations sullied before the watching world.
It should therefore come as no surprise that come Acts 7, the situation will have escalated to the point to where Stephen will be stoned to death.
So what happened now to cause this next step in the escalation of opposition and intimidation? Fact is, it’s really quite a story! One that give to us a heartwarming insight into the thinking and feelings of this first generation of committed Christ-followers. A window both into their world and into their souls.
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As you will hear in this PODCAST, I stand in awe of our ancestors in the faith, the very first community of Christ-followers ever to walk this planet.
By way of introduction, do you remember when, so very long ago, we studied the Sermon on the Mount?
Let me remind you that Jesus introduced His signature sermon with 8 pronouncements of God’s blessing—We call them the Beatitudes. The most enigmatic of the 8 being Beatitude #3 that goes like this:
“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth” (Matthew 5:5).
You are about to see in full color, in High Definition, exactly what meek looks like, courtesy of our earliest brothers and sisters in the faith.
Before we get to that, there is one additional Beatitude to which I want to direct your attention. It happens to be Beatitude #8, the last of Jesus’ pronouncements of God’s blessing. It reads:
“Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you” (Matthew 5:10).
Did you know that the words persecute/persecution/persecuted occur in the Bible a combined 142 times? In the minds of the biblical writers, it was a foregone conclusion that they and all of God’s people would be persecuted for our faith.
Jesus certainly understood this, He being the ultimate example of someone who was continuously hounded, hunted, and finally executed—persecuted—for His faith.
Persecution, Jesus repeatedly reminded His disciples, was the price tag for becoming one of His followers.
Perscute—to pursue in a hostile manner, to harass, to trouble, to molest, to mistreat.
Well, Jesus’ many warnings were now coming true for these very first committed Christ-followers. Indeed, what we are about to learn here in Acts 4 was only the beginning.
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