Where You Sit and The Company You Keep Is Vitally Important

We have taken a longish time look in detail at this last day in the physical life of Jesus Christ as Dr Luke relates it in Chapter 22, but it is important that we do not hurry over the crucial issues raised in this passage. It is also helpful too to read the parallel passages in Matthew Chapter 26 and Mark Chapter 14. These accounts are given to us for a very real purpose.

In verse 54Jesus is led away, humbly but with dignity, and Peter follows, afar off and at a safe distance.  Read more... (790 words, 1 image, estimated 3:10 mins reading time)

Question: “How should a Christian respond to persecution?”

Answer:
Theres no doubt that persecution is a stark reality of living the Christian life. The apostle Paul warned us that everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted (2 Timothy 3:12). Jesus told us to expect persecution from the world because if they persecuted Him, they will persecute His followers also. Jesus has made it very clear to us that those of the world will hate us because they hate Him. If Christians were like the worldvain, earthly, sensual, given to pleasure, wealth, ambition, the world would not oppose us. But Christians do not belong to the world which is why they hate and persecute us (John 15:18-19). Christians are, or should be, influenced by different principles from those of the world. We are motivated by the love of God and holiness, while the world is driven by the love of sin. It is our very separation from the world that arouses the world’s animosity toward us. The world would prefer that we were like them; since we are not, they hate us (1 Peter 4:3-4).  Read more... (638 words, 1 image, estimated 2:33 mins reading time)

What makes everyone think artist Leonardo Da Vinci uncovered some big Christian secret?

Writers and religious skeptics have always come up with alternative narratives about Jesus’ life and ministry. But author Dan Brown brought it to center stage in a spectacular way, with his blockbuster 2003 fiction, The Da Vinci Code, followed by the movie and all its sequels and franchises.

Brown provoked speculation in both secular and theological circles—all the way to the Vatican:

Did Leonardo Da Vinci write an encrypted code on his famous Vitruvian Man? Was Mary Magdalene married to Jesus? Is there really a Holy Grail?  Read more... (829 words, 2 images, estimated 3:19 mins reading time)

Serving Jesus Christ Is Full Of Painful Excitements

In Luke Chapter 22, we read of that scenario in verses 31,32, where Jesus is informing Peter that he is about to be sifted, but Jesus also reassures this man who is to lead the early church that he is being prayed for. We need to know this too in these challenging and peculiar days when so much of what we have been used to is being undermined and shaken just as the Scriptures depict.  Read more... (771 words, 1 image, estimated 3:05 mins reading time)

We Do Not Serve According To Our Feelings and Emotions

In Luke Chapter 22, we are reading of Jesus and His disciples in the Upper Room and they have been celebrating the Passover, but there are other things going on, and one of the lessons we have been learning is how to serve humbly and with humility. There is a reward. Those who serve as Jesus served, and those who serve in the Name of Jesus in The Kingdom of God, are transferred from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light.  Read more... (960 words, 1 image, estimated 3:50 mins reading time)

As they spoke to the people, the priests and the captain of the temple and the Sadducees came to them, 2 being upset because they taught the people and proclaimed in Jesus the resurrection from the dead. 3 They laid hands on them, and put them in custody until the next day, for it was now evening. 4 But many of those who heard the word believed, and the number of the men came to be about five thousand. Acts 4: 1-4

Those who were astonished by the courage of Peter and John when they preached the gospel were not ordinary men, but rulers, elders and teachers of the Law.  Read more... (451 words, 1 image, estimated 1:48 mins reading time)