Category Archives: Kingdom

Joseph of Arimathea – Easter 2019

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Reports!  Reports are coming in from Galilee!  Someone is telling the people to repent for the kingdom of God is near.  The Baptist is bad enough but he is by the Jordan.  The messages form Galilee also have stories of healings and large crowds.  

These reports produced two responses in the Council in Jerusalem – Fear and Finally:

Fear– Another crazy rabbi stirring the people!  Another revolt against Rome.  He is not part of the Council, Pharisees, or Sadducees.  God stopped doing miracles hundreds of years ago, this cannot be of God. This rabbi will have to be stopped or there will be trouble!  

Finally– The Baptist preached repentance but he had no miracles.  Many people are being healed just as the Prophets said.  Could the Messiah really have arrived?  Were the Magi after the census correct, our king had been born?  We need to see this rabbi and hear his message.

This is the ocean of emotions that Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus found themselves in.  We know very little about these two men and their relationship with Jesus, but their ripple in the water is worth noting.  Luke 23: 50and Mark 15: 43 state that Joseph was waiting for the Kingdom of God.  Matthew 27: 57 and John 19: 38 add to Joseph’s story by identifying him as a member of the ruling council, a secret disciple, and one of the two men who asked for Jesus’ body and prepared it for burial.  Nicodemus, the other man, in the Easter story is only found in John 3, 7: 50, and 19: 39.  He realized that those miracles could only come from God.  Jesus explained the born again experienced to him, Nicodemus sought a proper trial for Jesus, and was a secret disciple.  Well, this is until they asked Pilate for, and prepared Jesus’ body for burial. 

Did Joseph and Nicodemus go on the missions, from the Council, to ask Jesus questions?  Were they part of the 120 in the prayer meeting on the day of Pentecost or were they part of the 3000?  How many miracles did they see Jesus do?  What kind of “Kingdom” was Joseph waiting for?  Since I can not answer any of those questions, I will settle for the statement that “Joseph was waiting for the Kingdom of God”.  Because Joseph choose to identify with a dead Jesus, I hope his view of the “kingdom” was more than a military/civil leader to free Israel from the Romans.  (If a military kingdom was what he hoped for, why bother with a dead man?)  I want to/have to believe that Joseph had heard Jesus teach on the kingdom and had grabbed a vision of Jesus’ kingdom.  

So, Joseph may have understood the parables and the “kingdom of heaven is like a____” statements.  I can even believe that he understood when Nicodemus talk to him about the “born again” experience in John 3 (you know he did).   These two learned and powerful men were certainly the exception rather than the rule in Israel!

http://www.freebibleimages.org/illustrations/jesus-crucified-dies/

Jesus as the Master Preacher

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The idea of preaching as I have gathered from several sources is a passionate appeal on a topic, usually religious. The more I have read and fit that idea into the messages that people (especially Jesus) preached in the Bible it seemed that they preached on things that they were consumed with as their “message.”  I got a feeling that the passion was in the preacher and that was conveyed to the people that are listening. I think that is why the disciples were taught for quite a while before they were sent out. They had to get the “message of Jesus” and make it theirs before they could truly give it as a “passionate appeal.” I have seen a lot of people that can get a congregation excited for forty-five minutes and then in the parking lot the people cannot remember the point of the sermon. But people who have preached on “their messages” because it is what God has put into them and their hearts make a difference.

The miracles that Jesus would do after His preaching was to convey the authority that He had to be preaching that message and to show them the real Kingdom He would bring and not just an earthly kingdom that would free them from Rome. This is why the leaders of the day were so afraid of Jesus’ message; it came with power and had hope and peace as the core of what He said.  The leaders of the day had seen other “messiahs” come and go but I think that the “passion of His message” and the miracles were more than they could handle. Gamaliel in Acts 5 said it best; “if it is from God” you are wasting your time.

This is why it is a “now kingdom”. We should be preaching His message that He has given to each of us and when we do that His power will be there to do His miracles.

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