Tag: Jesus

  • King for a Common Era Holy Week 5

    King for a Common Era Holy Week 5

    KING jesus! KING jesus! The Prophet who drove the money changers out of God’s Temple HAS RETURNED!

    Holy Week in the year of our Lord 30

    Without noting several significant private events and conversations of this holy week, including Jesus' celebration of the Passover meal with the Twelve;
     
    let's look once more at the witness of PUBLIC encounters of the Lord Jesus in the Temple through actual and FICTIONAL witnesses.

    And he [Jesus] taught daily in the temple.

    Gospel of Luke19:47a  Καὶ ἦν διδάσκων τὸ καθ᾽ ἡμέραν ἐν τῷ ἱερῷ 

    Gospel of Matthew 21: New King James Version

    23 Now when He came into the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people confronted Him as He was teaching, and said,

    “By what authority are You doing these things? And who gave You this authority?”

    No Elder could answer Him.
    The Prophet from Nazareth then taught us with parables.
    

    Parables in the Temple

    Every listening soul knew that Jesus was speaking of the Shepherds of Israel AND knowing that this teacher from Nazareth called Himself a 'Son.' 

    But when the vinedressers saw the son, they said among themselves, 

    ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and seize his inheritance.’ 

    So they took him and cast him out of the vineyard and killed him.

    Gospel of Matthew 21:28-29 – New King James Version
    So is this JESUS the coming KING about to conquer Jerusalem from the Herod's (as when HE rode into the city like DAVID)? 
    
    Will this Teacher also turn the tables on OUR corrupt religious leaders, we wondered?

    OTHERS in the TEMPLE also heard Jesus challenge EVERY false philosophy, teachings obligating US to pay indulgences to support their own well-healed corruptness among regular worshipers.


    “He will destroy those wicked..

    “Have you never read in the Scriptures:

    ‘The stone which the builders rejected
    Has become the chief cornerstone.
    This was the Lord’s doing,
    And it is marvelous in our eyes’?

    the Good News of Matthew 21:42 – New King James Version – The Lord JESUS in the Temple, quoting MANY Scriptures to Jewish leaders

    In that day, saith the LORD of hosts, shall ye call every man his neighbour under the vine and under the fig tree.

    Zechariah 3 :: King James Version (KJV)
    3:10 בַּיּוֹם הַהוּא נְאֻם יְהוָה צְבָאוֹת תִּקְרְאוּ אִישׁ לְרֵעֵהוּ אֶל־תַּחַת גֶּפֶן וְאֶל־תַּחַת תְּאֵנָה׃
    • Hab 1:5
      • Behold ye among the heathen, and regard, and wonder marvellously: for I will work a work in your days, which ye will not believe, though it be told you.

    JESUS IS PREACHING GOOD NEWS TO EVERYONE IN THE TEMPLE -- JEWS AND GENTILES -- BUT NOT SO GOOD for the entrenched rulers of Jerusalem.
    

    Good News of Matthew 22:

    And Jesus answered and spoke to them again by parables and said:

    “For many are called, but few are chosen.”

    Gospel of Matthew 22:14 NKJV – Jesus’ parable of the wedding feast
    Of the Pharisees (who teach of the resurrection, although some it seems would have us pay them to have Yahweh overlook our sins to earn our way to it) Jesus challenged: 
    

    The Pharisees also tried to test HIM on the LAW.

    36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?”

    Now I was immediately thinking 'FIRST COMMENDMENT' 

    5:7 לֹא יִהְיֶה־לְךָ אֱלֹהִים אֲחֵרִים עַל־פָּנָיַ׃

    ‘You shall have no other gods before Me.

    The Teacher of the teachers however went straight to the Shammah: 
    

    שְׁמַע יִשְׂרָאֵל יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵינוּ יְהוָה אֶחָד׃

    This is the first and great commandment.

    And the second is like it: 

    ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 

    On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”


    And just like us, He didn’t think much of the Sadducees either.

    Some who witnessed Jesus’ miracles thought that He might be John the Baptizer risen from death. And other who know Lazarus seemed certain that HE held the power over death because HE IS the Promised One of Israel.

    Jesus had asked the Pharisees (who believe the Scriptures about the resurrection):

    “What do you think about the Christ? Whose Son is He?”

    Matthew 22:42 NKJV

    The Pharisees’ very Judaic response about “The Son of David” Jesus proved as quite insufficient. The Pharisees did NOT know who the Christ would be.

    Woe to the Scribes and Pharisees and …

    Then spake Jesus to the multitude, and to his disciples

    Matthew 23:1 King James Version

    SO YOU WANT A ‘KING’ JESUS, ALL OF YOU WHO LOVE TO SHOUT OUT ‘HOSANNA‘ WHEN HE ENTERS THE TEMPLE TOWARDS YOU?

    * Some quotes below updated for awoke Common Era [christian] hearing.

    Are YOU of the multitudes? OR one of His disciples?

    JESUS had hundreds of disciples [followers] and thousands from the crowds in the Temple, multitudes who heard Him preach in this holiest of weeks.

    ARE YOU ONE OF THESE? WOULD YOU have been one of the MULTITUDES who shouted, ‘HOSANNA, KING JESUS!’ who tomorrow might side with ‘leaders‘ denying Him, saying with all the world, CRUCIFY HIM! ‘WE have NO KING but Caesar‘?

    OR are you NOW a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ – Jesus the Pascal Lamb of God slaughtered for sinners — a follower who will believe and take up His Cross?


    “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her!

    How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! See! Your house is left to you desolate; for I say to you, you shall see Me no more till you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!’ ”

    Matthew 23:37-39 NKJV

    Communion with His Apostles

    Jesus is about to have some private moments with His closest friends and Apostles — a last meal — Communion… followed by betrayal, prayer, arrest… then a trial of injustice under the veil of darkness.

    WHAT WILL YOU SAY IF A FRIEND FROM YOUR LIFE IN THE WORLD ASKS YOU ABOUT JESUS?

    IS HE THE CHRIST SENT TO SAVE US?

    SAVE ME FROM WHAT?


    Talk of JESUS .com

    Comment on Scripture + Share the Gospel

  • King for a Common Era Holy Week 4

    King for a Common Era Holy Week 4

    An unripe fig? photo of Bethany Bethany "house, place of unripe figs" is a village located on the E slope of Mt. Olivet, about one and one-half miles from J

    Jesus in Bethany

    Why would Jesus, who rode into Jerusalem like KING DAVID, leave to stay in Bethany overnight, I wondered?

    Gospel of Matthew 21:

    Then He left them and went out of the city to Bethany, and He lodged there.

    Now in the morning, as He returned to the city, He was hungry.

    Gospel of Matthew 21:17-18 NKJV
    Bethphage, Bethany map

    Bethphage, Bethany & figs

    Bethphage; in Aramaic “place of young figs”): Near the Mount of Olives and to the road from Jerusalem to Jericho; mentioned together with Bethany – source

    The road to and from Jerusalem goes something like this:
    
    It descends east from the Temple, crosses the Kidron valley, past the Mount of Olives & Gethsemane [five furlongs], continues east through Bethphage [2000 cubits/1000 paces] to Bethany [a Sabbath Day's journey from Jerusalem].

    I addressed the significant imagery of this journey of Jesus in an earlier SERIES

    Roger @ Talk of JESUS .com

    Captive Jerusalem!

    A.D. 30 - 2024 C.E. - The Controversial Place of God

    RETURN to JERUSALEM along the ancient hillside roads from Bethany on this day prior to the Passover Sacrifice with JESUS ‘of Nazareth’ observing several controversies.

    Controversies BEFORE CHRIST!

    Opposition to the Lord God goes back BEFORE DAVID – yes, even before Moses and Abraham.

    AND opposition to the One Living God of Scripture continues even NOW in these last days of 2024 of the COMMON ERA!

    JERUSALEM, THE LAW & GOD’S BREATHED-OUT WORD all remain at the center of every opposition of twisted Truth, false prophets and stiff-necked resistance to God’s grace.

    No Son of Man would ever be so controversial to a sinful world than Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior!

    Roger@TalkofJesus.com

    And WHAT IF JESUS returned to JERUSALEM accompanied by LAZARUS, who the Lord had called out of the GRAVE in BETHANY?


    Considering Controversy on His return to Jerusalem

    Gospel of Matthew 21:18 NKJV

    Now in the morning, as He returned to the city, He was hungry.

    And seeing a fig tree by the road, He came to it and found nothing on it but leaves, and said to it,

    “Let no fruit grow on you ever again.”

    Is this curse on Jerusalem for 'Good' Friday's Cross? 
    .. 
    or perhaps Anno Domini 70 when Rome will destroy it? 
    ..
    or even some last day soon in the Common Era of 2024?
    

    Immediately the fig tree withered away.


    To Be Continued…

    Comment on Scripture + Share the Gospel


  • King for a Common Era Holy Week 3

    King for a Common Era Holy Week 3

    KING jesus! KING jesus! KING jesus!

    Gospel of Matthew 21:

    Then the blind and the lame came to Him in the temple, and He healed them.

    Gospel of Matthew 21:14 – New King James Version
    first century AD Jerusalem

    Today in Jerusalem

    ~ A.D. 30

    another account of a fictional witness 

    • SUNDAY had been a day with a festive parade into town by our savior KING.

    HOSANNA! King Jesus! Thank God for our conquering KING!

    In case you missed my account from SUNDAY:

    • MONDAY everybody was asking, “Who is this?”
    • Will this KING jesus now conquer our captors?

    Every Jew coming to the festival knew all-to-well of our obligation to buy a kind of kosher indulgence.


    We tried to follow this KING

    ALL of Jerusalem was abuzz with this Jesus, who had ridden into our captive city like a KING! And this Son of Man (as he called himself) began the day overturning tables of moneychangers and chasing merchants and animals out of the Temple courts!

    Of course the Temple police appeared (though unprepared for such a disturbance as this), then pharisees and priests and scribes, even the chief priests.

    In fact — they WITNESSED the marvelous miracles, signs of JESUS’s power from God!

    .. and the children crying out in the temple and saying, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” 

    Gospel of Matthew 21:15b New King James Version – witness of Jesus in the Temple

    Rather than praising GOD as even the children were now doing, THEY BECAME INDIGNANT.

    One of them said to him (I think it was a chief priest):

     “Do You hear what these are saying?”

    YES, this Jesus answered him AND then quoted a familiar Psalm.

    “Yes, Have you never read,

    ‘Out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants
    You have perfected praise’?”

    Gospel of Matthew 25:16 NKJV – Jesus’ response to children singing about Him

    By now a few more Legions became clearly visible in the distance, yet the Temple police seemed to be nowhere in sight.

    Roman squad of Legions

    In general the crowds were JOYFUL and above all praising the healings which Jesus had been doing for some who came to Him.

    This irked the officials of the Sanhedrin, although they now turned away from making any trouble today for this Son of Man and Son of David, who some zealots in the multitudes were urging to be KING.


    This Jesus slipped out through the crowds quickly and headed toward a gate leading to the road to Bethany.

    an earlier Passover

    I'm trying to recall if it was last year [A.D. 29] or the year before that I had heard from someone that this was not unusual for this humble Nazarian Rabbi.

    Jesus had shown signs to more than five thousand men near Nazareth.

    Then those men, when they had seen the sign that Jesus did, said,

    “This is truly the Prophet who is to come into the world.”

    Therefore when Jesus perceived that they were about to come and take Him by force to make Him king, He departed again to the mountain by Himself alone.

    Gospel of John 6:14-15 NKJV

    Why would the Son of David who rode into Jerusalem like KING DAVID leave to stay in Bethany overnight, I wondered?

    To be continued.. God-willing…

    Talk of JESUS .com

    Comment on Scripture + Share the Gospel

Do you SHARE the Gospel by either email or text?