Happy Easter!
Today we consider the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. What follows is a compilation of the eyewitness resurrection accounts of Jesus Christ as told by the authors of the gospels. They have been edited together to maintain the flow of the narrative and do not include Jesus’ multiple appearances following his resurrection. The accounts are framed by Paul’s extended reflection on the importance of the resurrection.
He is risen! He is risen indeed!
Eagles, fowl, and a Savior with wings: Kevin Burrell’s post makes my heart sing, “And a living, risen savior is still our covering today, to all those who by faith trust in his wings. In fact, we are clothed in his righteousness. He is oh-so willing to gather us under his wings.”
Even to death: Jamaal Williams invites us to consider Jesus at the Mount of Olives, “Jesus models what it looks like to stumble into the presence of God—hurting but hopeful.”
On this Tuesday of Holy Week, we consider the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. What follows is a compilation of the eyewitness crucifixion accounts of Jesus Christ as told by the four authors of the gospels. They have been edited together to maintain the flow of the narrative. The accounts are framed by the words of the 8th century BC prophet, Isaiah. On Sunday I will share the resurrection account of Jesus from the eyewitnesses.
In 2007, the House Committee on Oversight investigated the “Coalition to Salute America’s Heroes and Help Hospitalized Veterans.” Something was seriously wrong with CEO Roger Chapin’s leadership (and it wasn’t just the absurdly long name of the charity). Chapin had raised nearly $170 million between 2004 and 2006, but only 25% of the money reached veterans. Over $125 million was funneled to Chapin and his cronies.
Whether at a national or local level, we don’t have to look long and hard for mismanagement of donations. There is nothing that breaks the trust of a donor more than seeing their hard-earned dollars misspent. We should care about where our giving goes. Churches ought to lead the way in financial transparency and accountability.
6 discouraging trends in global Christianity: Aaron Earls reports, “While Christianity continues to grow, Islamic growth continues to outpace the church’s growth. Christianity slightly outpaced the global rate of population growth (0.98% v. 0.88%), but Islam grew even faster (1.67%).”
Wikipedia founder embraces Christianity: Trevin Wax reflects on Larry Sanger’s conversion, “Considering how many people are curious about the Bible these days, the increase in Bible sales, the interest in various philosophers and commentators providing their takes on the Scriptures,
In pre-marital counseling, you can almost see couples wince when I bring up Paul’s admonition to wives in Ephesians 5. Paul’s instructions to married couples begin with those fated words, “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.” Denominations have divided over that verse and been misunderstood by many more.
An Encouragement to Young Husbands: AW Workman shares the importance of growing in gentleness as a husband, “In this season I began to visualize a beautiful, though small, flowering plant. The wrong kind of focused messing with the plant would eventually kill it. Instead, it needed stability, dependable sunlight, regular watering, and it would blossom. My nit-picking and projecting on the future were preventing the kind of relational safety that would actually lead to growth. The gospel logic of “accepted, therefore free to grow” was beginning to work its way into how I sought to shepherd my wife.”
Any Unchecked Sin is Ruinous: Justin Huffman warns, “We, every one of us, have the potential to destroy our marriage, or to be consumed with bitterness, or to be blinded by self-righteousness, or succumb to peer pressure, or to give in to hopeless depression, or to give way to sexual temptation.”
Does Sexual Self-Gratification Glorify God? Trent Rogers and John Tarwater consider the difficult subject of masturbation: “Christians experience constant pressure from prevailing cultural narratives that argue all sexual expression, so long as it doesn’t harm another, is inherently good and that sexual expression is the foundation of one’s personhood.”
Hedgerows and Big Yellow Trucks: Andrea Seaborn with a wonderful reflection on why God obscures our view.
Stooping to Filthy Feet: John Orchard brings fresh perspective to a well-known passage, “God has become a real human being and he hasn’t just served humanity in general, but actual blokes with body-hair and odour, annoying habits and treacherous hearts. No, Jesus does this not in spite of his divinity but because of it.”
“I guess I just need to develop rhino skin.” My friend was weary of being battered by gossip and slander. I empathized. I have similar struggles. “Isn’t there a less painful way to develop thick skin?” I asked. God has given humans skin that is a scant 2 millimeters thick. That is thinner than most cardstock. Meanwhile, our rhinoceros friends have skin that is over two inches thick. Wow!
The rise of reality TV and then social media has radically increased transparency. Team Transparency has rallied around #nofilter selfies and sharing even the frustrating and discouraging parts of life. Team Self-Respect has rallied around calls for decency and the need for some last bastion of privacy. Team Transparency has attacked Team Self-Respect for their filtered and prettied-up lives, for mushy posts about significant others, and for bragging about their kids. Team Self-Respect has attacked Team Transparency for their self-importance and oversharing about bad bosses and relationships, and shaming their spouses and children.
So, which team is right? Should we be transparent?
Nietzsche was Right: In a similar vein as my post on Tuesday, Tim Keller reviews Tom Holland’s (not the actor) book on how Christianity revolution changed the world. Keller concludes, “In no way does [Holland] let the church off the hook for its innumerable failures. Nor will he let secular people live with the illusion that their values are just self-evident, the result of reason and scientific investigation.”
What Has Been Most Helpful in Your Marriage? Ed Welch answers this question with wisdom.
Beware of Pride: A Cautionary Tale: Lee Hutchings tells the story of how pride led William Henry Harrison to have the shortest tenure of any US President. He explains, “Such a tragic and ironic ending to an otherwise tenacious life is compounded by the fact that Harrison died, in all likelihood, of his own vanity and pride.”
Love is a Skill: Seth Lewis comments, “It’s interesting that Jesus never mentioned how the Good Samaritan felt about the man on the road. He only tells us what he did for him. Evidently, Jesus does not consider love to be primarily about how we feel, but more importantly about what we do.”
Can Cancer be God’s Servant? Randy Alcorn considers hard truths in the face of his wife’s recent death. “When our ministry posted Nanci’s words, “My cancer is God’s servant,” someone responded, “WHAT? God does NOT give people cancer. Jesus bore our sicknesses and carried our pains on the cross.”
The Most Dangerous Type of Parenting: Aaron Earls explains, “Reputation parenting is primarily concerned with the spiritual reputation of the parent. We do what we do as a parent with the goal of having others see us as a respectable Christian parent.”
Why Do Christians Make Such a Big Deal About Sex? Rebecca McLaughlin responds, “Whenever people ask me why Christians are so weird about sex, I first point out that we’re weirder than they think. The fundamental reason why Christians believe that sex belongs only in the permanent bond of male-female marriage is because of the metaphor of Jesus’s love for his church.”
What does “the prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective” mean? Kevin Halloran asks, “But what exactly does this phrase from James mean? Does it mean that we will receive everything we pray for, or that holiness strengthens our prayers?”
My Broken Engagement: Olivia Davis begins, “Has God forgotten me? No, my heart said. But it wasn’t a statement of faith. It was a cry of sorrow: I wish that he had. Because if he had forgotten me, it would mean that he didn’t know about my broken engagement, that he wasn’t an indifferent observer watching me sprawled out on my living room rug like a dead spider, sobbing until I had to run to the bathroom and vomit.”
Does Jesus Still Sympathize with Sinners? Mark Jones with a rich reflection concludes, “we can rejoice that his compassion to us is not mere sentiment, but a powerful compassion whereby he can supply us with his grace in our times of need, just as the Father supplied Christ with the Spirit in his time of need.”
I had the blessing of just returning from an amazing trip connecting with our brothers and sisters in India.
It’s always impossible to put into words what it is to see a glimpse of God’s miraculous work. India is one of the most challenging places for the gospel in the world. Christians are suffering in ways it is hard to imagine from our Western context.
What are the idols of your heart? What are the ways in which you have allowed your heart which is intended to worship God, to worship the golden calves that surround us? Where else have you placed your hope?
If you’re unsure of the answer to that question, perhaps one of these questions might help diagnose your heart. What keeps me up when I’m trying to sleep? What do I fear? What do I think about? What do I daydream about? What gets me most excited in life? What do I give myself to? What do I use my time for?
Can Christians Date Nonbelievers? Marshall Seagal handles this question wisely, “Who you marry will likely shape who you become more than any other human relationship. If your husband runs from Jesus, you won’t be able to avoid the undertow of his lovelessness. If your wife runs from Jesus, you will live in the crossfire of her unrepentant sin. You may survive an unbelieving spouse, but only as through fire. Marriage under God would become a long and devastating war.”
Sexual Liberation Has Failed Women: Andrew Wilson reviews Louise Perry’s intriguing new book, “Louise Perry has written a feminist critique of the sexual revolution, and it’s brave, excoriating, and magnificent. The Case Against the Sexual Revolution isn’t a Christian book. Perry’s critique is rooted in evolutionary biology, feminist passion, and empirical observation, not biblical interpretation or theology.”
Big Boys do Cry, After All: Tim Shorey shares his heartache as he navigates the ravages of cancer, “Gayline and I have not known a single day of adult life without each other. But now, unless God spares me, she’ll likely know a couple decades of adult life without me; with me as but a memory. I won’t be there with her and for her. I won’t be holding her hand, kissing her goodnight, and saying, as I always do when she turns over to sleep—'Good night. I love you! I can’t wait to see you in the morning!’”
God Wants You to be a Burden: This is a good reminder by Christine Gordon and Hope Blanton, “Burden bearing is a two-way street. The friend you hesitate to text with your bad news has the same call on her life that you do. Will you allow her the opportunity to obey or deny her the chance because you’ve decided she’s too busy?”
The Most Repeated Verse in the Bible: Sam Allberry helps us square God’s wrath and love. He explains, “But while both God’s love and wrath are undeniable and necessary features of his dealings with us, they are not symmetrical. They do not spring from the same central part of God’s being with equal force. The two are not parallel components of God’s work.”
Is it possible idolatry might still be alive and well in us today?
I am currently in India, a land of a million gods. The first time I traveled to India, I was startled by how many altars and temples filled the land. Gods are layered upon gods: family gods, regional gods, and gods of healing and fertility. Devout Hindus, in search of hope, pour out their time and resources to god after god in hoping that one of these gods might be able to solve their health problems or financial woes.
This is the human condition, not a quirk of Indian culture. We want something tangible to place our hope in, and we want objects to worship.
Sign up to get The Bee Hive delivered to your inbox and receive a free 50 Books That Changed My Life (and Might Change Yours, Too) download!
