NCarolinian

During His ministry on earth, Jesus had a variety of challenging personalities on His team. From John calling himself "the beloved" disciple, to Peter riding the roller coaster of emotions on everything to who we call Doubting Thomas - Jesus had a lot to deal with besides the general populace. However, one "disciple" that was in the tight circle from the beginning was an individual that Jesus knew, in the end, would betray Him - Judas Iscariot. Why ask him to join knowing this?  Hebrews 4:15 tells us that Jesus experienced all our temptations, including the wrong way to respond to betrayal, but did not sin or rebel against God's Way. Jesus could have been betrayed a number of different ways throughout His life and ministry without it leading to His death. This was not the plan, this was  the fulfillment of prophecy  in Zechariah 11:12-13 and Psalm 41:9 . The amazing observation about Jesus is that Jesus could have passed Judas off as just the fulfillment of the...

The stone-door, rolled away at the entrance to the tomb of Jesus, was not moved for the sake of Christ. This displacement of two tons worth of a disk-shaped rock, from a trough to keep it in place, by an angel of God, three days after the brutal suffering before the Cross and eventual crucifixion - was for humanity's benefit. The empty tomb is not a matter of faith, the emptiness is a fact. This is verifiable by anyone. History records the religious leaders and teachers of the day approached Pontius Pilate after the death of Jesus and requested a guard be placed at His tomb out of fear that Christ's disciples would steal the body, hide it and claim His resurrection. Pilate agreed, but ordered they use their own guards, which some consisted of Roman soldiers (Matthew 27:62-66) . Matthew 28:1-6 records what happens next. "After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb. There was a violent earthquake, for a...