SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/14/2017
9:15 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-2 “Jesus Trial: Act One”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: John
18:12-14
Message of the
verses: “12 So the Roman cohort and
the commander and the officers of the Jews, arrested Jesus and bound Him, 13
and led Him to Annas first; for he was father-in-law of Caiaphas, who was high
priest that year. 14 Now Caiaphas was the one who had advised the Jews that it
was expedient for one man to die on behalf of the people.”
I began a quote from John MacArthur at the end of our
last SD, and promised that I would continue what he had written about Annas. I remember when I studied the book of Mark
and some of the things that John MacArthur was saying about Pilate and how
interesting it was. As we look at these
different men whom God used in the last moments of our Lord’s life and we learn
more about them then perhaps it will make it easier for us to understand what
they did and why they did what they did.
“Further, after his removal from office, five of Annas’s
sons and one of his grandsons served as high priest. He was also the ‘father-in-law of Caiaphas,
who was high priest that year’ (i. e., at the time; John is not implying that
the high priests served for only one year).
Thus, Leon Morris concurs, ‘There is little doubt but that…the astute
old man at the head of the family exercised a good deal of authority. He was in all probability the real power in
the land, whatever the legal technicalities.’
The New Testament places the beginning of John the “Baptist’s ministry ‘in
the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas’ (Luke 3:2; cf. Acts 4:6), as though
they jointly held office.
“Annas was a proud, ambitious, and notoriously greedy
man. Evidently a significant source of
his income came from the concessions in the temple. He received a share of the proceeds from the
sale of sacrificial animals; frequently those bought by the people would be
rejected and those for sale at the temple (for exorbitant prices) would be
approved as an offering. Annas also
profited from the fees the money changers charged to exchange foreign currency
into the Jewish money that alone could be used to pay the temple tax (cf.
2:14). So infamous was his greed that
the outer courts of the temple, were those transactions took place, became known
as the Bazaar of Annas.
“Annas had a special hatred for Jesus, who had twice
disrupted his business operations by cleansing the temple (John 2:13-16; Matt.
21:12-13). Perhaps he had Jesus brought
to him because he ‘wanted to be the first to gloat over the capture of this
disturbing Galilean’ (William Barclay).”
John uses a parenthetical note in verse 14 which came
from what he wrote in John 11:49-52:
“49 But one of them,
Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, "You know nothing
at all, 50 nor do you take into account that it is expedient for you that one
man die for the people, and that the whole nation not perish." 51 Now he
did not say this on his own initiative, but being high priest that year, he
prophesied that Jesus was going to die for the nation, 52 and not for the
nation only, but in order that He might also gather together into one the
children of God who are scattered abroad.”
The following is another quote from John MacArthur as he writes
about Caiaphas:
“Joseph Caiaphas had been
appointed high priest in A. D. 18 by Valerius Gratus, the same Roman prefect
who had deposed his father-in-law Annas three years earlier. He remained in office until A. D. 36 when the
Romans removed him. Caiaphas’s tenure as
high priest was one of the longest in the first century, which reveals his
cunning and opportunistic nature. That
he proposed killing Jesus to preserve his and the Sanhedrin’s power (cf. 11:48)
demonstrates his utter ruthlessness.”
Next we will begin to look at “Peter’s Denial: Act One,”
in our next SD.
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: Today is what is
called “Good Friday” as Christians around the world will think about what
happened to our Lord Jesus Christ the day that He died on the cross, which in
our study of John’s gospel we are getting close to. As a born-again believer in Jesus Christ
there is nothing that I am more thankful for than the death, burial, and
resurrection of Jesus Christ, along with the effectual call that His Spirit
gave to me in January of 1974.
My Steps of Faith for Today: To remember what my salvation cost my Savior
and Lord, and to praise Him for what He did on the cross for me.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: Jacob blessed Pharaoh” (Gen
47:7).
Today’s Bible
question: “How did Peter escape from
prison the night before Herod planned to kill him?’
Answer in our next SD.
4/14/2017 9:52 AM
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