Sunday, June 2, 2024

PT-1 "The Attack of the Crowd" (Matt. 26:47)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 6/2/2024 7:35 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                            Focus:  PT-1 “The Attack of the Crowd”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                    Reference:  Matthew 26:47

 

            Message of the verse:  47 While He was still speaking, behold, Judas, one of the twelve, came up accompanied by a large crowd with swords and clubs, who came from the chief priests and elders of the people.”

 

            “While He was still speaking” refers to Jesus talking to the eleven disciples in the garden, admonishing them to be spiritually vigilant and announcing to them His imminent betrayal  (“45 Then He came to the disciples and said to them, "Are you still sleeping and resting? Behold, the hour is at hand and the Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of sinners. 46 “Get up, let us be going; behold, the one who betrays Me is at hand!").  Now we go on and look at the following part of verse 47 “behold, Judas, one of the twelve, came up.” 

 

            I had never thought about what MacArthur brings up in looking at verse 47 where Matthew writes “one of the twelve.”  This of course refers to Judas and that is what is kind of strange because he was in the very act of betrayal.  MacArthur writes “One would think Matthew would have been loath to refer to him in such a way.  By the time the gospels were written, Judas’s name had long been a byword among Christians, a synonym for treachery and infamy.  Why, we might wonder, was he not referred to as the false disciple or the one who counted himself among the twelve?

 

            “But, in fact, all four gospel writers specifically speak of Judas as ‘one of the twelve’ (Matt. 26:14, 47; Mark 14:10, 20, 43; Luke 22:47; John 6:71), whereas no other disciple is individually designated in that way.  The writer clearly identify Judas as the betrayer of Jesus, but they do not speak of him with overt disdain or hatred.  They are remarkably restrained in their descriptions and assessments of him, never using derogatory epithets or fanciful episodes, as did many extrabiblical writers.”

 

            MacArthur goes on to talk about some of these extra Biblical writers:  “The apocryphal writing The Story of Joseph of Arimathea taught that Judas was the son of the brother of the high priest Caiaphas and that he was sent by Caiaphas to infiltrate the disciples and discover a way to destroy Jesus.

 

            “According to another apocryphal writing, The Acts of Pilate Judas went home after the betrayal and found his wife roasting a chicken.  When he told her he was planning to kill himself because he was afraid Jesus would rise from the dead and take vengeance on him, she replied that Jesus would no more rise from the dead that the chicken she was cooking would jump out of the fire and crow—at which instant the chicken was said to have done just that.”

 

            That is enough of these stories for a Sunday morning, and even though I am not teaching Sunday school any longer I still want to attend Sunday school this morning, and so we will continue with more of MacArthur’s stories about Judas in the next SD.  6/2/2024 7:59 AM

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