The Apostles of Jesus Christ: Thirteen Men Who Turned the World Upside-Down

Dedicated to

Mary Elizabeth Hollis Jones

Contents

Dedicated to

FOREWORD

INTRODUCTION

ONE

JOHN THE BAPTIST

TWO

JESUS

THREE

ANDREW

FOUR

JOHN

FIVE

SIMON PETER

SIX

JAMES

SEVEN

PHILIP

EIGHT

NATHANAEL

NINE

JUDE

TEN

THOMAS DIDYMAS

ELEVEN

MATTHEW LEVI

TWELVE

JAMES BAR-ALPHAEUS

THIRTEEN

SIMON ZELOTES

FOURTEEN

JUDAS ISCARIOT

FIFTEEN

MATTHIAS

EPILOGUE

APPENDIX A

A Sociogram of Jesus’ Minyan

A Sociogram of Jesus’ Minyan

APPENDIX B

MAPS

The Roman Empire

And

The Holy Land

THE ROMAN EMPIRE

Circa AD 30

THE HOLY LAND—PALESTINE

(Circa AD 40)

APPENDIX C

THE READER’S STUDY GUIDE

BIBLIOGRAPHY

FOREWORD

CAN YOU name the thirteen Apostles of Jesus Christ? I asked a Presbyterian clergy colleague of mine, Dr. Alan Minarcik, that question and he responded in a matter of fact blasé manner, Sure!

Then he confidently began to rattle off their names: Matthew, Mark, Luke, John . . .

He paused for a moment, puzzled and bewildered, and then continued . . .Happy, Dopey, Grumpy, Doc, . . . Donder, Vixen, Blitzen, . . . and Rudolph!

We both burst out laughing at his comical answer!

Obviously, Alan’s memory had gone blank on him, but undaunted he rattled off the first names that came to his mind to complete his attempt at naming the Twelve Apostles.

He was wrong on more than one account, however: Matthew and John were indeed among the Twelve, but Mark and Luke were not! Alan, with a knee-jerk automatic response, had given the names of the four Evangelists: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. These are the men who are credited with having written the four Gospels. But if Dr. Minarcik had intended to list the Apostles in the sequence by which they were called or even to have listed the four Evangelists in the chronological order in which they wrote the four Gospels, Matthew would not have been the first in the list. It was John Mark—a disciple of Barnabas—who is credited with having written the earliest or first of the Gospels which bear the Evangelists’ names. And it was Andrew and John who were the first disciples of Jesus, not Andrew’s brother Simon Peter.

Then we both seriously tried to recall the names of Jesus’ Apostles. We included in our list the name of Matthias who was chosen to fill the vacancy left by the suicide of Judas Iscariot, and we added Saul [Paul] of Tarsus, who referred to himself as the Apostle born out of season—the Johnny-come-lately who considered himself one of the true Apostles of Jesus Christ. There are others who might well be included in the list of Jesus’ apostles: remember, he called and commissioned/ordained the seventy-two whom he sent out as his representatives/apostles (the sent ones) to proclaim the coming of the Kingdom of God. The Greek word apostelo means to send forth. Apostles are those persons who are commissioned/ordained and sent forth to represent another and to carry forth and proclaim the message of the one who sends them.

There were others, like Barnabas and Silas, both of whom were missionary co-workers with Paul, who were equally commissioned/ordained by the early Christian Church. There were those like John Mark and Timothy who also traveled on missionary journeys with Paul. And there was John the Baptist, who was the forerunner, the herald, the advance public relations agent who was the first to point to Jesus as the Messiah. There were also other evangelists, like the Deacon Stephen—the first martyr—and the Deacon Philip who was the evangelist whom God used to bring a spiritual awakening and religious revival to Samaria. There were able witnesses like the eloquent young Greek preacher, Apollos. And there were teachers and exponents of the Holy Scriptures, like Aquila and Priscilla. There were other missionary apostles like Epaphroditus, Erastus, Luke the Greek medical doctor and historian of the early church who accompanied Paul, and others whose names are recorded in the New Testament. There is a whole list in the New Testament and in the annals of early church history of persons who were able witnesses to the new religious faith that developed around Jesus, the carpenter from Nazareth, whose teachings, miraculous deeds, death and resurrection were to forever change the world.

All of these early Christian witnesses are worthy of our efforts to know them better through study and reflection upon their lives. In this study, however, we will limit our focus to fourteen of the New Testament Christians whose lives have had a powerful influence upon the Church and the world. We will look also at a thumbnail encapsulation of the person and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth—after all, he is the central figure in the entire drama, and he is the focus around which all else evolves and revolves.

It is not by accident that the first Chapter begins with an examination of the life and ministry of John, The Baptizer, rather than with the life of Jesus. John’s life and mission was a Preface to the life and ministry of Jesus and His Apostles. So the Chapter on John, The Shouting Prophet from the Wilderness is really the Preface to the rest of the book. At the end of his life John asked the searching salient question: Is Jesus really the Christ, or shall we look for another? Jesus gave him the same answer that we will find if we really look carefully at His life, His teachings, His miracles, His death, resurrection and ascension, and the testimony of the Christian Church down through the centuries and now, today.

So we will begin by asking the questions: What was there about this single man, Jesus the carpenter, that first caused John the Baptist, then some of John’s disciples to follow Jesus? What motivated the Twelve, and the Seventy and the three thousand at the birth of Christendom on that first Pentecost festival in 30 AD to become followers of Christ? And finally, What could possibly have motivated all those millions since that time two thousand years ago to have followed the lowly Nazarene carpenter turned rabbi?

And the question that is even more important: "What is there about Jesus that has motivated you, personally, to acknowledge him as your Lord and Savior?"

And the corollary question that we all should be able to answer: What is there about Jesus that will attract your friends and move them to acknowledge his Lordship over their lives and to trust and place their ultimate destiny in his hands?

The author affirms the plenary inspiration of the Holy Scriptures and regards the canon of the Old and New Testaments to be the divinely inspired Word of God which is the supreme rule of faith and practice by which all other extra-Biblical sources are measured. Where the Bible is silent, we may turn to reliable sources including the writings of ancient historians, the Early Church Fathers and the oral and written legends and traditions of the Early Church. The further back to the Apostolic and Post Apostolic Church such traditions and legends date, the more reliable they are likely to be. For example, the only place in the Bible where the Apostle St. Simon Zelotes is mentioned is in the list of the Apostles, and apart from that we are dependent upon the oral and written traditions and legends about St. Simon that have come down to us through the early church. In sifting through the various traditions and legends about the Apostles, the author has taken care to select those items of information that appear to be the most feasible and plausible accounts and records and, where possible, those that date back closest to the Apostolic and early Post-Apostolic Church.

This composite of the biographies of Jesus and his Apostles was first presented as a sermon series at the St. Andrew’s United Methodist Church of Annapolis, Maryland beginning during Advent 1980 and continuing through Lent the following spring of 1981. The series includes materials from individual sermon discourses presented earlier at the Kenneydale and Fairwood United Methodist Churches, Renton, Washington, the Geyer United Methodist Church, Middletown, Pennsylvania, the United Methodist Churches at White Marsh and Chase, Maryland, the St. Andrew’s United Methodist Church of Annapolis, Maryland, the Charlestown United Protestant Church, Catonsville, Maryland, the St. Luke’s United Methodist Church, Baltimore, Maryland, and finally as a Bible Study to the Senior Adult Class at John’s Creek United Methodist Church, Duluth, Georgia, and especially to their leader, L.B. Holcombe. It is the combination of persons from this Good News Sunday School Class and Basics mid-week Bible Study group to whom I am especially indebted for their prodding and participation in the writing of this book. The good people in each of these churches who have listened to and critiqued these sermons and studies have contributed to the development and publication of this book.

I am most deeply indebted to my wife, Barbara Ann, who has been my best critic, devoted supporter and my manuscript editor. My sincere thanks to Edson C. Bates, my erudite and fastidious proof-reader for his careful examination and corrections to the manuscript. I am also grateful to those writers whose books and other materials are included in the Bibliography for their invaluable contributions to this study, and most particularly to the scholarly work of William Steuart McBirnie, PhD who authored The Search for the Twelve Apostles. I am grateful to Zondervan Publishing House for granting permission to quote excerpts from The NIV Study Bible New International Version, and to Tyndale House Publishers, Wheaton Illinois for granting their permission to quote excerpts from the Living Bible Paraphrased. I am also indebted to Dr. Maxie D. Dunnam who wrote the Introduction for his participation and partnership, and to the editors and staff at Xlibris for their assistance in the publication of this book.

Moreover, I am especially indebted to David W. Balsiger, LHD, Vice President-Marketing/Senior Producer and Grizzly Adams Productions, Inc. for granting authorization for me to use the bonus segment The Life and Legends of the Apostles taken from the feature-length documentary films about the Apostles entitled Twelve Ordinary Men and Miraculous Mission. I am grateful to Barbara Rundback, Production Manager and David Priest, Film Director at Shadow Play Films, Inc. for their invaluable assistance in the development of the DVD which is attached to the Leader’s Manual and which make the Leader’s Manual and its DVD such superb teaching tools.

Hopefully, this study will not only enable us to become better acquainted with Jesus and his Apostles, but it will also enable us to more ably and articulately witness to God’s saving grace and goodness and to take our places among that noble company of apostles, evangelists, and Christian witnesses about which the Scriptures speak:

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses,

Let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles,

And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.

Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith,

Who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning the shame,

And sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men,

So that you will not grow weary and lose heart.1

We will also by the eye of imagination travel back across the centuries to visit the shores of the Jordan River where we will see and hear John the Baptist as he cries out his warnings against the unrepentant. We will hear him as he calls out to all who will heed his voice, urging them to be baptized as a symbolic gesture repudiating sinfulness and seeking cleansing in their hearts and minds. We will follow his ministry, visit him in his jail cell during his captivity, and ask the question he asks: Is Jesus really the Christ? How can we be certain?

Among the crowd standing along the banks of the Jordan River, we will spot two of John’s disciples and quietly we will watch and follow them after John points out Jesus, the carpenter, as the Messiah. We will observe them as they follow Jesus to discover his place of residence, and listen in on their first conversations with this new Messiah. We will discover how they spread their curiosity and enthusiasm among their friends, and watch as one after the other of the Apostles are drawn to Jesus, challenged and called by him to become his disciples, and how they respond as they enter upon the adventure of their lives.

The names of the original Twelve Apostles are listed for us in each of the first three Gospels and in the Acts of the Apostles, but the order is not identical in each listing. Here the list is arranged in a particular order chosen for reasons that will become more obvious to the reader as each successive Chapter unfolds:

These are the names of The Twelve Apostles:

First, Andrew Bar (son of) Jonas

and his brother, Simon Bar-Jonas [to whom he gave the name Peter];

James Bar-Zebedee, and his brother John Bar-Zebedee

[to them he gave the name Boanerges, which means the Sons of Thunder];

Philip, the noble Greek; and the Rabbi Nathanael Bar-Tholomew;

Jude [aka: Thaddaeus Lebbaeus Judas] Bar-James;

Thomas the Twin [the carpenter & shipwright];

Matthew Levi Bar-Alphaeus [the tax collector],

and James Bar-Alphaeus;

Simon [who was called the Zealot],

and Judas Iscariot [who became a traitor]2.

It is worth taking the time to review carefully the instructions Jesus gave to his apostles when he commissioned them. We may ask ourselves, If someone tried to recruit me to go to work for them and offered to me the kind of conditions of employment that Jesus gave to his apostles, would I be willing to accept such a job—under any similar circumstances?3

How do these conditions of employment compare with most executive/sales positions today? Draw up a list of the normal conditions of employment and compensation for a corporate position today and contrast it with the conditions of employment and compensation of the apostles.

Following the suicide of Judas, the vacant apostleship forfeited by the Son of Perdition was filled by the election of Matthias, who became the Thirteenth Apostle.4 Although Saul of Tarsus was never considered among the apostles, this great theologian of the early church became the great Christian missionary to the Gentiles and deserves to be recognized for his outstanding apostolic ministry. Although Paul claimed for himself an apostleship to the Gentiles, he was never accepted as a true apostle nor numbered among the Twelve. One of the reasons that Paul was never considered by the early Church or even by the modern church as qualifying for membership among the Twelve Apostles is because it was held that in order for one like Matthias to be elected an Apostle, he must have been among the first followers of Jesus and to have heard him preach and teach and to have observed his miracle working ministry, and to have witnessed first-hand the resurrected Christ and his ascension. Those qualifications are stated as part of the criteria for the two candidates considered to take the place vacated by the death of Judas Iscariot.5

Not a great deal is known about some of the Apostles. They were too busy making history to write much about themselves. Most of them were not recognized as the great leaders and saints they became until later generations looked back upon their lives and ministry. Then their relics (their bones) became prized possessions as symbols of the Christian faith. One of the things we will do is to construct a sociograph or chart showing the possible familial relationships and group dynamics which were at play within the cadre of the Apostles. It will be fascinating to envision how the various influences of family blood-ties, tribal influences, political ideologies, personality traits, special favors, positions of responsibility, assigned tasks, seating arrangements at meals, parental relationships, business and vocational interests, social and cultural backgrounds, financial resources, and the opportunities afforded by fate and/or divine providence influenced the Apostles as individuals and as a functioning group.

The emperor Constantine, following his conversion to Christianity, aspired to be counted among the Apostles of Christ. We will learn more about him later in our study. Constantine’s ambition to be one of Christ’s Apostles was a noble one, and one that he tried with all of his imperial might to accomplish. Indeed, it was Constantine who was the first Roman emperor to declare Christianity the official religion of the empire. It was he and his pious and devout Christian mother, Queen Helena, who were instrumental in preserving many of the holy places in and around Jerusalem and who contributed a great deal in establishing Christianity as the predominant religion of both the Eastern and Western civilizations. Constantine built a shrine to the Twelve and desired to be buried with them as The Thirteenth Apostle. He actually succeeded in gathering what were relics of St. Andrew, St. Luke and St. Timothy. He was buried in The Church of the Twelve Apostles in Constantinople in AD 337, having died on Pentecost Day, May 22, of that year. It was after this that the veneration of relics arose as a practice, and great prestige and power were attached to those who possessed any of these relics, for many miracles of healing were attributed to the supernatural power of faith inspired by these memorials.

Christian missionaries today, persons like David Livingstone who opened the Dark Continent of Africa to Christianity, and E. Stanley Jones, the United Methodist missionary to India, and Mother Teresa of Calcutta, and Nate Saint who gave his life in an endeavor to carry the Gospel of Christ to the headhunters of Ecuador, are all modern day apostles. And you and I are also called to be witnesses. We have been sent forth by Christ into the world around us to bear testimony to God’s love and grace.

You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you;

and you will be my witnesses

in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria,

and to the ends of the earth.6

Notes:

1 Hebrews 12:1-3

2 Matthew 10:1-40; Cf. Mark 3:16-19; Luke 6:6-14; Acts 1:13

3 Vide: Mt. 10:3-40

4 Acts 1:15-26

5 Acts 1:21, 22

6 Acts 1:8

INTRODUCTION

by

Dr. Maxie D. Dunnam

A MINYAN is the number of adult Jews required to form a synagogue.1 The necessary quorum that must be present for a synagogue to meet for the daily prayers or for any special prayers or services of Hebrew worship is ten. Originally the number was most likely twelve—the same number of the original twelve tribes who were descendants of the twelve sons of Jacob, whose name was changed to Israel. Because of the difficulty of finding twelve adult Hebrews in some of the isolated places to which the Jews had been dispersed as a result of wars, famines, slavery, migrations, etc., the number was eventually reduced to ten—the number of the tribes of the northern kingdom of Israel, and the number of tribes remaining after discounting the two lost tribes. It is most likely that two thousand years ago, the number for a Minyan was still twelve. The members of the Minyan might change, but once established the number required still remained the same.

*     *     *

Dr. C. David Jones has given us a marvelous and expansive piece of research work and writing in this book in which he tells the fascinating story of thirteen men who became part of a very special Minyan: their lives changed the world.

In fact, history records that in the ancient city of Thessalonica, which was a major metropolis in what is today the country of Turkey, these early Christians were charged with being these that have turned the world upside down!2 This small cadre of men were earth shakers and earth movers. The word cadre is defined as a nucleus or core group, especially of trained personnel able to assume control and to train others, a cell of indoctrinated leaders active in promoting the interests of a revolutionary party.3 The men whose lives are reported in this book certainly fit that definition and description. The spiritual revolution they started has spread to very corner of the globe and has impacted every society from that time to this.

The Apostles of Jesus Christ—Thirteen Men Who Turned the World Upside-Down is their story.

For centuries only adult males were counted toward comprising a Minyan. Any adolescent who had passed through his Bar Mitzvah ceremony inducting him from puberty into the male adult world could be counted in the Minyan. Among the Orthodox Jews that strict rubric is still the requisite for the formation of a Minyan. In the Conservative and Reformed congregations now in the twenty-first century women and young girls who have passed their Bat Mitzvah may be counted as part of the required Minyan core. Jewish congregations may be larger than ten adults, and may even number in the thousands, but the Minyan can be no fewer than ten. The synagogue Minyan need not meet inside a consecrated building or temple, but may meet for prayers and worship wherever ten adult Jews can be found.

Following the building of Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem, the ancient Hebrews made pilgrimages to their Holy City to participate in the various religious festivals that took place throughout the calendar year. Sacrifices would be offered by the temple priests to make atonement for the sins of the people, and to demonstrate their gratitude to their God Jehovah for His Divine beneficence upon the nation and upon its individual families.

During the period when the Hebrews were conquered and scattered in the Diaspora and became dispersed throughout the ancient world, it was no longer possible for them to worship in their Temple. In their desire to preserve their religious traditions and culture, buildings called synagogues (meaning congregations) were erected to provide places where their religion could be taught and practiced. Upon returning to their homeland, the Jews found it important to maintain these synagogue schools as places where their traditions could be taught to each succeeding generation. Even after the Temple was rebuilt under the leadership of Ezra and Nehemiah, the Jews retained their synagogues and built several of them throughout the Holy City itself. Larger villages, where the inhabitants were more numerous and prosperous, would have their own synagogues and their resident rabbis. Smaller villages would borrow the rabbi from a larger neighboring town, and wherever ten adult males could be brought together the Minyan would form a synagogue or congregation and prayers and other services of worship would be conducted.

Today if you visit Jerusalem and go the Wailing Wall at the base of the ancient Temple compound, you will be able to observe an ever changing kaleidoscope of spontaneous minyans being formed on the spot. Total strangers will be invited by others to join with them to form a minyan of no fewer than ten adult persons. Usually the men will gather together apart from the women, and the women will gather separately. They will join hands and lock arms in a circle, almost like a football huddle, and will begin to circle, first one way and then the other, as they chant their prayers to Jehovah their God. It makes no difference that each person may be praying in his own different native tongue. They are united in spirit as they are bound for those sacred moments as a Minyan of believers in the One True and Living God. If ten Hebrews cannot be found, the group may invite a Gentile to join their ranks so that the full required number of ten adult worshippers can be properly met.

When the Rabbi Jesus of Nazareth began his public ministry, he worshipped in the synagogues in his home town of Nazareth and in the village of his cousins at Capernaum. He knew, however, that he would not be the rabbi of a stationary synagogue built of stone and mortar, but his ministry would take him north, south, east and west throughout the breadth of the land. His Minyan would have to be a mobile one, moving with him wherever he went.

Thousands of people thronged to hear Jesus wherever he went. His fame spread throughout the land as word of his miracle-working power and of his inspiring teachings was carried far and wide. From among those who gathered to hear him, he selected seventy, whom he trained and sent out in pairs, two by two, to tell the good news of the coming of God’s Kingdom upon earth.4 There were others beside the seventy who also preached and worked miracles in Jesus’ name.5 Undoubtedly there were hundreds among those whom Jesus healed who offered to leave home and hearth to follow him.

Jesus knew, however, that he could not take all of the seventy, and others beside, with him wherever he traveled. He would select twelve, enough to ensure that he would have a Minyan with him wherever he went. He would take his synagogue Minyan with him, he would be their rabbi and would teach them and show them the way.

He would commission them and entrust into their hands and to their care the Christian Church which would be born at Pentecost. He would pass to them the Keys of Faith which open the gates to His Kingdom, and His Minyan would pass those keys on to the multitude of Christian believers who would come after them, generation upon generation from then until now and those yet to come even to the end of the age. And in the coming Kingdom, these twelve would sit upon twelve thrones judging over the twelve tribes of Israel.6

Thus it was that the Minyan of the Rabbi Jesus of Nazareth was formed. They would join hands and hearts and lock their arms together as they made a prayer circle that would surround the whole wide world. First one way and then another they would move offering their prayers and their lives to God. They would hold within the circle of their Minyan the destiny both of their own lives and of the countless millions who would hear and believe their testimony of God’s infinite mercy, His love and His grace.

These were the men who by their lives and their witness would forever change the world!

Notes:

1 THE APOSTLES OF JESUS CHRIST—Thirteen Men Who Turned the World Upside-Down was first published in 2004 under the title The MINYAN—A Small Cadre of Men Who Turned the World Upside-Down. Although the meaning and historical significance of the word "minyan" is widely known and used within the world-wide Jewish Community, very few non-Jews/Gentiles either recognize or understand its meaning. Because of this lack of a wider recognition of the word minyan, it was determined to publish the book under its new title in the hope that it will have a much wider title recognition and that it will be widely used by Christian churches as a Sunday School and Bible Study resource for youth and adult groups. The inclusion in this edition of the Reader’s Guide in Appendix C and the enhancement of the Leader’s Manual by the inclusion of the DVD as an excellent audio-visual tool, make this edition user friendly. The copious endnotes also make the book suitable for academic studies in college and seminary classes on the New Testament, and the cover and internal graphics, including the unique Sociogram and the two maps, contribute to make this a very attractive book to readers and students of the Holy Bible.

2 Acts 17:6

3 Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary. Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, Inc., Publishers

4 Luke 10:2-24 Differences in certain manuscripts make it unclear as to whether the number was 72 or 70 (see NIV Study Bible footnote to Luke 10:1)

5 Mark 9:38-41

6 Matthew 19:28

JOHN THE BAPTIST

ONE

JOHN THE BAPTIST

The Shouting Prophet

From The Wilderness

JOHN BAR-ZECHARIAS was the first prophet there had been in Israel since as far back as anyone could remember. For over five long centuries there had been no prophet in Israel.

It was as if their God Jehovah had forgotten them.

Repeatedly the nation had suffered defeat at the hands of its enemies. The Maccabees had sought to throw off the yoke of the alien oppressors, but their insurrection was comparatively short-lived. The Romans had surged down across the Mediterranean from Rome like a plague of locusts, and had once again plunged Israel under the domination of a foreign power. The Pax Romana, the Roman peace, was maintained only at the price of thousands of crucifixions. The roads were lined with crosses as a deterrent to those who might consider plotting a revolt. Insurrections were stamped out brutally and usually quickly. Taxes were exacted ruthlessly, indiscriminately and arbitrarily by both the foreign troops and the Quisling tax collectors who extorted exorbitant sums to fatten their own coffers. It was a long dark time in the history of Israel.

Malachi, the most recent of the Old Testament prophets, had lived sometime between 450 and 400 years prior to the rule of Caesar Augustus over the Roman Empire. Then, unexpectedly God sent the archangel Gabriel to the old Levite priest Zecharias as he was carrying out his duties in the Temple. In the regular rotation of temple duties the time had come for the old priest to burn incense in the Temple in Jerusalem as a symbol of the prayers of the people of Israel. The last one whom Zecharias ever expected to see was the mighty archangel Gabriel, the herald who had been sent from the throne of God in heaven. No wonder he was stunned and dumb-struck, but he was not as shocked perhaps as his wife Elizabeth was when she discovered that in her old age she had

conceived and would bear a son who would become the Prophet of the Most High God.1

Then, outside of the capital city of Jerusalem, off in the deserts of Judaea, in the wastelands along the shores of the Dead Sea, a lone hermit emerges and a voice from the wilderness is heard shouting an astounding and alarming message. Clad in the camel-hair coverings of a desert nomad, this strange and rugged mountain man with the uncut hair and craggy beard that marked him as a Nazirite2 appears suddenly and with a booming voice calls out across the desert sands summoning all who will hear him:

"The King is coming, the King is coming,

the King is coming . . .

Prepare ye the way of the Lord!"

Israel had been without a king for centuries. The nation had been divided—the North against the South—by a civil war that severed the solidarity of the country. They did not call themselves Union Yankees or Confederate Rebels, but their antipathy against each other was as keen as that which sundered the American States and pitted kinsman against kinsman, when the northern tribes seceded from the southern part of the kingdom. The tribes and provinces of Judah and Benjamin stood alone in the south, and the other ten tribes rebelled against the loyal followers of David’s throne. King Rehoboam, grandson of the hero King David, had acted like a pompous fool, seeking to show his strength by attempting to exact even more taxes than his father, King Solomon. A construction foreman, Jeroboam, who had worked on Solomon’s Temple, mounted a revolution that succeeded in throwing off the royal monarchy and its oppressive taxes. Jeroboam set up idol worship in his kingdom, erecting images in the northern city of Dan and the southern city of Beersheba (from which we get the descriptive saying, from Dan to Beersheba). Thus the people of the ten northern tribes in the new Kingdom of Israel could practice a form of religion without having to cross the border into the southern Kingdom of Judah to worship the God Jehovah at the Temple in Jerusalem. Ultimately both of the Hebrew kingdoms were crushed and subjugated by one foreign nation after another, and now the land was occupied by Roman legionaries who enforced the martial law under which puppet functionaries collaborated to govern and collect the Roman taxes. It had been a long time since the Hebrews had been ruled over by their own king. Who could withstand the armies of the Caesars?

Now, at long last, after all those long centuries of silence, the Lord speaks again.

But who would listen?

There were those in Israel who, even though they might have preferred that their nation would be free from the protective rule of a foreign power, were nevertheless quite content to live in the relative peace and civil order that was established under the military occupation and rule imposed by Rome. The peace, which the Roman Empire guarded, opened up trade routes between Europe, Africa and Asia. Israel was at the very crossroads through which caravans must travel between the major continents. Better to be under the peace of Rome than to be subjected to the regional wars that had ravaged those lands from the earliest times of recorded history. And the Romans were, after all, satisfied to grant to their subjects a relatively high degree of self-government under the local authorities and puppet kings like Herod Antipas. Moreover, the Jewish religious leaders were permitted to follow their own customs and sacred rites so long as they did not offend Rome. Those who were less patriotic and more pragmatic about accommodation and who were opportunistic and enterprising, like the tax collectors Matthew of Capernaum, Zachaeus of Jericho and others, found doing business with Rome to have certain advantages. There were, of course, men like Barabbas and the Zealots, including some among those who would become disciples of the Galilean Rabbi, Jesus, who would take the kingdom from Rome by violence. These were recalcitrant and stubborn people who for their own reasons were the terrorists and guerrilla fighters of their day.

How does one get the attention of a nation long grown accustomed to accept life as it was meted out to them to them by fate, or by providence as they may have perceived it? How does one call together such a conglomeration of religious leaders, political functionaries, merchants, shepherds, farmers, old men with memories of bygone days of grandeur, young men with visions for a new and better world, dreamers, and day-dreamers, and those who were simply burdened down with the day-to-day cares of survival in a world that often could be brutal and unapologetic? How would God bring such a people back to Himself?

When someone wants to get attention, often they will employ the dramatic, the glaringly sensational, the unusual, the disruptive and alarming, the challenging and that which offers something better—a new day of hope.

And that is exactly what God did.

He placed His divine hand and his call upon a PK. You know what a PK is? That’s the preacher’s kid, or in this case the priest’s kid, an Old Testament/New Testament PK! This young lad probably lived in the little village of Gath Hepher, a small village/suburb of Jerusalem, or as other scholars suppose, he may have lived with his parents in the village of Hebron, which was the original home and burial place of the patriarch, Abraham. He had left the big city of Jerusalem where his father was employed as a priest on the staff of the metropolitan national Temple. He was drawn by God’s Holy Spirit into the Judean wilderness to a solitary life. Some more recent discoveries have suggested that both John and Jesus may have spent some time among the Essenes, a Jewish religious sect of very pious people. The Essenes had built a monastic village that was a communal settlement situated along the desolate Western Shore of the Dead Sea. It was in one of the caves above the site of the ruins of that ancient community of Qumran where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found in 1947. Their settlement was on the edge of the Judean wilderness where it descends to the Dead Sea, 600 feet below the level of the Mediterranean Sea. It is quite probable that John found companionship and religious mentoring there and was aided in his spiritual formation as he visited and lived among the Essenes. Archaeological discoveries indicate that these religious people were both pious and orthodox in their strict adherence to the rituals of ceremonial washings for purification of their bodies and as a symbolic cleansing of their souls. There were found in the ruins at Qumran, as at Masada, large indoor pools for ritual baths of cleansing and purification. Certainly these people understood that the Lord God Jehovah is a Holy God and that no one who is spiritually unclean could stand in His Holy Presence.3

It is no wonder, then, that when John the Baptist appeared, he cried forth as a voice coming out of the wilderness, and preached not only repentance but offered the sacramental washing of baptismal immersion as well.

Now this hermit breaks out of the desert and calls out in a loud booming voice the astounding announcement that a new king is coming to rule over the Hebrews. Could this king whom John announces