August 16, 2022
“Throw yourself down” (Matt. 4:6), the devil challenged Jesus. If Jesus had jumped from the “pinnacle of the temple” in Jerusalem that day (v. 5), it would have created quite a scene with angels swooping in to save him in sight of all the people (v. 6). Certainly there would come a time for Jesus to present himself to the Jewish people as the Son of God. On that day there would be palm branches, a donkey and a descent from the Mount of Olives, but today was not that day.
But where exactly was Jesus standing when Satan challenged him to jump from the pinnacle and how far would the fall have been? Some believe he stood atop the temple building itself, while others have suggested either the southeast corner, or the southwest corner, of the temple complex. The fall from each of these three locations would have been approximately 150 feet. Of course we can’t know the correct location with certainty, and it doesn’t significantly change the point of the story, but I am partial to the southwest corner of the temple complex, since it would have been visible to the most people. I have other reasons, but we’ll leave it there for now.
In any event Jesus’ encounter with Satan is a great reminder that popularity and hubris are poor excuses for disobedience to God’s will. “Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up” (James 4:10).
–Daniel McCabe
Seven Centurions
Seven Centurions are mentioned in the New Testament. All seven are spoken of positively, while they were otherwise despised by the Jewish people.
1. Luke 7:1-10—a man of great faith who loved the land of Israel, built a synagogue for the Jews, cared for his servant, called deserving by the elders, described himself as unworthy
2. Matt. 27:54—“Truly this was the Son of God”
3. Acts 10—Cornelius, a devout man who feared God
4. Acts 22:26—intervened on behalf of Paul, “Take care what you do, for this man is a Roman.”
5 & 6. Acts 23:23-24—two centurions who protected Paul from those who had vowed to kill him
7. Acts 27:42-43—sought to save Paul from the soldiers who wanted to kill him
The Centurion’s Servant
“dear to him,” 7:2— a word meaning “valuable, precious, prized, honored”
“sick,” v. 2—a word meaning “bad off, injured, harmed”
“ready to die,” v. 2—again, in a severe or critical condition
“paralyzed” in the parallel passage of Matt. 8:6—disabled, unable to walk
“dreadfully tormented,” Matt. 8:6—in agony; note its use in v. 29 where the demons fear that Jesus will “torment” them, so could this refer to demonic activity?
The Centurion
“[Jesus] marveled at him.”
Only 2X did Jesus marvel—here in Luke 7:9 and at Nazareth in Mark 6:5-6, “Now He could do no mighty work there … and He marveled because of their unbelief.”
“I have not found such great faith.”
Only 2X did Jesus commend “great faith”—here in Luke 7:9 and a Canaanite woman in Matthew 15:28
In both cases they are Gentiles, not Jews, and in both cases Jesus healed from a distance.
By contrast …
The disciples—in the storm on the Sea of Galilee; “How is it that you have no faith?” Mark 4:40.
Peter—when he looked at the wind and waves on the Sea of Galilee; “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?” Matt. 14:31.
–Daniel McCabe
Trivia
The tabernacle stood for a time in all of the following locations except WHERE?
- A. Jerusalem
- B. Nob
- C. Ramah
- D. Shiloh
(Answer below)
Adam’s Prayer
After Adam and Eve tasted the forbidden fruit, we read that they sewed fig leaves together in a panic to cover their nakedness and then scoured the garden for a good hiding spot from God (Genesis 3:6). The Lord finds them cowering behind a tree and confronts them, but instead of showing remorse, they quickly turn on one another—“the woman … gave me … and I ate” and “the serpent deceived me” (vs. 12-13).
Soon they all learn their fates, including the serpent, but next we read these gracious words, “God made tunics of skin and clothed [Adam and Eve]” (v. 21). It was my Old Testament professor in college, Dr. Kenneth McKinley, who first pointed out to me that this verse presents two key biblical themes of faith and blood—faith in that the fallen couple accepted God’s covering as a replacement for their manmade one and blood in that the death of an innocent one (a lamb perhaps) was required to restore the guilty.
But somewhere between Adam and Eve’s decision to hide from the presence of God and their decision to accept a new set of clothes from him, something changed in their hearts. We don’t read any words of repentance in Genesis nor any prayer for forgiveness, but in his classic work, Paradise Lost, John Milton imagines these words of advice from Adam to Eve in order to help explain the change:
“What better can we do than to the place
Repairing, where He judged us, prostrate fall
Before Him reverent; and there confess
Humbly our faults, and pardon beg; with tears
Some Jewish rabbis have similarly proposed that Adam prayed in the garden for forgiveness; that both Adam and Eve ritually cleansed themselves in one of the garden’s rivers as an act of repentance; and that many years later Adam penned Psalm 92 as a prayer of repentance. We can’t know with any certainty what or even if Adam prayed in the garden, but how do you think you would have felt if you were on the receiving end of God’s animal-skin covering that day? If you have trusted Jesus Christ as your personal Savior from sin, then it turns out that you know exactly how they felt. “Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!” (2 Corinthians 9:15).
–Daniel McCabe
Hezekiah’s Pool
When we read in the opening verses of Isaiah 36 that a high-ranking envoy from the king of Assyria has arrived at Jerusalem with a considerable military force and that he stood “by the aqueduct from the upper pool” (v. 2) from where he taunted King Hezekiah and all the people barricaded inside the city about their impending destruction, don’t think for a second about a sun-splashed swimming pool with diving boards and lifeguard stands. Instead think of a reservoir filled with water. Or better yet, think of a trash dump, for before 2010 when Jerusalem’s city leaders finally decided to clean it up, Hezekiah’s Pool (as it had come to be known) was just that.
There aren’t any signs inside the Christian Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem that direct pilgrims to the pool, for there’s not really anything there to see except for a large, dry, open area, 140 by 240 feet in size, surrounded on all sides by buildings and workshops. There’s no evidence that Jesus ever removed his sandals and dipped his feet into this pool (that by then had been refurbished by King Herod) or that Paul or one of the Twelve performed a miracle there, so that’s enough reason for most to yawn at their guide’s urging to climb to the rooftop of the Petra Hotel or the northeast tower of the Citadel just inside Jaffa Gate for an aerial view. Some historians believe that before its use as a pool the site served as a quarry whose stones were used to build part of an ancient city wall and that it might be holding secrets below its recently-cleared surface that archaeologists have yet to uncover.
If you’ve hung on this long to my description of this pool, which has also served in times past as a conventional caravanserai, then you might find it interesting to learn its alternative name, the Pool of the Patriarch’s Bath, for in the Middle Ages this pool supplied bath water for the palace of a Crusader patriarch. Still reading? Then consider encouraging me with a like, love or wow that might say more than that you made it to the end of this post, but that you might even want to knock on the front door of the Coptic Khan with me next time we’re in Jerusalem to see if they will let us walk through their building and out the back door to take a peek at the pool or perhaps to even attend (though rare) a concert together or some other scheduled event on the floor of the pool.
–Daniel McCabe
The Hall of Faith, part 4
In Hebrews 11:13 we read that Abel, Noah and Abraham “all died in faith, not having received the things promised.” That’s interesting because Noah did see the flood come about and Sarah saw Isaac being born, but they didn’t receive the fulfillment of these promises in a greater way. “But having seen them and greeted them from afar and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth, people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland.” Now none of these people mentioned so far had seen that homeland. They were still strangers in the land even though they received specific promises in the context of the flood and Isaac, for example. In a greater way, however, they were looking forward to the same thing that the writer of Hebrews wants to impress upon his readers—that they can look forward to a homeland that they had not yet received. It’s the faithful who live their whole earthly lives looking forward to that thing that they don’t see and who are seeking a homeland now.
Verse 15 says that “if they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one,” one that would be sourced from heaven. We know this to be the Kingdom of Heaven, the Kingdom of God that Jesus talked about. He told Pilate, for example, “My Kingdom is not from this world.” It’s not sourced in this world, and v. 16 finishes by saying, “Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared for them a city,” a city that none of them got to enjoy, but one that they would enjoy at a future time. In this way the readers of Hebrews could claim to have the same faith as Abel, Noah, Abraham, Sarah and the rest of the people whom the writer’s going to talk about in chapter 11.
The writer now gets back to the specific people. “By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son, of whom it was said, ‘Through Isaac shall your offspring be named?’” So why would Abraham offer up Isaac even though he knew that Isaac was required for those promises to come about? Well, though the content of Genesis doesn’t give us this specific information, v. 19 here does, “He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back.” Isaac was as good as dead because Abraham was ready to sacrifice him in obedience, but he trusted that God somehow would still work out his promises even if it meant bringing Isaac back from the dead.
–Adam Keim
Answer to the Trivia
C. Ramah