1. But Jesus didn’t see it that way. He saw his arrest not as the kingdom’s program being thwarted but as it being “fulfilled.”
  2. Mankind’s “thoughts and ways” on the matter of pardon and forgiveness do not even come close to exhausting, let alone fathoming, God’s “thoughts and ways.”
  3. If you and I were to examine our own lives, we’d likely have to admit that we are frequent disciples of Jeroboam’s “bootleg religion.”
  4. God always keeps his promises even if/when we don’t. God is always faithful even if/when we aren’t.
  5. The Bible is a book for the desperate. That is its target audience. Recognizing our desperation readies us to hear the consolation that only God’s Word can offer.
  6. A life of faith is a life of wisdom, which is a life lived knowing that it is God’s authority — and his alone — that prevails as the consummate active power in the cosmos.
  7. There is a power that is stronger and mightier than the power of separation in death. And that power is the power of God’s love for you and me.
  8. Whenever preachers get up to speak about the topic of love, they very often go to passages like 1 Corinthians 13, and they are very apt to do so — for there, under the Spirit’s design and influence, the apostle Paul gives, perhaps, the most complete view of love we’ve ever been given.
  9. Renowned Scottish philosopher, writer, and historian Thomas Carlyle once quipped, “The History of the World [is] the Biography of Great Men.”