The Person Who Carried His Cross
Read: Luke 23:26-33 They seized one Simon of Cyrene . . . and laid on him the cross. (v. 26) There is a street in Jerusalem known as the Via Dolorosa, the “Way of Sorrows.” It is the route Christ is believed to have followed when he carried his cross—actually the patibulum, or crossbeam—to the […]
The Judge Who Condemned Him
Read: John 18:28-19:16 So he delivered him over to them to be crucified. (v. 16) The Apostles’ Creed mentions three names among its 100 or so words. The first, of course, is Jesus; the second is Mary; the third is Pontius Pilate. Pilate would have been totally forgotten, just another minor official from a long-dead […]
Yemi’s Journey to Faith
When you support Words of Hope, you are helping people around the world encounter God’s life-changing love in real and personal ways. In a village in Niger, a man named Yemi tuned in to one of our radio broadcasts. Something about the message stirred his heart. He listened intently, and felt drawn to learn more. […]
Reaching Remote Villages in India
In the village of Samole—40 kilometers from Words of Hope’s ministry center in Udhampur—believers are worshiping with the help of gospel content delivered on SD cards. One woman named Sumi is helping to connect many people in her village to the hope of the gospel. Though she has suffered deep personal loss, including the death […]
The Disciple Who Denied Him
Read: Matthew 26:31-35, 69-75 And immediately the rooster crowed. (v. 74) Many of the people who welcomed Jesus with loud “Hosannas” on Palm Sunday must also have shouted, “Crucify him!” on Good Friday. It’s perilously easy to betray or deny Christ; all you have to do is fall in with the crowd. Having done that […]
The Man Who Betrayed Him
Read: Matthew 26:20-25 Is it I, Lord? (v. 22) Johann Sebastian Bach’s St Matthew Passion sets Matthew’s text of the passion story to dramatic music. When the soloist singing Jesus’s words announces to the disciples that one of them will betray him, an agitated chorus immediately breaks in with the disciples’ question, “Lord, is it […]
The Crowd That Acclaimed Him
Read: Matthew 21:1-11 Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! (v. 9) Holy Week begins with Palm Sunday and Jesus’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Notice three things about this familiar story. First, it was a deliberate act. As you read the gospel accounts, you can’t help but notice a sense of […]
The Heart of the Gospel
Read: Isaiah 53:5-8 The LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. (v. 6) What is the central message of the Christian faith? The apostle Paul summarized his preaching and teaching ministry as “the word of the cross” (1 Cor. 1:18). Later in that same epistle he says the message of the gospel […]
What’s Wrong?
Read: Luke 15:1-7 All we like sheep have gone astray. (v. 6) The prayer of confession for the morning service in the Book of Common Prayer teaches us to pray like this: “Almighty and most merciful Father, we have erred and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep, we have followed too much the devices […]