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Mark D. Roberts

Waiting Patiently for God? Psalm 40:1-17 I waited patiently for the LORD to help me,      and he turned to me and heard my cry. Psalm 40:1 When I first read Psalm 40:1, I was immediately reminded of how hard it is for me to wait patiently for anything, including the Lord. I confess that…

As I explained in my last post, Pontius Pilate, the prefect of Judea during the time of Jesus, governed his territory from Caesarea, a city on the Mediterranean sea about 75 miles northwest of Jerusalem. Immediate authority over Jerusalem itself he had delegated to Caiaphas, whom Pilate had appointed high priest of the Jewish temple.…

Introduction to Pontius Pilate If we’re going to understand the Roman perspective on the death of Jesus, we need to know something of the Roman man who was legally responsible for his crucifixion: Pontius Pilate. Traditionally, Pilate has been seen by Christians in relatively positive terms, as one who really didn’t want to crucify Jesus…

Do You Have to Give Up Something for Lent? I grew up hearing about Catholics who had to fast during the season of Lent. No meat on Fridays, only fish. This, you must understand, was a costly sacrifice in the cafeteria of Glenoaks Elementary School! The fact that my Catholic friends had to give up…

Introduction to Lent Growing up as an evangelical Christian, I experienced Lent as little more than a joke. “What are you giving up for Lent?” my friends would ask. “Homework,” I’d say with a smirk, or “Obeying my parents.” Lent was one of those peculiar practices demanded of Roman Catholics – another great reason to…

What is Ash Wednesday? What is Ash Wednesday? For most of my life, I didn’t ask this question, nor did I care about the answer. I, along, with most evangelical Christians in America, didn’t give Ash Wednesday a thought. But then, in 2004, Ash Wednesday loomed large in American Protestant consciousness. Why? Because on that…

In my last post I began to examine the Roman practice of crucifixion, arguing that if we want to understand why a Roman governor had Jesus crucified, we should first understand why Rome used crucifixion in general. What we discovered was that crucifixion, in addition to being an extremely horrific punishment of criminals, was thought…

God Knows Everything You Long For Psalm 38:1-22 You know what I long for, Lord;      you hear my every sigh. Psalm 38:9 Psalm 38 was written in a time of deep anguish and exhaustion. David was physically ill, believing that his suffering was a result of his own sinful choices. Moreover, his enemies were…

The fact that Jesus was crucified rather than stoned, hanged, or killed in some other way means that the Romans were ultimately responsible for his death. Of course this is clear in the biblical gospels. But even if we lacked such primary sources, the simple fact that a man was crucified in Jerusalem around A.D.…

Where should we start in our effort to discover why Jesus had to die? I propose to begin with some basic historical facts, facts that are affirmed by almost every historian and biblical scholar, even those who approach this question from a highly critical and skeptical starting point. So what are these facts: Jesus was…
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