Crucifixion was never a private event. It was always raw, and searingly public, because its purpose was to terrify the masses into submission to the authorities. Crosses often lined the main roads into cities, holding the broken writhing bodies of the condemned, or displaying the rotting corpses of the dead. The Romans even scheduled public crucifixions to coincide with religious festivals, insuring the maximum number of people present to witness the horror. Murderers, robbers, traitors, and slaves were crucified, brutally, by the thousands all over the empire and always deliberately in full public view. The horror of the cross was inescapable, and the Romans intended it to be that way.
— Greg Gilbert (b. 1977), Pastor, Buchautor, Sprecher
Topics: Grace & Redemption, Discipleship
Occasions: For Reflection, The Church Year
Greg Gilbert
Greg Gilbert (* 1977) ist ein US-amerikanischer reformiert-baptistischer Pastor und Buchautor, der seit 2010 die Third Avenue Baptist Church in Louisville (Kentucky) leitet. Bekannt wurde er durch Schriften wie „Was ist das Evangelium?“, in denen er ein reformatorisches Heilsverständnis vertritt und den Auftrag der Kirche primär auf Evangelisation und Jüngerschaft statt auf gesellschaftliche Transformation festlegt. Für Bibelleser bieten seine Werke eine systematische Auslegung biblischer Grundbegriffe, die wegen ihrer strikt calvinistischen Zuspitzung und Abgrenzung zu weiter gefassten Missionsverständnissen auch kontrovers diskutiert wird.
All quotes by Greg Gilbert (5)
It wasn't the nails that held Jesus to the cross. It was love.
Max Lucado
Grace, like water, flows to the lowest part.
Philip Yancey
In our own woundedness, we can become sources of life for others.
Henri Nouwen
God does not love us because we are lovable, but because his nature is love.
Oswald Chambers
Oswald Chambers
God counts on your failure far more than you do yourself.
Hans Peter Royer
Ultimately mourning means facing what wounds us in the presence of One who can heal.
Henri Nouwen
The church is a hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints.
Tim Keller