Behold, the Lamb of God

Brian's been doing a lot of really interesting Bible studies involving the culture at the time and how that sheds light on how the initial audience heard and understood the Bible. I reap the benefits of his hard work on a daily basis. It is an amazing blessing in my life to have a husband who loves to study the Word of God - he does it all the time - and then excitedly shares what he learns. I've been learning so much, but it's hard to blog about it because it's somewhat second hand and he usually does a much better job blogging about it.

Learning about the Jewish education system in Bible times and what it meant to be a disciple was a huge challenge to me. (If you haven't read about that yet, go here.) You can read or listen to more at Follow the Rabbi. Mr. Vander Laan shared in one message how we're so used to reading things in our King's English sometimes we miss the impact of what it sounded like in common Greek. Behold, the Lamb of God - "Look - God's Lamb for the world's sin!"

Today Brian shared another piece of history with me about the day Jesus died, and Bible.org added some info:

"Passover lambs were slain between noon and 3 p.m. on Nisan 14 (recall that there were three hours of darkness, from approximately noon to 3 p.m., when Jesus was on the cross [Mark 15:33]. When Jesus died, the temple curtain was torn in two, from top to bottom [Mark 15:38]—right when the last of the lambs would be on the altar in front of the sanctuary!). In A. D. 70, the last year that the temple was still standing, 270,000 lambs were slain. " Jesus died on Passover; and at 3PM, when he died, Brian says that the shofar was blowing and echoing across Jerusalem that the Passover lamb had been slain. He also pointed out that although the temple curtain ripping does indeed illustrate our direct access to the Father, we shouldn't forget that rending a garment at the death of a loved one was (and still is) a Jewish custom.