1. Our traditional idea is that Jesus was arrested in the early pre-dawn hours of Friday and was crucified that same day. That’s not what the Bible says. Mark records that Jesus was crucified at the third hour of the day (9:00 am), but John tells us that Pilate set up his judgment seat to pass Judgment on Jesus at the sixth hour of the day (noon). It’s obvious that the day Pilate passed judgment cannot be the same day as the day Jesus was crucified.
2. In the same vein, our traditional view holds that Jesus was examined by Jewish authorities after dawn on Friday and then tried by Pilate, then by Herod, and then by Pilate again and was still on the cross by 9:00 that morning. This all happened in Jerusalem, an ancient town with narrow streets, while Passover crowds crammed the streets. There is no way that all of this could have happened between dawn and 9:00, even if we don’t include the mocking by Herod and his soldiers and the torture by Pilate’s soldiers and the fact that the Roman governor (Pilate) was trying to drag his feet.
3. Matthew, Mark, and Luke all tell how Jesus and his disciples celebrated the Passover feast and how Jesus was arrested later that night. John tells how the Jewish leaders would not enter Pilate’s headquarters because that would make them ceremonially unclean and keep them from sharing in the feast. Moses’ law tells us that Passover was part of a 7-day feast (the Feast of Unleavened Bread), and that there were two feast days involved: the first day and the seventh day, each of which was a special Sabbath (not the normal Saturday Sabbath). John makes it clear that Jesus was crucified on the day before a special Sabbath (called a Preparation Day). The feast that Jesus and his disciples observed before he was arrested is clearly the first day, the official Passover feast. The feast John mentioned must be the seventh day, making several days between the arrest and the crucifixion.
4. In AD 34, the Passover feast (always on the 15th day of the Jewish month Nisan) came on a Friday. If that was the day Jesus was arrested, then the seventh day was a Thursday and since Jesus was crucified on the day before that final feast he would have been crucified on a Wednesday and buried that evening just before sundown.
5. The Bible tells us that the women came to the tomb on Sunday morning (the first day of the week about dawn), and that Jesus was not in the tomb when they arrived. The Bible does not tell us exactly when Jesus rose from the dead. If Jesus rose from the dead just after sunset on Saturday, according to the Jewish calendar that would be Sunday (the day changed at sunset), and Jesus would have been in the tomb three days and three nights just as he said he would be.
6. Several women came to the tomb early Sunday morning, around dawn, and found the tomb empty. On seeing the empty tomb, Mary Magdalene left the group and ran outside, but the rest of the women then saw two of God’s agents sitting in the tomb. The agents told them that Jesus had risen from the dead and instructed them to tell Jesus’ disciples. They went to meet with Jesus’ disciples, and as they were going Jesus appeared to them. But when they got to the disciples, none of them would believe their story.
7. Meanwhile, Peter, after his denial of Jesus, was not with the other disciples. (The agents of God had told the women to take the news to the disciples and Peter, indicating that Peter wasn’t with the rest.) Mary Magdalene, without having seen the agents or Jesus, was on her way to tell Peter that the body was no longer in the tomb. When she got to where Peter was staying, John was there, too. What she told them was not that Jesus had risen from the dead, but that the tomb was empty. That’s all she knew.
8. Peter and John ran to the tomb to see for themselves what had happened. From what John says in his Gospel, he believed in the resurrection after seeing the linen wrappings lying in the empty tomb, even though the agents did not appear to him or Peter. Peter’s reaction is described more as confusion at that point. Then Peter and John left the tomb area, and Mary Magdalene arrived back at the tomb.
9. Looking inside the tomb, this time Mary Magdalene saw the two agents of God, but she didn’t realize that they were anything but men working in the tomb area. She turned from the tomb and saw Jesus, but through her tears she didn’t recognize him until he spoke her name.
10. At some point that day, and the Bible doesn’t tell us when, Jesus appeared to Peter after he left the tomb. We don’t know whether this happened while he was still with John or not. Jesus also appeared to two disciples who were not part of the inner circle of twelve, and then he finally appeared to the whole group (the inner circle group and probably some others) with the exception of Thomas. They were together in an upper room, probably the room where they had shared the Passover meal, in Jerusalem.
11. A week later Jesus appeared to the inner circle group again, including Thomas. This time the Bible doesn’t tell us where they were, it only says that the doors were shut when Jesus suddenly appeared. By this time they may have been back in Galilee, since Jesus had given them instructions to go there.

The New Testament was written in a form of Greek commonly used in the marketplace–a form of Greek easily understood by almost anybody in the Roman Empire. This new translation has a similar goal for American Christians, making it easy for a new Christian to read and understand the message.

There will also be lots of background notes in a glossary to help those who are truly interested in digging deeper into the message.

The translation will have no specific theological perspective. It’s goal is to simply put into plain American English the message as the original authors recorded it. Where a passage is open to more than one interpretation, there will be a footnote explaining the options and why we chose the one we did.

Please pray for the work. There is so much yet to do!

Christianity is far, far better than most Christians realize! It’s about caring love for others—what could be better than being part of a group of people who really care about you and are willing to get serious about helping you when you are in need? People who will share your joys and your sorrows. But even better than this is the presence of God’s own Spirit in your life—the Spirit whose presence brings love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, goodness, and self control. All the things that make this life really good are found in Christianity, you’ll never find so much joy and peace anywhere else in this world. But the best news is that Christians get to participate in things beyond this world—in the creative works of an eternal and infinite creator. And it’s not that hard to become a Christian—all you have to do is focus your life on living for God. I didn’t say living by the rules of some preacher or teacher. The prophet Micah put it very well: “He has showed you, Oh human, what is good, and what does God require of you but to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God?” Do justice—that means do the right thing. Love mercy—that means forgiving people (turning retribution over to God because he knows how to do it exactly right) and caring about the needs of others. Walk humbly—that means no arrogance or selfish pride. How easy and right that is!! It just means ending the rebellion against God and learning to live in the ways of doing right.

The flip side of this is that those who refuse to end the rebellion can’t be accepted into the eternity God has planned—they can’t be trusted to work in his creations. They will be fit only for the garbage heap. Some think there is no garbage heap, but God says there is and he says that you will not like it at all!

I strongly encourage you to find the Christianity that is really worth sharing. If you find the real thing, you won’t be able to shut up about it. It’s just that good. For help in finding this, read the book Revitalizing Christianity. Better yet, get the book and the study guide and really study this material. Even better, get a group together to seriously study this new perspective on Christianity that is only about 2,000 years old.

—Charlie

If you’ve seen the movie The Preacher’s Wife, you can see this represented well. Denzel Washington portrays an angel thrilled to be back on earth because earth is obviously better than heaven. He has been sent to help a preacher, and he tells this preacher that in heaven there is this long line of angels just waiting for an opportunity to get back to earth for a mission like his. Obviously, heaven is much worse than earth! With that kind of heaven, who needs hell?

But the picture Jesus gave of heaven, though very limited, is of a place where those who get there are given rewards commensurate with the skills and abilities they learned to use for God on earth. The differences from this earth are pretty dramatic. In no particular order:
• The physical environment is unpolluted beauty beyond description (lots of great vacation opportunities)
• The social environment is unselfish, generous, caring love from every person to every person
• The soul environment is no tempter and full understanding of what sin is (rebellion against God) and what terrible damage it can do
• The activity environment is some meaningful task for which you are well suited and in which you will find great joy (with the implication that if you ever get close to being bored with this task, there are plenty more just as exciting)
• And the spiritual environment is the very intimate presence of God’s Holy Spirit at any and all times

All of this brings an environment of joy so powerful that yes, we will be praising God forever, but not for what he did back in the good old days—for what he is doing in the here and now of our experiences in heaven. And you can only begin to imagine what vacations with those in heaven would be like! It’s a forever party filled with people excited about what they are doing in an environment filled with joy and love.

—Charlie Webster, Director

There are ways to tell children to respect the needs of adults and to care for the church’s property without making God into the bad guy.

And we as Christians need to be constantly aware that we are God’s house. If we are truly Christians, where we go, God goes. We need to be very aware of that 24/7/365.

—Charlie Webster, Director

The word “church” was not specifically a religious word at all. In fact, in the Bible there is a case where this word is used of a group of pagans who had gathered to oppose the work of the apostle Paul (Acts 19:32, generally translated “assembly”).

The word could not possibly mean a building of any sort, and in the Bible there is no mention of any church owning a building.

When we think of the church as a building, in our minds we tend to distance ourselves from the idea of being the church. But according to the Bible, we as Christians are the church. What we do, the church does, whether it is good or bad. What we do not do, at least our part of the church does not do.

We need to start thinking in these terms. We are the church. The building may be a church building or a chapel or a tabernacle, but the building cannot be the church. The church is the bride of Christ—and he is not about to wed a building. Christ died for the church—and he certainly would not have died for a building.

As Christians, we get way too focused on our buildings. They consume the majority of our budgets, and they can cause us to lose focus on who we really are and what God has really called us to.

—Charlie Webster, Director

“On Mothers’ Day I go to Mother’s house and while I’m in Mother’s house I go by Mother’s rules, but as soon as I leave Mother’s house I revert to my own rules. So on the Lord’s day I go to the Lord’s house and while I’m in the Lord’s house I go by the Lord’s rules, but as soon as I leave the Lord’s house I revert to my own rules.”

This is certainly not what God intended, but we encourage this kind of thinking by calling Sunday “the Lord’s day” and calling the church building “the Lord’s house.”

Interestingly, the King James translators chose to translate the verb form of this word as “believe” and the noun form as “faith.” This gives some the impression that there is a difference in meaning here, but those who wrote the New Testament would not have seen any difference.

Because of the range of possible meanings, the real meaning must be found in the context where this word is used.

In John 5:24 Jesus says that those who are saved will be saved because of their “belief” and then five verses later he says that those who are saved will be saved on the basis of what they have done. Obviously, Jesus used “belief” in a sense that would affect one’s actions.

In Hebrew 3:18-19, “unbelief” and “disobedience” are used interchangeably.

In Romans 3:31, Paul says that faith establishes the law, though he has already made it clear that observing laws has no capability to bring justification or salvation. His point is that the faith he was talking about would cause people to live as the law would have told them to live, though living this way could not earn any credit with God.

In James 2:14-26, James makes it clear that he is talking about faith that does not affect how a person lives, and he maintains that such a faith is dead and cannot bring salvation.

In Revelation 2:10 Jesus says, “Be faithful to death and I’ll give you the victor’s crown of life.”

In each of these cases it should be clear that saving faith necessarily involves being faithful, and there are many, many more passages that make the same point.

The best English equivalent is found in our common phrase, “You’ve got to have something to believe in.” When we use this phrase, the “something to believe in” is understood to mean something that shapes how you think and how you live—core principles that you would not intentionally violate.

This kind of faith in God would cause a person to try to live up to the moral requirements of God’s law thereby establishing the law (Romans 3:31). This kind of faith in God would make disobedience incompatible with belief (Hebrews 3:18-19). This kind of faith would cause a person to do what God wants (as Jesus indicated in John 5).

The bottom line—those with saving faith are faithful, those who are not faithful are not saved.

Charlie Webster