After Jesus Died

If anyone was born again after Jesus died, and before Pentecost, his disciples were, but they were not. If anyone understood Jesus' purpose and doctrine after he died, and before Pentecost, his disciples did, but they did not. Those two startling observations are confirmed by everything Jesus' followers said and did from the day Jesus died until the day of Pentecost, when they received the Spirit and were born of God. Here is the biblical evidence, everything the Bible tells us about that time in the disciples' lives.

What is written in the Gospels concerning Jesus' followers after his death can teach us much about their spiritual condition; however, what is not written can teach us just as much.  My notes are intended to bring out what is not written in order to emphasize what is often overlooked, in particular, the fact that Jesus' followers lost all faith in him as Messiah after he died.  Thankfully, their faith was resurrected soon after Jesus was.  When we carefully study the disciples' actions and words in the time between Jesus' death and the day of Pentecost, we are forced to look at ourselves and to wonder if we are missing what should be obvious, just as they missed what is now obvious to us.  They are us, just living at a different time.  May God give us the same grace that He gave to them, that we, too, might escape spiritual blindness and walk with Jesus in the light.

My wife and I married in 1975. We have four children, and six grandchildren. I have ministered for nearly four decades now in a home fellowship setting. Some titles of the fifteen books I have authored include "Suffering and the Saints", "Marriage and Divorce: What does the Bible really say?" and "Revelation". I have also composed about 100 songs and have produced teaching series on various topics. Background: The home of my youth was devoted to Jesus; at the same time, our lives were completely unconnected with church religion. Without my realizing it, that setting made me an alien to the religious world that most believers know. Twice a month, on Sunday afternoons, my parents would gather in a home to worship with a few others, while we children played outside or sat with the adults in the prayer meeting, as we chose. Beyond that, every Sunday morning, my father read the Bible with the family, sang a song or two, and finally, knelt with us to pray. That was the extent of my boyhood corporate worship experience. In daily life, faith in Jesus sustained and preserved us, and godliness was the expected standard. So foreign to me was the Christian religious system that after I graduated from college, when my father suggested that I attend a seminary, I had no idea what a seminary was. Being "led into all truth" by the Spirit was the only education in spiritual matters that I was aware of, but he felt the seminary experience would benefit me. And it did. Still, my elders' way of living and of worship taught me to look to Jesus to guide my heart and shape my thoughts. How well I learned that lesson, I leave to the judgment of others.