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Body Building Daily Devotional - 72

by David Joynt on November 22, 2021


JOHN 18:36| 36 Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.”

Pilate inwardly scoffed that Jesus admitted He was a king, while insisting that He would not use coercion. For the Romans, authority was power. No power, no authority. A king without an army was merely a pretender, living in the world of dreams. Kings were by definition, men who enforced their will by soldier and sword, or by threat and terror. To talk of a kingdom rooted in another world was to admit your incompetence in this one. No king was powerless, and Jesus, captive and alone, was powerless.

Are you ever tempted to view authorities cynically, as Pilate does?

Have you experienced coercion?

 

Tags: authorities, coercion, cynically

About the Author
David Joynt

Dave Joynt began his service as a pastor at Valley Presbyterian Church in Paradise Valley, Arizona in September 2014. This meant a move away from the Northeast, where he has a long history, growing up in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and then serving congregations in Delaware and New Jersey for a total of 23 years.

Dave was nurtured in a great church in Bethlehem where his parents, Anne and Carey, served as elders. He graduated in classics from Lehigh University where his Father taught, and then from Oxford, where he met his wife Julia. Ordained in 1988, he completed a Ph.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1993.

He and Julia have a son, Tristan, and a daughter, Madeleine.

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