{"id":7891,"date":"2019-09-30T04:48:05","date_gmt":"2019-09-30T04:48:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/churchedge.com\/illustrations\/index.php\/2019\/09\/30\/they-knew-exactly-what-they-were-doing\/"},"modified":"2019-09-30T04:48:05","modified_gmt":"2019-09-30T04:48:05","slug":"they-knew-exactly-what-they-were-doing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/they-knew-exactly-what-they-were-doing\/","title":{"rendered":"They Knew Exactly What They Were Doing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>At a \u201cSeven Last Words\u201d service for Good Friday, Reverend Dr. Eugene L. Gibson\u2019s sermon came from Luke 23:34, which records the first words of Christ during the crucifixion: \u201cThen said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.\u201d  It\u2019s one of the best-known lines in the New Testament, an eloquent expression of grace in extreme circumstances.  But Gibson added his own rejoinder: \u201cYes, they do!\u201d  And, in case anyone missed the heresy, he spelled it out: \u201cI.  Dis-a-GREE.  With Jesus.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The momentum was building.  Gibson talked about tormentors who knew exactly what they were doing.  Only near the end did he draw back, admitting that \u2013 as usual \u2013 Jesus was right and he was wrong.  \u201cIt\u2019s not what they were doing,\u201d he said.  \u201cIt\u2019s who they were doing the what to.\u201d  They knew exactly what a crucifixion was; they just didn\u2019t know who Jesus was.  Even so, his caustic reproach hung in the air all afternoon: \u201cYes, they do!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At a \u201cSeven Last Words\u201d service for Good Friday, Reverend Dr. Eugene L. Gibson\u2019s sermon came from Luke 23:34, which records the first words of Christ during the crucifixion: \u201cThen said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.\u201d It\u2019s one of the best-known lines in the New Testament, an eloquent expression [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[92,632,633,17],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7891"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7891\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}