How the Apostles Died/The Death of Jesus

Dear Weekly Readers! 

Sometimes as we travel through this life, we can begin to think that life is unfair. The devil would want to tell us that if you were a Christian, everything in your life would be much better than it is.

Well, the article below shows us what happened to the Apostles for following Jesus Christ. Also, it describes the physical death of Jesus, and of course we can only imagine how intense and burdensome our weight of sin was on Jesus, starting even before He went to the cross, and lasting until He died.  

No, the Christian life is not always easy, but the reward is eternal joy in Heaven.  

May God Bless your week! John R.


HOW THE APOSTLES DIED 

I’ve never seen this all in one place before!!

1  Matthew
Suffered martyrdom in Ethiopia, killed by a sword wound.

2  Mark
Died in Alexandria, Egypt , after being dragged by horses through the streets until he was dead.

3  Luke
Was hanged in Greece as a result of his tremendous preaching to the lost.

4  John
Faced martyrdom when he was boiled in a huge basin of boiling oil during a wave  of persecution in Rome. However, he was miraculously delivered from death.  John was then sentenced to the mines on the prison Island of Patmos. He wrote his prophetic Book of Revelation on Patmos. The apostle John was later freed and returned to serve as Bishop of Edessa in modern Turkey. He died as an old man, the only apostle to die peacefully.

5  Peter
He was crucified upside down on an x-shaped cross.   According to church tradition it was because he told his tormentors that he felt unworthy to die In the same way that Jesus Christ had died.

6  James
The leader of the church in Jerusalem, was thrown over a hundred feet down from the southeast pinnacle* of the Temple when he refused to deny his faith in Christ. When they discovered that he survived the fall, his enemies beat James to death with a fuller's club. 

*This was the same pinnacle where Satan had taken Jesus during the Temptation.

7  James the Great
Son of Zebedee, was a fisherman by trade when Jesus called him to a lifetime of ministry. As a strong leader of the church, James was ultimately beheaded at Jerusalem. The Roman officer who guarded James watched amazed as James defended his faith at his trial. Later, the officer walked beside James to the place of execution. Overcome by conviction, he declared his new faith to the judge and knelt beside James to accept beheading as a Christian.

8  Bartholomew
Also known as Nathaniel, he was a missionary to Asia. He witnessed for our Lord in present day Turkey. Bartholomew was martyred for his preaching in Armenia where he was flayed to death with a whip.

9  Andrew
Was crucified on an x-shaped cross in Patras, Greece. After being whipped severely by seven soldiers, they tied his body to the cross with cords to prolong his agony. His followers reported that, when he was led toward the cross, Andrew saluted it in these words: 'I have long desired and
expected this happy hour. The cross has been consecrated by the body of Christ hanging on it.' He continued to preach to his tormentors for two days until he expired.

10  Thomas
Was stabbed with a spear during one of his missionary trips to establish the church in the sub-continent in India.

11  Jude
Was killed with arrows when he refused to deny his faith in Christ.

12  Matthias
The apostle chosen to replace the traitor Judas Iscariot was stoned and then beheaded.

13  Paul
Was tortured and then beheaded by the evil Emperor Nero at Rome in A.D. 67.  Paul endured a lengthy imprisonment, which allowed him to write his many epistles to the churches he had formed throughout the Roman Empire.  These letters, which taught many of the foundational Doctrines of Christianity, form a large portion of the New Testament.

Perhaps this is a reminder to us that our sufferings here are indeed minor compared to the intense persecution and cold cruelty faced by the Apostles and disciples during their times for the sake of the Faith. And ye shall be hated of all men for My name's sake; but he that endureth to the end shall be saved. Matthew.


Faith is not believing that God can, It is knowing that God WILL!”


THE (SCIENTIFIC) DEATH OF JESUS 

At the age of 33, Jesus was condemned to death. At the time  crucifixion was the "worst" death. Only the worst  criminals were condemned to be crucified. Yet it was even more dreadful for Jesus; unlike other criminals condemned to death by crucifixion, Jesus was to be nailed to the  cross by His hands and feet.

Each nail was 6 to 8 inches long. The nails were driven into His wrist. Not Into His palms as is commonly portrayed.  There's a tendon in the wrist that extends to the shoulder.  The Roman guards knew that when the nails were being hammered into the wrist that tendon would tear and break, forcing Jesus to use His back muscles to support himself so that He could breathe.   Both of His feet were nailed together. Thus He was forced to  support Himself on the single nail that impaled His feet to the cross. Jesus could not support himself with His legs because of the pain so He was forced to alternate between arching His back then using His legs just to continue to breathe. Imagine the struggle, the pain, the suffering, the courage!

Jesus endured this reality for over 3 hours. Yes, over 3 hours!  Can you imagine this kind of suffering? A few minutes before He died, Jesus stopped bleeding. He was simply pouring water
from His wounds. From common images we see wounds to His hands and feet and even the spear wound to His side...  But do we realize His wounds were actually made in his body?  A hammer driving large nails through the wrist, the feet overlapped and an even larger nail hammered through the arches, then a  Roman guard piercing His side with a spear. But before the nails and the spear, Jesus was whipped and beaten. The whipping was so severe that it tore the flesh from His body, the beating so horrific that His face was torn and his beard ripped from His face.  The crown of thorns cut deeply into His scalp. Most men would not have survived this torture. He had no more blood to bleed out, only water poured from His wounds. The human adult body contains about 3.5 liters  (just less than a gallon) of blood. Jesus poured out all 3.5 liters of His blood.  He had three nails hammered into His members; a crown of thorns on His head and, beyond that, a Roman soldier who stabbed a spear into His side.

All of these without mentioning the humiliation He suffered after carrying His own
cross for almost 2 kilometers, while the crowd spat in His face and threw stones (the cross was almost 30 kg of weight, only for its higher part, where His hands were nailed). Jesus had to endure this experience, in order to open the Gates of Heaven, so that we can have free access to God. So that our sins could be "washed" away. All of them, with no exception!

JESUS CHRIST DIED FOR YOU!