Annas

And Jesus grew in his stature and wisdom and in the grace of God and men.

And in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, when Pontius Pilate was the governor in Judea, and one of the four rulers, Herod in Galilee, and Philip his brother, one of the four rulers in Iturea and in the district of Trachonitis, and Lysanias, one of the four rulers in Abilene, in the chief priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the command of God went forth to John the son of Zacharias in the desert.

And he came into all the region which is about Jordan, proclaiming the baptism of repentance unto the forgiveness of sins.

And he was preaching in the wilderness of Judea and saying, "Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is come near." This is he that was spoken of in Isaiah the prophet, the voice which crieth in the desert, "Prepare ye the way of the Lord, and make straight in the plain paths for our God.

And a certain young man followed him, and he was wrapped in a towel naked.

And they seized him, so he left the towel and fled naked.

Then they took Jesus and bound him and brought him to Annas first, because he was the father-in-law of Caiaphas, who was chief priest that year.

And Caiaphas was he that counseled the Jews that it was necessary that one man should die instead of all the people.

But many of those who had listened to their preaching believed, and the number of the adult men had now grown to be about five thousand.

The next day a meeting was held in Jerusalem of their rulers, elders, and scribes, with Annas the high priest, Caiaphas, John, Alexander, and the other members of the high priestly family.

So they made the apostles stand in the center and demanded of them, By what power or in what name have you done this? Then Peter was filled with the Holy Spirit, and he replied, Rulers and elders of the people, if we today are under examination concerning the benefit conferred on a man helplessly lame as to how this man has been cured, be it known to you all and to all the people of Israel that through the name of Jesus the Anointed, the Nazarene, whom you crucified, but whom God has raised from among the dead, through that name this man stands here before you in perfect health.

This Jesus is the stone treated with contempt by you the builders, but it has been made the cornerstone, and in no other is the great salvation to be found, for in fact there is no second name under heaven that has been given among men through which we are to be saved.

You still awake? Okay, good.

During the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas.

All right.

You read God's word in verse one and a little bit of there, verse two, and you're like, what's up with that? Wow, what are all those names? Why are they there? That's a lot of names, a lot of titles, a lot of positions.

Remember, it's describing the context in which John the Baptist was born and now his ministry is going to occur in.

It's this iron grip that was over God's people in Israel.

Notice as well that Annas and Caiaphas are mentioned as being the high priesthood.

If you know your Bible, you're like, what, two names? There should be one high priest.

He is brought to a trial by the high priest Caiaphas, according to the book of John.

Jesus was also tried by the high priest emeritus, Annas.

And so what it seems like is the case is that there was a different high priest depending on the year.

Annas had been the high priest, but Caiaphas was the high priest that year.

And so Jesus seems to be brought into a private trial by Annas, a more public trial by Caiaphas.

These trials seem to be rushed and done in the middle of the night.

Jesus' possible supporters in the Sanhedrin, we know he had some, Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathea, and there were probably others.

So if we respond mildly, I'm thinking about the Lord when he was arrested and taken to the house of Caiaphas in the Gospel of John.

And Annas, the father-in-law of Caiaphas, must have been a formidable figure.

He was the father.

The father of this family had five high priests, five sons, all of whom were high priests.

Bring him to me first.

Only John tells the story right.

So they bring Jesus before Annas.

He's like this patriarch of this family that virtually ran the temple for most of the first century.