{"id":238,"date":"2008-08-14T16:22:00","date_gmt":"2008-08-14T16:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/bibleandculture\/2008\/08\/a-carpenters-confession.html"},"modified":"2008-08-14T16:22:00","modified_gmt":"2008-08-14T16:22:00","slug":"a-carpenters-confession","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2008\/08\/a-carpenters-confession.html","title":{"rendered":"A CARPENTER’S CONFESSION"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>
<\/a><\/p>\n

All of us must make a living
Even on a holiday week,
I had my family to think of,
Our finances looked pretty bleak.<\/p>\n

But on that day I made a huge error
Working down Golgotha way
And here comes a Roman procession
Ruining my whole day.<\/p>\n

For I am but a carpenter
Who works beside Zion\u2019s door,
I couldn\u2019t help being drafted
Though I had work galore.<\/p>\n

It was me who fashioned \u2018that\u2019 cross
It was me who provided the nails
It was me who lifted the crossbeam
And saw those two bandits from jail.<\/p>\n

It was me who heard his forgiveness
And the promise of paradise
It was me who witnessed the horror
And I can tell you it wasn\u2019t nice.<\/p>\n

The spear was thrust right up inside him,
The vinegar quenched no one\u2019s thirst
His mother stood silently weeping
As if it had all been rehearsed.<\/p>\n

Then the cry of desolation
God forsaken for goodness sakes,
When I hear it echo in my memory
My whole body gets the shakes,<\/p>\n

And where were the famous \u2018apostles\u2019
Where was the Rock and the Thunders
The only ones there were the women,
And a \u2018son\u2019, it sure makes you wonder. <\/p>\n

Where was the peace of Passover,
And Pilate\u2019s clemency oath
Where was divine intervention
Before death stunted his growth?<\/p>\n

There are things I\u2019ll never decipher
Things which never make much sense,
For I am just a carpenter
Working hard for my pence<\/p>\n

But from my view it seemed a disaster
That shouldn\u2019t have happened at all
I hated the hand I had in it,
There\u2019s more I shall not recall.<\/p>\n

But when the disaster was over,
Right after he said it was done
The rain came pouring in torrents,
The skies blocked out the sun.<\/p>\n

I heard that the great holy curtain
Was torn from the top to the ground
The earth shook like an earthquake,
The cross almost fell down.<\/p>\n

No brothers stood by to bury him,
No family remained at all,
Just two old men from the Council,
Came quickly to cover death\u2019s pall.<\/p>\n

Later they called it Good Friday,
I can\u2019t imagine why
Jesus was too full of life for this end
Too young and too good to die.<\/p>\n

But now I remember one more thing,
Though at the time I sure thought it odd,
The soldier who stood right beneath him,
Proclaimed him the Son of God.<\/p>\n

——————<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

All of us must make a livingEven on a holiday week,I had my family to think of,Our finances looked pretty bleak. But on that day I made a huge errorWorking down Golgotha wayAnd here comes a Roman processionRuining my whole day. For I am but a carpenterWho works beside Zion\u2019s door,I couldn\u2019t help being draftedThough…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":199,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nA CARPENTER'S CONFESSION - The Bible and Culture<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2008\/08\/a-carpenters-confession.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A CARPENTER'S CONFESSION - The Bible and Culture\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"All of us must make a livingEven on a holiday week,I had my family to think of,Our finances looked pretty bleak. 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A graduate of UNC, Chapel Hill, he went on to receive the M.Div. degree from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and a Ph.D. from the University of Durham in England. He is now considered one of the top evangelical scholars in the world, and is an elected member of the prestigious SNTS, a society dedicated to New Testament studies. Witherington has also taught at Ashland Theological Seminary, Vanderbilt University, Duke Divinity School and Gordon-Conwell. A popular lecturer, Witherington has presented seminars for churches, colleges and biblical meetings not only in the United States but also in England, Estonia, Russia, Europe, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Australia. He has also led tours to Italy, Greece, Turkey, Israel, Jordan, and Egypt. Witherington has written over thirty books, including The Jesus Quest and The Paul Quest, both of which were selected as top biblical studies works by Christianity Today. He also writes for many church and scholarly publications, and is a frequent contributor to the Beliefnet website. Along with many interviews on radio networks across the country, Witherington has been seen on the History Channel, NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, The Discovery Channel, A&E, and the PAX Network.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/author\/bwitherington"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/199"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}