It’s Good Friday…

Dallas Jenkins, creator and director of The Chosen, made a short movie in 2014 called Once We Were Slaves about the two thieves. He sets it up beautifully. The two thieves are brothers: one is irreligious, given to crime. The other is studying to be a rabbi. When the Romans assault his fiancé, he lashes out at them, and they both end up on death row. Guess which one “will be with Me in Paradise.”

(Spoiler alert! If you want to take the 26 minutes to watch the movie now, I’ll wait.)

As much as I’ve studied grace, I always think of the repenting thief being the good guy, and the other thief as evil. It didn’t occur to me that it might have been the other way around. 

While we were still SINNERS, Christ died for us. (Romans 5.8)

For we ourselves were once…slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. (Titus 3.3, ESV)