What does First B Jackson teach about betrayal?
Drawn from the messages where it was actually addressed: the words said from the front, the passages taught, and where to hear the whole thing.
At First B Jackson, the teaching on betrayal starts not with Judas as a villain but with a harder question: what was he actually after? Both Pastor Carl and Pastor Brian have walked the congregation through the events of Spy Wednesday and the Last Supper, and both have offered the same charitable reading. The best possible understanding of Judas's motive, as Pastor Carl put it, is that he believed a political revolution was coming and was trying to force Jesus's hand, to make something happen when Jesus seemed reluctant. That was Judas's picture of how things should go, and it was wrong in every direction that mattered.
Pastor Brian was careful not to turn Judas into a theological wall the congregation has to get past. He said plainly that he does not know what passed between Judas and God before Judas took his own life, because the text does not record it. What he did want people to hold onto is that Judas was not the only one to betray Jesus that week. The disciples denied and abandoned Him too, and in some way all of us have done the same. That observation is not meant to excuse what Judas did. It is meant to keep the congregation from watching the story from a safe distance.
The question Pastor Carl put before the church is the one each disciple asked when Jesus said one of them would hand Him over: 'Surely not I, Lord?' All of them asked it, including Judas, except that Judas used the word 'Rabbi' rather than 'Lord.' The teaching here is that the honest version of that question is one worth asking about your own life. Jesus had already gone before His disciples to prepare the upper room, and He had already resolved to go to the cross knowing He would be betrayed. That resolve, Brian says, is the shape of His unconditional love and His unwavering commitment to reconcile us back to God.
Taught from Matthew 26 · Mark 14:1-26 · John 13 · Luke 21 · 1 John 1:9
The passage taught · John 13
1 Now before the feast of the Passover, Jesus, knowing that his time had come that he would depart from this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.
2 During supper, the devil having already put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray him,
3 Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he came from God, and was going to God,
4 arose from supper, and laid aside his outer garments. He took a towel, and wrapped a towel around his waist.
World English Bible
The messages that teach on it
- March 10, 2024 Surely Not I, Lord Judas made his choice knowingly. The eleven asked, "Surely not I, Lord." A verse-by-verse walk through Holy Week asks which camp we are in.
- July 18, 2022 Old Symbols, New Meaning Mark 14 traces Jesus through His final Passover meal, where old covenant symbols receive new meaning and His sacrifice becomes the foundation of a new promise for all who trust Him.
Mentioned along the way
- April 5, 2026 Eight Days That Changed the World The pastor walks through Holy Week day by day, from Palm Sunday to the empty tomb, showing how ancient prophecy and the resurrection still matter today.
- March 17, 2024 Now Is the Time A verse-by-verse walk through the Last Supper, Gethsemane, and Jesus' arrest, tracing how faith, love for one another, and humble surrender to God's will carry us through our own failures.
- March 17, 2024 Your Grief Will Be Turned to Joy In the upper room and Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus prepares his disciples for his arrest, showing how love, faith, and community carry us through our darkest hours.