The religious leaders already wanted Jesus dead. He'd violated the Sabbath and made a blind man see. Now the political crisis has intensified. A dead man is alive, and he is a formidable witness. Just as the Samaritan woman evangelized her village, so Mary influenced her network to believe in Jesus. But as loyalties shift, the Sanhedrin (the religious ruling council) is panicking. Calculating Caiaphas was the longest-serving high priest of the century, and John shows us how he maintained his grip on power. First, he cuttingly insults the other leaders to break down their defenses, then he proposes a murderous political calculation. He wields his spiritual authority, using the language of prophecy, to convince these powerful men to dispose of Jesus. Murder is reframed as godly and good. He spins it as beneficial to them, the nation, and even their vulnerable kinsmen who are scattered abroad. Caiaphas' prophecy ranks among the most cynical in all the Bible. John wants you to see the irony: What Caiaphas abusively says in the dark, God makes true in the light. In the fall of 2020, RZIM's board released a statement designed to exonerate Ravi. They told us that Ravi's "denial is consistent with the character of the man we knew and worked alongside for years." They thought they were defending his reputation, but couldn't see they were confessing to either their lack of discernment or their complicity. John unmasks the spiritual realities for us. The people who thought they were controlling the story were the ones being written into it. Caiaphas savored the political calculation for himself and his people. But God heard a plan of salvation that would extend not only to the Jewish diaspora, but also to anyone who would believe. The man Caiaphas wanted dead became the man whose death gives life to everyone else.