My favorite band of all time is the ApologetiX, a Christian parody band. The first album of theirs that I owned was called Keep the Change. My favorite song from their album Keep the Change is “The Real Sin Savior,” a parody of “The Real Slim Shady” by Eminem. One of the lines from that song that sticks out to me is “But if Jesus loved his enemies, and Pharisees…” The first couple times I heard this song, I thought it said, “But if Jesus loved his enemies, like Pharisees…” The ApologetiX could have said the same thing and it would be true. Jesus did preach, on the Sermon on the Mount, to love our enemies. I truly believe Jesus never asked his followers to do anything He did not do. So we ask, “How did Jesus love his enemies?” but then that leads us to ask, “Who were His enemies?” Christ’s enemies were the ones who opposed Him and His gospel message. Mostly, those opponents were the Pharisees and the Sadducees, as well as other religious parties within the Jewish religion. So Christ’s enemies were the Pharisees and Sadducees. So how did Jesus show love to the Pharisees and Sadducees? Whenever a Pharisee or Sadducee would approach Jesus in a way that wasn’t meant to insult Him, belittle Him, threaten Him or doubt His authority, Jesus always was open to discuss spiritual matters in a non-threatening environment. John 3 paints a wonderful picture of this.
John 3 opens in verse 1 by introducing Nicodemus, and with quite a résumé. Nicodemus is a Pharisee and a member of the Jewish Ruling Council, which some people might know better as the Sanhedrin. The Sanhedrin was a Jewish Ruling Council of 70 Jews, from each and every religious party. They were still under Roman rule in the Roman Empire, but among Jews, they were the highest form of government. Religiously speaking, these 70 men were the most intellectual and most spiritual Jews in the land. Nicodemus definitely had the five books of Torah (Genesis-Deuteronomy) memorized, and it’s very possible that Nicodemus had all the books of the Tanak (what we know as the Old Testament) memorized. The Bible only speaks positively of 3 Sanhedrin members: Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathea and Gamiliel. But the Bible doesn’t just hand Nicodemus a positive outlook, so we’ll see how Nicodemus builds up that repertoire throughout the Gospel of John.
Verse 2 first tells the reader that Nicodemus came at night. The Bible doesn’t explicitly tell the reader why Nicodemus came at night, but I have a hunch. It’s the same reason why crime happens more often in the night than in the day. Because of the darkness, night is associated with hiddenness and secrecy. Even if there is 3 men in the Sanhedrin on the side of Jesus, there’s still 67 (maybe more, maybe less) who are against Jesus. If Nicodemus is exposed as being on the side of Jesus, or even giving Jesus a chance, he could be ridiculed or discredited among the Sanhedrin. So Nicodemus has to go when there is the fewest amount of witnesses. As the reader reads on in verse 2, the reader learns that Nicodemus is a skeptic, what politicians would call a “swing vote.” Going back to the Sanhedrin’s stance on Jesus, some scholars have suggested that the standpoint Nicodemus reveals in his beliefs about Jesus is where most of the Sanhedrin members stand on Jesus. They don’t want to believe Jesus is sent from God because Jesus is preaching against them. Yet they can’t help but believe Jesus is from God because of all the miraculous signs. Especially consider this in light of the temple cleansing in John 2. When Jesus cleanses the temple, the Jews demand a miraculous sign to back up his actions. Now, sticking with my belief that the temple cleansing happened within a week of Christ’s crucifixion, Jesus has been performing several miracles, many of which were healing people. On top of that, Christ’s preaching itself was a sign and testimony to His authority (see Matthew 12:39 and Luke 11:29). So signs are aplenty. It all comes down to whether or not the Jews accept the signs, for whatever those reasons may be. Nicodemus realizes it has come down to this. It’s almost like Nicodemus is saying, “They don’t want you to be a rabbi, but you have to be, because as much as they like to deny it, you do have the signs to prove it.”
Since Jesus sees Nicodemus is coming to Him to really learn, Jesus presents Nicodemus with a simple teaching in verse 3. The NIV translates it as “born again” but other translations have translated it “born anew” or “born above.” All of these translations mean the same thing. Jesus is talking about a spiritual transformation that changes the whole person. Change like this can only come from above, from heaven, from the Father. When this transformation happens, it turns the person into a whole new person, as if he or she has a brand new life. Hence, it is appropriate to compare this to a second birth.
Yet in verse 4 Nicodemus can’t handle the metaphor, and he gets hung up by it. Nicodemus takes the metaphor very literally, believing he must re-enter his mother’s uterus and re-emerge from it in order to receive salvation. Christian readers know this obviously isn’t the answer. But I don’t think Nicodemus believes this is the answer either. It’s like Nicodemus is saying, “You don’t really expect me to believe I have to go through the birthing canal again, do you?”
Jesus can tell Nicodemus can’t handle this “born again” teaching with ease, so He makes the teaching easier for Nicodemus to understand. He uses an analogy of the Spirit (that is, the Holy Spirit) to wind. In English, this analogy already makes sense, but it makes more sense in Hebrew and Greek, two languages in which Christ’s Jewish audience would be well familiar with. The Hebrew word is ruah and the Greek word is pneuma. In both languages the word means both “wind” and “spirit.” So comparing the Spirit to wind is like comparing apples to apples because it is the same word. It’s a beautiful wordplay. And whether you’re reading John 3 in Hebrew, Greek or English, the analogy works in full. Nobody knows the source of wind, nor its final destination. Back then, how wind worked puzzled people, and still today our laws about wind are fully complete. Just as wind is still somewhat a mystery, the Holy Spirit is a mystery to us in some aspects. Jesus even tries to reach out to Nicodemus using simple logic. Flesh gives birth to flesh, spirit gives birth to spirit. Simply state: Flesh --> Flesh, Spirit --> Spirit. This verifies Christ’s teaching above on being “born again.” Your first birth was a physical birth. Your second birth, in which you are “born again,” is a spiritual birth. Your physical birth was a result of man’s decision and man’s will (mom + dad. Need I say more) on the earth. Your spiritual birth comes from above, from heaven, from the Holy Spirit.
Before I move on, I guess I must make a comment on John 3:6, where Jesus says that no one is able to be born again “unless he is born of water and the spirit.” What does he mean, especially in regards to “of water and the spirit”? Someone might easily want to say that this is a reference to baptism, for when you are baptized with water, you receive the Holy Spirit. But from that, a lot of issues arise. What about that one criminal crucified next to Jesus who recognized he is being just punished for his evil deeds (I believe this is repentance) and who believes Jesus is Christ, God and sinless (I believe this is showing belief). He was not baptized, and Jesus told him that he would be in Heaven with Jesus. And what about the book of Acts, where people received the Holy Spirit before and after baptism, just as much as those who received it at the same time? Also, if this was a reference to baptism, wouldn’t that technically mean there is an act or work necessary for salvation, so salvation isn’t by faith alone? So it can’t be a reference to baptism. Others have claimed this parallels the difference between the first birth and the second birth. The first birth is of water (after all, when a woman is about to give birth, he “water breaks.”), and the second birth is of spirit. I would say this is the second best interpretation, for it tries to take this verse literally, but at the same time, it’s out of pure logic. People have tried to take “water” more as a metaphor, giving it symbolic. Perhaps water is a symbol for the Holy Spirit or the Word of God. I don’t like either of these interpretations, because it removes a literal meaning too much, and the meaning becomes purely allegorical. Instead, combine the symbolic meaning to first interpretation. When we think of “water” in our faith, we do normally think of baptism. What does baptism represent, or what is it a symbol of? It is a symbol that shows we are dead to our sin, and we are brought back to life by the work of the Holy Spirit. Ah, there’s that word, “Spirit.” So we know this interpretation is dead on track. “Born of water and of spirit” means that we must repent of our worldly life and worldly living, and instead let the Holy Spirit transform us to more spiritual beings. This is the best interpretation because it fits historically, logically and theologically.
Still, with all this explaining, Nicodemus still doesn’t get it. In verse 9, all Nicodemus can utter is, “How can this be?” Jesus wants to reply, “How can you be so dense?” but instead replies in verse 10, “You are Israel’s teacher and you do not know these things?” Christ’s question does raise some legitimate concerns. Nicodemus is on the Sanhedrin, the Jewish ruling council. He’s suppose to have the Pentateuch memorized, and very possibly the whole Old Testament. Every Jew looks up to this man as a Rabbi who knows the way to God and can show other people the way. What a shocker it is to Jesus, and to the rest of the Jews, to find such a highly regarded Jewish man dumfounded. Think back to what I said about Nicodemus representing the general consensus of the Sanhedrin. If knowledge was measured in comparison to the population, Nicodemus would be average among the Sanhedrin. He probably carries the same knowledge as those 70 Jews do. So all 70 members of the Sanhedrin would also be dumfounded by Christ’s teachings. Maybe that is why so many Pharisees and Sadducees oppose Christ’s preaching. They just don’t get it. This kind of reminds me of the Dark Ages of the Church. The pope, the cardinals, the bishops and the archbishops were suppose to read, remember and understand the Scriptures in order to lead the parishioners into the right spiritual life. Instead, they stopped reading the Scriptures. Their memory of what the Bible actually said faded, and all they could remember was dogmatic tradition. Both this dogmatic tradition and the faint memories of their Bible reading they didn’t understand. It resulted in totally walking down the wrong path. Same seems to be true for the Sanhedrin in 1st century. They don’t understand what the Scriptures are telling them. Instead of receiving grace and faith, they resort to legalism.
I think Jesus sees this and calls out Nicodemus, as well as the whole Sanhedrin, on this. First, they call themselves teachers and rabbis, yet they still lack a lot, so much, they need to be taught. Second, as seen in verse 11, even if the Jews of the day did not understand what was being preached, they could have at least accepted the testimony, or the result, of what was true. Yet they did not even do that. In short, they could (and should) have said, “We don’t fully understand, but we’ll still believe it.” Instead, they said, “We don’t understand it, so it can’t be true!” Third, as seen in verse 12, they are trying to go onto bigger things without understanding the smaller things. It would be like a brain surgeon, trying to operate on a patient’s brain, without knowing how brain cells connect to one another. It would be like a rocket scientist, trying to build a newer rocket for astronauts to use, when the scientist does not know how combustion works. It would be like a mechanic, trying to build a car from scratch, without knowing the parts of an engine. Of course Nicodemus didn’t understand the spiritual matters Jesus was talking about! He couldn’t even comprehend how earthly matters worked! What Nicodemus may or may not have known is that no one can fully understand spiritual matters. Heck, even with the science we have today, we still don’t comprehend earthly matters either. This was humbling experience for Nicodemus, and it would also be a humbling experience for anyone, back then or today, who acts like they know everything earthly and spiritually. Lucky for Nicodemus, and for us, there is someone who does understand the spiritual world, because he was from the spiritual world. His name was Jesus. Jesus is the only one who descended from heaven, and he will also ascend there.
The thought of descending and ascending leads Jesus to another thought, a thought from history. No, it’s not Jacob’s ladder in Genesis, but rather the bronze snake in Numbers. Let me give you a quick reminder of the story. The Israelites are complaining and whining in the desert wilderness. God, sick of the Israelites constant complaining (and probably sick of having to come up with new punishments all the time) decides that if an Israelite sins, he or she will be painfully bitten by a poisonous snake, which will lead to sickness and even possibly death. Well, the Israelites realize their mistake and cry out to the Lord for salvation. So Moses seeks the Lord for a solution. God tells Moses to forge out of bronze a snake on a pole. If an Israelites sins, he or she will receive a fatal bite from a snake, but if the Israelite looks at the bronze snake on the bronze pole (a sign of repentance), God will forgive that individual and heal him or her from the snake poison. Jesus uses this typology for what He is going to do. Jesus reveals humankind is sick with a more deadly poison: sin. Sin kills us both physically and spiritually. The Son of Man, Jesus, will be lifted up like the Bronze Snake, but it will be on a cross. If anyone was to look towards Jesus on the cross (a sign of repentance and belief), he or she would be healed from sin and will receive eternal life.
Now before we go any further, we need to have a lexical study of John 3:16-21 (and “lexical study” simply means we’re going to look at the original text in its original language). If you were to look at different Bible translations, you might have notice that they differ in where they place the quote the ends Christ’s words. Most translations put the end quote after verse 21. But a few translations, like the RSV, place the quotes at the end of verse 15. The 1984 edition of the NIV places the quotes at the end of verse 15, but the 2011 edition has the quotes end at verse 21. What gives? Koine Greek, the Greek language of the 1st century AD, did not have quotation marks. So it’s not as clear when someone’s speaking begins and ends. Trust me, I take Greek. It’s frustrating translating because you don’t know if you should translate the sentence “The prophets say, ‘You should believe, be baptized and become a disciple.’” or “The prophets say that you should believe, be baptized and become a disciple.” Of course, I’m only beginning Greek 2, and some Greek experts might say this is an amateur mistake. But at the same time, this doesn’t mean the experts find translating easy, for there is debatable passages, such as John 3. So if the quotation ends at John 3:15, then who is saying John 3:16-21? That would be the narrator, who in this case is the beloved disciple John. Remember that John’s Gospel is a supplementary Gospel, one in which John gives his own commentary while narrating the events of the book. John 3:16-21 could simply be John explaining Christ’s teachings in John 3, especially 3:11-15. Proponents of the view that John 3:16-21 is John’s commentary say their number 1 proof is that that the speaker is speaking in the third person. But someone could easily object, showing that Jesus many times spoke in the third person. I do believe these verses, especially the famous 3:16 verse, are indeed the words of Jesus. I don’t want to go into the whole lexical, exegetical and hermeneutical arguments, so I will simply defend my view with the numbers. A majority of the scholars believe these words belong to Jesus, and most of these scholars are conservative scholars. A minority of scholars believe those verses are John’s words, and most of those scholars are liberal scholars. But at the end of the discussion and debate, someone can simply say that it doesn’t matter who said them, the words themselves speak a powerful message, a message that needs to be looked at. So let’s stop talking about who said it, and let’s look more at what these verses are saying.
I’m going to breeze over John 3:16 because most Christians already know. It has become a famous Bible verse, seen commonly at football games. One thing I will quickly note is that the Greek word for “perish” does not necessarily mean “annihilate” or “wiped out of existence” as we would think in our English minds. A better definition for perish in this context would be “ruined,” as if verse 16 is telling the reader that whoever does not believe in Jesus is ruining their life, and at the end of life, his or her life will be left in ruins. Very interesting concept. But enough of the famous verse. Let’s look at the lesser famous verses, which have a messages that is just as powerful, if not more powerful. I’ll even put them right into this text.
John 3:17-21-
“For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.”
The common questions I will get from non-Christians are questions over the judgment of God, or sometimes even more specific, like the judgment of Jesus. These questions range from “Does God/Jesus judge people?” to “Does God/Jesus judge sin?” Sometimes these questions will turn into comments, some saying, “It’s wrong for God to judge people as sinners for all the wrong things they have done.” (and I still have to hear a convincing argument for why), while others say, “Jesus doesn’t judge people’s sins or judge people as sinners because He loves us and He forgave us.” There are many different routes we can go to point the errors in these comments, including correcting an incorrect view of the Law (or maybe even making light of the ignored Law!). But let’s stick to using this passage to formulate an answer, for both these questions and these comments/claims.
First of all, let me start by saying both the questions and comments are a result of a misunderstanding of the definition of “judgment,” which comes from an unnecessary negative connotation of the word “judgment.” It seems like the generations of the 21st century (and maybe I’ll even add the 1990s generation) have associated the word “judge/judgment” with having to go to court. With a generation that has heavy gang involvement, from which a “no snitching” policy has arisen, this generation has associated going to court, or going to a judge, as a negative experience because they have been convicted of a crime, and the judge will punish them. Even outside the court setting, a lot of people out of this generation, when judged by authorities or even older people, have come out with a bad judgment, for one reason or another. Either way, the 21st century generation sees judgment with a negative connotation, as if it was bad. But a closer look and deeper thought reveals it isn’t always true. Yes, it is bad if you are judged and declared guilty. But it’s good if you judged and declared innocent. It’s also good if the judgment brings justice to you. So “judge” and all forms of it (judging, judgment, etc.) are suppose to be neutral in connotation. The negative word is suppose to be “condemn,” which means to be judged, fail judgment, and to be punished with no hope of escape from the judgment and punishment. And there are many positive connotations to judge, like “forgive,” “innocent” or any other word that shows a positive passing of judgment.
Back to the verses, I do believe God and Jesus play an active role as judge, but I also believe there’s a more passive role, and John 3:17-18 bring light to that. When I say God/Jesus has a passive role in judging, I could simply state it as this: “When sinners stand in the presence of a holy and righteous God, their sins are exposed and they stand in judgment.” God doesn’t have to point out sins. The sins stand out like a sore thumb when they are exposed. To deny fully exposed sins would be like denying a black eye or a big pimple at the end of your nose, which everyone can see. I don’t have to announce to everyone that you have a black eye or big pimple at the end of your nose, for everyone who looks at your face will see it.
What a better way to talk about judgment that using courthouse language, as well as analogies to light and darkness. Did you catch the courthouse vocabulary? “This is the verdict.” Jesus is saying, “The trial has happened, judgment has been passed (neutrally!), and these are the results. What are the results? “Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.” The Light is Jesus and His Gospel message, the one that will save humankind from their sins. The darkness is the sinful, fallen, depraved world we live in. Logically speaking, someone would think people would want to go from darkness to light. But they don’t! Why not? The light exposes the evil deeds of the dark world, and people are too afraid to come into to the light because their deeds will be exposed, and they will stand condemned. Why are they so afraid? Perhaps they are afraid of shame. Maybe they fear they will ruin their pride.
How true it is for this 21st century generation (and once again, may I add the 1990s generation into this). A common banner I see this generation’s youth and young adults wave is “You have no right to judge me.” This banner covers everything from religion to beliefs to morals. Sometimes this banner comes out in a passive form: “Well, that’s what you believe, but I believe different. So you believe what you believe, I’ll believe what I believe, and let’s keep it at that.” Other times, this banner has come out more aggressively: “How dare you judge me for my beliefs! Who gave you the right to decide my beliefs are wrong and yours are right?! Your beliefs are right for you, my beliefs are right for me.” Modernists blame postmodernism for this. Modernists claim that postmodernism has made beliefs, spirituality and religion so individualistic that every person’s religious and spiritual beliefs are their own religion and their own personal religious truth, so no one has the right to infringe on their “personal religion.” So what happens to morals? Morality becomes a thing of emotional feeling. If it feels right, it’s moral, but if it doesn’t feel right, it’s immoral. So if something feels right for you, but doesn’t feel right to me, that means it moral to you, but not moral to me. What kind of system is that?
There’s a reason John calls Jesus the “true light.” Think about what light can do. It’s easy to keep things hidden in darkness. You can place something out in the open in the darkness, and the darkness will hide it. It’s hard to hide things in the light, for light will expose everything that it touches. Jesus is the light, and evil is the darkness. Evil tries to hide our sins, tries to convince that our sins are right and we have nothing to be embarrassed about. If someone or something tries to embarrass us or judge us for our sins, they are in the wrong, not us. Jesus, the true light, works differently. Jesus exposes everything, the good and the evil, the righteous and the sinful.
So what do I say to the people who ask me if God judges, if Jesus judges, or even if Christians should judge other people, both Christians and non-Christians? First, I do acknowledge God and Jesus as the judge over all humankind. After all, God/Jesus is holy and righteous, which makes Him better than us fallen sinners. Second, I do admit that the Bible does say Christians shouldn’t judge other people, but I do also recognize the Bible says Christians should judge sinful actions (not going any further on this discussion, as it would take us way off topic). But then I follow that up by saying, “But Christians really don’t have to judge people, and technically, God doesn’t have to either. Because the people already stand in judgment, and the judgment is they are guilty of their sins.” I use John 3:18 to back me up.
That is why, as John 3:17 tells us, that Jesus did not come into the world to condemn the world. The world already stood condemned because their sins and their evil ways had been exposed. Their crimes had been exposed, and so they were exposed as guilty. They were already condemned. If Jesus were to come into the word to condemn the world, it would be redundant. If humanity were to look at themselves honestly, they would already know they were condemned.
If I were to stop right here, I would be just as guilty as my generation for giving the word “judge” a negative connotation. If Jesus didn’t come into the world to condemn it, he must have come for another reason. Hopefully it’s a positive one! Indeed it is. John 3:16-21 simply says we believe and come into the light by living the truth, we will not be condemned, we will not perish but we will live an eternal life in the light. Jesus didn’t come into the world to declare us guilty, but Jesus came into the world to forgive us, so He could declare us innocent.
So you’d think it would be a “no-brainer” to receive the light and the salvation that comes with it. Everyone should be running out of the darkness and into the light. But not everyone does. Why? It goes back to John 3:19-20, and even back to the true meaning of “perish” in John 3:16. People are given the chance to come into the light, but when they come into the light, their sins will be exposed, so they would have to admit those sins, admit they were evil, and then reject them. The sad reality is some people love the darkness. Some people love their sins and love evil. There’s a reason phrases like “the ways of the world” or “worldly ways” can be synonymous with “sinful ways.” Since the world we live in is a fallen and depraved one, it’s a world that’s going to offer us sin as the “high life.” Sex, drugs, wealth, popularity, partying is what it tries to sell you. Any threat to these lifestyles is an enemy. So if the True Light tries to expose these as wrong, the True Light is your enemy. The ways of the world begs you, “Don’t walk into the light! It will just judge you to put you down and make you feel bad. It wants to embarrass you. Stay in the darkness. It is your friend.” People listen to this dark world. Fear of hurting their pride or even the pride of their sins keeps them from entering the Light. They know a life in the Light will have them reject their old life, and they want to selfishly hold onto their life of sin. So they stay in the darkness. Even if a beam of light comes near them, they yell, “Stay back, Light! Don’t judge me!” Little do they know that they have brought judgment upon themselves. Little do they know that while the darkness hides the evil, it does not get rid of it. They still stand with their evil sins, and thus they still stand condemned. And little do they know that they are slowly perishing, which means they are slowly ruining their lives until they die.
In closing, I am reminded that some evangelists use this book of the Bible as an evangelism tool. While I said and shown that this book is better used for discipleship reasons, I do believe this passage does give a strong evangelistic gospel message. Just don’t use John 3:16, but include John 3:17-21 into this as well. John 3:16-21 paints a beautiful picture of the gospel. There we were, in a dark and fallen world, slowly perishing and slowly ruining our lives. But God, out of His everlasting love, sent God the Son into the world, to expose the world of sin so the people could see how much they were ruining their lives. Some people didn’t mind their sins, so they went back into the darkness and went back to a slow ruin. But some people walked into the light, believed in the Son, and received eternal life. The reader is faced with the same 2 decision. You either go back into the darkness and back to your evil sins, or come into the light by believing in Jesus and walking the ways of truth. Does this gospel message work? Well, look at the first hearer of this word: Nicodemus. Does Nicodemus come to faith? Well, the next time you’ll see Nicodemus, he’ll denounce the Pharisees (remember Nicodemus is a Pharisee!) for not giving Jesus a fair chance to preach or even to defend himself. Later on, you’ll see Nicodemus help Joseph of Arimathea bury Joseph. I think both actions are a demonstration of his faith. By the end of chapter 3, Nicodemus know what Jesus is teaching, understands what Jesus is preaching, believes Jesus is the Son of God and walks from darkness into the light. After all, the next time you see Nicodemus, he won’t be sneaking around in the dark, but boldly standing up for Jesus in the light of the day.
P.S. I decided not to go into the rest of John 3. Why? The rest of John 3 is John the Baptist confirming what Jesus preached earlier in the chapter. To give a quick summary, John the Baptist’s disciples come to John the Baptist whining, complaining, “That Jesus man is taking your disciples!” to which John the Baptist replies, “Good. He is suppose to.” Then John the Baptist verifies Christ’s teaching in John 3 by preaching that Jesus is from above, Jesus testifies about heavenly things, people have not believed in Christ’s testimony, those who receive Christ’s testimony has eternal life, and those who do not are condemned. Everything I can about this I have already said above. Besides, it was already getting too long.
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Sunday, January 15, 2012
John 2: 2 Events
When you have a following, and you’re trying to gain a bigger following, the first thing you have to do is convince those close to you and those already following you. A crucial part of a hopeful politician’s path to become presidents is to win his party’s nomination, and even before that, he’s got to win a few caucuses over to his side. Although Jesus has called his disciples (John only tells the calling of a few, but by John 2, we can assume all 12 have been called), He can’t slack off around them. He’s got to prove to them he’s worth following, and he doesn’t waste a minute doing it. John 2 provides 2 stories to show how Jesus proves himself to his disciples, and to us.
The first story in John 2 Bible versions have titled “The Wedding at Cana,” “Jesus Turns Water into Wine” and “Christ’s First Miracle.” From these titles, you can tell wacky interpretations and application came from this passage. From what I’ve heard and read, I’ve seen this passage used to write doctrine on how Jesus treated his mother (and sometimes an application on how we should treat our mothers!), to write doctrine and application for alcohol, and even to write doctrine on the proper way to hold a wedding ceremony. But is John writing the book of John to inform us how Jesus treated his mother or to inform us how we are to treat our mothers? No, John is not writing the book of John for either reason. Is John writing his book to make a statement on alcohol? No, he is not. Is John’s purpose of his Gospel account telling us how to run a wedding? No. If you want to make an applicable doctrine on any of those three subjects, there are much better passages in the Bible to do make such doctrines. Here’s a quick reminder on the purpose why John is writing. John wrote the book of John to persuade Christians to believe [or continue believing] that Jesus is the Christ and God the Son. So when reading this story, any reader needs to see how Jesus is revealing himself to be the Son of God. But of course, if any of it helps, I’ll definitely mention it.
Although this chapter is not meant to design Christian weddings, I think if I told you with some background information on 1st century Jewish weddings, it would help set the scene. If you thought 21st century weddings were crazy with events all day, you ain’t seen nothing until you’ve seen a 1st century Jewish wedding. The events didn’t just last all day, but rather the events lasted all week (sometimes only six days to avoid working on the Sabbath). Just like ours, the wedding would start in the beginning with a ceremony. Then they partying would commence for a week, with activities and gift giving, but especially with lots of eating and drinking. The wedding would end with a giant parade leading the newlywed couple to the bedroom of their new house so they could consummate the marriage. If you think that last part is crazy, there are crazier stories about how they made sure the marriage was consummated. Sometimes the wedding guests would stand around the bedroom until they heard the appropriate sound effects that go along with consummation. At other times, both the bride and the groom’s parents would enter the bedroom the day after to find the evidence to prove the couple consummated the marriage. Crazy. Who was invited to these weddings? Anyone and everyone. Weddings guests consisted of family, close relatives, distant relatives, close friends, distant friends, family friends, neighbors, co-workers and maybe even you dad’s co-workers and business partners (considering most people back then were in the family business). Because back then (and this is probably true today too), weddings could be used to show wealth and social status. The rich would throw big, extravagant weddings to show off their wealth. The bigger the wedding and the more people you could invite, the better. But you had to make sure you had enough food and drink for everyone. Don’t over-estimate, in fact, never ever over-estimate! For if a family did not have enough food or drink for everyone invited, it would bring embarrassment and shame on both of the newlywed’s family. Keep that last bit in mind as we enter into our wedding story in John 2.
John begins by telling the reader a wedding was taking place in Cana in Galilee. Mary and her family was invited, so I would have to say that Mary was related to either the bride or the groom. Naturally everyone knew that a rabbi’s disciples went wherever that rabbi went, and everyone was beginning to accept Jesus a rabbi, so naturally all of Christ’s disciples were there, whether it be 5 or 12 (it is debatable how many disciples Jesus had picked at this point. Some say all 12 have been chosen at this point, while others say only the 5 mentioned in John 1 are the only one following him. Personally, I believe it’s all 12.). So if the reader places himself/herself at the setting, the reader is in a wedding in Cana in Galilee, with Jesus, his disciples and his mother.
Now the conflict arises. The wine is gone. Now that we understand the culture, Mary’s concern doesn’t make Mary sound like a drama queen. Mary’s concern is also our second proof to why she’s related to one of the newlyweds. Running out of wine means that the newlywed’s families are faced with shame, Mary and her family could face shame, and it’s even possible Jesus could face shame. So what does Mary do? She goes to Jesus.
Why did Mary go to Jesus? Remember, the Bible claims this is Christ’s first miracle. How would Mary know Jesus could help? There’s a whole spectrum of possible answers, from a liberal answer to a supernatural answer, and everything in between. The liberal answer is Mary just wanted Jesus to run an errand. The liberal answer is Mary telling Jesus (paraphrased), “Jesus, they ran out of wine. Would you mind running down to the nearby liquor store and picking up a couple wineskins with whatever money you have? Or better yet, send one of your disciples to do it.” Too liberal for me. Well, what about the supernatural answer? Well, there are crazy stories that circulated in the 2nd century AD (although believed to be pseudepigrapha, which means “false writings”) that have stories about Jesus performing miracles in his childhood. Indeed, these stories are truly crazy, like Jesus turning clay birds to life, carrying water on a cloth, stretching out a beam of wood, and bringing down curses on kids bullying him. Maybe Mary saw and remembered these childhood miracles, so she went to Jesus and said (my paraphrase), “Remember those childhood magic tricks you use to do? You think you could do another one here and give us wine?” I’m still not satisfied with this answer. I do hold to the Words of the Bible as true, and this is truly the first miracle of Jesus. Is this a middle ground to this spectrum? I think so. In Luke, the Bible says that everything before and during the birth of Jesus, Mary “treasured up in her heart.” I think Mary still treasured up all those memories in heart, even though her boy was all grown up. I believe she constantly looked upon her as not just her son, but the Son of God. At this point, in this story, maybe Mary was thinking, “Whenever I need help with something out of my power, I pray to God and ask for help. But wait! My son is God. Maybe I could ask God by asking him right to his face.” Maybe, in a way, this is Mary testifying that Jesus is God the Son.
The most literal translation of Christ’s response is “Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not come.” Some people (mostly women) have tried to claim Jesus is belittling his mother in a sexist way by calling her “woman”. But those people are thinking in a 20th and 21st century context, not in a 1st century context. In the 20th and 21st century, yes, calling a female “woman” is to put her down as someone whose only good is to make the house clean, make sandwiches and make babies. But in the 1st century context, Jesus calling Mary “woman” is no different than calling her “mother.” And the rest of the statement is not Jesus disobeying his mother. Instead, he was announcing that He was listening to his father first and foremost. Yet when Mary tells the servants to listen to him, it seems like it’s too late, and now it’s time for a miracle.
For some reason, sitting nearby are six stone jars, used by the Jews for ceremonial cleaning. Jesus has the servants fill the jars with water, then tells one of them to deliver the wine to the master of ceremonies. Now notice in verse 9, John is already calling it “water turned into wine.” I’ve always wondered at what point it turned into wine. It could be the minute it was poured into the six jars. It possibly could be the minute the water was taken out of the jars. Or just perhaps it was when it touched the master’s lips. No matter when it turned into wine, the matter of the fact is it happened. And note that the wine master calls it the best wine served. Although Jesus have given mediocre wine because no one could taste it being so wasted, he still gave the best, because Jesus always gives the best.
So if this story wasn’t meant to give us doctrine on Christ’s relationship with his earthly mother Mary, nor was it meant to teach us about alcohol, nor as instructions on how to run a wedding, then what is it for? The overall purpose of John is to portray Jesus as the divine Son of God, so how does this story show us that Jesus is God? We could simply say, “It shows manipulation of nature as only God could do.” Yes, it does show Jesus as God because Jesus is manipulating His creation. But I think this story is in here for a deeper meaning, and the Bible would agree with me, for John wrote it right in the story. Look at John 2:11.
John 2:11-
“This, the first of his miraculous signs, Jesus performed at Cana in Galilee. He thus revealed his glory, and his disciples put their faith in him.”
I believe the “revealed his glory” part is just what we said above. The revealed glory is Jesus show He is the creator and He can control it. But more specifically, look at who the miracle was done for. It’s not for the newlywed couple, not their families, not even his mother. Rather, it’s for his disciples. Jesus performed the miracle to reveal his glory to his disciples. This story takes place early in Christ’s ministry. He’s just rallied together his 12 disciples. Now he’s got to prove that He is who He claim he is, and He can do what He claims He can do. Now they can see He is the Son of God, and they can believe Jesus is God the Son. Keep that in mind for the next story
Our next story is a familiar story, the cleansing of the temple. Yes, already in John 2, we have the cleansing of the temple. So I need to discuss a bit about the structure of John. It’s not as straightforward as you think. What do you do when John writes about a temple cleansing so early when all the synoptic authors write about the temple cleansing later? One way is to simply say there were two temple cleansings. Proponents of this view would say that Jesus would have to go to the temple multiple times a year if he was a good Jew. Indeed, I would agree. But you would think if Jesus cleansed out the temple so early, security at the temple would be so much higher, so high that Jesus would not be able to perform a second cleansing. Or at least those selling and changing money would learn their lesson. So I don’t think there were 2 temple cleansings, but only 1. How can this be when the Gospel writers placed it at different points? Remember that the synoptic Gospels are writing Gospels that are early to outline, so they will outline Jesus from Galilee to Judea is one smooth line. John is not as concerned with chronology, so John doesn’t mind going back and forth, in and out of Judea. Instead, John is writing a supplemental gospel, so John could have written his Gospel more topically. I do believe it is written topically, for we’ll see the temple cleansing does have something to do with the wedding at Cana.
To summarize the story, Jesus enters the temple and sees that people are unjustly selling the animals for sacrifice. Jesus is filled with rage for such sin happening in a place where sin is supposed to be paid for. His rage causes him to make a whip out of cords and to overturn tables.
Right now go to Google Image Search (images.google.com) and simply put the word “Jesus” in the search box. Now search. When I did it, I went through 10 pages and not a single picture showed this scene. Now they do exist, if you were to type in Jesus cleanses the temple, they would show up. Clearly they are a minority. We rather have pictures of a loving Jesus, one that hold children and lambs. Maybe there is something good out of that. After all, God’s love is stronger than God’s wrath. But we must not forget that Jesus did get angry and did become wrathful.
As a Mennonite, who takes a non-violent pacifist stand, people have questioned my beliefs, using this passage. How do I, as a Mennonite, understand this with my Mennonite beliefs? It goes back to the message of this book, that Jesus is God the Son. This is Jesus showing His divine side. After all, God the Son calls this building “His Father’s house.” Here, we see the wrath of God through the Son of God. Since Jesus, being the Son of God, is sinless, I believe Jesus is showing a righteous anger, so He does not sin by being angry or violent. Yet Christians are not to act in this way because, simply put, we are not God. So we do not have the authority to perform such acts, especially without sinning. This is where it is important to see Jesus as God.
That’s how the disciples saw it. Well, not immediately. But then again, some of it was immediate, some of it was not. The disciples remembered the Psalm “Zeal for your house will consume me.” The Jews did recognize this psalm as a messianic psalm, a psalm that describes the messiah. They knew “your house” meant God’s house, the temple. Thus, the messiah was has extreme emotional attachment to the temple. When Jesus saw the sin in the temple, and the disciples saw his reaction to it, they remembered this psalm, and saw Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of God. Once Jesus is done cleansing the temple, the Jewish leaders ask Jesus for a sign to accompany his authority. The Jewish leaders have the right to do this, for the Old Testament commands them to do this to divide the true prophets from the false prophets. Jesus says his sign is that he can rebuild his temple in 3 days. Jesus is referring to His body, but the Jewish leaders, as well as Christ’s disciples, don’t get that. They think he is referring to the temple building. For Christ’s disciples, it’s not until after Jesus dies and rises again that they finally get Jesus was talking about the resurrection of His body. What’s the result? John 2:22 tells us.
John 2:22-
“After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the Scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken.”
There’s that word again: believe. It’s 1 of the 92 occurrences. And look who it is intended for again. The disciples. It makes sense. The religious leaders did not benefit from this story. If anything, they probably used it against Jesus at his trial. The men who were selling animals and exchanging money did not benefit from this story. In fact, they are probably upset at Jesus and don’t want anything to do with him. But look at the impact on the disciples. They believe Jesus is the Messiah because they see his actions towards the temple and remember the Psalm. They remember Jesus called his body the temple after He rose from the dead, and so they believe Jesus is the Son of God. Between these 2 stories, John has accomplished his purpose for the 12 disciple. They believe Jesus is the Christ and the Son of God. And now, the disciples are fully behind Jesus. Hopefully these two events have proved to you that Jesus is the Christ and the Son of God, and hopefully you are now fully behind him, too.
The first story in John 2 Bible versions have titled “The Wedding at Cana,” “Jesus Turns Water into Wine” and “Christ’s First Miracle.” From these titles, you can tell wacky interpretations and application came from this passage. From what I’ve heard and read, I’ve seen this passage used to write doctrine on how Jesus treated his mother (and sometimes an application on how we should treat our mothers!), to write doctrine and application for alcohol, and even to write doctrine on the proper way to hold a wedding ceremony. But is John writing the book of John to inform us how Jesus treated his mother or to inform us how we are to treat our mothers? No, John is not writing the book of John for either reason. Is John writing his book to make a statement on alcohol? No, he is not. Is John’s purpose of his Gospel account telling us how to run a wedding? No. If you want to make an applicable doctrine on any of those three subjects, there are much better passages in the Bible to do make such doctrines. Here’s a quick reminder on the purpose why John is writing. John wrote the book of John to persuade Christians to believe [or continue believing] that Jesus is the Christ and God the Son. So when reading this story, any reader needs to see how Jesus is revealing himself to be the Son of God. But of course, if any of it helps, I’ll definitely mention it.
Although this chapter is not meant to design Christian weddings, I think if I told you with some background information on 1st century Jewish weddings, it would help set the scene. If you thought 21st century weddings were crazy with events all day, you ain’t seen nothing until you’ve seen a 1st century Jewish wedding. The events didn’t just last all day, but rather the events lasted all week (sometimes only six days to avoid working on the Sabbath). Just like ours, the wedding would start in the beginning with a ceremony. Then they partying would commence for a week, with activities and gift giving, but especially with lots of eating and drinking. The wedding would end with a giant parade leading the newlywed couple to the bedroom of their new house so they could consummate the marriage. If you think that last part is crazy, there are crazier stories about how they made sure the marriage was consummated. Sometimes the wedding guests would stand around the bedroom until they heard the appropriate sound effects that go along with consummation. At other times, both the bride and the groom’s parents would enter the bedroom the day after to find the evidence to prove the couple consummated the marriage. Crazy. Who was invited to these weddings? Anyone and everyone. Weddings guests consisted of family, close relatives, distant relatives, close friends, distant friends, family friends, neighbors, co-workers and maybe even you dad’s co-workers and business partners (considering most people back then were in the family business). Because back then (and this is probably true today too), weddings could be used to show wealth and social status. The rich would throw big, extravagant weddings to show off their wealth. The bigger the wedding and the more people you could invite, the better. But you had to make sure you had enough food and drink for everyone. Don’t over-estimate, in fact, never ever over-estimate! For if a family did not have enough food or drink for everyone invited, it would bring embarrassment and shame on both of the newlywed’s family. Keep that last bit in mind as we enter into our wedding story in John 2.
John begins by telling the reader a wedding was taking place in Cana in Galilee. Mary and her family was invited, so I would have to say that Mary was related to either the bride or the groom. Naturally everyone knew that a rabbi’s disciples went wherever that rabbi went, and everyone was beginning to accept Jesus a rabbi, so naturally all of Christ’s disciples were there, whether it be 5 or 12 (it is debatable how many disciples Jesus had picked at this point. Some say all 12 have been chosen at this point, while others say only the 5 mentioned in John 1 are the only one following him. Personally, I believe it’s all 12.). So if the reader places himself/herself at the setting, the reader is in a wedding in Cana in Galilee, with Jesus, his disciples and his mother.
Now the conflict arises. The wine is gone. Now that we understand the culture, Mary’s concern doesn’t make Mary sound like a drama queen. Mary’s concern is also our second proof to why she’s related to one of the newlyweds. Running out of wine means that the newlywed’s families are faced with shame, Mary and her family could face shame, and it’s even possible Jesus could face shame. So what does Mary do? She goes to Jesus.
Why did Mary go to Jesus? Remember, the Bible claims this is Christ’s first miracle. How would Mary know Jesus could help? There’s a whole spectrum of possible answers, from a liberal answer to a supernatural answer, and everything in between. The liberal answer is Mary just wanted Jesus to run an errand. The liberal answer is Mary telling Jesus (paraphrased), “Jesus, they ran out of wine. Would you mind running down to the nearby liquor store and picking up a couple wineskins with whatever money you have? Or better yet, send one of your disciples to do it.” Too liberal for me. Well, what about the supernatural answer? Well, there are crazy stories that circulated in the 2nd century AD (although believed to be pseudepigrapha, which means “false writings”) that have stories about Jesus performing miracles in his childhood. Indeed, these stories are truly crazy, like Jesus turning clay birds to life, carrying water on a cloth, stretching out a beam of wood, and bringing down curses on kids bullying him. Maybe Mary saw and remembered these childhood miracles, so she went to Jesus and said (my paraphrase), “Remember those childhood magic tricks you use to do? You think you could do another one here and give us wine?” I’m still not satisfied with this answer. I do hold to the Words of the Bible as true, and this is truly the first miracle of Jesus. Is this a middle ground to this spectrum? I think so. In Luke, the Bible says that everything before and during the birth of Jesus, Mary “treasured up in her heart.” I think Mary still treasured up all those memories in heart, even though her boy was all grown up. I believe she constantly looked upon her as not just her son, but the Son of God. At this point, in this story, maybe Mary was thinking, “Whenever I need help with something out of my power, I pray to God and ask for help. But wait! My son is God. Maybe I could ask God by asking him right to his face.” Maybe, in a way, this is Mary testifying that Jesus is God the Son.
The most literal translation of Christ’s response is “Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not come.” Some people (mostly women) have tried to claim Jesus is belittling his mother in a sexist way by calling her “woman”. But those people are thinking in a 20th and 21st century context, not in a 1st century context. In the 20th and 21st century, yes, calling a female “woman” is to put her down as someone whose only good is to make the house clean, make sandwiches and make babies. But in the 1st century context, Jesus calling Mary “woman” is no different than calling her “mother.” And the rest of the statement is not Jesus disobeying his mother. Instead, he was announcing that He was listening to his father first and foremost. Yet when Mary tells the servants to listen to him, it seems like it’s too late, and now it’s time for a miracle.
For some reason, sitting nearby are six stone jars, used by the Jews for ceremonial cleaning. Jesus has the servants fill the jars with water, then tells one of them to deliver the wine to the master of ceremonies. Now notice in verse 9, John is already calling it “water turned into wine.” I’ve always wondered at what point it turned into wine. It could be the minute it was poured into the six jars. It possibly could be the minute the water was taken out of the jars. Or just perhaps it was when it touched the master’s lips. No matter when it turned into wine, the matter of the fact is it happened. And note that the wine master calls it the best wine served. Although Jesus have given mediocre wine because no one could taste it being so wasted, he still gave the best, because Jesus always gives the best.
So if this story wasn’t meant to give us doctrine on Christ’s relationship with his earthly mother Mary, nor was it meant to teach us about alcohol, nor as instructions on how to run a wedding, then what is it for? The overall purpose of John is to portray Jesus as the divine Son of God, so how does this story show us that Jesus is God? We could simply say, “It shows manipulation of nature as only God could do.” Yes, it does show Jesus as God because Jesus is manipulating His creation. But I think this story is in here for a deeper meaning, and the Bible would agree with me, for John wrote it right in the story. Look at John 2:11.
John 2:11-
“This, the first of his miraculous signs, Jesus performed at Cana in Galilee. He thus revealed his glory, and his disciples put their faith in him.”
I believe the “revealed his glory” part is just what we said above. The revealed glory is Jesus show He is the creator and He can control it. But more specifically, look at who the miracle was done for. It’s not for the newlywed couple, not their families, not even his mother. Rather, it’s for his disciples. Jesus performed the miracle to reveal his glory to his disciples. This story takes place early in Christ’s ministry. He’s just rallied together his 12 disciples. Now he’s got to prove that He is who He claim he is, and He can do what He claims He can do. Now they can see He is the Son of God, and they can believe Jesus is God the Son. Keep that in mind for the next story
Our next story is a familiar story, the cleansing of the temple. Yes, already in John 2, we have the cleansing of the temple. So I need to discuss a bit about the structure of John. It’s not as straightforward as you think. What do you do when John writes about a temple cleansing so early when all the synoptic authors write about the temple cleansing later? One way is to simply say there were two temple cleansings. Proponents of this view would say that Jesus would have to go to the temple multiple times a year if he was a good Jew. Indeed, I would agree. But you would think if Jesus cleansed out the temple so early, security at the temple would be so much higher, so high that Jesus would not be able to perform a second cleansing. Or at least those selling and changing money would learn their lesson. So I don’t think there were 2 temple cleansings, but only 1. How can this be when the Gospel writers placed it at different points? Remember that the synoptic Gospels are writing Gospels that are early to outline, so they will outline Jesus from Galilee to Judea is one smooth line. John is not as concerned with chronology, so John doesn’t mind going back and forth, in and out of Judea. Instead, John is writing a supplemental gospel, so John could have written his Gospel more topically. I do believe it is written topically, for we’ll see the temple cleansing does have something to do with the wedding at Cana.
To summarize the story, Jesus enters the temple and sees that people are unjustly selling the animals for sacrifice. Jesus is filled with rage for such sin happening in a place where sin is supposed to be paid for. His rage causes him to make a whip out of cords and to overturn tables.
Right now go to Google Image Search (images.google.com) and simply put the word “Jesus” in the search box. Now search. When I did it, I went through 10 pages and not a single picture showed this scene. Now they do exist, if you were to type in Jesus cleanses the temple, they would show up. Clearly they are a minority. We rather have pictures of a loving Jesus, one that hold children and lambs. Maybe there is something good out of that. After all, God’s love is stronger than God’s wrath. But we must not forget that Jesus did get angry and did become wrathful.
As a Mennonite, who takes a non-violent pacifist stand, people have questioned my beliefs, using this passage. How do I, as a Mennonite, understand this with my Mennonite beliefs? It goes back to the message of this book, that Jesus is God the Son. This is Jesus showing His divine side. After all, God the Son calls this building “His Father’s house.” Here, we see the wrath of God through the Son of God. Since Jesus, being the Son of God, is sinless, I believe Jesus is showing a righteous anger, so He does not sin by being angry or violent. Yet Christians are not to act in this way because, simply put, we are not God. So we do not have the authority to perform such acts, especially without sinning. This is where it is important to see Jesus as God.
That’s how the disciples saw it. Well, not immediately. But then again, some of it was immediate, some of it was not. The disciples remembered the Psalm “Zeal for your house will consume me.” The Jews did recognize this psalm as a messianic psalm, a psalm that describes the messiah. They knew “your house” meant God’s house, the temple. Thus, the messiah was has extreme emotional attachment to the temple. When Jesus saw the sin in the temple, and the disciples saw his reaction to it, they remembered this psalm, and saw Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of God. Once Jesus is done cleansing the temple, the Jewish leaders ask Jesus for a sign to accompany his authority. The Jewish leaders have the right to do this, for the Old Testament commands them to do this to divide the true prophets from the false prophets. Jesus says his sign is that he can rebuild his temple in 3 days. Jesus is referring to His body, but the Jewish leaders, as well as Christ’s disciples, don’t get that. They think he is referring to the temple building. For Christ’s disciples, it’s not until after Jesus dies and rises again that they finally get Jesus was talking about the resurrection of His body. What’s the result? John 2:22 tells us.
John 2:22-
“After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the Scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken.”
There’s that word again: believe. It’s 1 of the 92 occurrences. And look who it is intended for again. The disciples. It makes sense. The religious leaders did not benefit from this story. If anything, they probably used it against Jesus at his trial. The men who were selling animals and exchanging money did not benefit from this story. In fact, they are probably upset at Jesus and don’t want anything to do with him. But look at the impact on the disciples. They believe Jesus is the Messiah because they see his actions towards the temple and remember the Psalm. They remember Jesus called his body the temple after He rose from the dead, and so they believe Jesus is the Son of God. Between these 2 stories, John has accomplished his purpose for the 12 disciple. They believe Jesus is the Christ and the Son of God. And now, the disciples are fully behind Jesus. Hopefully these two events have proved to you that Jesus is the Christ and the Son of God, and hopefully you are now fully behind him, too.
Tuesday, January 03, 2012
John 1: Early God Sightings
A few years back my church’s small groups were going through a Bible study book that had us record “God-hunt sightings.” What qualified as a “God-hunt Sighting” was anytime in our day or week that we saw God at work. I always liked the term “God sighting.” When I taught a 10th grade class on God’s providential hand in Esther, I asked them to make “God-hunt Sightings” so they could see how God’s providential hand in their lives. This time around I’m going to use the term “God-hunt Sightings” slightly differently, and to differentiate, I’m going to shorten it to “God Sightings”. It’s not going to be God’s providence, although we could do that in the Gospel of John. Remember how I said the purpose of John was to portray Jesus Christ as the Son of God? Our goal for this Bible study of the book of John will be to see if John fulfills his purpose. So instead of “God Sightings” meaning God’s providential hand, we’re going to look for “God Sightings” in Jesus, or rather times we see the divine nature of God the Son in Jesus. So let’s begin!
Ah, but where do you begin? Where does one begin a story? Storytellers have started stories in all different places. Some start stories before the action takes place. In the first movie of the Back to the Future triology, Marty McFly merely goes on his day like a typical 80’s teenager: school and chores at Doc Brown’s house. Some other stories begin right in the middle of the action. Many movies of the Star Wars saga start in the middle of a fight. Episode One starts with negotiation talks gone violent; Episode Three begins with a battle in the Clone War; Episode Five begin with the Rebels desperately trying to defend their base on a frozen planet. Some even start after the action. These books, movies or TV series rely on flashbacks to tell the story in full. Think about Disney’s The Emperor’s New Groove. The movie begins with a sad llama, who seems to be very human-like, crawling in the rain. Why is the llama crawling through the rain? Why is the llama sad? How did it get there? These questions are answered through flashbacks full of action, but by this point, the action has passed. Stories can start at many different points, and where the story starts may even reflect the message the storyteller is getting across.
Let’s get back to the Bible. We have 4 Gospel books, 4 Gospel authors, and 4 different starts to the Gospel narrative. Let’s start with Mark, since his Gospel account came first. Remember Mark is writing to the Romans, who want an action packed story. So Mark starts right away with an adult Jesus preaching his authoritative message performing powerful miracles. Sure, there are quick blurbs on John the Baptist, as well as the baptism and temptation of Jesus, but they are literally short blurbs, quickly thrown in just to set a little background information. Matthew has, in a way, 2 starts. The first start goes all the way back to Abraham, and traces Jesus from Abraham through David (and ultimately tracing Jesus as a fulfillment of the Abrahamic Covenant and David Covenant). The second start is in a more immediate context, with the announcement of Christ’s birth to both Mary and Joseph, followed by the birth itself. Luke wants begin further back than the birth or the annunciation of the birth of Jesus, but he doesn’t want his start go back as far as Matthew did (although he will put in his genealogy later, but we’ll talk about that later). So Luke believes the best way to begin an “orderly account” is to begin with annunciation and miraculous birth of the Preparer of the Christ, and how it interlinked with the annunciation and miraculous birth of the Christ. So where is John going to begin his Gospel narrative? In the beginning!
“In the beginning…” How would you complete that? Well, alright, most of you know this is a Bible study on John and have read John 1 to know where I’m going with this and how to complete, so never mind on how you would complete it. But if I were to do a Bible version of Jay Leno’s “Jay-walking” (if you don’t know what that is, go look it up on YouTube) among Christians in church, how do you think they would complete that phrase? Most of them probably would complete it, “In the beginning…God created the heavens and the earth.” There’s nothing wrong with that. It would be right. In fact, I bet if you were a 1st Century Jewish Christian, you would complete the phrase in the same exact way. Both of you are quoting Genesis 1:1, which both of you can recognize from learning it so young. So that is why John chose to begin his Gospel with those 3 words: “In the beginning.” He knew his Jewish Christian audience would immediately be thinking about Genesis and the Creation story. He wants his reader in that mindset. But read closely, and you’ll realize he’s actually bringing you further back than this. I won’t do this for every verse in John, but the important verse I really want to zoom in on and focus on I will put in this devotional commentary. So let’s take a close look.
John 1:1,2-
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.”
John’s beginning is not with a birth or the announcement of a birth. It doesn’t begin with someone preparing the way. It doesn’t begin with a Patriarch, like Abraham or David. It doesn’t begin with the fall of man and the need for a Savior. It doesn’t even begin with the creation of the earth. It begins with the Word. From further reading of this chapter, the reader understand that this Word is Jesus. Jesus is the Word incarnate. Look at the doctrine we get from these 2 verses alone. First of all, it explicitly states Jesus is God. That should be good enough alone, but in case you want more, you can find out more in these 2 verses alone. Second, Jesus was with God. This means that despite Jesus being God, He’s not the exact same as Yahweh because He is God and He is with God. Already we have signs of trinity. Third, these verses state Jesus was present at the beginning. Remember, we’ve already said this beginning is before creation. So this verse shows us Jesus is as eternally past, eternally present and eternally future as Yahweh is. Already in two verses, John has de-bunked many incorrect beliefs about Jesus that could have floating around in his time. Jesus was 100% God. While Jesus was a man, He was not just a man. He was God. Jesus did not have a beginning. He is as eternal as His father is. While Jesus is God, He is also with God. So much correct theology standing in the face of bad doctrine. So we have our first God sighting within the first 2 verses of John. I’m going to make a list of these God Sightings we have in John 1, but I encourage you to make your own list to hold on to.
God Sightings in John 1
1. Jesus explicitly stated as God, and is seen with God in the beginning (vs. 1-2)
Before I go on, if you’re still not convinced with the first passage, think about it as a genealogy and compare it to the other genealogies of the other Gospels. You’re probably thinking, “You’re crazy. Only Matthew and Luke has genealogy.” No, as a matter of fact, all of them have genealogies, and they all point back to how the author is portraying Jesus. Matthew’s genealogy goes back to Abraham, tracing it through all the kings of Israel/Judah, especially Jesus. This is important to the Jewish reader of Matthew because it will prove Jesus is the Messiah through the Patriarchs who were promised the blessed seed of the covenant, which is the Messiah. Luke traces the genealogy all the way back to Adam. This not only shows the Adamic and Noahic Covenant on top of the Abrahamic and Davidic Covenant, but it also shows Luke’s Greek Gentile audience that Jesus isn’t just for Jews, but for everyone because he’s just as human as the Gentiles are (and Luke does show us Jesus is the Son of God because he reminds us Adam is technically the Son of God too). What about Mark and John? Well, you’re right Mark doesn’t have a genealogy, but it’s not like Mark forgot it. Remember Mark is trying to display a servant to his Roman audience. Does anyone care about a servant’s lineage? No. A servant/slave (the Greek word is the same) is considered property of the master, and thus has no lineage. So there’s no need for a lineage for the servant Jesus. But there is indeed a genealogy in John, and it’s right there in the first 2 verses. It’s a simple as this: God -->Jesus. God is the Father of Jesus. Jesus is the Son of God. But remember that “God the Father” and “Son of God” are not just title. Both are equally God and one in the same. So if it’s easier, replace the word “God” with “Yahweh.” Yahweh --> Jesus. Yahweh is the Father of Jesus, and Jesus is the Son of Yahweh.” John uses this simple genealogy to show his Christian audience Jesus is God.
We’ve seen how John has used the phrase “In the beginning” to get his audience, mainly the Jewish Christian audience thinking about the beginning of the world. And he even brought us back further with before the beginning. But he’s not trying fool us or deceive us. He really wants to bring us back to the “In the beginning” that we know of: The Creation. And it will only take another 2 verses to do so. Let’s look at John 1:3,4.
John 1:3,4-
“Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men.”
This is a Sunday School you were probably asked as early as preschool and it deserves a Sunday School answer. The question: “Who created the earth and everything in it?” The answer: “God.” Now let’s ask any Preschooler who has been well-raised in the church the question, “Is Jesus God?” and the church-raised Preschooler would probably be able to answer, “Yes.” Now put those 2 answers together, and you’ll probably get a true claim that you probably don’t think about a lot. It’s as simple as, “If X=Y, and Y=Z, then X=Z.” If we believe God created the world, and we believe Jesus is God, then we must believe that Jesus created the world. When we usually think about the creator of the universe, we uses think about Yahweh, or the Father, not Jesus. But it’s true, Jesus created the world. It’s not just a conclusion or an assumption out of logic. The Bible clearly defends Jesus as the creator of the universe. If you don’t know this out of memory, I would write the next sentence down, for it is important doctrine. There are 3 chapters in the New Testament that state Jesus as the creator of the universe: John 1, Colossians 1, Hebrews 1 (some would add Romans 1 as a 4th chapter, but that one takes a little bit of interpretation). But for John, simply stating Jesus as the creator is not enough. He also clearly states that Jesus is giver of life. No man can have life, whether it be physical life or spiritual life, without Him, God the Son. So we have our 2nd God Sighting, and that’s 2 God Sightings in 4 verses alone.
God Sightings in John 1
1. Jesus explicitly stated as God, and is seen with God in the beginning (vs. 1-2)
2. Jesus is the creator of the universe, and Jesus gives life (vs. 3-4)
One way to do storytelling is to give a summary of everything that is going to happen in the introduction, and in the body, show all it all plays out, with all the details. William Shakespeare does this in several of his plays. It would seem as if John does this in his introduction as well. From reading John 1:5-14, it seem like John is starting his Gospel in the same way. John 1:5-14 spells out how the narrative of the book will turn out. It will start with John the Baptist preparing the way for Jesus. Despite John’s preparations, the world did not recognize him, nor did it receive him. And we’ll see throughout the book of John people rejecting Jesus. But let’s get back to our immediate God Sightings.
John 1:15-34 zooms in and focuses on one character. It’s not Jesus, but rather it’s John the Baptist. You might remember in my John Introduction that I said the baptism of Jesus is not told in the book of John. So why have John the Baptist if we’re not going to talk about the baptism of Jesus? John (I hope you don’t get confused, but understand when I just say “John,” I mean John the son of Zebedee, the brother of James, the first cousin and disciples of Jesus) has an interesting way of telling us about John the Baptist. It’s almost like he talks about John the Baptist without Jesus. We’ll see John the Baptist before Jesus, preaching, teaching and answering questions. Then we see John the Baptist after Jesus, giving his testimony about Christ. Let me point out some key information. In John 1:19-28, priests and Levites are coming down to the Jordan River near Bethany to find out who this John the Baptist thinks he is and what authority John the Baptist thinks he can preach with. When they ask John the Baptist who he is, notice his answers get shorter every time: “I am not the Christ”…”I am not”…”No.” While John the Baptist has a very important role in preparing Christ’s arrival, John the Baptist is not interested in talking about himself. He much more rather talk about the Christ. His answers in verses 23 and 26 are very humble. He knows the importance of his position, but he humbly accepts his position.
John’s story telling gets interesting in John 1:29-34. Remember, there is no baptism story in John, but we get the before and after. In verses 29 to 30, John the Baptist sees Jesus coming and immediately recognizes who it is. But by the time we get to verse 31, all the action already happened. It’s almost like John the Baptist is saying to reader, “Aw man, you just missed it! It was so amazing!” and then John the Baptist goes on to describe what happened. Why doesn’t John just tell the story of the baptism of Jesus instead of John having someone tell the story after it happened? Because John is not focusing on the event itself, but rather the testimony that came from it. In fact, for the rest of the chapter, John is going to show the interactions between Jesus and people, and how each person testifies after meeting Jesus. The first one is John the Baptist. What is John the Baptist’s testimony? Not only does John the Baptist verify everything he said before Jesus was baptized, but then some more. In verse 29, John the Baptist calls Jesus “the Lamb of God,” recognizing Jesus as the ultimate sacrifice for our sins. In verse 30, John the Baptist calls Jesus “a man who comes after me [who] has surpassed me.” The Gospels tell us in both Matthew 11:11 and Luke 7:28 that John the Baptist is greater than any of the Patriarchs, Prophets or Kings of the Old Testament. For someone to come after John the Baptist to be greater, it’s got to be the ultimate Patriarch, Prophet and King, and that would be Jesus (this verse even hints at “messiah.”). Verses 32 and 33 acknowledge Jesus as the one with the greater baptism. But the key part of the testimony is last in verse 34, for it’s the whole reason John is writing the book. In verse 34, John the Baptist explicit calls Jesus the Son of God. With that, John the Baptist gives us our next God Sighting
God Sightings in John 1
1. Jesus explicitly stated as God, and is seen with God in the beginning (vs. 1-2)
2. Jesus is the creator of the universe, and Jesus gives life (vs. 3-4)
3. John the Baptist’s testimony: Lamb of God and Son of God (vs. 15-35)
John 1:35 overlaps the stories a bit. In verse 35, we are still with John the Baptist, declaring Jesus is the messiah. This time, John the Baptist is standing with two of John the Baptist’s disciples, probably Andrew and John (the son of Zebedee, the brother of James, the cousin of Jesus, the author of this book). And it is like John the Baptist is saying to them, “Look, the Messiah is here. What are doing still doing following me? Follow him!” And so in John 1:37, when the book of John tells us that the two disciples “followed” Jesus, it has a double meaning. First, it is to be taken literally, as these 2 men went from walking behind John the Baptist to walking behind Jesus. Second, it is to be taken figuratively, as on this day the 2 men ceased to be John the Baptist’s disciples and they became disciples of Jesus. In John 1:38, when Jesus turns to talk to James and John, the 2 men call him, “Rabbi,” which simply translated to teacher, but means much more than our heads can wrap around. A Rabbi was a teacher, but he was greater and higher than the typical teacher. A rabbi was a master teacher, so much that disciples (which disciples are students with greater dedication) would call their rabbi “master” as much as they would call him “teacher.” Rabbis were watched carefully and listened to carefully, for their knowledge and wisdom was known to be great. John and Andrew calling Jesus Rabbi is a strong testimony to Jesus being the Son of God. John the Baptist’s testimony that Jesus was the Son of God and the Lamb of God was all the convincing these 2 brothers needed to follow Jesus. And between John the Baptist’s testimony and just walking behind Jesus, they already recognized Jesus was a Rabbi, without Jesus needing credentials from anyone else. So I believe James and John’s Testimony is good enough for a God Sighting.
God Sightings in John 1
1. Jesus explicitly stated as God, and is seen with God in the beginning (vs. 1-2)
2. Jesus is the creator of the universe, and Jesus gives life (vs. 3-4)
3. John the Baptist’s testimony: Lamb of God and Son of God (vs. 15-35)
4. Andrew and John’s testimony: Rabbi (vs.35-39)
In John 1:40, we meet a new character: Andrew. Andrew is simply described as the brother of Simon Peter. From the New Testament, we know that Zebedee, the father of James and John, and John (yes, another John!), the father of Simon Peter and Andrew, worked together in the fishing business, in some kind of combined business. So obviously the 4 worked together fishing on a daily basis. It wouldn’t surprise me if one son of John got one son of Zebedee (or vice versa) interested in this John the Baptist, and then each brother got the other brother interested in John the Baptist. Well, the same is about to happen for Jesus. When Andrew gets back from spending a day with Jesus, the first thing he does is run to his brother Simon and excitedly declare, “We have found the messiah!” and he drags Simon to Jesus. At the first meeting, Jesus renames Simon to Peter, basically calling Peter to be his disciple. But let’s take a step back with Andrew. All Andrew needs is a testimony from John the Baptist to follow Jesus, and after spending one day with Jesus, combined with John the Baptist’s testimony, it’s enough for Andrew to believe Jesus is the Messiah. Andrew believes it so much that he drags his brother to Peter to go meet Jesus. And all Peter needs is his brother’s word to believe Jesus is the messiah. Andrew has a strong testimony for Jesus: messiah. Messiah is a Hebrew term. The Greek equivalent is Christ. No matter which word you choose, this person was suppose to be the one promised by God to save the people from sin and from evil. The children of Israel had been waiting over 2,000 years for this man, and now he’s finally come. If you remember our theme verse, John 20:31, John tells the reader he wrote this book to prove that Jesus is not only the Son of God, but also the Christ. Also remember how I said that the Jews believed that both titles went hand-in-hand. The messiah was to be the Son of God. So Andrew’s testimony, backed up by the reaction from Peter, is our next God Sighting in Jesus.
God Sightings in John 1
1. Jesus explicitly stated as God, and is seen with God in the beginning (vs. 1-2)
2. Jesus is the creator of the universe, and Jesus gives life (vs. 3-4)
3. John the Baptist’s testimony: Lamb of God and Son of God (vs. 15-35)
4. Andrew and John’s testimony: Rabbi (vs.35-39)
5. Andrew’s testimony: Messiah (vs. 40-42)
Philip, our next character, is introduced in John 1:43. The meeting is simple. Jesus walks by Philip, Jesus says, “Follow me,” and Philip follows. And before you know it, Philip also has a strong a testimony: “the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote.” The Bible doesn’t exactly say how Philip came to this conclusion. It could have been through the authority that Jesus called Philip by. Maybe, just like John and Andrew, after spending the day with Jesus, Philip could just tell. Perhaps it was through talking to John, James, Andrew and Simon Peter that Philip came to faith. Either way, Philip is sure this is the man the Moses talked about and the prophets talked about. It’s hard to pin down exactly what prophets Philip was talking about. Maybe it was the suffering servant in Isaiah. Maybe it was the Ancient of Days in Daniel. Perhaps it was the ruler in Micah or the king in Zechariah. It could have been all of these or it could have been none of these. Since we don’t know exactly, let’s focus less on the prophets and more on the one we know of the Lawgiver: Moses. It takes place in Deuteronomy. In Deuteronomy, the Israelites’ time of wandering is almost up, which also means the life of Moses is almost up. So for his last instruction, Moses is re-instructing the Law which he has already given (hence the book name Deuteronomy, meaning “Second Law”). In Deuteronomy 18:18,19, Moses foretells of a prophet that will be like him. Moses was a ruler, judge, Lawgiver, law-enforcer, priest and all around leader to the Israelite people. The prophet Moses foretells of will be like all of these things, clearly making him the Messiah. Since Deuteronomy, Israel has been waiting for this prophet. Philip recognizes Jesus is the fulfillment of the prophecy of Moses, and he’s got to tell everybody.
Before we check off Philip’s testimony on our list, let’s see the reaction of the testimony, just in case it’s significant to his testimony. Philip is so excited he tells Nathanael. Nathanael does not receive his friend’s testimony as willingly as everyone else. His reaction comes with skepticism. He yells, “Nazareth! What good could come from there?!” Although Galilee is north of Judea, the people of Galilee were like the “southerners” of Israel. They even had an accent to go along with it. And if Nathanael was told that the Messiah was coming from Nazareth, the epitome of the Galilean stereotype, it was like Nathanel was being told that his Messiah was a redneck, a hick! Nathanael would have nothing to do with that. But Jesus was about to turn that.
In verses 48 and 49 of John 1, Jesus reveals to Nathanael that He saw him before Nathanael knew Jesus or even before Philip knew Jesus. How can this be? Two words: Omnipresence and omniscience. Omnipresence is being all places at all times. Omniscience is being all-knowing. Jews and Christians alike ascribe omnipresence and omniscience to God. When Jesus shows he is omnipresent and omniscience by knowing where Nathanael is, He has proved to Nathanael, as well as the reader, that He is God. But to Nathanael He is not just God the Son or the Son of God, but also a Rabbi and the king of Israel.
Let me close with the closing verse of the chapter, John 1:51.
God Sightings in John 1
1. Jesus explicitly stated as God, and is seen with God in the beginning (vs. 1-2)
2. Jesus is the creator of the universe, and Jesus gives life (vs. 3-4)
3. John the Baptist’s testimony: Lamb of God and Son of God (vs. 15-35)
4. Andrew and John’s testimony: Rabbi (vs.35-39)
5. Andrew’s testimony: Messiah (vs. 40-42)
6. Philip’s testimony: The One Moses and the Prophets foretold (vs. 43-46)
7. Nathanael’s testimony: Rabbi, Son of God, King of Israel (vs. 46-49)
John 1:51-
He then added, “I tell you the truth, you shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”
There’s a couple interesting points to point out. First, you might note your Bible has a footnote connected to the word “you” that says, “The Greek [you] is plural.” I never understood that…until I took Greek and now I get it! While English has a second person, the word “you,” for both singular and plural, the word “you” in Greek changes, based on whether it is singular or plural. The difference between the singular version of “you” and the plural version of “you” is, as the Southerners would say, “you and you all (y’all).” Why is this significant? If Jesus was simply talking to Nathanael, the singular form of you would be in there. But instead, we have a plural form. He must be talking to more than one. In the immediate context, it’s most likely his small crowd of followers: James, John, Andrew, Simon Peter and Philip. But maybe he’s almost addressing us, the reader, directly. And he viritually says, “This is nothing. You’re going to see greater things than this.” And he uses a certain term that sticks out: Son of Man. In Bible terms, as well as our terms, it is a reminder of the humanity of Jesus. But “Son of Man” has links to a lot of apocryphal works. The Old Testament prophets, like Daniel, give the title “Son of Man” to the Messiah in the end times. This is the first time in John we hear the term “Son of Man,” and it’s Jesus himself using that term. With such strong links to eschatological works in the Old Testament, I believe that Jesus has given us a self-testimony that He is God. If that’s not enough proof, I believe heaven opening and angels ascending and descending would be. So our list moves up to 8 God Sightings.
God Sightings in John 1
1. Jesus explicitly stated as God, and is seen with God in the beginning (vs. 1-2)
2. Jesus is the creator of the universe, and Jesus gives life (vs. 3-4)
3. John the Baptist’s testimony: Lamb of God and Son of God (vs. 15-35)
4. Andrew and John’s testimony: Rabbi (vs.35-39)
5. Andrew’s testimony: Messiah (vs. 40-42)
6. Philip’s testimony: The One Moses and the Prophets foretold (vs. 43-46)
7. Nathanael’s testimony: Rabbi, Son of God, King of Israel (vs. 46-49)
8. Jesus gives a self-testimony: Son of Man (vs. 50-51)
So 51 verses later, we have 8 God Sightings, or 8 times/ways we can see Jesus as God the Son. 6 of which are explicitly spoken testimonies, but if you really think about it, John is writing this book, and this Gospel book is the closest we’ll get to a 1st person testimony, so the first 2 God Sightings could be considered a testimony from John. So far, not only does Jesus Himself declare He is God, but John the Baptist, John, Andrew, Philip and Nathanael all claim Jesus is God. By the end of the first chapter alone, John already has a convincing argument that Jesus is indeed God the Son, and someone might already believe by just reading only the first chapter of John. But we can’t quit now, we got 20 more chapters to go! Stay tuned for John 2 to see how Jesus continues to reveal himself as God.
Ah, but where do you begin? Where does one begin a story? Storytellers have started stories in all different places. Some start stories before the action takes place. In the first movie of the Back to the Future triology, Marty McFly merely goes on his day like a typical 80’s teenager: school and chores at Doc Brown’s house. Some other stories begin right in the middle of the action. Many movies of the Star Wars saga start in the middle of a fight. Episode One starts with negotiation talks gone violent; Episode Three begins with a battle in the Clone War; Episode Five begin with the Rebels desperately trying to defend their base on a frozen planet. Some even start after the action. These books, movies or TV series rely on flashbacks to tell the story in full. Think about Disney’s The Emperor’s New Groove. The movie begins with a sad llama, who seems to be very human-like, crawling in the rain. Why is the llama crawling through the rain? Why is the llama sad? How did it get there? These questions are answered through flashbacks full of action, but by this point, the action has passed. Stories can start at many different points, and where the story starts may even reflect the message the storyteller is getting across.
Let’s get back to the Bible. We have 4 Gospel books, 4 Gospel authors, and 4 different starts to the Gospel narrative. Let’s start with Mark, since his Gospel account came first. Remember Mark is writing to the Romans, who want an action packed story. So Mark starts right away with an adult Jesus preaching his authoritative message performing powerful miracles. Sure, there are quick blurbs on John the Baptist, as well as the baptism and temptation of Jesus, but they are literally short blurbs, quickly thrown in just to set a little background information. Matthew has, in a way, 2 starts. The first start goes all the way back to Abraham, and traces Jesus from Abraham through David (and ultimately tracing Jesus as a fulfillment of the Abrahamic Covenant and David Covenant). The second start is in a more immediate context, with the announcement of Christ’s birth to both Mary and Joseph, followed by the birth itself. Luke wants begin further back than the birth or the annunciation of the birth of Jesus, but he doesn’t want his start go back as far as Matthew did (although he will put in his genealogy later, but we’ll talk about that later). So Luke believes the best way to begin an “orderly account” is to begin with annunciation and miraculous birth of the Preparer of the Christ, and how it interlinked with the annunciation and miraculous birth of the Christ. So where is John going to begin his Gospel narrative? In the beginning!
“In the beginning…” How would you complete that? Well, alright, most of you know this is a Bible study on John and have read John 1 to know where I’m going with this and how to complete, so never mind on how you would complete it. But if I were to do a Bible version of Jay Leno’s “Jay-walking” (if you don’t know what that is, go look it up on YouTube) among Christians in church, how do you think they would complete that phrase? Most of them probably would complete it, “In the beginning…God created the heavens and the earth.” There’s nothing wrong with that. It would be right. In fact, I bet if you were a 1st Century Jewish Christian, you would complete the phrase in the same exact way. Both of you are quoting Genesis 1:1, which both of you can recognize from learning it so young. So that is why John chose to begin his Gospel with those 3 words: “In the beginning.” He knew his Jewish Christian audience would immediately be thinking about Genesis and the Creation story. He wants his reader in that mindset. But read closely, and you’ll realize he’s actually bringing you further back than this. I won’t do this for every verse in John, but the important verse I really want to zoom in on and focus on I will put in this devotional commentary. So let’s take a close look.
John 1:1,2-
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.”
John’s beginning is not with a birth or the announcement of a birth. It doesn’t begin with someone preparing the way. It doesn’t begin with a Patriarch, like Abraham or David. It doesn’t begin with the fall of man and the need for a Savior. It doesn’t even begin with the creation of the earth. It begins with the Word. From further reading of this chapter, the reader understand that this Word is Jesus. Jesus is the Word incarnate. Look at the doctrine we get from these 2 verses alone. First of all, it explicitly states Jesus is God. That should be good enough alone, but in case you want more, you can find out more in these 2 verses alone. Second, Jesus was with God. This means that despite Jesus being God, He’s not the exact same as Yahweh because He is God and He is with God. Already we have signs of trinity. Third, these verses state Jesus was present at the beginning. Remember, we’ve already said this beginning is before creation. So this verse shows us Jesus is as eternally past, eternally present and eternally future as Yahweh is. Already in two verses, John has de-bunked many incorrect beliefs about Jesus that could have floating around in his time. Jesus was 100% God. While Jesus was a man, He was not just a man. He was God. Jesus did not have a beginning. He is as eternal as His father is. While Jesus is God, He is also with God. So much correct theology standing in the face of bad doctrine. So we have our first God sighting within the first 2 verses of John. I’m going to make a list of these God Sightings we have in John 1, but I encourage you to make your own list to hold on to.
God Sightings in John 1
1. Jesus explicitly stated as God, and is seen with God in the beginning (vs. 1-2)
Before I go on, if you’re still not convinced with the first passage, think about it as a genealogy and compare it to the other genealogies of the other Gospels. You’re probably thinking, “You’re crazy. Only Matthew and Luke has genealogy.” No, as a matter of fact, all of them have genealogies, and they all point back to how the author is portraying Jesus. Matthew’s genealogy goes back to Abraham, tracing it through all the kings of Israel/Judah, especially Jesus. This is important to the Jewish reader of Matthew because it will prove Jesus is the Messiah through the Patriarchs who were promised the blessed seed of the covenant, which is the Messiah. Luke traces the genealogy all the way back to Adam. This not only shows the Adamic and Noahic Covenant on top of the Abrahamic and Davidic Covenant, but it also shows Luke’s Greek Gentile audience that Jesus isn’t just for Jews, but for everyone because he’s just as human as the Gentiles are (and Luke does show us Jesus is the Son of God because he reminds us Adam is technically the Son of God too). What about Mark and John? Well, you’re right Mark doesn’t have a genealogy, but it’s not like Mark forgot it. Remember Mark is trying to display a servant to his Roman audience. Does anyone care about a servant’s lineage? No. A servant/slave (the Greek word is the same) is considered property of the master, and thus has no lineage. So there’s no need for a lineage for the servant Jesus. But there is indeed a genealogy in John, and it’s right there in the first 2 verses. It’s a simple as this: God -->Jesus. God is the Father of Jesus. Jesus is the Son of God. But remember that “God the Father” and “Son of God” are not just title. Both are equally God and one in the same. So if it’s easier, replace the word “God” with “Yahweh.” Yahweh --> Jesus. Yahweh is the Father of Jesus, and Jesus is the Son of Yahweh.” John uses this simple genealogy to show his Christian audience Jesus is God.
We’ve seen how John has used the phrase “In the beginning” to get his audience, mainly the Jewish Christian audience thinking about the beginning of the world. And he even brought us back further with before the beginning. But he’s not trying fool us or deceive us. He really wants to bring us back to the “In the beginning” that we know of: The Creation. And it will only take another 2 verses to do so. Let’s look at John 1:3,4.
John 1:3,4-
“Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men.”
This is a Sunday School you were probably asked as early as preschool and it deserves a Sunday School answer. The question: “Who created the earth and everything in it?” The answer: “God.” Now let’s ask any Preschooler who has been well-raised in the church the question, “Is Jesus God?” and the church-raised Preschooler would probably be able to answer, “Yes.” Now put those 2 answers together, and you’ll probably get a true claim that you probably don’t think about a lot. It’s as simple as, “If X=Y, and Y=Z, then X=Z.” If we believe God created the world, and we believe Jesus is God, then we must believe that Jesus created the world. When we usually think about the creator of the universe, we uses think about Yahweh, or the Father, not Jesus. But it’s true, Jesus created the world. It’s not just a conclusion or an assumption out of logic. The Bible clearly defends Jesus as the creator of the universe. If you don’t know this out of memory, I would write the next sentence down, for it is important doctrine. There are 3 chapters in the New Testament that state Jesus as the creator of the universe: John 1, Colossians 1, Hebrews 1 (some would add Romans 1 as a 4th chapter, but that one takes a little bit of interpretation). But for John, simply stating Jesus as the creator is not enough. He also clearly states that Jesus is giver of life. No man can have life, whether it be physical life or spiritual life, without Him, God the Son. So we have our 2nd God Sighting, and that’s 2 God Sightings in 4 verses alone.
God Sightings in John 1
1. Jesus explicitly stated as God, and is seen with God in the beginning (vs. 1-2)
2. Jesus is the creator of the universe, and Jesus gives life (vs. 3-4)
One way to do storytelling is to give a summary of everything that is going to happen in the introduction, and in the body, show all it all plays out, with all the details. William Shakespeare does this in several of his plays. It would seem as if John does this in his introduction as well. From reading John 1:5-14, it seem like John is starting his Gospel in the same way. John 1:5-14 spells out how the narrative of the book will turn out. It will start with John the Baptist preparing the way for Jesus. Despite John’s preparations, the world did not recognize him, nor did it receive him. And we’ll see throughout the book of John people rejecting Jesus. But let’s get back to our immediate God Sightings.
John 1:15-34 zooms in and focuses on one character. It’s not Jesus, but rather it’s John the Baptist. You might remember in my John Introduction that I said the baptism of Jesus is not told in the book of John. So why have John the Baptist if we’re not going to talk about the baptism of Jesus? John (I hope you don’t get confused, but understand when I just say “John,” I mean John the son of Zebedee, the brother of James, the first cousin and disciples of Jesus) has an interesting way of telling us about John the Baptist. It’s almost like he talks about John the Baptist without Jesus. We’ll see John the Baptist before Jesus, preaching, teaching and answering questions. Then we see John the Baptist after Jesus, giving his testimony about Christ. Let me point out some key information. In John 1:19-28, priests and Levites are coming down to the Jordan River near Bethany to find out who this John the Baptist thinks he is and what authority John the Baptist thinks he can preach with. When they ask John the Baptist who he is, notice his answers get shorter every time: “I am not the Christ”…”I am not”…”No.” While John the Baptist has a very important role in preparing Christ’s arrival, John the Baptist is not interested in talking about himself. He much more rather talk about the Christ. His answers in verses 23 and 26 are very humble. He knows the importance of his position, but he humbly accepts his position.
John’s story telling gets interesting in John 1:29-34. Remember, there is no baptism story in John, but we get the before and after. In verses 29 to 30, John the Baptist sees Jesus coming and immediately recognizes who it is. But by the time we get to verse 31, all the action already happened. It’s almost like John the Baptist is saying to reader, “Aw man, you just missed it! It was so amazing!” and then John the Baptist goes on to describe what happened. Why doesn’t John just tell the story of the baptism of Jesus instead of John having someone tell the story after it happened? Because John is not focusing on the event itself, but rather the testimony that came from it. In fact, for the rest of the chapter, John is going to show the interactions between Jesus and people, and how each person testifies after meeting Jesus. The first one is John the Baptist. What is John the Baptist’s testimony? Not only does John the Baptist verify everything he said before Jesus was baptized, but then some more. In verse 29, John the Baptist calls Jesus “the Lamb of God,” recognizing Jesus as the ultimate sacrifice for our sins. In verse 30, John the Baptist calls Jesus “a man who comes after me [who] has surpassed me.” The Gospels tell us in both Matthew 11:11 and Luke 7:28 that John the Baptist is greater than any of the Patriarchs, Prophets or Kings of the Old Testament. For someone to come after John the Baptist to be greater, it’s got to be the ultimate Patriarch, Prophet and King, and that would be Jesus (this verse even hints at “messiah.”). Verses 32 and 33 acknowledge Jesus as the one with the greater baptism. But the key part of the testimony is last in verse 34, for it’s the whole reason John is writing the book. In verse 34, John the Baptist explicit calls Jesus the Son of God. With that, John the Baptist gives us our next God Sighting
God Sightings in John 1
1. Jesus explicitly stated as God, and is seen with God in the beginning (vs. 1-2)
2. Jesus is the creator of the universe, and Jesus gives life (vs. 3-4)
3. John the Baptist’s testimony: Lamb of God and Son of God (vs. 15-35)
John 1:35 overlaps the stories a bit. In verse 35, we are still with John the Baptist, declaring Jesus is the messiah. This time, John the Baptist is standing with two of John the Baptist’s disciples, probably Andrew and John (the son of Zebedee, the brother of James, the cousin of Jesus, the author of this book). And it is like John the Baptist is saying to them, “Look, the Messiah is here. What are doing still doing following me? Follow him!” And so in John 1:37, when the book of John tells us that the two disciples “followed” Jesus, it has a double meaning. First, it is to be taken literally, as these 2 men went from walking behind John the Baptist to walking behind Jesus. Second, it is to be taken figuratively, as on this day the 2 men ceased to be John the Baptist’s disciples and they became disciples of Jesus. In John 1:38, when Jesus turns to talk to James and John, the 2 men call him, “Rabbi,” which simply translated to teacher, but means much more than our heads can wrap around. A Rabbi was a teacher, but he was greater and higher than the typical teacher. A rabbi was a master teacher, so much that disciples (which disciples are students with greater dedication) would call their rabbi “master” as much as they would call him “teacher.” Rabbis were watched carefully and listened to carefully, for their knowledge and wisdom was known to be great. John and Andrew calling Jesus Rabbi is a strong testimony to Jesus being the Son of God. John the Baptist’s testimony that Jesus was the Son of God and the Lamb of God was all the convincing these 2 brothers needed to follow Jesus. And between John the Baptist’s testimony and just walking behind Jesus, they already recognized Jesus was a Rabbi, without Jesus needing credentials from anyone else. So I believe James and John’s Testimony is good enough for a God Sighting.
God Sightings in John 1
1. Jesus explicitly stated as God, and is seen with God in the beginning (vs. 1-2)
2. Jesus is the creator of the universe, and Jesus gives life (vs. 3-4)
3. John the Baptist’s testimony: Lamb of God and Son of God (vs. 15-35)
4. Andrew and John’s testimony: Rabbi (vs.35-39)
In John 1:40, we meet a new character: Andrew. Andrew is simply described as the brother of Simon Peter. From the New Testament, we know that Zebedee, the father of James and John, and John (yes, another John!), the father of Simon Peter and Andrew, worked together in the fishing business, in some kind of combined business. So obviously the 4 worked together fishing on a daily basis. It wouldn’t surprise me if one son of John got one son of Zebedee (or vice versa) interested in this John the Baptist, and then each brother got the other brother interested in John the Baptist. Well, the same is about to happen for Jesus. When Andrew gets back from spending a day with Jesus, the first thing he does is run to his brother Simon and excitedly declare, “We have found the messiah!” and he drags Simon to Jesus. At the first meeting, Jesus renames Simon to Peter, basically calling Peter to be his disciple. But let’s take a step back with Andrew. All Andrew needs is a testimony from John the Baptist to follow Jesus, and after spending one day with Jesus, combined with John the Baptist’s testimony, it’s enough for Andrew to believe Jesus is the Messiah. Andrew believes it so much that he drags his brother to Peter to go meet Jesus. And all Peter needs is his brother’s word to believe Jesus is the messiah. Andrew has a strong testimony for Jesus: messiah. Messiah is a Hebrew term. The Greek equivalent is Christ. No matter which word you choose, this person was suppose to be the one promised by God to save the people from sin and from evil. The children of Israel had been waiting over 2,000 years for this man, and now he’s finally come. If you remember our theme verse, John 20:31, John tells the reader he wrote this book to prove that Jesus is not only the Son of God, but also the Christ. Also remember how I said that the Jews believed that both titles went hand-in-hand. The messiah was to be the Son of God. So Andrew’s testimony, backed up by the reaction from Peter, is our next God Sighting in Jesus.
God Sightings in John 1
1. Jesus explicitly stated as God, and is seen with God in the beginning (vs. 1-2)
2. Jesus is the creator of the universe, and Jesus gives life (vs. 3-4)
3. John the Baptist’s testimony: Lamb of God and Son of God (vs. 15-35)
4. Andrew and John’s testimony: Rabbi (vs.35-39)
5. Andrew’s testimony: Messiah (vs. 40-42)
Philip, our next character, is introduced in John 1:43. The meeting is simple. Jesus walks by Philip, Jesus says, “Follow me,” and Philip follows. And before you know it, Philip also has a strong a testimony: “the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote.” The Bible doesn’t exactly say how Philip came to this conclusion. It could have been through the authority that Jesus called Philip by. Maybe, just like John and Andrew, after spending the day with Jesus, Philip could just tell. Perhaps it was through talking to John, James, Andrew and Simon Peter that Philip came to faith. Either way, Philip is sure this is the man the Moses talked about and the prophets talked about. It’s hard to pin down exactly what prophets Philip was talking about. Maybe it was the suffering servant in Isaiah. Maybe it was the Ancient of Days in Daniel. Perhaps it was the ruler in Micah or the king in Zechariah. It could have been all of these or it could have been none of these. Since we don’t know exactly, let’s focus less on the prophets and more on the one we know of the Lawgiver: Moses. It takes place in Deuteronomy. In Deuteronomy, the Israelites’ time of wandering is almost up, which also means the life of Moses is almost up. So for his last instruction, Moses is re-instructing the Law which he has already given (hence the book name Deuteronomy, meaning “Second Law”). In Deuteronomy 18:18,19, Moses foretells of a prophet that will be like him. Moses was a ruler, judge, Lawgiver, law-enforcer, priest and all around leader to the Israelite people. The prophet Moses foretells of will be like all of these things, clearly making him the Messiah. Since Deuteronomy, Israel has been waiting for this prophet. Philip recognizes Jesus is the fulfillment of the prophecy of Moses, and he’s got to tell everybody.
Before we check off Philip’s testimony on our list, let’s see the reaction of the testimony, just in case it’s significant to his testimony. Philip is so excited he tells Nathanael. Nathanael does not receive his friend’s testimony as willingly as everyone else. His reaction comes with skepticism. He yells, “Nazareth! What good could come from there?!” Although Galilee is north of Judea, the people of Galilee were like the “southerners” of Israel. They even had an accent to go along with it. And if Nathanael was told that the Messiah was coming from Nazareth, the epitome of the Galilean stereotype, it was like Nathanel was being told that his Messiah was a redneck, a hick! Nathanael would have nothing to do with that. But Jesus was about to turn that.
In verses 48 and 49 of John 1, Jesus reveals to Nathanael that He saw him before Nathanael knew Jesus or even before Philip knew Jesus. How can this be? Two words: Omnipresence and omniscience. Omnipresence is being all places at all times. Omniscience is being all-knowing. Jews and Christians alike ascribe omnipresence and omniscience to God. When Jesus shows he is omnipresent and omniscience by knowing where Nathanael is, He has proved to Nathanael, as well as the reader, that He is God. But to Nathanael He is not just God the Son or the Son of God, but also a Rabbi and the king of Israel.
Let me close with the closing verse of the chapter, John 1:51.
God Sightings in John 1
1. Jesus explicitly stated as God, and is seen with God in the beginning (vs. 1-2)
2. Jesus is the creator of the universe, and Jesus gives life (vs. 3-4)
3. John the Baptist’s testimony: Lamb of God and Son of God (vs. 15-35)
4. Andrew and John’s testimony: Rabbi (vs.35-39)
5. Andrew’s testimony: Messiah (vs. 40-42)
6. Philip’s testimony: The One Moses and the Prophets foretold (vs. 43-46)
7. Nathanael’s testimony: Rabbi, Son of God, King of Israel (vs. 46-49)
John 1:51-
He then added, “I tell you the truth, you shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”
There’s a couple interesting points to point out. First, you might note your Bible has a footnote connected to the word “you” that says, “The Greek [you] is plural.” I never understood that…until I took Greek and now I get it! While English has a second person, the word “you,” for both singular and plural, the word “you” in Greek changes, based on whether it is singular or plural. The difference between the singular version of “you” and the plural version of “you” is, as the Southerners would say, “you and you all (y’all).” Why is this significant? If Jesus was simply talking to Nathanael, the singular form of you would be in there. But instead, we have a plural form. He must be talking to more than one. In the immediate context, it’s most likely his small crowd of followers: James, John, Andrew, Simon Peter and Philip. But maybe he’s almost addressing us, the reader, directly. And he viritually says, “This is nothing. You’re going to see greater things than this.” And he uses a certain term that sticks out: Son of Man. In Bible terms, as well as our terms, it is a reminder of the humanity of Jesus. But “Son of Man” has links to a lot of apocryphal works. The Old Testament prophets, like Daniel, give the title “Son of Man” to the Messiah in the end times. This is the first time in John we hear the term “Son of Man,” and it’s Jesus himself using that term. With such strong links to eschatological works in the Old Testament, I believe that Jesus has given us a self-testimony that He is God. If that’s not enough proof, I believe heaven opening and angels ascending and descending would be. So our list moves up to 8 God Sightings.
God Sightings in John 1
1. Jesus explicitly stated as God, and is seen with God in the beginning (vs. 1-2)
2. Jesus is the creator of the universe, and Jesus gives life (vs. 3-4)
3. John the Baptist’s testimony: Lamb of God and Son of God (vs. 15-35)
4. Andrew and John’s testimony: Rabbi (vs.35-39)
5. Andrew’s testimony: Messiah (vs. 40-42)
6. Philip’s testimony: The One Moses and the Prophets foretold (vs. 43-46)
7. Nathanael’s testimony: Rabbi, Son of God, King of Israel (vs. 46-49)
8. Jesus gives a self-testimony: Son of Man (vs. 50-51)
So 51 verses later, we have 8 God Sightings, or 8 times/ways we can see Jesus as God the Son. 6 of which are explicitly spoken testimonies, but if you really think about it, John is writing this book, and this Gospel book is the closest we’ll get to a 1st person testimony, so the first 2 God Sightings could be considered a testimony from John. So far, not only does Jesus Himself declare He is God, but John the Baptist, John, Andrew, Philip and Nathanael all claim Jesus is God. By the end of the first chapter alone, John already has a convincing argument that Jesus is indeed God the Son, and someone might already believe by just reading only the first chapter of John. But we can’t quit now, we got 20 more chapters to go! Stay tuned for John 2 to see how Jesus continues to reveal himself as God.
Monday, January 02, 2012
John 0: An Introduction
In accordance with my New Year’s Resolution, this post will officially begin my devotional commentary on the Gospel of John. But we’re not going to dive into the chapters just yet. Consider this a “prequel,” or better stated, an introduction. I believe it is appropriate to go over the background information to set the scene. Yeah, it’s not absolutely necessary to know all these facts, but to quote the title of a Gordon D. Fee and Douglas Stuart book on Bible Hermeneutics, if we really want to read the Bible for all its worth, the background information can really open up our eyes to smaller details we may not have noticed. We can learn a lot more about our God and apply the Scriptures for a deeper use then.
When I would teach Bible class, I would tell my students to discover the background information, we must be like good reporters and ask the right questions. You know what I’m talking about. Those question words, like, who, whom, what, where, when, why and how. You might have noticed I included in another word: whom. And technically, the difference between “who” and “whom” is the subject and the object. But the difference is important. Let me make it short and simple for you
WHO = AUTHOR of the book
WHOM = AUDIENCE, the original one, the first readers of the book
WHEN = THE DATE the book was written
WHERE = THE LOCATION of where the book was written and where it takes place
WHAT = HISTORICAL OCCASION, or what happened to cause the author to write
WHY = THE PURPOSE of the author writing to the audience
HOW = THE STRUCTURE, which could be an outline or writing methods
All 7 pieces are key to understanding the basic background information for any book of the Bible. For the Gospels, there needs to be another key aspect to look at. There’s no question word that would cover it, but if there is a non-question word, it would be PORTRAYAL, which is how the Gospel book portrays the character of Jesus. It could technically be a combination of the purpose and the structure, for the portrayal will be seen in both of them. We’ll talk more about it when we get to it. So which one shall we start off with? Well, if you remember your elementary English/Literature class, the setting of the story is where and when it happened. So let’s start with the setting, since the setting will place the characters in context.
THE LOCATION WHERE the Gospel of John was written was most likely Ephesus, but other scholars have suggested Alexandria and Antioch. But what’s more important than where the book was written is where the stories in the book take place. Most of the synoptic books simply show a steady path from Galilee to Samaria, to Judea, and then more specifically Jerusalem for the Passion Week. But John’s Gospel is not as simple as that. John has Jesus all over the place. For example, on top of having Jesus in Galilee, Samaria and Judea, he has Jesus in areas east of the Jordan River, such as Perea and Decapolis. And sometimes he’ll even be more specific on locations than the other Gospel writers are. Where Matthew, Mark, or Luke will just say what region Jesus is in, John will give the specific town. John will also spend more time in some regions that the other Gospel writers have. Whereas the synoptic gospel writers show Jesus mostly in Galilee, John has Jesus mostly in Judea, or more specifically, Jerusalem.
THE DATE WHEN the Gospel of John was written was between 85 to 95 A.D. Some scholars have tried to place the Gospel of John before 70 A.D. because one would assume that John would mention the Destruction of the Temple or the Fall of Jerusalem if the book was written after these events. While John does not explicitly mention these events, it doesn’t necessarily mean they didn’t happen. Someone could argue that they did happen because John does focus a lot on the time that Jesus and His Disciples were in Jerusalem, and John also includes much dialogue about the temple. John may not explicitly record, “And this was in fulfillment of the prophecy that the temple would be destroyed and the city would fall,” but mentioning both the city and the temple implicitly gives almost a spooky irony to its fate. So it has to be after 70 A.D. It can’t be later than 95 A.D. because John is believed to have died in 98 A.D. But let’s not linger any more on the debate of the date, but instead accept 85-95 AD as the date, and discuss its importance.
The date does have great significance. Being written in the late 80s or early 90s, the Gospel of John is the last Gospel to be written. It is safe to say that Matthew and Luke have been written for at least 5 years and Mark for at least 20 years. Each of those gospels have been floating around to several churches in the Roman Empire. So John is well aware that the Christians in these churches know well the more famous stories of Jesus, like the feeding of the 5,000 and the calming of the storm. So instead of repeating them in synoptic gospel like Matthew, Mark and Luke did, John will write a supplemental gospel. What is a supplemental gospel? For that, we must talk about how John structured his Gospel book. But we don’t have quite enough information yet. The structure won’t make any sense until we know whom the audience was, what was the historical occasion that caused John to write was, or why John chose the purpose He did. But before we get to that, let’s talk about this John man whose name I keep throwing around.
THE AUTHOR WHO wrote the book was John, just like the title of the book tells us. But there are quite a few Johns. No, this is not John, also known as Mark. If you read the post I made in December, we already talked about him. No, this is not John, the father of Peter. No, this is not the John in Acts 4:8 who is in the family of the high priests. And this is definitely not John the Baptist, the son of Zechariah, the second cousin of Jesus. This is John, the son of Zebedee, the first cousin of Jesus. And with that last statement, you got two facts about his family history. Let me throw in a third: his brother was James (and there’s 4 men named James in the Bible, but that’s a different discussion for a different day). John started out his life in the family trade of fishing with his father Zebedee and his brother James. Everyone knows John and James were disciples of Jesus, but not everyone remembers that John and James were first disciples of John the Baptist. Being disciples of John the Baptist, they were probably baptized by John the Baptist and they probably listened carefully to his preaching about repentance and the coming Messiah. Yet their following wasn’t too serious, as it seems like they followed him on the side and stayed focus on their job trade. This seems also true of being disciples to Jesus. When John points the two of them out to Jesus Christ in John 1, they follow him a bit and even acknowledged Jesus as a Rabbi, but then they went back to fishing. It wasn’t until Matthew 4 that Jesus needs to call them to follow to get through their thick skulls to stay with him longer. John, along with his brother James and Peter, were among the 3 disciples in the inner circle of disciples, who were the closest of Jesus, perhaps because they were the first ones called to be disciples. They got to see special events, like the raising of Jairus’s daughter, the transfiguration, and they got to be closer to Jesus in Gethsemane. John seems to go a bit further in and say he was the closest of even the three of them, calling himself in his Gospel book, “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” A lot of people have brought criticism towards John and the inspiration of this book, claiming it’s falsely representing Jesus showing favoritism. But all 4 Gospels clearly show Jesus had the inner group of Peter, James and John, and no one criticizes those books for that. Instead, I like to say that really shows us the humanity side of the inspiration of the Scriptures. Remember, the Scriptures were written by men just as much as they were written by God, and it can be seen through the different books and different authors. The title is merely showing John’s flavor in his writing. We’ll talk more about that “flavor” in the structure, but let’s go back to the inner circle of 3. This inner circle of 3 will stay tight until the end. When we see John in Acts, he’ll always be with Peter. From Acts, John will go on to write this Gospel book, 3 epistles, and he’ll write the apocalyptic book of Revelation when he exiled to Patmos. There are other small details I could go through, but we’ll hit them when we actually read through the book.
THE AUDIENCE WHOM John originally intended was Christians. Yes, Christians. Not a certain gender, race, ethnic group, culture or religion, but Christians This is interesting because John is considered a evangelistic book, or a good book to use to evangelize, or share the gospel message. While I do believe this is true, I do believe this book is more intended for discipleship reasons. Many of the reasons I will talk about in the structure, but one reason I will hit on I already mentioned in the date. This Gospel book was one of the last Gospel books written. John assumes that the reader has already read or heard about the stories of Jesus from that book. So John also assumes (and some would say this is a big assumption) that through reading or hearing those stories, you have made a decision to follow Jesus and have become a Christian (seriously, John believes the gospel message is so powerful it will do that). Once again, John knows the reader knows the popular stories. So he will leave most of them out (unless they pertain to his message) and put in new stories, which will only be beneficial for someone who wants to continue and advance his or her faith. Now if you remember, Matthew is written to Jews, Mark is written to Romans, and Luke is written to Greeks. John is well aware that the converts to Christianity are not only Jews, but Roman, Greek and other Gentiles. So John is going to reach out to those 3 main groups in the same way the synoptic authors did. We’ll talk more about that in the structure, but first you have to wonder, “Why would John write a Gospel for Christians if they already know the stories of Jesus, the gospel message, and they are already saved?” That will be answered next, in the historical occasion.
THE HISTORICAL OCCASION is WHAT was happening in that setting that caused the author (John) to write his book. The best way to explain this is to use Family Guy (who would ever think Family Guy could be used in a commentary, devotional or Bible introduction?) In an episode of Family Guy, Peter Griffin invents his own religion of Happy Days-ism, where the Fonz is worshipped. The rest of the Griffin family tries to get Peter to stop, but only the dog Brian is successful. How is he successful? To loosely quote him, he tells Peter, “Whenever a new religion becomes popular, copycats always follow,” and he brings in copycats to take Peter’s congregation away (for example, Brian brings in Gavin McCloud to lead the parishioners to Love Boat-ism). Well, it was true 2000 years earlier. Even though Christianity was still a minority and still facing persecution, it was growing in popularity. With growth like that, copycats jumped on board to make Christian-like cults to get people to join. The biggest one was Gnosticism, a cult which name comes from the Greek word gnosko, which means “to know.” Gnosticism combined two popular beliefs systems of the day: Christianity and Greek philosophy. The popular Greek philosophy of the day was that the body was bad, but the spirit/soul was good. Let me simplify that for you. Body = Bad, Soul/Spirit = Good. So the goal in Gnosticism was to free your soul from your body. Your first reaction might be, “Well, that’s easy, just commit suicide!” which might be followed by your second reaction, “Well, that’s stupid, a religion that convinces you to commit suicide.” But it’s not that easy, and they thought up a way that wasn’t stupid to them. You had to find a way to free your soul from your body while your body was alive. You couldn’t just commit suicide, for if you died before you figured out how to free your soul, your soul would be eternally stuck in your body. After all, a dead body is useless for anything, so there’s no way your spirit could find a way out. So how do you free your soul from your body? By learning a secret knowledge (hence the name Gnosticism). This where the Christianity side of Gnosticism steps in. The Gnostics believed that Jesus knew this secret knowledge. Jesus learned this secret knowledge and taught His disciples this secret knowledge. Now, of course, if you ask them, Jesus taught the secret knowledge, well, in secret, to his disciples. And the synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke only record the public teachings of Jesus. So if you want to use those books to learn the secret knowledge, you have read into the text deeper. You have to take everything Jesus says as a metaphor, with some kind of symbolic meaning (in Bible hermeneutics, we call this the allegorical approach to the Scriptures). Some Gnostics were even going as far writing their own gospels, claiming that they were from people close to Jesus, like Thomas, Judas and Mary, who heard this secret knowledge being taught by Jesus when they were in secret meetings. But the real kicker is what they claimed about Jesus and His being. To be the ultimate example to humans on how to use this secret knowledge to free your soul from your body, Jesus was only human. They believed that Jesus was not God at all, but just a human. Furthermore, they believe when Jesus died on the cross, He freed his soul from his body. Therefore, they believe it was only in spirit Jesus raised from the dead. You can already see two big contradictions from true Christianity. Christianity believes Jesus is fully God and fully man, while Gnosticism believes Jesus was only a man who ultimately achieved perfection by being a body-less spirit on earth. Christianity believes Christ’s resurrection was a bodily one, but Gnosticism says it was only a spirit resurrection. The differences are huge, and they are confusing the people. Some Christians are having doubts, while other Christians are going to Gnosticism, believing it’s the true faith. A Christian’s faith is not meant to be an unsteady one. John doesn’t want Christians to convert to Gnosticism. In fact, he wants Christians to avoid Gnosticism. John doesn’t want Christians to be shaky or unsteady in their beliefs. He doesn’t want them to doubt or question their faith. He wants to believe. After all, the word “believe” appears 98 times in the book. John has to take down Gnosticism.
THE PURPOSE is WHY John wrote the book. You’re probably thinking, “He just explained it! John had to take down Gnosticism. That’s why he wrote it.” Yes, John did have to take down Gnosticism, and he did use this book to do it, but last time I checked, I’m pretty sure Gnosticism doesn’t exist anymore, and if does, it’s a very small minority that has no power in the world (although some people still insist on reading the Bible allegorically, as they did). So what’s the purpose for the Gospel of John today? When an author writes a book of the Bible, he’s not only thinking about his immediate audience, but also thinking about a bigger, grander audience. So he needs to express a truth that’s meaningful to them, too. So what truth is John going to teach us that will applicable everywhere for all time, and will also take down Gnosticism?
When it comes to 4 Gospels, we need to look out for an important piece that we wouldn’t look at with other books of the Bible. Have you ever wondered, “Why do we have 4 Gospel accounts? Wouldn’t it just be better with 1? After all, if there are 4 Gospel accounts, we have to worry about contradictions. If there was only 1 Gospel account, we wouldn’t have to worry about this.” The reason there are 4 Gospel accounts is to show 4 perspectives of Jesus. Each Gospel has a different perspective, and each perspective is a perspective for a different people group. Matthew is a perspective for Jews, Mark is a perspective for Romans, and Luke is a perspective for Greeks. Each different perspective gives us a different portrayal of Jesus, yet each portrayal is a true one. Matthew portrays Jesus as the Messiah for the Jews. Luke portrays Jesus as the Perfect [Son of] Man for the Greeks. Mark portrays Jesus as a suffering servant to show the upside kingdom to the Romans. So what’s John going to portray Jesus as? For the portrayal is an important part of the purpose. Lucky for us, John gives us a verse we can call a “theme verse” for our purpose and our portrayal of Jesus. It’s John 20:31.
John 20:31-
“But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”
Ah, there it is. It doesn’t get any more explicit than that. While in I do strongly believe in the inspiration of the Bible, I don’t think we should simply say, “Well, the Bible says that’s the purpose, and since the Bible is God’s Word, God is saying that’s the purpose. End of discussion.” Let’s look into why it’s right in saying this is the purpose. Some key words and key phrases I see in this verse is “Believe,” “Christ” and “Son of God.” Let’s start with the last one and go backwards.
As we talked about in the historical occasion, it was of the utmost importance John portrays Jesus as the Son of God. The Gnostic’s powerful voice was claiming Jesus was not God, and it was throwing true followers of Jesus into confusion, causing some to doubt and even lose faith. John had to stop this destruction the Gnostic doctrine was causing. I may have listed this key phrase last, but it’s definitely not least. Actually, I think it’s the most important. Why? Tell me, what do you think of when you hear the phrase “Son of God”? I bet you pay more attention to the word “son” than the word “God.” You might think this is nitpicky, but it’s not. When the Bible says Jesus is the Son of God, it’s also saying Jesus is God the Son. That’s not just a re-ordering of the words, but it has a big implication, in both the ancient context and the modern context. Let’s start with the older context, the ancient context. In the polytheistic religions of the ancient world, gods could indeed have children. They could have children either with goddesses or human women. If the god had a child with a human woman, the son would still be considered a god (or daughter a goddess), but it was a demigod, or half-god, half-human. This god was considered 50% divine and 50% human. All its strengths would be credited to its divinity, but all its weaknesses would be blamed on its humanity. I wouldn’t be surprised if at first people were claiming Jesus was 50% god and 50% man, and the apostles had to go around correcting that, teaching that Jesus was 100% God and 100% man. A god could also have a child through a goddess, and in that case, it would be considered 100% god, but still it would be considered a lesser god, or a minor god, nowhere near the glory and majesty of his parents. I think that’s the one that modern day people would struggle with the most. This past Christmas season, I was in church and we singing the famous Christmas carol “Come All Ye Faithful.” While singing, I noticed the line, “Son of God, begotten, not created.” At first chuckled a bit, thinking to myself, “Way to make sure you’re theologically covered on all sides,” but after thinking more, I realized we don’t always realize this. We do sometimes think Jesus was birthed from God. This is theological mess. First, it says that Jesus is not as eternal as God the Father, which means he does have a beginning, and would ultimately deny Him His deity. But Jesus is eternal, both eternally past and eternally future. Second, if Jesus was just God’s offspring and not God himself, it would mean God the creator has not been on earth since the creation. It would almost sound like God thought of Himself as so holy that he did not want to deal with sinful man. So God sent down the next best thing: His Son Jesus. No, that’s not true either. Jesus was God incarnate, walking on earth, among the people He created, no matter how sinful. Jesus was not a lesser God, or a minor God, but was God just as much as His Father. We have to remember that when we see “Son of God” we must also see “God the Son.” Simply put: Son of God = God the Son. Maybe another way to put it is the relationship between Yahweh and Jesus was the same relationship between a Father and Son. But both are the same God, the One God, the Only God. (John 1:14,18).
The second word is “Christ.” I’m not going to dwell on this one too long because I’ll talk more about it in the structure (yeah, I know I keep saying that, but I seriously am!). All you have to know is John was a Jew, so John knew how to communicate to Jews. Also, I wouldn’t be surprised if a majority of Christians at this point in time were Jews, so it would make sense that John is trying to connect to a majority of Christians. This will be helpful to remember when critics will claim that John is being anti-Semitic in calling out the Jews as the enemies of Jesus. Why would a Jew who is writing to Jews call Jews evil? Another thing I will note is that I believe a careful inspection of Old Testament prophecies will reveal that the Messiah, or the Christ, was to be divine in nature. So proving Jesus is the Christ is also proving Jesus is the Son of God.
And then there’s the word “believe.” In that verse alone, 2 forms of the root word “believe” appears twice: “believe” and “believing.” If we were to count up all the times the noun “belief” and the verb “believe” are used in the 21 chapters of John, we’d have 98 occurrences. Obviously we can see the action John is calling us to: believe. If you’re still following me so far, you’re probably wondering, “How can you call this a discipleship book and not an evangelistic book? Aren’t Christians already believing?” Well, I’m not denying that this book can be used as an evangelistic tool. In fact, by the end of this, I’ll show you how to use it as an evangelistic tool. But I don’t think it’s any more evangelistic that the other Gospel accounts. As you were thinking, I’ll repeat it again. We clearly established Christians as the audience. And you’re right, Christians do already believe. But I learned something while reading the Holman Concise Bible Commentary. According to the Holman Concise Bible Commentary, the first Greek form most commonly translated, “you may believe” can also be translated “you may continue to believe.” I do believe this would make sense in light of the historical occasion. Many Christians, although they still believe Jesus was the perfect man who died for their sins and rose again, are giving up believing on a divine Jesus being God. John clearly is presenting evidence to show that it is logical and rational to believe Jesus is God. So the Christians can continue believing Jesus is God. They don’t have to doubt. With that in mind, we can write out a purpose with all the information above in one statement.
John wrote the book of John to persuade Christians to continue believing Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.
THE STRUCTURE is HOW John wrote the book to get his message or his purpose across. Short review: The message or the purpose John is trying to get across is that Christians need to believe that Jesus is the Son God AKA God the Son.
Let’s start with what I promised you first all the way back at the date. John is supplemental Gospel, unlike Matthew, Mark and Luke, which are synoptic Gospel. What’s the difference? The difference is in the name. The word synoptic is the adjective forms of synopsis, which is a synonym of the word summary. The Gospel books of Matthew, Mark and Luke simply summarize the stories of Jesus, which are picked and chosen based on how they will answer the purpose of the Gospel book. Through these summaries, the author assumes the reader will be able to pick up the message the author is trying to convey. John’s Gospel is not like this. John’s Gospel is a supplemental Gospel. You might know the word supplemental if you have ever had a book with supplemental pages in it. You might know that the supplemental pages give extra information or extra detail to the book. Well, that’s exactly what John is trying to do. Remember when we talked about the date and the audience, I told you John assumes that the reader has already read the other Gospel accounts and is well acquainted with the stories, especially the popular ones, like Jesus feeding the 5,000 or Jesus calming the storm. So first, John will leave at many stories that the synoptic Gospels have in them. For example, John leaves out many important stories, such as the birth, baptism, temptation, and transfiguration of Jesus. Another good example is John only has 7 miracles, and from the other gospel accounts (and John 20:30!), we know Jesus performed more than 7 miracles (it also could be noted that none of these 7 miracles are casting out demons). Second, John will use the space he made omitting stories to put in new stories. In fact, 85% of John is unique and cannot be found in any other Gospel narrative. Third, in both new stories and old stories, John will give more details. For example, John will not only tell us about the Feeding of 5,000, but will tell you what resulted after the feeding of the 5,000. Another good example is the Lord’s Supper. Each synoptic Gospel author will only have 1 chapter on that Maundy Thursday, and it mostly talks about the Passover meal. John will spend 5 chapters in the Upper Room where the Last Supper is taking place, making sure to carefully record every word of Christ’s last instructions before He dies.
Speaking of detail, you’ll find John, writing a supplemental gospel, will be more keen on details. He will give names that previously weren’t given. From John, we learn the man whose ear got cut off by Peter was named Malchus. On that note, it will seem that John will “pick on people” by zeroing them out in certain stories. For example, where the synoptic gospels all the disciples doubted the resurrected Jesus, John’s Gospel will point out Thomas as the doubter. Another good example is when the woman poured perfume on the feet of Jesus. The synoptic gospels that tell this story will say all the disciples will indignant about this move. Yet John only records Judas Iscariot complaining about it. This is no reason to say the Gospel accounts contradict one another. For the first example, all the disciples did doubt Jesus rose from the dead, but one by one, each disciple came to faith, and Thomas was the last one to do so. For the second example, all the disciples were indignant about the woman pouring the perfume on the feet of Jesus, but they kept their thoughts to themselves or they grumbled to one another quietly; only Judas Iscariot had to guts to speak what was on everyone’s mind. If anything, John is using a good story writing device: character development. By pinning certain action to certain people, instead of a group of people, we can see if the disciple is static or if he dynamically changes, and if he does change, does he change for the better or for the worse? And it’s not all bad. For example, in the feeding of the 5,000, Andrew is credited for finding the boy with 2 fishes and 5 loaves. And the ultimate example is when John calls himself the “disciple whom Jesus loved.” Once again, this is not to show John lifting himself above the other disciples. It is merely tells us that Jesus had an inner circle of 3 disciples, and of those 3, John might have been the closest. And once again, it’s all for the purpose of character development. Reading John, we can see the relationship John had with Jesus. And if it really is John trying to lift himself above the other disciples, it’s John’s humanity in writing the Scriptures
Another note to make on the structure goes back to the audience whom John wrote his book to. Remember John wrote to Christians. Being Christian does not hold you to a certain race, nationality or ethnic group. Actually, the Christian audience is made up of people of all kinds of tribes and nations. But if I had to pick the top 3, I would say it’s probably the Jews, the Romans and the Greeks (and yes, in that order). That list of 3 should sound familiar. Oh yeah! It’s the 3 audiences the other 3 Gospels are written to. Matthew is written to Jews, Mark is written to Romans, and Luke is written to Greeks. Each of those Gospel authors knew their audience and knew how to structure their book to appease to each audience. Matthew used Old Testament Scriptures for the Jews. Mark used miracles to appease to the Romans. Luke used parables to attract the Greeks. John is well aware Christians from all 3 of these groups are reading his book. So he uses similar pieces for his Gospel. For the Jews, John uses Old Testament Scriptures. For the Romans, John remembers to include 7 miracles. When it comes to the Greeks, John does not use parables as Luke does (in fact, there are no parables in John), but uses long discourses and lectures of logic and reasoning, which would also attract the Greek thinkers. John’s Gospel appeals to Jewish Christians, Roman Christians and Greek Christians, and all of them get the message that Jesus is the Christ and the Son of God.
One last note on the structure. When John narrates his book, he’s not doing it from the third person, as the synoptic Gospel writers will. John will do it from his perspective. Thus, John will include his own commentary in the narration of the book. Besides the books of 1 & 2 Chronicles, this is the only God-inspired commentary we have.
Let me close by showing you how to use this Gospel book as an evangelistic tool, just as I promised, but I’m showing it to not just for the sake of showing you, but to outline how my devotional commentary will go. Here’s what you do to evangelize to someone the gospel using the book of John. First, give the person a copy of the book of John. Next, have the person read through the book of John. Then, have the person answer these 3 questions…
1. Who does Jesus claim He is?
2. Who does those pro-Jesus, or for Jesus, claim Jesus is?
3. Who does those anti-Jesus, or against Jesus, claim Jesus is?
Now as you can guess, based on what we talked about the purpose, the answer is “The Son of God.” But truthfully, there are only a couple explicit instances of where this happens. So what you would need to do is give a hint. For a hint, give them two verses from the Bible. No, not John 3:16 and John 20:31. That’s not a hint; that’s giving away the answer. Instead, give them Exodus 3:13-14.
Exodus 3:13-14-
13 Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?” 14 God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’ ”
Now you’re probably thinking to yourself, “Why are we giving them a couple verses from Exodus? They’re not even from the same testament!” Note what God says his name is: “I AM.” In the book of John, Jesus makes 7 I AM statements. And when Jesus makes those 7 I AM statements, the Jewish audience is immediately thinking about this Exodus passage and is making the connection. Every time Jesus says “I am,” He is making the claim He is God. I hope you will join me in finding all these claims.
When I would teach Bible class, I would tell my students to discover the background information, we must be like good reporters and ask the right questions. You know what I’m talking about. Those question words, like, who, whom, what, where, when, why and how. You might have noticed I included in another word: whom. And technically, the difference between “who” and “whom” is the subject and the object. But the difference is important. Let me make it short and simple for you
WHO = AUTHOR of the book
WHOM = AUDIENCE, the original one, the first readers of the book
WHEN = THE DATE the book was written
WHERE = THE LOCATION of where the book was written and where it takes place
WHAT = HISTORICAL OCCASION, or what happened to cause the author to write
WHY = THE PURPOSE of the author writing to the audience
HOW = THE STRUCTURE, which could be an outline or writing methods
All 7 pieces are key to understanding the basic background information for any book of the Bible. For the Gospels, there needs to be another key aspect to look at. There’s no question word that would cover it, but if there is a non-question word, it would be PORTRAYAL, which is how the Gospel book portrays the character of Jesus. It could technically be a combination of the purpose and the structure, for the portrayal will be seen in both of them. We’ll talk more about it when we get to it. So which one shall we start off with? Well, if you remember your elementary English/Literature class, the setting of the story is where and when it happened. So let’s start with the setting, since the setting will place the characters in context.
THE LOCATION WHERE the Gospel of John was written was most likely Ephesus, but other scholars have suggested Alexandria and Antioch. But what’s more important than where the book was written is where the stories in the book take place. Most of the synoptic books simply show a steady path from Galilee to Samaria, to Judea, and then more specifically Jerusalem for the Passion Week. But John’s Gospel is not as simple as that. John has Jesus all over the place. For example, on top of having Jesus in Galilee, Samaria and Judea, he has Jesus in areas east of the Jordan River, such as Perea and Decapolis. And sometimes he’ll even be more specific on locations than the other Gospel writers are. Where Matthew, Mark, or Luke will just say what region Jesus is in, John will give the specific town. John will also spend more time in some regions that the other Gospel writers have. Whereas the synoptic gospel writers show Jesus mostly in Galilee, John has Jesus mostly in Judea, or more specifically, Jerusalem.
THE DATE WHEN the Gospel of John was written was between 85 to 95 A.D. Some scholars have tried to place the Gospel of John before 70 A.D. because one would assume that John would mention the Destruction of the Temple or the Fall of Jerusalem if the book was written after these events. While John does not explicitly mention these events, it doesn’t necessarily mean they didn’t happen. Someone could argue that they did happen because John does focus a lot on the time that Jesus and His Disciples were in Jerusalem, and John also includes much dialogue about the temple. John may not explicitly record, “And this was in fulfillment of the prophecy that the temple would be destroyed and the city would fall,” but mentioning both the city and the temple implicitly gives almost a spooky irony to its fate. So it has to be after 70 A.D. It can’t be later than 95 A.D. because John is believed to have died in 98 A.D. But let’s not linger any more on the debate of the date, but instead accept 85-95 AD as the date, and discuss its importance.
The date does have great significance. Being written in the late 80s or early 90s, the Gospel of John is the last Gospel to be written. It is safe to say that Matthew and Luke have been written for at least 5 years and Mark for at least 20 years. Each of those gospels have been floating around to several churches in the Roman Empire. So John is well aware that the Christians in these churches know well the more famous stories of Jesus, like the feeding of the 5,000 and the calming of the storm. So instead of repeating them in synoptic gospel like Matthew, Mark and Luke did, John will write a supplemental gospel. What is a supplemental gospel? For that, we must talk about how John structured his Gospel book. But we don’t have quite enough information yet. The structure won’t make any sense until we know whom the audience was, what was the historical occasion that caused John to write was, or why John chose the purpose He did. But before we get to that, let’s talk about this John man whose name I keep throwing around.
THE AUTHOR WHO wrote the book was John, just like the title of the book tells us. But there are quite a few Johns. No, this is not John, also known as Mark. If you read the post I made in December, we already talked about him. No, this is not John, the father of Peter. No, this is not the John in Acts 4:8 who is in the family of the high priests. And this is definitely not John the Baptist, the son of Zechariah, the second cousin of Jesus. This is John, the son of Zebedee, the first cousin of Jesus. And with that last statement, you got two facts about his family history. Let me throw in a third: his brother was James (and there’s 4 men named James in the Bible, but that’s a different discussion for a different day). John started out his life in the family trade of fishing with his father Zebedee and his brother James. Everyone knows John and James were disciples of Jesus, but not everyone remembers that John and James were first disciples of John the Baptist. Being disciples of John the Baptist, they were probably baptized by John the Baptist and they probably listened carefully to his preaching about repentance and the coming Messiah. Yet their following wasn’t too serious, as it seems like they followed him on the side and stayed focus on their job trade. This seems also true of being disciples to Jesus. When John points the two of them out to Jesus Christ in John 1, they follow him a bit and even acknowledged Jesus as a Rabbi, but then they went back to fishing. It wasn’t until Matthew 4 that Jesus needs to call them to follow to get through their thick skulls to stay with him longer. John, along with his brother James and Peter, were among the 3 disciples in the inner circle of disciples, who were the closest of Jesus, perhaps because they were the first ones called to be disciples. They got to see special events, like the raising of Jairus’s daughter, the transfiguration, and they got to be closer to Jesus in Gethsemane. John seems to go a bit further in and say he was the closest of even the three of them, calling himself in his Gospel book, “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” A lot of people have brought criticism towards John and the inspiration of this book, claiming it’s falsely representing Jesus showing favoritism. But all 4 Gospels clearly show Jesus had the inner group of Peter, James and John, and no one criticizes those books for that. Instead, I like to say that really shows us the humanity side of the inspiration of the Scriptures. Remember, the Scriptures were written by men just as much as they were written by God, and it can be seen through the different books and different authors. The title is merely showing John’s flavor in his writing. We’ll talk more about that “flavor” in the structure, but let’s go back to the inner circle of 3. This inner circle of 3 will stay tight until the end. When we see John in Acts, he’ll always be with Peter. From Acts, John will go on to write this Gospel book, 3 epistles, and he’ll write the apocalyptic book of Revelation when he exiled to Patmos. There are other small details I could go through, but we’ll hit them when we actually read through the book.
THE AUDIENCE WHOM John originally intended was Christians. Yes, Christians. Not a certain gender, race, ethnic group, culture or religion, but Christians This is interesting because John is considered a evangelistic book, or a good book to use to evangelize, or share the gospel message. While I do believe this is true, I do believe this book is more intended for discipleship reasons. Many of the reasons I will talk about in the structure, but one reason I will hit on I already mentioned in the date. This Gospel book was one of the last Gospel books written. John assumes that the reader has already read or heard about the stories of Jesus from that book. So John also assumes (and some would say this is a big assumption) that through reading or hearing those stories, you have made a decision to follow Jesus and have become a Christian (seriously, John believes the gospel message is so powerful it will do that). Once again, John knows the reader knows the popular stories. So he will leave most of them out (unless they pertain to his message) and put in new stories, which will only be beneficial for someone who wants to continue and advance his or her faith. Now if you remember, Matthew is written to Jews, Mark is written to Romans, and Luke is written to Greeks. John is well aware that the converts to Christianity are not only Jews, but Roman, Greek and other Gentiles. So John is going to reach out to those 3 main groups in the same way the synoptic authors did. We’ll talk more about that in the structure, but first you have to wonder, “Why would John write a Gospel for Christians if they already know the stories of Jesus, the gospel message, and they are already saved?” That will be answered next, in the historical occasion.
THE HISTORICAL OCCASION is WHAT was happening in that setting that caused the author (John) to write his book. The best way to explain this is to use Family Guy (who would ever think Family Guy could be used in a commentary, devotional or Bible introduction?) In an episode of Family Guy, Peter Griffin invents his own religion of Happy Days-ism, where the Fonz is worshipped. The rest of the Griffin family tries to get Peter to stop, but only the dog Brian is successful. How is he successful? To loosely quote him, he tells Peter, “Whenever a new religion becomes popular, copycats always follow,” and he brings in copycats to take Peter’s congregation away (for example, Brian brings in Gavin McCloud to lead the parishioners to Love Boat-ism). Well, it was true 2000 years earlier. Even though Christianity was still a minority and still facing persecution, it was growing in popularity. With growth like that, copycats jumped on board to make Christian-like cults to get people to join. The biggest one was Gnosticism, a cult which name comes from the Greek word gnosko, which means “to know.” Gnosticism combined two popular beliefs systems of the day: Christianity and Greek philosophy. The popular Greek philosophy of the day was that the body was bad, but the spirit/soul was good. Let me simplify that for you. Body = Bad, Soul/Spirit = Good. So the goal in Gnosticism was to free your soul from your body. Your first reaction might be, “Well, that’s easy, just commit suicide!” which might be followed by your second reaction, “Well, that’s stupid, a religion that convinces you to commit suicide.” But it’s not that easy, and they thought up a way that wasn’t stupid to them. You had to find a way to free your soul from your body while your body was alive. You couldn’t just commit suicide, for if you died before you figured out how to free your soul, your soul would be eternally stuck in your body. After all, a dead body is useless for anything, so there’s no way your spirit could find a way out. So how do you free your soul from your body? By learning a secret knowledge (hence the name Gnosticism). This where the Christianity side of Gnosticism steps in. The Gnostics believed that Jesus knew this secret knowledge. Jesus learned this secret knowledge and taught His disciples this secret knowledge. Now, of course, if you ask them, Jesus taught the secret knowledge, well, in secret, to his disciples. And the synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke only record the public teachings of Jesus. So if you want to use those books to learn the secret knowledge, you have read into the text deeper. You have to take everything Jesus says as a metaphor, with some kind of symbolic meaning (in Bible hermeneutics, we call this the allegorical approach to the Scriptures). Some Gnostics were even going as far writing their own gospels, claiming that they were from people close to Jesus, like Thomas, Judas and Mary, who heard this secret knowledge being taught by Jesus when they were in secret meetings. But the real kicker is what they claimed about Jesus and His being. To be the ultimate example to humans on how to use this secret knowledge to free your soul from your body, Jesus was only human. They believed that Jesus was not God at all, but just a human. Furthermore, they believe when Jesus died on the cross, He freed his soul from his body. Therefore, they believe it was only in spirit Jesus raised from the dead. You can already see two big contradictions from true Christianity. Christianity believes Jesus is fully God and fully man, while Gnosticism believes Jesus was only a man who ultimately achieved perfection by being a body-less spirit on earth. Christianity believes Christ’s resurrection was a bodily one, but Gnosticism says it was only a spirit resurrection. The differences are huge, and they are confusing the people. Some Christians are having doubts, while other Christians are going to Gnosticism, believing it’s the true faith. A Christian’s faith is not meant to be an unsteady one. John doesn’t want Christians to convert to Gnosticism. In fact, he wants Christians to avoid Gnosticism. John doesn’t want Christians to be shaky or unsteady in their beliefs. He doesn’t want them to doubt or question their faith. He wants to believe. After all, the word “believe” appears 98 times in the book. John has to take down Gnosticism.
THE PURPOSE is WHY John wrote the book. You’re probably thinking, “He just explained it! John had to take down Gnosticism. That’s why he wrote it.” Yes, John did have to take down Gnosticism, and he did use this book to do it, but last time I checked, I’m pretty sure Gnosticism doesn’t exist anymore, and if does, it’s a very small minority that has no power in the world (although some people still insist on reading the Bible allegorically, as they did). So what’s the purpose for the Gospel of John today? When an author writes a book of the Bible, he’s not only thinking about his immediate audience, but also thinking about a bigger, grander audience. So he needs to express a truth that’s meaningful to them, too. So what truth is John going to teach us that will applicable everywhere for all time, and will also take down Gnosticism?
When it comes to 4 Gospels, we need to look out for an important piece that we wouldn’t look at with other books of the Bible. Have you ever wondered, “Why do we have 4 Gospel accounts? Wouldn’t it just be better with 1? After all, if there are 4 Gospel accounts, we have to worry about contradictions. If there was only 1 Gospel account, we wouldn’t have to worry about this.” The reason there are 4 Gospel accounts is to show 4 perspectives of Jesus. Each Gospel has a different perspective, and each perspective is a perspective for a different people group. Matthew is a perspective for Jews, Mark is a perspective for Romans, and Luke is a perspective for Greeks. Each different perspective gives us a different portrayal of Jesus, yet each portrayal is a true one. Matthew portrays Jesus as the Messiah for the Jews. Luke portrays Jesus as the Perfect [Son of] Man for the Greeks. Mark portrays Jesus as a suffering servant to show the upside kingdom to the Romans. So what’s John going to portray Jesus as? For the portrayal is an important part of the purpose. Lucky for us, John gives us a verse we can call a “theme verse” for our purpose and our portrayal of Jesus. It’s John 20:31.
John 20:31-
“But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”
Ah, there it is. It doesn’t get any more explicit than that. While in I do strongly believe in the inspiration of the Bible, I don’t think we should simply say, “Well, the Bible says that’s the purpose, and since the Bible is God’s Word, God is saying that’s the purpose. End of discussion.” Let’s look into why it’s right in saying this is the purpose. Some key words and key phrases I see in this verse is “Believe,” “Christ” and “Son of God.” Let’s start with the last one and go backwards.
As we talked about in the historical occasion, it was of the utmost importance John portrays Jesus as the Son of God. The Gnostic’s powerful voice was claiming Jesus was not God, and it was throwing true followers of Jesus into confusion, causing some to doubt and even lose faith. John had to stop this destruction the Gnostic doctrine was causing. I may have listed this key phrase last, but it’s definitely not least. Actually, I think it’s the most important. Why? Tell me, what do you think of when you hear the phrase “Son of God”? I bet you pay more attention to the word “son” than the word “God.” You might think this is nitpicky, but it’s not. When the Bible says Jesus is the Son of God, it’s also saying Jesus is God the Son. That’s not just a re-ordering of the words, but it has a big implication, in both the ancient context and the modern context. Let’s start with the older context, the ancient context. In the polytheistic religions of the ancient world, gods could indeed have children. They could have children either with goddesses or human women. If the god had a child with a human woman, the son would still be considered a god (or daughter a goddess), but it was a demigod, or half-god, half-human. This god was considered 50% divine and 50% human. All its strengths would be credited to its divinity, but all its weaknesses would be blamed on its humanity. I wouldn’t be surprised if at first people were claiming Jesus was 50% god and 50% man, and the apostles had to go around correcting that, teaching that Jesus was 100% God and 100% man. A god could also have a child through a goddess, and in that case, it would be considered 100% god, but still it would be considered a lesser god, or a minor god, nowhere near the glory and majesty of his parents. I think that’s the one that modern day people would struggle with the most. This past Christmas season, I was in church and we singing the famous Christmas carol “Come All Ye Faithful.” While singing, I noticed the line, “Son of God, begotten, not created.” At first chuckled a bit, thinking to myself, “Way to make sure you’re theologically covered on all sides,” but after thinking more, I realized we don’t always realize this. We do sometimes think Jesus was birthed from God. This is theological mess. First, it says that Jesus is not as eternal as God the Father, which means he does have a beginning, and would ultimately deny Him His deity. But Jesus is eternal, both eternally past and eternally future. Second, if Jesus was just God’s offspring and not God himself, it would mean God the creator has not been on earth since the creation. It would almost sound like God thought of Himself as so holy that he did not want to deal with sinful man. So God sent down the next best thing: His Son Jesus. No, that’s not true either. Jesus was God incarnate, walking on earth, among the people He created, no matter how sinful. Jesus was not a lesser God, or a minor God, but was God just as much as His Father. We have to remember that when we see “Son of God” we must also see “God the Son.” Simply put: Son of God = God the Son. Maybe another way to put it is the relationship between Yahweh and Jesus was the same relationship between a Father and Son. But both are the same God, the One God, the Only God. (John 1:14,18).
The second word is “Christ.” I’m not going to dwell on this one too long because I’ll talk more about it in the structure (yeah, I know I keep saying that, but I seriously am!). All you have to know is John was a Jew, so John knew how to communicate to Jews. Also, I wouldn’t be surprised if a majority of Christians at this point in time were Jews, so it would make sense that John is trying to connect to a majority of Christians. This will be helpful to remember when critics will claim that John is being anti-Semitic in calling out the Jews as the enemies of Jesus. Why would a Jew who is writing to Jews call Jews evil? Another thing I will note is that I believe a careful inspection of Old Testament prophecies will reveal that the Messiah, or the Christ, was to be divine in nature. So proving Jesus is the Christ is also proving Jesus is the Son of God.
And then there’s the word “believe.” In that verse alone, 2 forms of the root word “believe” appears twice: “believe” and “believing.” If we were to count up all the times the noun “belief” and the verb “believe” are used in the 21 chapters of John, we’d have 98 occurrences. Obviously we can see the action John is calling us to: believe. If you’re still following me so far, you’re probably wondering, “How can you call this a discipleship book and not an evangelistic book? Aren’t Christians already believing?” Well, I’m not denying that this book can be used as an evangelistic tool. In fact, by the end of this, I’ll show you how to use it as an evangelistic tool. But I don’t think it’s any more evangelistic that the other Gospel accounts. As you were thinking, I’ll repeat it again. We clearly established Christians as the audience. And you’re right, Christians do already believe. But I learned something while reading the Holman Concise Bible Commentary. According to the Holman Concise Bible Commentary, the first Greek form most commonly translated, “you may believe” can also be translated “you may continue to believe.” I do believe this would make sense in light of the historical occasion. Many Christians, although they still believe Jesus was the perfect man who died for their sins and rose again, are giving up believing on a divine Jesus being God. John clearly is presenting evidence to show that it is logical and rational to believe Jesus is God. So the Christians can continue believing Jesus is God. They don’t have to doubt. With that in mind, we can write out a purpose with all the information above in one statement.
John wrote the book of John to persuade Christians to continue believing Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.
THE STRUCTURE is HOW John wrote the book to get his message or his purpose across. Short review: The message or the purpose John is trying to get across is that Christians need to believe that Jesus is the Son God AKA God the Son.
Let’s start with what I promised you first all the way back at the date. John is supplemental Gospel, unlike Matthew, Mark and Luke, which are synoptic Gospel. What’s the difference? The difference is in the name. The word synoptic is the adjective forms of synopsis, which is a synonym of the word summary. The Gospel books of Matthew, Mark and Luke simply summarize the stories of Jesus, which are picked and chosen based on how they will answer the purpose of the Gospel book. Through these summaries, the author assumes the reader will be able to pick up the message the author is trying to convey. John’s Gospel is not like this. John’s Gospel is a supplemental Gospel. You might know the word supplemental if you have ever had a book with supplemental pages in it. You might know that the supplemental pages give extra information or extra detail to the book. Well, that’s exactly what John is trying to do. Remember when we talked about the date and the audience, I told you John assumes that the reader has already read the other Gospel accounts and is well acquainted with the stories, especially the popular ones, like Jesus feeding the 5,000 or Jesus calming the storm. So first, John will leave at many stories that the synoptic Gospels have in them. For example, John leaves out many important stories, such as the birth, baptism, temptation, and transfiguration of Jesus. Another good example is John only has 7 miracles, and from the other gospel accounts (and John 20:30!), we know Jesus performed more than 7 miracles (it also could be noted that none of these 7 miracles are casting out demons). Second, John will use the space he made omitting stories to put in new stories. In fact, 85% of John is unique and cannot be found in any other Gospel narrative. Third, in both new stories and old stories, John will give more details. For example, John will not only tell us about the Feeding of 5,000, but will tell you what resulted after the feeding of the 5,000. Another good example is the Lord’s Supper. Each synoptic Gospel author will only have 1 chapter on that Maundy Thursday, and it mostly talks about the Passover meal. John will spend 5 chapters in the Upper Room where the Last Supper is taking place, making sure to carefully record every word of Christ’s last instructions before He dies.
Speaking of detail, you’ll find John, writing a supplemental gospel, will be more keen on details. He will give names that previously weren’t given. From John, we learn the man whose ear got cut off by Peter was named Malchus. On that note, it will seem that John will “pick on people” by zeroing them out in certain stories. For example, where the synoptic gospels all the disciples doubted the resurrected Jesus, John’s Gospel will point out Thomas as the doubter. Another good example is when the woman poured perfume on the feet of Jesus. The synoptic gospels that tell this story will say all the disciples will indignant about this move. Yet John only records Judas Iscariot complaining about it. This is no reason to say the Gospel accounts contradict one another. For the first example, all the disciples did doubt Jesus rose from the dead, but one by one, each disciple came to faith, and Thomas was the last one to do so. For the second example, all the disciples were indignant about the woman pouring the perfume on the feet of Jesus, but they kept their thoughts to themselves or they grumbled to one another quietly; only Judas Iscariot had to guts to speak what was on everyone’s mind. If anything, John is using a good story writing device: character development. By pinning certain action to certain people, instead of a group of people, we can see if the disciple is static or if he dynamically changes, and if he does change, does he change for the better or for the worse? And it’s not all bad. For example, in the feeding of the 5,000, Andrew is credited for finding the boy with 2 fishes and 5 loaves. And the ultimate example is when John calls himself the “disciple whom Jesus loved.” Once again, this is not to show John lifting himself above the other disciples. It is merely tells us that Jesus had an inner circle of 3 disciples, and of those 3, John might have been the closest. And once again, it’s all for the purpose of character development. Reading John, we can see the relationship John had with Jesus. And if it really is John trying to lift himself above the other disciples, it’s John’s humanity in writing the Scriptures
Another note to make on the structure goes back to the audience whom John wrote his book to. Remember John wrote to Christians. Being Christian does not hold you to a certain race, nationality or ethnic group. Actually, the Christian audience is made up of people of all kinds of tribes and nations. But if I had to pick the top 3, I would say it’s probably the Jews, the Romans and the Greeks (and yes, in that order). That list of 3 should sound familiar. Oh yeah! It’s the 3 audiences the other 3 Gospels are written to. Matthew is written to Jews, Mark is written to Romans, and Luke is written to Greeks. Each of those Gospel authors knew their audience and knew how to structure their book to appease to each audience. Matthew used Old Testament Scriptures for the Jews. Mark used miracles to appease to the Romans. Luke used parables to attract the Greeks. John is well aware Christians from all 3 of these groups are reading his book. So he uses similar pieces for his Gospel. For the Jews, John uses Old Testament Scriptures. For the Romans, John remembers to include 7 miracles. When it comes to the Greeks, John does not use parables as Luke does (in fact, there are no parables in John), but uses long discourses and lectures of logic and reasoning, which would also attract the Greek thinkers. John’s Gospel appeals to Jewish Christians, Roman Christians and Greek Christians, and all of them get the message that Jesus is the Christ and the Son of God.
One last note on the structure. When John narrates his book, he’s not doing it from the third person, as the synoptic Gospel writers will. John will do it from his perspective. Thus, John will include his own commentary in the narration of the book. Besides the books of 1 & 2 Chronicles, this is the only God-inspired commentary we have.
Let me close by showing you how to use this Gospel book as an evangelistic tool, just as I promised, but I’m showing it to not just for the sake of showing you, but to outline how my devotional commentary will go. Here’s what you do to evangelize to someone the gospel using the book of John. First, give the person a copy of the book of John. Next, have the person read through the book of John. Then, have the person answer these 3 questions…
1. Who does Jesus claim He is?
2. Who does those pro-Jesus, or for Jesus, claim Jesus is?
3. Who does those anti-Jesus, or against Jesus, claim Jesus is?
Now as you can guess, based on what we talked about the purpose, the answer is “The Son of God.” But truthfully, there are only a couple explicit instances of where this happens. So what you would need to do is give a hint. For a hint, give them two verses from the Bible. No, not John 3:16 and John 20:31. That’s not a hint; that’s giving away the answer. Instead, give them Exodus 3:13-14.
Exodus 3:13-14-
13 Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?” 14 God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’ ”
Now you’re probably thinking to yourself, “Why are we giving them a couple verses from Exodus? They’re not even from the same testament!” Note what God says his name is: “I AM.” In the book of John, Jesus makes 7 I AM statements. And when Jesus makes those 7 I AM statements, the Jewish audience is immediately thinking about this Exodus passage and is making the connection. Every time Jesus says “I am,” He is making the claim He is God. I hope you will join me in finding all these claims.
Sunday, January 01, 2012
New Year's Resolution...A Real One
I was never one for New Year's Resolutions. I always joke, "My New Year's Resolution is to not make any resolutions this year." If I did, it was more like a goal for Bible Quizzing. But this year, with little to no involvement in quizzing, I thought I would make a real New Year's Resolution. And there might be another reason.
During my lunch breaks at work, when I got too tired of studying Greek over and over, I would read a book. I was reading The Naked Anabaptist, but I for a short time misplaced the book, so I moved onto Dr. Foster's famous book The Celebration of Disciplines, a book on spiritual disciplines. I was amazed on how spiritually disciplined Dr. Foster was. He was so disciplined, some people would probably claim it's impossible, without seeing him practice them in action. But that's not what I reflected on the most. I merely reflected on the general subject of "spiritual discipline," or even more on the phrase "spiritual discipline."
See, I had no problem with the spritual part. I was being spiritual. I read my Bible. I prayed. I went to church. But it was the discipled part that I was struggling with. I prayed when it was convenient. I read my Bible in the spare time of my spare time, when I had nothing else to do. I went to church only if I was naturally up Sunday morning and had nothing to do in the early afternoon. Nothing was regular, and when nothing was regular, it seemed to be as if my faith was on the side. Well, I can't say I was pleased with myself. Actually, the opposite was true. I was unhappy and miserable with myself. While the irregular Bible study, prayer and church fellowship might be fine for a spiritually newborn Christian, it's not okay for someone who has been a Christian for some time, and especially not okay for someone who has been through 4 years of Bible college. It was like a professional portrait artist settling on drawing stick people. That's just not right. And something had to be done. That's where my New Year's Resolution will come into the picture.
But first, some of this lack of spiritual discipline just couldn't wait until 2012. It was the church part. This came especially crucial with meeting with my small group less and less. I need that Christian fellowship, some people to meet with and worship with, some people to talk about the Lord, as well as listening. So I made it my priority that the week I moved out to Dover, the next Sunday I would start going to church out here as well. And so far, so good. I've been faithfully attending Stony Brook Mennonite Church. I'm still not as involved as I would like to be, and maybe that could be my New Year's Resolution when it comes to Church Fellowship. But it seems like the congregation has embraced me there at least. I think for my New Year's Resolution when it comes to church, I'm going to start going to Sunday School.
Now that we got the communal discipline out of there, now onto the more inward disciplines. The first one was the Bible reading. My eyes became open to this one when I realized that I was once again behind on quizzing questions, as I was last year. I had 9 months to finish one chapter, or 51 verses, worth of questions, and I only got half way there. But I realized what might have been my problem was relativeness. The last time I full did a chapter worth of questions (actually it was 2 chapters) is when I got to be the quiz coach for Conestoga. Since I used my questions for my quizzers, I strived to get them done for them. But last year, only doing timekeeping and not having a team of my own, there was no urge to write the quizzing questions. And this year, with not even having a role in the staff, there's no rush to complete this set. But when I was at work, to keep my mind from not being bored to death doing menial tasks, I would think about the theological implications of what little I was reading in the Bible. And I would have good thoughts. So when I had a little spare time back at my apartment, I would type of these ideas on a Word documents, and I kind of liked it. You might have seen one. I called it "Mark: A Story About A Suffering Servant." I hope you liked it as much as I did. It motivated me to read my Bible more, and study my Bible more.
So I've decided for part of my New Year's Resolution is to follow along with quizzing in John, and write a devotional commentary on it. Now I have to be smart and reasonable with this goal. Halfway through January I'm going to begin taking 2 Grad courses, so I can't overwhelm myself. So for January, I will write a devotional commentary, 1 chapter, 1 week. When I hit February and March, I'm going to switch to a couple chapters per week, but still with the same amount of reading and studying. That will get me to April. We'll see how effective it is, and how on task I can stay, and we'll go from there.
But I know I don't want to go to a reading schedules. Whether it has been Read the Bible in a Year, Half a Year, 3 months, whatever, never a fan of it. Why? Well, if a reading schedule could speak, this would the conversation you'd be having with it...
Reading schedule: "Today, please read John 1."
You: "Ok, got it."
*You read John 1*
Reading schedule: "You read John 1 today?"
You: "Yes, but I really didn't get it. Nothing made sense"
Reading schedule: "Tough luck, we got to stick to the schedule. Move on to John 2 tomorrow."
See, I never thought that made any sense. What's the point of reading it if you're not going to understand it or get anything out of it, or even vaguely remember it? Then it's no more than a chore, or a good luck charm ("If I read the Bible, I'll get blessed!"). The call to read and study the Bible is to serve as a mirror where we can reflect on ourselves. And if that reflection takes a while, so be it. I remember once spending one week on one verse alone! I did not get it at first, and I had to read it over and over, as well as just step back and reflect on it. And once I did that for a week, I got it and I came out a better man. I want my Bible study to be one that makes a better man, for not only my sake, but the sake of the people around me.
The other spiritual discipline I want to work on is prayer. I don't know why I let this one go. My God desires to meet with me and talk with me. It is such a privilege that a holy God would want to meet with a sinner like me! Why would I give it up? So My New Year's Resolution is as simple as this: I will pray at least once a day. And just in general, I will pray more. Once again, I don't want to be held down by a schedule and I want to allow room to be spontaneous. So maybe prayer will come twice a day, or three times, or more! But it will definitely happen at least once.
So here's the official list of 2012 New Year's Resolution, with what I mentioned above, as well some other things I would like to have:
2012 New Year's Resolution
During my lunch breaks at work, when I got too tired of studying Greek over and over, I would read a book. I was reading The Naked Anabaptist, but I for a short time misplaced the book, so I moved onto Dr. Foster's famous book The Celebration of Disciplines, a book on spiritual disciplines. I was amazed on how spiritually disciplined Dr. Foster was. He was so disciplined, some people would probably claim it's impossible, without seeing him practice them in action. But that's not what I reflected on the most. I merely reflected on the general subject of "spiritual discipline," or even more on the phrase "spiritual discipline."
See, I had no problem with the spritual part. I was being spiritual. I read my Bible. I prayed. I went to church. But it was the discipled part that I was struggling with. I prayed when it was convenient. I read my Bible in the spare time of my spare time, when I had nothing else to do. I went to church only if I was naturally up Sunday morning and had nothing to do in the early afternoon. Nothing was regular, and when nothing was regular, it seemed to be as if my faith was on the side. Well, I can't say I was pleased with myself. Actually, the opposite was true. I was unhappy and miserable with myself. While the irregular Bible study, prayer and church fellowship might be fine for a spiritually newborn Christian, it's not okay for someone who has been a Christian for some time, and especially not okay for someone who has been through 4 years of Bible college. It was like a professional portrait artist settling on drawing stick people. That's just not right. And something had to be done. That's where my New Year's Resolution will come into the picture.
But first, some of this lack of spiritual discipline just couldn't wait until 2012. It was the church part. This came especially crucial with meeting with my small group less and less. I need that Christian fellowship, some people to meet with and worship with, some people to talk about the Lord, as well as listening. So I made it my priority that the week I moved out to Dover, the next Sunday I would start going to church out here as well. And so far, so good. I've been faithfully attending Stony Brook Mennonite Church. I'm still not as involved as I would like to be, and maybe that could be my New Year's Resolution when it comes to Church Fellowship. But it seems like the congregation has embraced me there at least. I think for my New Year's Resolution when it comes to church, I'm going to start going to Sunday School.
Now that we got the communal discipline out of there, now onto the more inward disciplines. The first one was the Bible reading. My eyes became open to this one when I realized that I was once again behind on quizzing questions, as I was last year. I had 9 months to finish one chapter, or 51 verses, worth of questions, and I only got half way there. But I realized what might have been my problem was relativeness. The last time I full did a chapter worth of questions (actually it was 2 chapters) is when I got to be the quiz coach for Conestoga. Since I used my questions for my quizzers, I strived to get them done for them. But last year, only doing timekeeping and not having a team of my own, there was no urge to write the quizzing questions. And this year, with not even having a role in the staff, there's no rush to complete this set. But when I was at work, to keep my mind from not being bored to death doing menial tasks, I would think about the theological implications of what little I was reading in the Bible. And I would have good thoughts. So when I had a little spare time back at my apartment, I would type of these ideas on a Word documents, and I kind of liked it. You might have seen one. I called it "Mark: A Story About A Suffering Servant." I hope you liked it as much as I did. It motivated me to read my Bible more, and study my Bible more.
So I've decided for part of my New Year's Resolution is to follow along with quizzing in John, and write a devotional commentary on it. Now I have to be smart and reasonable with this goal. Halfway through January I'm going to begin taking 2 Grad courses, so I can't overwhelm myself. So for January, I will write a devotional commentary, 1 chapter, 1 week. When I hit February and March, I'm going to switch to a couple chapters per week, but still with the same amount of reading and studying. That will get me to April. We'll see how effective it is, and how on task I can stay, and we'll go from there.
But I know I don't want to go to a reading schedules. Whether it has been Read the Bible in a Year, Half a Year, 3 months, whatever, never a fan of it. Why? Well, if a reading schedule could speak, this would the conversation you'd be having with it...
Reading schedule: "Today, please read John 1."
You: "Ok, got it."
*You read John 1*
Reading schedule: "You read John 1 today?"
You: "Yes, but I really didn't get it. Nothing made sense"
Reading schedule: "Tough luck, we got to stick to the schedule. Move on to John 2 tomorrow."
See, I never thought that made any sense. What's the point of reading it if you're not going to understand it or get anything out of it, or even vaguely remember it? Then it's no more than a chore, or a good luck charm ("If I read the Bible, I'll get blessed!"). The call to read and study the Bible is to serve as a mirror where we can reflect on ourselves. And if that reflection takes a while, so be it. I remember once spending one week on one verse alone! I did not get it at first, and I had to read it over and over, as well as just step back and reflect on it. And once I did that for a week, I got it and I came out a better man. I want my Bible study to be one that makes a better man, for not only my sake, but the sake of the people around me.
The other spiritual discipline I want to work on is prayer. I don't know why I let this one go. My God desires to meet with me and talk with me. It is such a privilege that a holy God would want to meet with a sinner like me! Why would I give it up? So My New Year's Resolution is as simple as this: I will pray at least once a day. And just in general, I will pray more. Once again, I don't want to be held down by a schedule and I want to allow room to be spontaneous. So maybe prayer will come twice a day, or three times, or more! But it will definitely happen at least once.
So here's the official list of 2012 New Year's Resolution, with what I mentioned above, as well some other things I would like to have:
2012 New Year's Resolution
- Read a couple chapters of the Bible once a day
- Write a devotional commentary once a week from January to March
- Pray at least once a day, but allow room to be spontaneous for more
- Continue to go to church weekly, and eventually add Sunday School to it.
- Talk more openly to my girlfriend
- have more fun in life!!!!!!!!!!!!!
- Complete hard vocals on all Rock Band games
- Learn to play a real guitar. Really
- take voice lessons so i can seranade my girlfriend :) (she wrote that one)
- Keep my 4.0 GPA strong in grad school.
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A History of the Bible Quizzing Invitational Tournament Format
The format of the ACC/AMEC Bible Quizzing season has always remained consistent. Coordinator Fred Hertzler splits the total quiz teams into ...
