Peoria Brethren Bible Study

It is a very human characteristic to see what we want to see and hear what we want to hear.  Just Look at the contrasting, even contradictory interpretations of yesterdays election results.  But here is a case with Jesus where it happens.  Some believe saying “how could anyone do more miraculous signs that this man”, while others seeing and hearing the same things say “We know this guy and where he is from, there is nothing mysterious about him.”  Is it any wonder Jesus says “you will look for me and not find me.”  After all, how could those who cannot see who He is in the earthly, ever hope to understand Him in the heavenly?  It is interesting again that these “Blind Guides” are using the law to condemn others but are ignorant of their own disobedience as mentioned by Nicodemus. 

That theme continues in Chapter with the woman caught in adultery.

 One thing that needs to be mentioned about the passage in Chapter 8 containing the story of the woman caught in adultery is that this passage does not appear in most of the early manuscripts of John. 

That said, it is still likely a true story and does fit with the Character of Jesus.

One of the issues that comes about with this story as with many others in the bible is that it has so many layers and lessons that we can get very wrapped up in small detailed meanings and miss the overarching themes and points.  Each of these smaller lessons is important, but we need to be careful and not look at this story with our blinders on but rather always search for the greater meaning and make sure the smaller lessons fit within that overall meaning.  The risk as with much of the bible is that the tint on our own glasses will influence our understanding, just it did the leaders of the day in missing Jesus as the Christ.  This can lead us to something called proof texting where we attempted to be proved our beliefs using the text without keeping the whole text in context.  Some would say that Jesus doesn’t condemn her sin and use that as a context for allowing other sin.  Others would use this text primarily to condemn the men in the crowd as this woman must have been committing adultery with someone if the accusation was true; and while this is surely warranted and important to understanding the lesson, it is only part of the lesson.  Others spend endless hours in conjecture about what Jesus was writing on the ground; was it the name of the man she was with, was it one of the laws pertaining to how the people should respond in this situation? 

This passage is surrounded by Jesus’ claims of who He is and what He has come to do.  And in the passage remember that Jesus is in the Temple complex, He is on the Temple Mount which is within the city walls.  The people come wanting Jesus to uphold the law that allows them to stone this woman, yet they are guilty of breaking the very law in desiring to stone her within the city gates and in desiring to stone only her as the law requires the stoning of both guilty parties.  Jesus is calling out the hypocrisy we all share in desiring to condemn others while avoiding looking at ourselves.  And He once again is offering a lesson on grace.  While He does not condemn the woman to her sin, He does offer her a chance at a new life without sin.  Jesus offers her forgiveness of sin rather than demanding payment for sin.

Remember also that the teachers of the law (those that should know it the best) are trying to trap Jesus.  They are obviously not understanding the teaching He is bringing to them about who He is or they would understand that they are trying to trap God so they can accuse Him.  How often do we do that?  How often do we attempt to trap God into some answer so we can use it to our own advantage? 

I could go on for many pages about the lessons in this passage as there are so many layers and lessons in this story, but what did God teach you as you read this story?

What miraculous sign will you give us that we may see it and believe you?  You have got to be kidding, right?  Jesus has just fed 5000 people with 5 small loaves and 2 small fish.  He has crossed the sea without a boat (vs. 22).  Now they ask for a miracle so they can believe.  Oh, but wait a minute.  Before I get to hard on them, how many times have I done exactly the same thing?  How many times have I witnessed God do something miraculous and weeks, days, hours, maybe even just  minutes later seek another one to confirm something about God.

What follows the request to show a miracle greater than manna from heaven that is credited to Moses is the first of the seven “I AM” discourses.  In this first one Jesus makes sure to say that God provided the manna not Moses, and now God is providing the true bread, the Bread of Life, in the form of Jesus.  Remember Jesus’ words to Satan , “Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Mt 4:4).  Remember also Jesus’ words to the disciples when talking to the woman at the well, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about…My food is to do the will of Him who sent me and to finish His work” (John 32, 34).  Now these same folks that screamed for a miracle are unwilling to accept that Jesus has come down from Heaven.

What follows is a passage that led early Christians too be called cannibals.  But we know that Jesus is teaching about the communion that followers will celebrate to remember His death and resurrection.  I do have another picture for you today that shows the Synagogue mentioned in verse 58.

When the disciples called this a hard teaching do you suppose they were saying it was hard to understand, or hard to accept?

It is interesting though that Jesus never asks people to accept the teaching strictly by itself; He always challenges people to test it.  “Test it by the teaching of Moses.”  “Test it by the teaching of the prophets.”  “For this is the teaching of God the Father and I have come to do His will.”

How often have we chosen to shoot the messenger when a teaching is hard to accept, especially when the truth stings a bit?

The pools of Bathesda (or Bethsaida) are located just north of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.  People would enter the pools when they were stirred up.  Now we might misunderstand this to mean that someone would physically stir the water, but what people witnessed was seeing the water appear to as if it were boiling.  Verse 4 which may not be in your bibles gives the description of this.  “From time to time an angel of the Lord would come down and stir up the waters.  The first one into the pool after each such disturbance would be cured of whatever disease he had.”  This verse doesn’t appear because it does not appear in the most important manuscripts used to authenticate the Gospel of John.  It does however, gives us tremendous insight into understanding what the invalid man was talking about.  He would get passed over for healing because only one could be healed at a time and he couldn’t get into the water fast enough.

I am including pictures of the pools so that you can see their size.  While it may have no theological importance to see them, these pools are very large, holding vast amounts of water.  Many people would have been able to be near them.  At one time their was a church built over the top of the eastern end of the pools.  You can see some of the ruins of the church in the pictures

While I was in Israel, I witnessed a number of regulations regarding the Sabbath.  While I certainly wish to respect the culture and devotion that is given to these regulations since they are often followed with a true desire to please God, I will admit that some of them seemed like overkill.  One example is the elevators that would stop on every floor of the hotel during the Sabbath so that devout Jews would not have to work by pushing either the up/down button to call the elevator, nor the floor button once inside to tell it where to go.  They simply waited for the elevator to open, got in and rode it until they got where they were going and the door opened.  We must remember that none of these regulations are in the Mosaic Code, but are traditions ordained by man.  Again, not evil or wrong to do, but ripe for abuse and misunderstanding which has the potential to point someone toward action without understanding,  and not necessarily leading them closer to God.

Is it any wonder that Jesus uses the term “Blind Guides” so often to describe the leaders who refuse to accept His testimony?  It goes to show that knowledge in and of itself is neither the beginning nor the end of wisdom.  In fact the bible says that fear of the Lord is both the beginning of Wisdom and Knowledge.  Hear we have leaders who have a great deal of knowledge of the scriptures but because they refuse to see, they cannot understand the meaning or the fulfillment of the scriptures as seen in Jesus.

What spoke to you as you read God’s word?  What was sparked in your imagination as you read these passages?

The Samaritans were part Jewish and part Gentile since the time of the northern kingdom captivity to Assyria.  This led to mixed forms of worship like that performed on Mt Gerizim.  Because of their mixed race and worship they were despised by the Jews.  We need to understand the connection to her Jewish heritage though to understand the reverence given by this Samaritan woman to the well of Jacob.  As we move further into the story we see that Jesus does not discriminate as to who can receive the message of the Gospel.  This woman and her people, whom the Jews despise is offered living water by the Messiah.

The Gospel of Jesus is often accused of being exclusive in its claims and to some extent it is.  Only through faith in Jesus can one be saved.  But the Gospel is not discriminatory in who can believe.  Anyone, no matter their background, their past, their prior unbelief, their prior false worship; anyone who is willing to recognize Jesus as the Messiah is welcomed into the Kingdom.

 The disciples who are witnessing this harvest are blind to what is happening because they are not willing to see what is happening and so they concentrate on mundane needs like food for the body rather than food for the spirit.  How often do we become blind to what God is doing because it doesn’t fit our notions of what should be happening.  And then how do we find ourselves focused on the mundane workings rather than on the big picture, the harvest that is ripe and ready to be brought in?

I always find Mary’s response to the supply of wine puzzling.  Why is it her business to make sure the problem is taken care of?  We find no evidence that she has witnessed any miracle by Jesus prior to this event, although it certainly seems as though she must have.  But while puzzled at Mary’s response, we also learn something from her request of Jesus; she just tells Him the problem.  She offers no suggestion as to how to solve it.  How often do we come to Jesus that openly, telling Him our problem without offering a suggestion as to how it should be solved and sometimes even demanding that it be solved a certain way.  Is it any wonder we think that Jesus doesn’t answer our prayer when we have left Him no room to answer it as it may need to be answered?

Just a little historical and theological info here.  The pots were stone pots, the type that could be kept ceremonially clean, that is why they are called “those used for ceremonial washing”.  They have special water in them that is not to be used for anything other than holy cleansing.  And while they appear to have been empty which makes me wonder why, they were most likely filled upon Jesus’ request with water suitable for cleansing as would be the custom with such vessels.

As we look at the first chapter of John being a thesis of John’s belief that Jesus is God, it is understandable that John would now describe a miracle right off the bat to prove his point.  I hear John saying, “Only God could do something like turn water into wine so you must believe that Jesus is the very presence of God in the flesh.”  And immediately after this retelling of the account at Cana, John describes an encounter with the people in the temple over Jesus’ authority there. 

Chapter three contains the verse that may be the most known verse in the bible.  John 3:16.  Nicodemus, a Pharisee comes to Jesus in the darkness, the protection, of the night.  I find that telling; not only that Nicodemus is scared to be seen with Jesus, but that Jesus uses this very situation to teach the truth about who He is and Why He came.  The Greek meaning of Born again, is “Born from Above”, which is another way of saying Born of the Spirit.  As He teaches Nicodemus, Jesus highlights how we tend to trust more in the things we can see, touch and feel (remember the people asking for a sign as proof of Jesus’ authority) rather than in the things of God.  And since Jesus comes from God, His teaching comes from God as well, and we can only understand and accept it if we are born of God.  Remember John 1:12-13.

Jesus gets very much to the point that we should all listen too.  If we are unwilling to accept the things that Jesus teaches about this world, a world which make some sense to us, how are we going to accept the things which are of a realm we have never experienced?

What do you learn from Jesus in this passage?  Have you ever connected the fact that Nicodemus comes to Jesus in the darkness and that Jesus teaches about evil being done in the darkness and the truth coming out in the light?

In this first chapter of John, I feel like John is laying out his thesis.  His argument being that Jesus is not only man but God.  Not just a form of God, but the very presence of God.  That is why the claim of creator yet not created, flesh yet divine.  Something that I also find fascinating about this passage is the way we as believers are described.  Our spiritual birth as children of God is described as very similar to the flesh birth of Jesus; “children not born of natural descent, nor of human decision, or a husband’s will, but born of God.”

In verse 19 of chapter 1 John begins the defense of his thesis.  Remember in the earlier verses that John the Baptist is not the light of the world.  Now the Apostle John shows that John the Baptist agreed with that assessment.

A verse that I need to call your attention to is one that could be understood in two separate ways.  The traditional one that most of us understand is the derogatory slight given to Nazareth as a town that nothing good could come from.  This is supported by scriptural evidence of Jesus being rejected there on more than one occasion, by the citation in John 1:11, and by the lack of miracles performed because of the peoples lack of belief. 

The other possibility for this mention of Nazareth not being able to produce good, may lie in the fact that Nazareth is not mentioned in any of the prophecies concerning the coming or teaching of the Messiah, and for that matter was not even in existence during much of the time before Christ, having been believed to be abandon after destruction by the Assyrians.  Thus the lack of biblical prophecy concerning the village and the lack of its existence for as much as 700 years before Christ might lead one to believe that nothing of importance (good) could come from Nazareth. 

What did you discover about Jesus as you read the first Chapter?

The Author of the Gospel of John is the Apostle John, and is identified in the Gospel only as “the disciple whom Jesus loved”.  Some of the evidence that supports his authorship is that the author is Jewish based on his familiarity with Jewish customs and history.  The author is an eyewitness to the events of Jesus’ life and ministry reciting details about number of fish caught and details at the miracle at Cana including the claim of being an eyewitness in chapter 21. 

The purpose of John’s telling of this account is written in his own hand in John 21:31; “that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name.”

John’s gospel is directed to a wide audience.  A unique aspect is the mention of the “world” 78 times.  Another unique part of John is his description of miracles as signs.  Remember that John’s purpose is to point people to Christ and signs direct peoples attention.  Thus the miracles of Jesus point to who He is and to His power to help each of us in our own needs.  Other words that appear numerous times in John are Believe and Life.  Again when we think of John’s purpose in writing we see why these are important things to mention.

John differs from the other Gospels in that it includes many stories not included elsewhere.  92 percent of John is unique material.  Some of this unique material is the inclusion of the 7 “I Am” statements, the various meetings with people such as the woman at the well and the wedding at Cana, and the greater detail of the Lord’s Supper including the washing of the disciple’s feet.

John also faces off against the false teaching that was spreading at the time that Jesus could not be human and divine.   John later continues this same correction in his letters.