John records a lot of misconceptions that the crowd had about Jesus:
The officers then came to the chief priests and Pharisees, who said to them, “Why did you not bring him?” The officers answered, “No one ever spoke like this man!” The Pharisees answered them, “Have you also been deceived? Have any of the authorities or the Pharisees believed in him? But this crowd that does not know the law is accursed.” Nicodemus, who had gone to him before, and who was one of them, said to them, “Does our law judge a man without first giving him a hearing and learning what he does?” They replied, “Are you from Galilee too? Search and see that no prophet arises from Galilee.” (John 7.45 – 52, ESV)
Second, Jonah was from Galilee. Jonah was from Gath-Hepher (see 2 Kings 14.25), and Gath-Hepher was in Galilee! Therefore, some prophets do come from Galilee.
No authority or Pharisee believes in Jesus
But Nicodemus does. (See the conversation above as well as John 19.38 – 42)
And that’s the end of the chapter. No consensus. No mass conversions. Some believe. Some don’t. And the religious leaders are outright opposed.
And do you seek great things for yourself? Seek them not. (Jeremiah 45.5)
If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you: “A servant is not greater than his master.” If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you… (John 15.18 – 20, ESV)
What was the crowd’s perception of Jesus? Among other things…
About the middle of the feast Jesus went up into the temple and began teaching. The Jews therefore marveled, saying, “How is it that this man has learning when he has never studied?” So Jesus answered them, “My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me.” (John 7.14 – 16, ESV)
It’s a presumption that Jesus had never studied! He hadn’t studied under one of their known teaching rabbis, apparently. That’s an interesting choice by the Father. Jesus may have wanted to study. That’s what the incident at the Temple was about when he was 12. But God preferred that his Son be a layman! I wrote about this before.
Of course, they said the same thing about the apostles in Acts chapter four.
The members of the council were amazed when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, for they could see that they were ordinary men with no special training in the Scriptures. They also recognized them as men who had been with Jesus. (Acts 4.13, NLT)
What can we learn here? I don’t want to put down seminaries, but it’s apparent that Jesus himself and his original followers presented themselves as laymen. Only Paul had studied under a rabbi, but that teaching was medium useless. (His exposure to the Old Testament wasn’t useless, but he wouldn’t have learned anything from Gamaliel about Jesus.)
The major lesson is that God can and will use any of us!
Then Amos answered and said to Amaziah, “I was no prophet, nor a prophet’s son, but I was a herdsman and a dresser of sycamore figs. But the LORD took me from following the flock, and the LORD said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel.’ Now therefore hear the word of the LORD…” (Amos 7.14 – 16, ESV)
When the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. And they were saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance of the tomb?” (Mark 16.1 – 3, ESV)
My wife, June, and her friend Phoebe were asking a similar question when they met at a restaurant the other day. June had two 50-pound bags of wheat in her car that we had picked up for Phoebe, who lives in Denver. “Who is going to transfer the wheat from June’s car to Phoebe’s car?” We all prayed for an angel.
While they were having lunch and studying the Bible together, a man walked up and said, “Are you all women of God?” They replied, “Yes, we are!” The man continued to talk with them and somehow the subject of angels came up, and June responded, “As a matter of fact, we asked the Lord to send us an angel, are you him?”
He laughed and said, “What do you need done?” Within a few minutes, he had transferred the wheat! Mission accomplished…by an angel whom God sent. An angel who introduced himself as “Pastor Steve.”
An angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. (Matthew 28.2, ESV)
I’ve already posted today’s Veterans Day blog: God Values Warriors. But I can’t not post what my son Mark sent to our granddaughter’s school for their Veterans Day Assembly this morning.
As Mark wrote:
Lt. Col. Robert Ewell, USAF ret. (color photo)
MW4 Hugh “Mac” MacDonald, US Army ret. (B&W photo with helicopter)
Grandfathers of Kesley Ewell
“We were soldiers once, and young.” – from the title of a book by Harold Moore and Joseph Galloway
It’s Veterans Day, and I don’t think I can improve on what I wrote last year…
It’s important to remember that God values warriors. Consider:
God is referred to in scripture as a warrior: But the LORD is with me like a mighty warrior… (Jeremiah 20.11, NIV)
One of the last pictures we have of Jesus is as a warrior.
Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems, and he has a name written that no one knows but himself. He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is The Word of God. And the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses. (Revelation 19.11 – 14, ESV)
Many of God’s key men were warriors:
Abraham led his men on an armed mission to rescue Lot. (Genesis 14.11 – 16)
Joshua was a general who led a series of campaigns to capture the promised land.
Gideon (and most of the judges) led the Israelites to conquer their oppressors.
David, of course, was a warrior demonstrated first in his defeat of Goliath. (1 Samuel 17.31 – 49)
The first recorded Gentile convert was Cornelius, a Roman centurion. (Acts 10)
I’ve been challenged in adult Sunday School classes about being “too military.” But I don’t write this stuff…I just report it! If God didn’t value warriors both for what they do and for the fact that warriors remind us of spiritual warfare, God wouldn’t have devoted so much space to honoring warriors. Here are some snippets of 1 Chronicles 11:
He wielded his spear against 300 whom he killed at one time.
He took his stand in the midst of the plot and defended it and killed the Philistines. And the Lord saved them by a great victory.
He wielded his spear against 300 men and killed them.
He struck down two heroes of Moab. He also went down and struck down a lion in a pit on a day when snow had fallen. And he struck down an Egyptian, a man of great stature, five cubits tall. The Egyptian had in his hand a spear like a weaver’s beam, but Benaiah went down to him with a staff and snatched the spear out of the Egyptian’s hand and killed him with his own spear.
Those were some tough men!
This is a day to honor all the men and women who have served and are serving in our armed forces. God bless them.
Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. (Ephesians 6.10 – 13, ESV)
We continue watching Jesus deliberately antagonize the Pharisees even while doing good. It’s one of my favorite stories, and I love the way it starts:
As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. (John 9.1, ESV)
A great story, and “Jesus saw a man” is a lesson of its own. As you read the rest of the chapter, you’ll see that the Pharisees hadn’t seen him. Even his neighbors had never looked at him closely enough to know whether the seeing man was the same as the blind man.
Then what happened? Let’s take a close look at the means Jesus uses to heal him:
And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” Having said these things, he spit on the ground and made mud with the saliva. Then he anointed the man’s eyes with the mud and said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). So he went and washed and came back seeing. (John 9.2 – 7, ESV, emphasis mine)
“He spit on the ground and made mud…” and…wait for it…
Now it was a Sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. (John 9.14, ESV)
You’ve got to be kidding! Again? Nearly the same sentence as in John 5 that we read yesterday.
Jesus said to him, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.” And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked. Now that day was the Sabbath. (John 5.8, 9, ESV)
“We must work the works of him who sent me…” whether it’s the Sabbath or not! And I’ll even heal him by working: making mud. There’s probably a rule against that somewhere!
It’s the religious people who missed Jesus. “He came to his own, and his own received him not.” Let’s not make the same mistake, elevating our traditions above ministering to real people. Chuck Smith, founder of Calvary Chapel, set us a good example. Jesus said:
I’m here to invite outsiders, not coddle insiders. (Matthew 9.13, MSG)
You have to ask yourself as you read through the gospels, why was Jesus ultimately crucified by the religious leaders of the day? John makes one of the issues fairly clear in two stories not found in the other gospels. Here’s the first:
Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, which is called in Hebrew, Bethesda, having five porches. In these lay a great multitude of sick people, blind, lame, paralyzed, waiting for the moving of the water. For an angel went down at a certain time into the pool and stirred up the water; then whoever stepped in first, after the stirring of the water, was made well of whatever disease he had. Now a certain man was there who had an infirmity thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he already had been in that condition a long time, He said to him, “Do you want to be made well?” The sick man answered Him, “Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; but while I am coming, another steps down before me.” Jesus said to him, “Rise, take up your bed and walk.” And immediately the man was made well, took up his bed, and walked. And that day was the Sabbath. (John 5.2 – 9, NKJV, emphasis mine)
I like several aspects of the way this story was presented in The Chosen.
The episode is built around an envisioned backstory of the cripple, including what it might be like to lay at that pool waiting for the “stirring of the waters.”
Chosen takes the position that we don’t know what stirred the water – it could have been a hot spring – and that no one was really healed anyway, including the first one into the pool.
When Jesus asks does he want to be healed, and the man starts talking about the pool, Jesus says, “You don’t need this pool. You need only me.”
After the healing, and the inevitable outcry of the Pharisees that Jesus healed the man on the Sabbath, the story ends with this exchange:
“Well,” John adds, “the Pharisees were pretty upset.” Simon says, “That was almost as much fun to watch as the miracle.” “This week should be fun, huh?” John says. “I do have a question, Rabbi.” “Yes, Matthew?” “Waiting thirty more minutes would not have mattered to that man. Why did you do this on Shabbat?” Jesus stops and turns to face the three of them. “Sometimes,” he says, “you’ve got to stir up the water.” – Jerry Jenkins, The Chosen: Come and See
“Sometimes, you’ve got to stir up the water,” and that’s exactly what Jesus does in the story we’ll look at tomorrow.
So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ. (Colossians 2.16, 17, NKJV)
For the Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath.” (Matthew 12.8, ESV)
Back to the Gospel of John. I still love the way The Chosen handled the opening of John 4:
He left Judea and departed again for Galilee, and he had to pass through Samaria. (John 4.3, 4, ESV)
The Chosen showed a long discussion with the disciples ending with Jesus saying,
Listen, if we are going to have a question-and-answer session every time we do something you’re not used to, it’s going to be a very annoying time together for all of us. …So, follow me.” (Text from The Chosen, Volume 1 by Jerry Jenkins)
Today, I want to look at the end of the story. Jesus went to Samaria to reach, not just the woman at the well, but the whole village:
Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, then comes the harvest’? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest…Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me all that I ever did.” So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world.” (John 4.35, 39 – 42, ESV)
Who is out there, ready to believe, waiting to hear the word? Who are the unexpected converts? The disciples didn’t like Samaritans, but here they were, believing – more than in Israel. There are disciple-making movements in Iran documented in Sheep Among Wolves, Volume II. Who would expect all those believers in Iran!?
And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd. (John 10.16, ESV)
When they heard these things they fell silent. And they glorified God, saying, “Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life.” (Acts 11.18, ESV)
Please permit me one more sports blog – a valuable lesson on self-control.
In the October 30 game between NFL’s Charlotte Panthers and Atlanta Falcons, the Falcons scored a touchdown with just over two minutes left and a field goal with just 36 seconds left to lead the Panthers by 6 points, 34 – 28. But the Panthers came right back and completed a stunning 62-yard touchdown pass to tie the game with only 12 seconds left. They were one (nearly) automatic extra point from winning the game.
However, 12 seconds left means the game isn’t over. The receiver, #2 in the picture, ripped off his helmet in celebration. There’s a rule against that (which this veteran receiver would know), and the Panthers were penalized 15 yards, making the extra-point attempt 48 yards instead of 33 yards. The kicker missed. The Panthers lost in overtime.
An athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules. (2 Timothy 2.5, ESV)
Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified. (1 Corinthians 9.25 – 27, ESV)
I don’t follow the Baltimore Ravens of the NFL, but their kicker, Justin Tucker, seems to be one of the best ever at his position, and, he’s a believer. After kicking the winning field goal with no time left a few weeks ago, his post-game interview has highlights of its own:
He gave full credit to the guy who snapped the ball and the holder: “his first career game-winning hold.” Plus the blockers, of course.
He acknowledged that he prays before each kick “Not for results, just for peace.”
He was later interviewed by Jason Gay of the Wall Street Journal. His article is worth the read in its entirety. Here are some snippets:
But of course they wear his number in Baltimore. Tucker’s the MVF, Most Valuable Foot, central to the identity of his team and this city. That’s Tucker in commercials for the local convenience store heaven, Royal Farms. That’s Tucker, a trained bass-baritone opera singer, a music major at Texas, singing “Ave Maria” at the Baltimore Basilica over Christmas. [Note: the Ave Maria is fantastic – click on that!]
Did you catch Tucker’s generous postgame interview on TV, in which he nerded out about the pleasure of getting the football delivered with “12 o’clock laces” and deflected glory to Ravens snapper Nick Moore and rookie holder Jordan Stout? Tucker seemed to invent a new statistical category when he credited Stout with his “first career game-winning hold.”
“From there, I’m just a system kicker,” Tucker said. “The ball kicks itself at that point.”
Yeah, right. System kicker. Ball kicks itself. By almost every metric, Tucker’s the best there is, the best there’s ever been, already, at age 32. He’s a lifetime 98.9% on extra points, hovering over 91% on field goals, and that winner against the Bengals was his 61st successful fourth quarter or overtime kick in a row. Over his eleven seasons, he’s 17 for 17 on kicks in the final minute of regulation or OT.
“The ball kicks itself” because Justin is disciplined. He trains. His skill is not accidental. Jason Gay goes on:
Sitting here at a table inside the Ravens practice facility, Tucker describes his methodical approach. Practice is a critical, offseason tinkering routine. In the “lab,” as he calls it, Tucker may tweak his approach. Once a modification is made, repetition is essential. It sounds dull. He loves it.
“The Bruce Lee principle,” he says. “Practicing one kick 10,000 times, not just practicing kicking 10,000 times.”
The kick itself, Justin says, is 1.3 seconds:
One point three seconds. It’s a Tucker mantra, the time he says he needs, from snap to kick, to lock in and get it done.
Before and after those 1.3 seconds, Tucker allows himself to be human. All those edgy feelings you feel at home, watching a kicker get ready? Tucker thinks it’s healthy to feel those. “I’ll have all of the thoughts, from anxiety and fear to confidence, excitement, exhilaration, joy, celebration with my teammates and my coaches,” he says. “All of those feelings exist and they’re important. They need to be acknowledged.” “They can be put away for 1.3 seconds while I see the snap, see the hold and see the ball off my foot.”
My son Mark observed that if each kick is just 1.3 seconds, all those field goals and extra points over his 11-year career amount to less than 20 minutes of kicking on the field. “Gotta be the job with the single biggest preparation-to-performance ratio in history.”
Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. (1 Corinthians 9.24, 25, ESV)
