More #StuffJesusNeverSaid

More #StuffJesusNeverSaid May 6, 2015

No one can come to me unless the book draws him

This is an interesting one, because in John 6, the source of the quote which is the basis for this reworked version, the meaning is probably “no one can come to me unless they find their way to me through the Scriptures they already have.” The point is that the hearers of Jesus were grumbling in the wilderness while demanding food, supposedly on the basis of expectations their Scriptures justified, without recognizing that they were behaving just like a previous generation that grumbled in the wilderness.

I explored this point a long time ago in an article that is still online called “Food for Thought: The Bread of Life Discourse (John 6:25-71) in Johannine Legitimation,” which originally appeared in a pioneering online journal, Theological Gathering, in 1997.

The Gospel of John does seem to me to be suggesting that a book is involved in drawing people. But the point, in context, is that some people are reading the book in a manner that fails to lead them to humility, to recognize ways in which they are failing to learn lessons from the past.

And so the meme, and the Gospel of John, together provide significant warnings for those who claim to follow Jesus in the present day.


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