“We know where this man is from; but when the Christ comes, no one knows where He is from” (verse 27). How often we mistake God when He comes to us! The Gospels contain a litany of mistaken attitudes towards Jesus Christ. Some who followed Jesus turn back. I guess you could say they repented from following Him. Things get too tough or too confusing (such as Jesus’ teaching about the Bread of Life). Some who followed Jesus shrivel... Read more
John 7:14-24 “Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment” (verse 24). This is the summary of Jesus’ teaching in John 7:14-24, which is illustrated in 2 different ways. First, the Jews judge according to appearance because they judge Jesus by His formal training: “How does this man know letters, not having studied?” (verse 15). The second example is in verse 23 when the Jews accuse Jesus of violating the Sabbath by healing on the Sabbath. I... Read more
John 7:1-13 “For no one does anything in secret while he himself seeks to be known openly. If you do these things, show yourself to the world” (verse 4). I’m with Jesus’ brothers on this one, although not for the same reasons. God wants people to come to know Him, and yet He seems to operate so silently. God is glorious and bigger than the world, and yet He makes Himself invisible. I wrote on John 6 concerning the... Read more
John 6:60-71 All of this talk about eating the flesh and drinking the blood of Jesus is making my head hurt and my heart ache! “This is a hard saying; who can understand it!” John 6 gets to the heart of the Gospel because it gets to the heart of Jesus Christ. In this last part of John 6 the mystery is more about the Spirit and the Word, while previously it was about flesh and bread. “The words that... Read more
John 6:41-59 Have you ever made fresh bread or been in a house where someone has? I’ll bet I can make you hungry merely by suggesting such wonderful food. Can you smell it? It smells so moist that it seems to emanate a bread cloud over your head, ready to rain down a gustatory experience of biblical proportions. The air is so thick with flavor that you believe you can reach up to it, grab some, and stuff it in... Read more
Mark 14:1-11 You own something of great worth. Mary had her alabaster flask of pure nard, but you have something even more valuable. Mary’s treasure was physical and therefore of calculable worth: 300 denarii, or 300 days’ wages. In contemporary terms, Mary’s nard was worth tens of thousands of dollars. Since a living wage for most people throughout history has been only enough to live on, with nothing left over, Mary’s treasure was indeed of great value. But your treasure... Read more
John 6:15-40 We constantly confuse earth with heaven, even though heaven indeed comes to us through the things of the earth. Every one of us his hungry every day and all throughout the day. We fill our lives with hunger, the hunger for bread and the hunger for water; the hunger for silence and the hunger for peace; the hunger for companionship and the hunger for love; the hunger for health and the hunger for rest. How is it, then,... Read more
John 6:1-14 God has a simple message for you today. He is saying to you: “I am calling you to do something that’s too hard for you to do so that you can remember to trust in Me.” You should remember that because it’s both challenging and true. You are not the first that God has so called. In today’s lesson, we have the example of Jesus’ disciples. If ever anyone was called by God to do something that was... Read more
John 5:30-47 The writer of the book of Hebrews begins his magisterial letter on Christ as the end of the Old Covenant and the embodiment of the New with these words: “God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds.” In a similar way,... Read more
John 5:16-29 Life and death hang in the balance in this passage. It seems odd, even bizarre to the point of belonging in a Ripley’s Believe it or Not Odditorium somewhere, that life and death would arise in such a way. In the beginning of John 5, Jesus heals a man who had had an infirmity for 38 years. We’re not told what the infirmity was, but in any case this man’s infirmity is a sign and symbol of our... Read more
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