Today, I am reading and commenting on  John 19-21.

When Jesus was before Pilate, Jesus did not answer any of the accusations brought against Him, or make any sort of defense.  This led Pilate to ask Him if He understood that he had power over Him.  Jesus responded by telling Pilate that he only had power over Him because someone greater had given it to him.  Pilate then tried to find a way to release Jesus without the crowd starting a riot (John’s wording hints that the crowd was either composed of Jewish religious leaders or was filled with agents of the religious leaders who kept it stirred up).  The Jewish religious leaders suggested that any leader who claimed sovereignty over the Jewish nation was an enemy of Caesar.  Then when Pilate asked them if they really wanted him to crucify their king, the chief priests declared that they had no king but Caesar.  At this point, the chief priests denied the sovereignty of God.  They put Caesar above God as king over themselves.  It would be very easy to get caught up in writing about the implications of what they said relative to First Century Jewish thought and miss the lesson for us.  How easily we can get caught up in trying to use the government to accomplish what we believe to be godly ends and thus give over sovereignty which belongs to God to members of the government.  In this recent election, all too many people were ready to lift up Donald Trump, or Kamala Harris, as the one who would bring about our salvation.  All too many of us are ready to declare that we have no king but Caesar, when truly there is only One King who deserves our loyalty and worship.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  John 19-21.

When Jesus appeared to His disciples after His resurrection He told them that He was sending them into the world as the Father had sent Him.  He followed that up by telling them to receive the Holy Spirit and that if they forgive anyone’s sins, those sins are forgiven, and if they do not forgive those sins, those sins are not forgiven.  From one perspective, Jesus was sent into the world to forgive people’s sin.  So, Jesus sent His disciples, and us, into the world in order to forgive people’s sin. This has some serious implications.  First, Jesus carried out His mission to forgive sins by dying n the cross, so we should expect that we may be called upon to suffer and die for others.  Not all of those present when Jesus said this died as martyrs, so not all of us will either.  I also want to stress the importance of forgiving the sins of those we meet.  Jesus told us that those we do not forgive will not be forgiven.  Of course, He also told us that if we do not forgive others, we will not be forgiven.

I want to add one final note: while it is important that we forgive the sins of others, there must be some sins which we should not forgive.  If the latter was not the case, Jesus would not have granted the Church the power to refuse to forgive some people’s sins.

Note: the Church is the Body of Believers. That is, each one of us who put our faith in Jesus Christ represent one portion of the Church.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  John 19-21.

When Jesus told Pilate that he would have no power over Jesus unless it had been given to him from above, Pilate would have understood Jesus to mean “given to him from Caesar”, when we as Christians understand Jesus to have meant, “given to Pilate by God.”  I believe that Jesus meant the traditional Christian understanding, but intended Pilate to take it the way that he did.  With that thought in his mind, Pilate would have found it difficult to oppose the argument that Jesus claiming a king made Him an enemy of Caesar.  There is another aspect of these two different possible meanings of Jesus statement about power being given from above, it highlights the idolatry which the Jewish religious leaders expressed when they said they had no king but Caesar.  A consistent theme throughout the Old Testament presented God as the king of Israelites.  The kings of Israel ruled as surrogates for God’s rule.  By declaring that Caesar was their only king, the Jewish religious leaders were denying a commitment to God as the highest authority.  More importantly for us, they were replacing God with the government of Caesar.  We must be careful not to make the same mistake: the mistake of allowing ourselves to think that the government can bring us salvation from whatever problems we believe are overwhelming.  We have just come off of an election where too many Christians put their hope for the future in voting, and thus in the government, when they should be putting their hope in God.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  John 19-21.

Pilate tried to find a way to avoid ordering Jesus’ crucifixion because he did not believe him guilty of any crime deserving of crucifixion.  We can see that he became frustrated at Jesus’ refusal to make any arguments in His own defense.  Jesus’ response to Pilate is something we should bear in mind if and when we find ourselves facing government persecution for following our faith in Him: Pilate only had power over Jesus because it had been given him from above.  In the same way, the government only has powers over those who serve Jesus if God gives it to them.  I will also note that Jesus did not tell Pilate that he was not guilty for ordering the execution of One he knew to be innocent of the crimes with which He was charged.

When Mary Magdalene first saw the empty tomb, it must have been a real gut-punch for her.  She was already grieving the horrible death of someone she had loved, now she couldn’t even get closure by finishing the preparation of his body for burial.  Peter probably also felt even worse when he found the empty tomb, but for different reasons.  On one hand, perhaps someone had stolen to body for who knows what nefarious purpose.  On the other hand, perhaps Jesus had risen, after Peter had betrayed Him by denying that he knew Him.  Then came the joy!  For Mary it came quickly.  Jesus appeared to her and she realized that He had risen.  I want to take a moment to emphasize that John tells us here that a woman was the first witness to Jesus rising from the dead, and the first to believe that He had risen.  Once again, God did not first reveal Himself to those the world considered important.  If John was making this story up, why wasn’t the first to see the risen Jesus one of the male disciples?  OK, back to my main point here.  It took a lot longer for Peter to feel the joy of Jesus’ resurrection, because he had to deal with the fact that he had denied Jesus at the critical moment.  And yet the joy he must have felt when he realized that Jesus asked him three times if he loved Him for a reason.  Jesus gave Peter the opportunity to declare his love once for each of the time he denied Him.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on John 19-21

From time to time we will face those who seek to use whatever power over us they may have, whether that power is legitimate or just bullying, to keep us from standing up for what we believe in.  In those circumstances we should remember what Jesus said to Pilate during His trial, “You would have no power over me at all unless it were given to you from above.”  This statement is equally true of those who attempt to exercise power over us.  They will have no more power over us than that which God gives them.  Therefor we should not be afraid to stand up for what God has revealed to us in the face of such threats.

I have always identified with Thomas in this passage.  When the other disciples told him that they had seen Jesus after the Resurrection, he did not believe them.  He was a skeptic.  However, he was what I would call an honest skeptic.  He thought the claim that Jesus had risen from the dead was extraordinary and therefor required proof.  He did not call his friends liars, he merely said that he could not take their word for it.  Then he laid out what he would consider sufficient proof that Jesus had risen from the dead.  However, the most beautiful part is that when he did see Jesus in the flesh, he did not need the proof which he had demanded.  Thomas was willing to believe, but was not willing to be deceived.  We should seek to emulate him.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on John 19-21

When the leading priests declared that they have no king but Caesar they were making a blasphemous statement.  They intended it as a political statement to force Pilate’s hand, but it was also a repudiation of God.  By making this statement, they were declaring that their highest allegiance was to Caesar when it should have been to God.  This should be a warning to us.  We can get so caught up in promoting our political ideas that we place government above God.

I love thinking about what was happening when Peter went fishing again after Jesus’ resurrection.  Peter did not know what else to do, so he went fishing.  The other Apostles joined him because they did not know what else to do either.  All of them had been spending all of their time for the last three years following Jesus around.  Now He had died and while He had risen from the dead and appeared to them, He wasn’t around all of the time.  So, Peter went back to what he knew, fishing.  I was going to focus on the fact that Jesus got Peter to declare that he loved Him once for each of the times Peter had denied Him, but I realized there is another point to this story.

Peter went back to fishing because, now that his days of being a disciple of a famous rabbi were over, he needed to support himself.  However, he spent all night fishing and caught nothing.  Jesus showed up as he was giving up and told him to throw the nets back into the water.  They did as He said, even though they were too close to shore to reasonably expect to catch anything and as a result they caught an extraordinarily large haul.  Then Jesus tells Peter that he needs to focus on building up those who chose to follow Jesus going forward.  God would take care of his needs.