Today, I am reading and commenting on  John 4-5.

Usually when we think about the Samaritan woman at the well we do not actually think about her.  We think about the fact that she was a Samaritan, and the issues with a Jew, especially a religious Jew, talking with a Samaritan.  Or, we think about the fact that she was a woman, and the issues with a religious Jewish man talking to a woman who was not his wife or his mother.  And sometimes we think about the fact that she was a Samaritan woman, and how that made combination exacerbated the two problems.  We do not think about the fact that the people of that town would have considered her a woman of low moral character; she had had five husbands and now was not married to the man she was living with.  The context makes it likely that at least several of her marriages had ended in some way other than the death of her husband.  Yet, this was the woman to whom Jesus chose to preach the Gospel in order to reach the people of her town.  More importantly, she was the right person to whom to preach the Gospel in order to reach the people of her town.  Of course, what makes this even more amazing, and more of a lesson for us, Jesus did not talk to her in order to preach the Gospel to the town.  He didn’t even talk to her in order to preach the Gospel to her.  No, both of those things happened because of what she said to Him and how He just replied with what came naturally to Him.  Jesus reached this town of Samaritans with the Gospel because He talked to a stranger who could do nothing for Him except damage His reputation.  The lesson on how to preach the Gospel: talk to strangers about every day things.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  John 1-3.

When Jesus was talking with Nicodemus He said that God had sent His Son into the world to save the world, not to condemn the world.  That whoever believes in the Son is not condemned, but those who do not believe in Him are condemned.  Which brings us to what I want to write about today.  Jesus tells us that the verdict by which they were condemned was that Light had come into the world, but people preferred darkness to light.  Those who do evil hate the light , want to stay out of the light, because they know that the light will expose their deeds.  On the other hand, those who seek the truth and to live by the truth, come into the light so that they do can be seen.  They want everyone to see that they are not afraid for their actions to be seen by God.  This fits in with Luke’s reports of Jesus saying that everything which is hidden will be revealed.  All of this leads me to the understanding that if we wish to not be condemned we need to be willing to have our actions exposed to the light.  Not because we have lived perfect lives, but because we are willing to be held accountable for our sins and our mistakes.  We need to be willing to stand before God and man and acknowledge that we are broken sinful people who need forgiveness from God and our fellow man.  We need God to transform us so that we do not continue to sin, and we need the help of those around us to live as God’s Spirit directs.

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.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  John 17-18.

When John recounts Jesus final prayer at the Last Supper he brings us back to the transitive principle which played a large part in his accounts of Jesus’ teaching.  At its most basic, that transitive principle was that Jesus was in the Father and the Father was in Jesus, therefore anyone who knew Jesus knew the father.  Jesus further extended that by saying that He was in anyone who believed in Him and followed His teaching, and they were in Him.  In this prayer, Jesus takes this yet further by saying that those who believed in His words as communicated by His disciples entered into this transitive relationship.  So, just as Jesus’ disciples were able to be in Him and have Him in them, we also can be in Him and have Him in us.  Of course, if Jesus is in us that should impact the way in which we feel about the sins which we are constantly tempted to commit.   Hopefully we can come to see that the pleasure we might receive from the sins which tempt us is not worth the joy they will cost us.

Also in His prayer Jesus warns us that the world will hate us for believing in Him because we are no longer part of the world.  The world will try to reclaim us and cause us to recant of testifying to the truth.  We see a form of this hostility in Pilate’s response to Jesus’ statement that He came to testify to the truth.  Pilate asked “What is truth?” indicating that he did not believe there was such a thing as truth.   Our society today also rejects the idea that there is such a thing as truth and hates anyone who claims that there is.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on John 14-16.

As is often the case, I am not quite sure where I am going with this today.  I will just start with my thoughts on the various pieces of this and hope they all fit together.  Jesus makes a statement that you will not be a Christian if you do not take in early in this passage: “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”  He says this in response to Thomas asking “how can we know the way” to where you are going?  Jesus follows that up by telling Philip that if you have seen Him, you have seen the Father.  He later gives us an interesting expansion on that.  Just as He is in the Father and the Father is in Him, so those who believe in Him and obey His commands are in Him and He is in them.  Therefore if we have seen someone who truly believes in Jesus, we have seen Jesus, and since we have seen Jesus we have seen the Father.

So, how do we know who believes in Jesus?  Jesus answers that here for us as well: those who believe in Jesus will do the works He had been doing, and even greater works.  And what works had Jesus been doing?  We find the answer to that in Matthew 11:5: “The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor. ”  I would add to this, the hungry being fed, the thirsty receiving something to drink, and the naked being clothed.  So, when we see these sorts of things happening, we are in the presence of Jesus.  Further on in this passage Jesus tells us that we must be connected to Him the way that branches are connected to the grape vine and that any branches which fail to produce fruit will be removed (and those which do produce fruit will be pruned so that they can be more productive.  So, what fruit are we producing?  Look at that list above.  Figure out which of them you know you can do, and seek to do more of it.  You may not be able to give sight to the blind, but you can probably feed the hungry.  And if you can’t do that, you can certainly proclaim the good news to the poor.  Do what you can, and allow the Spirit to flow through you to do even more.  I want to emphasize that what I wrote was to myself.  If it also applies to you, then God be praised.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  John 12-13.

Here we have yet another account of  a woman anointing Jesus’ feet.  John tells us that the woman was Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus.  In some ways, John’s account makes it easier to understand the point of the story,  Here, Judas is the one who complains that she should have sold the perfume and given the money to the poor.  John points out that Judas was not concerned for the poor, but if Mary had sold the perfume and given the money to aid the poor, she would have given it into the fund which Judas controlled.  This puts Jesus’ comment about us always having the poor among us in a clearer context, especially when we realize that it closely mirrors Deuteronomy 15:11, which goes on from telling us that to tell us to be openhanded towards the poor among us.

So, we have a warning against those who claim to be advocates for the poor, but just want us to give to their “fund to aid the poor” so that they can siphon some of that money off to satisfy their own desires.  Then we have an admonition to not condemn those who give from their heart to bring comfort and blessing to others.  Finally, we are reminded to help the poor in whatever way that we can.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  John 10-11.

We are called to imitate Jesus who laid down his life for us, and then took it up again.  In the same way, if we lay down our life for others in service to Christ, God will raise us up again.  This passage contains two statements which should give us great comfort.  First, if we listen to Jesus and believe in Him, He will give us eternal life.  God has given in to His hands those who do so, and no one is able to take them out of His hands.  The second statement is closely related.  Those who believe in Jesus will live, even though they may die.  Thus we know that those who have gone before us while believing in Jesus will live again, and if we put our faith in Him we shall one day see them again.

This passage also contains an important lesson in the negative.  While Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead caused many to believe in Him, there were those whose opposition to Him was merely intensified by this event.  They were more concerned with losing their power and position then with seeing the will of God come to pass.  In many ways, they represent the answer to the question, “Why doesn’t God just show Himself in a way that no one could doubt?”  The answer, as we see here, is that there will always be those who reject the evidence for God because they do not wish to accept it.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  John 8-9.

Today’s passage begins with the account of the woman caught in adultery.  The earliest manuscripts currently known do not include this passage, which suggests it may be a later addition.  This leads me to suspect that the event recounted here did not actually happen.  However, based on my understanding of how God works in preserving the Truth contained in the Bible I believe it still communicates a message about how we should interact with people.  Jesus’ statement to those who brought the woman to him makes a great model for us to remember when we are tempted to condemn others: Let him who is without sin cast the first stone (using the most common paraphrase).  I want to point out though that does not mean passing off the sins of others as of no consequence.  After all, Jesus’ last words to the woman were “Go, and sin no more.” (using the most common translation).  We should not condemn others for their sins, but we should encourage them to give them up.

I did not mean to spend that much space on that, because the meat of this passage for me is the account of the man born blind.  First, the primary point of the story: the man was not born blind as punishment for sin, neither his nor his parents.  Not all suffering comes as punishment for sin.  However, my Dad pointed out to me a message in this account which now strikes a strong chord within me.  When the Pharisees questioned the man about how he received his sight, they told him that they knew that Jesus was a sinner.  To which the man replied “I don’t really know about that. All I know is that I was blind and now I see.” (paraphrasing)  The man born blind refused to get into a debate about fine theological points.  When they pushed him harder on this the man stuck to his point, “He opened my eyes.”  The man born blind allowed Jesus to open his eyes, while the Pharisees intentionally closed their own eyes.  Will you allow Jesus to open your eyes? Or will you close them to avoid seeing the Truth?

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  John 6-7.

Yet again I noticed something I have never heard anyone comment on.  In this account of the feeding of the five thousand, Andrew presents the boy with five loaves and two fish in response to Jesus asking where they could buy food to feed the crowd.  So, the context suggests that this boy had those five loaves and two fish there in order to sell them to someone in the crowd.  I have no thoughts at this time on what meaning there is to that.  I was just struck by the fact that I had never noticed it before and that I have never heard, or read, anyone comment upon it.

Interestingly, some of those who were fed followed Jesus across the lake and demanded a sign of Him in order to believe in Him.  They asked Him to do something comparable to Moses giving their ancestors manna.  This suggests that while the crowd acknowledged that Jesus provided them with bread, they did not see it as miraculous that He did so.  Again, I am not sure what meaning there is to that. It is just something I noticed.  However, that exchange does contain something of import, something which should influence our understanding of Jesus’ teachings about asking God for what we want.  Jesus tells the crowd, and us, not to work for food which spoils, but instead to work for the food of eternal life.  We should not work for material pleasures, instead we should work for that which has eternal value.  We should not ask God for things which will satisfy our earthly wants, but for things which will give us eternal pleasure.  We should ask God to give us opportunities to introduce others to Him.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  John 4-5.

We can learn a lot of lessons from John’s account of Jesus’ meeting with the Samaritan woman at the well.  First, we should notice that the woman was “the sort” of woman to whom someone who wanted to have a good reputations should not be seen talking.  Jesus didn’t care, and no one dare question Him on it.  Not only did Jesus speak with a woman of questionable reputation, they had a discussion about fairly complex theology.  More interesting to me is the fact that the people of the town came to hear what Jesus had to say because the woman told them that they should.  In fact, not only did they come to listen to Jesus because of her account of her conversation with Him, but many of them believed in Him from her testimony.  Let’s unpack this a little bit.  This woman came to get water in the middle of the day so as to avoid the town gossips, who got their water first thing in the morning along with everyone else.  Jesus had to know she was an outcast coming to get water at around noon. And she knew that He knew that.  Yet, He talked to her anyway. Jesus willingness to take her seriously on religious issues allowed Him to reach not just her, but her neighbors as well.

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