John 7 – 9

John 7:4 gets you thinking about why Jesus hit the scene then:

No one who seeks the public eye is content to work in secret. If You want to perform these signs, then step forward on the world’s stage; don’t hide up here in the hills, Jesus.

I think of a line in the song Superstar in Jesus Christ Superstar when I read this verse. “Why’d you choose such a backward time and such a strange land? If you’d come today you would have reached a whole nation Israel in 4 BC had no mass communication.” Think about it, a man in the back waters of Israel has become the most known historical figure of all time. There is no one more written about or studied than ever and He started in an animal stall with no agent to promote Him.

Verse 7:41 solidifies the unassuming nature God took in Jesus:

This is God’s Anointed, the Liberating King!

Still Others: Is it possible for the Anointed to come from Galilee?

Again why not NYC today? You’d reach the world within seconds with just one miracle in Times Square. Instead God choose a backwards place and a backwards time to reveal himself in Jesus to save the world. Again why? I think that is an easy question to answer! If God came as expected into this world, the people could say this figure was a great man, where someone with no status or power could only become this way by being real. We see this over and over again from Moses who was not an eloquent speaker all the way to Paul who was persecuting the faith before becoming the most influential writer of the NT. God wants to make sure we all understand His glory and not get lost in the “cult of personality”.

Verse 8:41 is interesting:

but you are doing what you have learned from your father.

Jews: We were not born from adulterous parents; we have one Father: God.

Think about it, they knew his “parents” were not married before conception of Jesus and they are rubbing it in. They assume Joseph was Jesus’ father and not God, therefore he was from an “adulterous” union. I just find it interesting how things have not changed and the tabloids today dig for dirt and use it for their advantage.

Vere 9:4 highlights a potential problem today:

While it is daytime, we must do the works of the One who sent Me. But when the sun sets and night falls, this work is impossible.

Where Jesus is talking about darkness and evil many could interpret this differently. See there has always been a movement of sun worship and how people like Peter Joseph try to tie the Jesus story to astrological events and attempt to distance it from reality. They will distort verses like this and say, see the SUN and the SON are one in the same. In context and reality this is nothing further from the truth, but could be twisted.

This is why I tend to stress we ALL need to read the scriptures and understand them ourselves. See if we take what others say blindly we can be led astray. Also, I am not saying read it once, but always. It’s a huge book with a ton of truth and something you cannot possibly get in one read. Also, things tend to make more sense after reading them over remembering other parts that had not been read prior. I take my evolution of the “trinity” from not possible to being true as an example of how you can keep learning each time you read. Let the Holy Spirit guide you and not men!!