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!!