Tag John

Caught in the Act

Todd R 2 Comments

The beginning of John chapter 8 has quite an enigmatic and controversial story about a woman caught in adultery.  The basics of the story are: Jesus was teaching in the temple in Jerusalem, and some Pharisees brought Him a woman they caught in the act of committing adultery.  They asked Jesus whether they should stone her, and the first thing Jesus does is write something on the ground with His finger (the only recorded instance of Jesus writing I believe).  Then Jesus stands and says, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.”[1]  Then He goes back to writing on the ground, and the woman’s accusers end up walking away.  Jesus then tells the woman He does not condemn her, but that she should “sin no more.”[2]

One problem with the story is that it is not included in the earliest manuscripts of John’s gospel, and so it’s questionable whether it should be in the Bible at all.  Another part of the story commentators talk about is what Jesus was writing on the ground.  From what John (or someone else) wrote, we don’t know.  We can only suspect that what was written had something to do with why the accusers went away.

I don’t like to speculate on what Scripture left out, especially on verses that may not even be inspired, but if this story actually happened, I do have my own guess at what Jesus wrote.  He probably wrote more than one thing, but part of what He wrote may have been “where is the man?”

See, Old Testament law said that both parties in the adultery (it always takes 2 people to commit adultery) should be stoned (see Leviticus 20:10 and Deuteronomy 22:22).  If these Pharisees truly caught the woman in the act, the man must have been present at the time or she wasn’t “in the act”.  Why wasn’t he being brought before Jesus?  We know the Pharisees were desperate to catch Jesus saying something wrong, so maybe, perhaps[3], the “guilty” man was in conspiracy with the Pharisees to embarrass Jesus?  In a male-dominated society, did the Pharisees think it was ok for the man to get away with it, especially if it led to a situation where the Pharisees could make Jesus look bad?  They may have been tired of losing arguments with Him.

In this situation, if Jesus wrote “where is the man?” on the ground it would let the Pharisees know that He was on to their scheme and knew they were being hypocritical.  Jesus always knows.

My handy dandy study Bibles warn not to make doctrine from this story that may not have actually happened, but I think there’s a lesson to be learned anyway, and it is that every one of us is “caught in the act” by Jesus.  Jesus knew that, under the law, both the woman that the Pharisees brought forward, and the unseen man were both guilty of adultery.  Likewise, whether our own sins are brought to public attention or whether they happen in secret, Jesus knows about them.  Also, not all of our sins are physical.  Some may be spiritual, where we put something else in the place of God in our hearts and minds.  Nothing escapes His notice.  Knowing this should terrify us, except…

I read a devotional by James Boice where he said that the person we want to be in this story is the woman caught in the act of adultery.  Why?  Because although her sins were revealed, she was forgiven and was alone left standing with Jesus when everyone else went away.  We may be too proud to admit we belong in her place, but maybe that’s because we aren’t aware enough of our won sins.  See, from Jesus’ perspective we are all “caught in the act.”  Not just once or twice, but many times over.  We may not be physical adulterers, but we are all spiritual adulterers.  Therefore, we need His grace and mercy, which He freely grants.  The cross paid for all our sins.

However, the story also teaches that grace is not license.  Christ died that He may give us grace and we must not scorn His sacrifice.  This woman’s forgiveness was free for her, but not for Him.  Our forgiveness is free to us, but not for Him.  It required the ultimate sacrifice, but He was willing and able to make it.

Jesus may have done a “gotcha” with the hypocritical Pharisees, and 1 John 1:10 says “If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us,” but the verse right before that says “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”  As long as we admit our guilt (which He already knows about), the grace He makes available to us is endless and eternal.

“Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” – Hebrews 4:16

[1] John 8:7
[2] John 8:11
[3] Maybe and perhaps are two words I hate to use when referring to Scripture, but maybe, perhaps, today is an exception.

The Likeness of Christ

Todd R Leave a comment

As told in Genesis, Joseph served Pharaoh faithfully.  Even after being wrongly accused and imprisoned, he served while in prison and eventually rose again to prominence in Pharaoh’s kingdom.  When Pharaoh dreamed of famine, Joseph interpreted the dream, and under God’s direction, came up with a plan to survive it.  “And Pharaoh said to his servants, “Can we find a man like this, in whom is the Spirit of God?” – Genesis 41:38

In the gospels, Peter and John began as uneducated fishermen, yet they were personally discipled by Jesus for 3 years.  In Acts chapter 4, these former fishermen forcefully proclaim the gospel, and about five thousand people came to faith in Christ.  “Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus.” – Acts 4:13

Pharoah recognized the Spirit in Joseph and people noticed Peter and John were different – do people notice the Spirit in you?  Can they tell you’ve been with Jesus?

“A Christian should be a striking likeness of Jesus Christ.” – Charles Spurgeon

The Gospel is About a Who, not a How

Todd R 1 Comment

In chapter 9 of John’s gospel he records a story of Jesus healing a man who was born blind.  In John’s story, Jesus made some mud out of saliva and dirt, then put the mud on the man’s eyes.  Then Jesus tells the man to go wash off the mud in a pool.  When the man does this, his blindness is gone!

Because this man was born blind and had begged in the temple area for years, the miracle was hard to deny as a claim that Jesus was the Messiah, but many of the people put their focus on the wrong question: the how of the miracle.  Four times in the chapter someone asks how the man’s eyes were healed, as if the method of the healing was the important part.  Some of “The neighbors and those who had seen him before” asked “how were your eyes opened?” [1]  Then some Pharisees asked the man how he was healed.  In both cases, the man formerly blind explained what Jesus had done.

Then, because Jesus had healed the man on the Sabbath and because practicing medicine on the Sabbath was against traditional Jewish regulations, the Pharisees asked, “How can a man who is a sinner do such signs?”[2]  The Pharisees kept looking for an explanation.  A scientific or natural explanation.  Perhaps this wasn’t the same man who was born blind.  So they found his parents, “and asked them, ‘Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?’”[3]

The better question is who healed the man born blind, but the Pharisees didn’t want to deal with that question.  They had already made up their minds that Jesus wasn’t from God.  So, they focused on the how, on the method.  People still do this today, as Warren Wiersbe wrote: “We want to understand the mechanics of a miracle instead of simply trusting the Savior, who alone can perform the miracle.”[4]

Modern people want scientific explanations because they think nothing exists outside of scientific understanding and when something doesn’t fit that worldview it is denied or explained away.  We want to fit miracles within our pre-existing understanding of the world.  And when we can’t, we resist any way we can.  In the case of the Pharisees and Jesus, “they cast him out.”[5]  Anything to avoid the real question: who is this person who can do things that don’t fit into our narrow view of the universe?  Comparing John’s gospel to modern events, we see this is nothing new.

However, if Jesus is who He said He was – God the Son – no miracle should be unbelievable because God has absolute control over His own creation.  If Jesus is God, He exists outside of our universe and so obviously can’t be explained by using scientific laws that describe this universe.  But we continue to resist.  When people want to avoid dealing with their God, they still stick to the “how” question to avoid the more important question of “who.”

If you’re struggling to understand the miraculous stories of the Bible, make sure you’re asking the right (“who”) questions.  If you’re talking to an unbeliever having the same struggles, make sure they’re asking the right questions, because: If Jesus is who God is, every how is possible, including the greatest miracle: the salvation of anyone who would believe in Him.  And, Jesus can heal anyone who is blind to this reality.

[1] John 9:8-10
[2] John 9:16
[3] John 9:19
[4] Wiersbe, Warren.  Be Alive (John 1-12) (1986).  P. 143
[5] John 9:34

Jesus Overcomes Tribalism

Todd R 2 Comments

The Bible is a book for all people, in all times and places, and its lessons hold eternal value.  Yet the Bible was also written in particular times and places and knowledge of those contexts is sometimes assumed rather than explained.  For instance, in the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4, we read the phrase, in parenthesis: “(For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.)”. We also read that Jesus and His disciples “had to pass through Samaria.”  Hate is a difficult thing to measure or quantify, but the story assumes we know something about how intense the Jews’ hate for Samaritans was.

According to Warren Wiersbe, “So intense was [the Jews’] dislike of the Samaritans that some of the Pharisees prayed that no Samaritan would be raised in the resurrection!”[1]  This hate was so strong that many Orthodox Jews would travel much longer routes around Samaria to avoid setting foot in it.  They thought the dirt itself would contaminate them.  Why all this hate?

One reason for this hate was genetic.  Anyone who reads the Old Testament knows there are many extensive genealogies.  To the Jew, it was very important to know which of the original 12 tribes you descended from and that your ancestors had not intermarried with people of other religions.  But Samaritans genealogies were not pure enough for them.  Much of Samaria was populated with the descendants of poorer Jews left behind by the Assyrians, many of whom had intermarried with foreigners the Assyrians planted there.  So, Jews in Judah looked down on Samaritans because of their mixed genealogy.  The Samaritans were considered “half-breeds.”

Another reason was religious.  When the Samaritan woman said “Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship” in John 4:20, she was referring to an alternative Judaism.  Among other differences, the Samaritans had a center of worship on Mount Gerizim, with its own temple.  They even re-wrote parts of the Pentateuch to justify this.[2]  To Israel, Jerusalem was the only center of worship.  Sacrifices to Yahweh were only to be offered there, and every male was supposed to make a pilgrimage there three times every year.  There was to be no rival temple, and therefore the Samaritans (in the Jewish mind) had cut themselves off from the true worship of Yahweh and should be shunned.

John has to write that Jesus “had to pass through Samaria” because doing that was unusual, especially for a Jewish rabbi like Jesus.  But then Jesus went there, simply being in Samaria was a strong statement that Jesus didn’t care for the hateful tribalism.  But not only did He go there, He interacted with its people, at a time when “Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.”  Jesus was and would continue to break down these barriers.  In the four gospels, Jesus preached to the Jews first, then to the “half-breed” Samaritans, then to full Gentiles, and the apostles followed the same pattern in Acts.  This sequence progressively illustrated that the gospel is for all tribes of people.

What does this mean for us today?  Hate like what the Jews felt for Samaritans is rampant and if Jesus could overcome that hate, He can overcome any hate.  Any reasons we have for hating, or even disliking people just because of what group or tribe they belong to aren’t good enough reasons. 

But tribal rivalries are everywhere we look: national and regional, political and economic, cultural and ethnic, musical and athletic, and every other dimension we can imagine.  But no tribal loyalty is more important than the obligation to love God and love our neighbor, no matter who they are.

The apostle Paul wrote in Romans 3:38-39 –

“For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Not only does this describe the love God has for us in Jesus, but it also describes the love we should have for others.  Nothing should get in the way, including any religious, racial or other differences.

Jesus overcomes tribalism, and so should His people.

[1] Wiersbe, Warren.  Be Alive (John 1-12) (1986).  P.65.
[2] Edersheim, Alfred.  The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah (1886).  P. 274-5.

Let Not Your Hearts Be Troubled

Todd R Leave a comment

Chapter 14 of John’s gospel begins with Jesus saying to His closest disciples “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me.”  Near the end of the chapter, Jesus says “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.”  In between, He gives His followers many words of encouragement because they needed it.  Why?

Leading up to this, Jesus had just told them “Truly, truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me,”[1] predicting Judas would soon turn Him over to be killed.  Since He knew He would be raised again and ascend to heaven, He had to tell them: “Little children, yet a little while I am with you. You will seek me, and just as I said to the Jews, so now I also say to you, ‘Where I am going you cannot come.’”[2]  Then, in front of all the others, He told Peter, who had just offered to die for Jesus, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the rooster will not crow till you have denied me three times.”[3]

In quick succession, this small group of 12 disciples were told that 2 of them would soon be unfaithful, and that their leader would soon be leaving them.  They must have felt devastated and troubled in their hearts.  Had they given up so much for Jesus, only for it to fall apart?  Likewise, when we’re bombarded with bad news in quick succession, our heart may tell us to be troubled, but “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9)

Instead of listening to our gut feeling or our instincts, the only one in whom there is no deceit – Jesus – says to trust Him.  He says: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.”

If you’re troubled with something today, bring it to Him and ask Him for His peace.  It can overcome anything.

Sunrise over the Atlantic Ocean. I took this from a beach in Florida.

[1] John 13:21
[2] John 13:33
[3] John 13:38b