Tag John

Jesus is Patient and Kind Even When I am Not

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Jesus is patient and kind; Jesus does not envy or boast; Jesus is not arrogant or rude. Jesus does not insist on His own way; He is not irritable or resentful; He does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Jesus bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Knowing the love Jesus has for us is an encouraging thought. This paraphrase of 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 was suggested in a devotional I read in 2021 [1] for John 13:34 – “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.”  James Boice said that we are not to “love” in any way we see fit, but as Jesus loved, which the above describes.

Based on John 13:34, Boice says we should also be able to substitute “I” in place of “Jesus” in 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 and see what He commands us to be.  When I re-read the first paragraph with myself in mind, I see how much I fall short, but His love for me remains an encouragement.  He will be patient and kind with me.

Pray that we may get ever closer to living the love of Jesus.

[1] From “August 30.” James Montgomery Boice and Marion Clark. Come to the Waters: Daily Bible Devotions for Spiritual Refreshment.  (2017).

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

God Breaks Out of All Boxes

Todd R 2 Comments

Written around 600 B.C., the Old Testament book of Habakkuk outlines a conversation between the prophet Habakkuk and God, in the few years prior to Judah’s exile in Babylon.  The book begins with Habakkuk’s complaint that evil was running rampant in Judah.  Habakkuk cries out to God about the prevalence of “violence” and “iniquity.”  He cries out about how people are ignoring God’s law, yet nothing is being done about it.  There was no justice.[1]  He’s tired of seeing nothing but evil in the world every day and is frustrated that God doesn’t seem to be doing anything about it.

Then comes Habakkuk 1:5, which to me is one of the most shocking verses in the Bible:

“Look among the nations, and see;
            wonder and be astounded.

For I am doing a work in your days
            that you would not believe if told.”

Why is this verse shocking?  Because next, God tells Habakkuk that He has arranged for Babylon, a “dreaded and fearsome”[2] nation that does not respect God and that lives by the creed that might makes right, to conquer Judah.  Basically, Habakkuk asks God why He was allowing evil to prosper in Judah, and God answers that He will allow an even more evil nation to prosper and conquer Judah.  Habakkuk must have been perplexed, and God knew it.  He knew Habakkuk would “wonder and be astounded” and we probably feel that way sometimes too.

Habakkuk had expectations about what God could and couldn’t do, but here God says He can, and will, do things that shock us.  Things that we cannot understand, but things that will teach us to trust instead of understand.  Sometimes God doesn’t behave in line with our theological doctrine, but He always does so for a reason.

Another example of shock at God’s out-of-the-box behavior comes from John 13, one of my favorite New Testament stories.  Mere days before going to the cross, “Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him.”[3]

Photo by Photoholgic on Unsplash

Peter was shocked.  This was not what he expected from the Messiah, the incarnate Son of God.  So, when we get to verse 8, we read: “Peter said to [Jesus], “You shall never wash my feet.” Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no share with me.””

Peter was reluctant to accept a God that would serve him by washing his feet, but what Jesus was trying to tell the disciples was that if they wanted to follow Him as their master, they would have to serve as He served, even if it wasn’t what they expected from God.  They needed to be washed, and then to wash others.

Peter was learning that if Jesus is doing something, don’t question it!  His actions are right by the mere fact that He is doing it, whatever our reason or expectations tell us.  In the Old Testament, God decided to send His people to a Promised Land, then to cause a heathen nation to kick them out of the Promised Land.  In the New Testament, He showed us that His Messiah would be a suffering servant, to teach us to be suffering servants.

God will never do anything that contradicts His character as revealed in the Bible, but the Bible also says, “Who has measured the Spirit of the LORD, or what man shows him his counsel?” in Isaiah 40:13.  God does not fit within our boxes, our expectations and rules.  We don’t fully understand Him.  Therefore, pay close attention to Jesus the Master, and be ready to follow where He goes, even though it might be shocking!

“Look among the nations, and see;
            wonder and be astounded.

For I am doing a work in your days
            that you would not believe if told.”

[1] Habakkuk 1:2-4
[2] Habakkuk 1:7
[3] John 13:3-5

Christianity is Not in Decline. Ever.

Todd R 1 Comment
The tomb is still empty!

Too much of what we hear and read in this world is filled with phrases like “post-Christian world,” or “Christianity’s decline.”  Or we could read that we’re “living in the ruins of Christendom.”  However, because Hebrews 11:1 says, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen,” our hope is not based on any ruin or decline we see in the communities and world around us.  While other things may end up in ruins or in decline, Christianity does not.  It was not in decline on Good Friday when Jesus died on the cross and it is not in decline now.

The best of the kingdom of God is always in the future, never in the past.  His kingdom is advancing daily.

Today, many will hear the good news of the kingdom of Jesus, and some may hear and be saved!  Also today, none will be snatched out of His hand! (See John 10:28)

Jesus Overcomes Tribalism

Todd R 1 Comment

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, but 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.