One In Jesus

There’s another point in John that’s far from obvious unless you study the entire book at once. One of the major themes of the book is Jesus’ insistence on healing on the Sabbath.

Really? Yep. In John 5, Jesus heals a lame man on the Sabbath. In John 7, Jesus defends his decision to do so. The discourse continues to the end of chapter 8, interrupted only by the insertion of the story about the woman taken in adultery. Then in chapter 9, Jesus heals a man born blind.

The largest portions of chapters 5, 7, 8, and 9 all deal with Jesus’ healing on the Sabbath. That’s a lot of text to dedicate to that one issue — an issue that you’d think wouldn’t matter outside of Judea, where the Pharisees carried great influence. Continue reading →

Mission

And so why does God change us? Just so we’ll be good company in heaven? No, at least in part, it’s about mission.

Notice the emphasis in John on “send” and “sent” (62 occurrences in the ESV!) That has to be important.

Very typical is —

(John 12:49 ESV) ⁴⁹ “For I have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment– what to say and what to speak.”

Jesus was sent by God on a mission — to speak a particular message from God, the truth or the gospel. Continue reading →

Wow! It’s been so much fun working through John these last few months. I’m not used to sticking with one subject for so long, but I’ve found the study intensely rewarding.

There’s clearly something special about John. The comments and page views for John have held up much, much better than for other textual studies I’ve done.

(I suspect it’s the appeal of the book’s central character.) Continue reading →

Chapter 21 has a definite tacked-on feeling to it. There’s the restoration of Peter. There’s a refutation of a rumor about the author. And that’s about it.

The chapter certainly contains the words of Jesus, but it seems more about recording how Jesus restored Peter after his denials and correcting a rumor about how long the author might live. It really is as though the Gospel proper ended at the end of chapter 20 (which reads like the ending), and then the last chapter was added to pick up a couple of issues of concern to the author.

After all, the last two verse of chapter 20 read like the end of a book — Continue reading →

(John 21:18-19 ESV) ¹⁸ Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go.”  ¹⁹ (This he said to show by what kind of death he was to glorify God.) And after saying this he said to him, “Follow me.”

According to history, Peter was crucified. He is said to have insisted on being crucified upside down, because he considered himself unworthy to be crucified in the same manner as Jesus. Continue reading →