Entrusting Faithful Men

Jesus’ audience in John 10 would have been very familiar with the Hebrew Scriptures (the Talmud). Education of Jewish children began at age five or six, with girls’ education usually concluding at age twelve, while the boys continued their studies, becoming a religious adult at age thirteen, a tradition continuing today with the bar mitzvah and bat mitzvah celebrations. The best students continued to age fifteen, studying the Talmud half the day while apprenticing in a trade the other half. The best of the best would then be invited by a rabbi to be discipled, with a view to becoming just like the rabbi. The most successful would then become rabbis themselves generally around age thirty.

Jesus’ reference to the “good shepherd” would have brought several passages to mind for his hearers, the most obvious being continue reading…

The Pharisees corner Jesus on His thoughts about their spiritual condition. “Do you think we’re blind?” Jesus turns the table on them in His response. “No you are not blind. You hang onto your sight.” (John 9:40-41) It was their pride and the self-righteousness that kept them from seeing Jesus as the Messiah. In sin, the eyes of Adam and Eve were opened (Genesis 3:7) and innocence was lost. The Pharisees were in the same state. It was all about what they themselves brought to the table. I heard a great quote last night from Adrian Rogers, “Holiness is not the way to Christ, but Christ is the way to holiness.” Thus Jesus began the Sermon on the Mount, “Blessed are those who are spiritually bankrupt, for the kingdom of heaven is in their reach.” (Matthew 5:3). It’s when we realize that we are spiritually blind and bring nothing to the table that we can accept God’s gracious gift and find true life in Christ.

Jesus continues the discourse by presenting the Pharisees as bad shepherds of God’s people. He begins “Truly, truly.” (John 10:1) In the Greek, the word is “amen”. He begins, “Amen, amen.” We usually end our prayers with this word, not begin our sermons with it. When we say “Amen” we acknowledge our agreement, “That’s right, that’s truth.” Jesus alone uses this word to begin a sentence in the New Testament. I like the rendition, “I Who am Truth, tell you this truth . . .”

As He frequently does, Jesus uses an object lesson to illustrate truth. The object this time is a sheepfold. Perhaps there was one within viewing distance, but all would be familiar with a sheepfold in that culture and day. We are not so accustomed. The object one might use here in Arizona is a corral. Sheepfolds were enclosures where the sheep would spend the night in relative safety. Here’s some images . . . continue reading…

The next two I AM statements occur in the same dialog in John 10, “I am the Gate for the Sheep (John 10:7) and “I am the Good Shepherd” (John 10:11, 14). But let’s begin in John 9, for chapters9 and the first half of chapter 10 occur together.

John chapter 8 took place in the fall (October 32 AD) at the Feast of Tabernacles, six months before Jesus’ crucifixion. John 10:22 takes place in the winter at the Feast of Dedication, or what is more commonly referred to as Hanukkah today. So the setting is sometime between these two feasts (mid October to early December 32 AD).

(John 9:1-5) Jesus and his disciples walk past a beggar, blind from birth. Based on their understanding of Exodus 20:5, that the consequences of a man’s sin can be passed down several generations, the disciples ask Jesus who was at fault for this man’s condition. The disciples viewed his pitiful condition as divine retribution. But Jesus saw it as an opportunity awaiting His divine grace and pleasure. “Neither,” came His reply. “He was born that way to experience something truly marvelous and miraculous”. He reminds the disciples of his earlier claim continue reading…

Jesus primarily ministered and taught in Galilee. But He and His disciples would occasionally travel to Jerusalem, most notably for the Jewish pilgrimage feasts. There were three feasts that devout Jewish males would travel to Jerusalem for:

• Passover (took place in the spring- late March to mid April) Passover was also referred to as the Feast of Unleavened Bread. It was at Passover that Jesus was crucified, being the true Passover Lamb.
• Feast of Weeks (occurred 50 days after Passover). It’s also referred to as Pentecost in the new Testament and was a celebration of the grain harvest. (Interesting that the first 3000 Christians were added to the Church at a “harvest” festival!)
• Feast of Booths (also known as the Feast of Tabernacles or Sukkot), Occurred exactly 6 months after Passover. This eight day festival in the Fall came after the harvest of grapes and olives. It is five days after Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) and fifteen days after Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish new year). It celebrates God’s provision for Israel during the wandering in the wilderness after leaving Egypt.

Our passage (John 7) takes place at the time of the Feast of Booths. This is six months before His crucifixion. If we assume that occurred at Passover in 33 AD, this feast would be October 10-17, 32 A.D.

John 7:1-2 says that Jesus was avoiding Judea because the Pharisees were seeking to kill him, having charged that Jesus blasphemed. This goes back to John 5. Jesus in Jerusalem for another festival (John doesn’t tell us which one) healed a paralytic at the pool of Bethesda. I think this was the only miracle Jesus did in the city of Jerusalem. The problem was that Jesus healed the man on the Sabbath (John 5:9). . . a definite no-no in the eyes of the Pharisees who viewed such as breaking the Mosaic Law in performing work on the Sabbath. To make matters worse, Jesus identified Himself as God. (John 5:17-18).

Jesus is avoiding Jerusalem, and declines going to Jerusalem for the Feast of Booths, knowing there is a movement afoot to kill Him. He knows that His purpose is to die, but it will happen in perfect timing, as the Passover lamb for mankind. He is very cognizant of the timing (John 7:6). continue reading…

We saw in the previous post that people dropped everything and joined the throng rapidly moving along the shore of the Sea of Galilee to meet Jesus when He and the disciples landed on the northeastern shore. The crowd didn’t have time to gather provisions. As the evening approached, the disciples urged Jesus to send the crowds away that they might go buy food for themselves while they still could. Jesus responds “You give them something to eat.” (Matthew 14:15-16)

Earlier (when Jesus had seen the crown coming), he asked Phillip, “Where can we buy food for these people.” Phillip, along with Simon and Andrew were from Bethsaida, the largest nearby village and would know the local diner, drive-ins, and dives. Phillip responded that they didn’t have enough money to begin to feed this crowd (two hundred silver coins would be about eight month’s wages for the average laborer). Nor was there likely that amount of food readily available nearby. Jesus was a pragmatic host, but more importantly he was planning to use the occasion as a teaching moment, for John adds that Jesus already knew what he was going to do before he inquired of Phillip (John 6:5-7). Jesus would use the miracle He was about to perform as the backdrop for a very important dialog about His identity.

Of the five thousand (and some commentators suggest that the number excluded the women and children), only one had any food – a young boy had brought with him five barley loaves and two fish. Miracle of miracles, the boy had not continue reading…

The first of Jesus’ “I AM” statements is in John 6:35 – “I am the Bread of Life”.

John begins chapter 6 with the words “After this . . .” which would seem to indicate a rapid succession of time. But in reality, several months have passed since the account of John 5, perhaps even a year, if the feast mentioned John 5:1 is taken as Passover. If it were the Feast of Booths (aka The Feast of Tabernacles), chapter 6 occurs 6 months after chapter 5. John often uses the various Jewish feasts as his timeline marks. It is now close to Passover (John 6:4) and this would be the Passover before Jesus’ crucifixion, so this marks His last year of earthly ministry. If Jesus was crucified in 33 AD (I’ll talk about the evidence for this in a forthcoming post), then this would be April 32 A.D. John doesn’t tell us what happened between chapters 5 and 6, perhaps because the other Gospel writers do.

Jesus preaches in Nazareth and is rejected in His own town (Mark 6:1-5), and continues on to other nearby villages in Galilee (Mark 6:6). He then sends out the disciples in pairs to preach repentance, cast out demons and heal the sick (Mark 6:7-14). During this time, Jesus continues preaching Himself. While the disciples are out on their mission, Herod Antipas has John the Baptist beheaded, fulfilling the wish of his Herodias and her daughter with the preacher’s head served on a silver platter (Mark 6:14-29). The disciples return and tell Jesus about their experiences and apparently also about the news of John the Baptist (Matthew 14:13).

And so Jesus tells his disciples, “Let’s go to the other side of the Sea of Galilee.” It was likely meant to be a retreat to debrief, to reflect, and to pray and worship. continue reading…