Reading together?

ishmael81 wrote:

4. Yes! I'm stealing this!

Me three.

Just a head's up, this is week 2 = starting chapter 2.

Obviously this is not a rigid thing here. If it takes you longer or you're actually ahead of the rest, no big deal.


I have some notes on chapter 1, if I get a minute tomorrow I'll post some of my findings 

Ah yes, the wedding in Cana.

Yeah, I didn't word that clearly.  I was meaning like a God told him on the spot what Jesus' role was in the divine plan.

messiaen77 wrote:

Yeah, I didn't word that clearly.  I was meaning like a God told him on the spot what Jesus' role was in the divine plan.

If you're referring to John's claim about Jesus taking away the sins of the world, that clarifies it. I would think it must be divinely inspired.

While I was reading in Luke 2 I wondered why Jesus told His mother that it wasn't His time when she told Him there was no wine anymore.
But he made from the water wine.
What are your thoughts about this?

rockerVu2 wrote:

While I was reading in Luke 2 I wondered why Jesus told His mother that it wasn't His time when she told Him there was no wine anymore.
But he made from the water wine.
What are your thoughts about this?

I just read  the second chapter of John last night and was thinking the same thing.  First he admonishes his mother for asking him to "provided more wine" for the party, but then he turns around and does it anyway.  I tend to do this with my wife (quite a bit) and even my children on occasion.  I tell them I am too busy (or not in the financial position) to do what they want.  I feel a little guilty for denying them so I create more time (or shift things in the budget) so that I can give them what they want.
I'm not suggesting that Christ felt guilty.  Maybe he intended to do as she wished, but just wanted to let her know not to make his divine abilities known yet.  Or (much like me), he didn't intend to do it, but loved his mother so much he wanted to make her happy and just did it anyway.

I don't think it's a rebuke. Look at the phrase "my hour has not yet come." Every time Jesus uses that phrase he's referring to the Cross and his public humiliation.

At this point, Jesus is about 30 and only a handful of people know who he is and why he came. I think he was warning Mary that if he publicly does this miracle, he'll be outing himself and things will fall into motion leading to his trial and execution.

Think further about Mary's reaction. Even in that culture where women were considered second class citizens, if he rebuked her, she wouldn't have called over the servants and told them to do whatever Jesus wishes. I think more than anything these few verses are there to demonstrate Mary's faithfulness to Jesus.

I kind of feel that Jesus's mom knew things about Him.  She was asking Jesus to do something because she knew He COULD do something.  His hour might not have came, but I believe He still had divine power and had probably done some private miracles.  She was so sure that Jesus could and would do something because He had done so for them in the past.  Maybe the family donkey broke a leg and Jesus healed it so they could survive.  I know I am reading into the text, but that is what it feels like to me.

But, I have been wrong before and will be again.  Soon.

Good stuff ! And good comments too !

Yeah, that part has puzzled me as well.  I tend to think he is saying it wasn't time for him to go public, which is why Mary said what she said to the servants.  There's no place in the story where it is revealed publicly that Jesus made the wine, it just says that the servants knew and that the people who had been around Jesus knew.

One of the things I like about John is that the writer was on the inside.  Sure Matthew was also a disciple, but John was in the inner circle.  He drops all kinds of seemingly insignificant stories in here that really pack a punch.  Take the last three verses of this chapter.  There were a lot of people in Jerusalem that believed Jesus because of the things he was doing, but he didn't open himself up to them because he knew their hearts and likely that they were impressed by his "wow" factor.  While Jesus ministered to everyone who came to him, he was still guarded and cautious about how much to trust people and how much of himself to put out there to people.

I also like that John points out things like the disciples remembering what Jesus said about the temple after his resurrection and made the connection.

Quote :

 There's no place in the story where it is revealed publicly that Jesus made the wine, it just says that the servants knew and that the people who had been around Jesus knew.

Oh oh, so it seems that only Jesus, His mom, and an unknown number of "servants" actually witnessed the miracle. The rest were unaware, thinking the head honcho saved the best wine for last.

It was a clever way to keep this miracle close to His chest, since His time had not yet arrived.
___________________________________
"Then he called the bridegroom aside 10 and said, “Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved the best till now.”
___________________________________
Can you see the groom going "Honeyyyyy ??, come herrrrrree......!!" 
"Yes my lord ?"
"Who authorized the purchase of such fine wine ?? You KNOW we don't have that kind of money !"
"I don't know babe, but it sure is good ain't it ?!"

Today we start with reading John 3.

Read it today on my lunch. These verses stood out:

Now there was a certain man among the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler (member of the Sanhedrin) among the Jews, ² who came to Jesus at night and said to Him, “Rabbi (Teacher), we know [without any doubt] that You have come from God as a teacher; for no one can do these signs [these wonders, these attesting miracles] that You do unless God is with him.”

So unless I'm delusional and misreading this, Nicodemus tells Jesus that the Pharisees knew who he was. So why, oh why did they continue to persecute him and eventually demand his death from Pontius Pilate?

I have a theory but since this is something I've never noticed before, I could be way off base.

Could it be that the Pharisees were so religious and involved in what they wanted that they failed to notice the promised Messiah was right in front of their faces? Not to pick on anyone but the situation at alldat's church pointed me to this theory.

I think they realized that Jesus was sent from God but since it didn't jive with their idea of the Messiah, then they just passed him over as just a prophet . . . and most prophets didn't do so well

Yeah, what he said.  They accepted Jesus as a rabbi and accepted that God's hand was on him, but the more Jesus taught, the more his theology ran afoul of the Pharisees' and that's where the trouble started.  In fairness, we all kinda do the same thing in one way or another.  I think few of us readily concede our worldview/theology/politics/etc. may be off when presented with a different way.  

I also think the Pharisees get a bit of a bad rap.  I mean, yeah they did what they did, but I don't think they were as evil as some of the Sunday School literature likes to make them out to be.  I think they were by and large sincere about their beliefs and were sincere about their desire to help people live as God wanted.  I think they did get caught idolizing their theological positions to the point where they couldn't see the fulfillment of their theology standing right in front of them.  They also became so enamored with their positions of authority that they would not receive correction.  But as we veterans of Ye Olde Theologie Realme can attest, it happens to people from time to time.

Well, let's face it - the Pharisees were people and we're people so... if it walks like a duck....

I also remember reading somewhere that the Jews in general (including the Pharisees) where looking for Christ to be a "warrior-messiah" that was going to save them from tyrannical oppresion of Rome.  And that wasn't the kind of "salvation" that Jesus brought.

Right. Even some of the Apostles thought Jesus was going to war against the nations. I mean, when they arrested him, Peter chopped off that dude's ear...

Quote :

I mean, when they arrested him, Peter chopped off that dude's ear...

Can you see them all in heaven chillin' out watching old reels of history and they get to that part ? Everyone starts razzing on Peter, teasing him for having such a itchy trigger finger, Peter puts his head down with a sheepish grin while Jesus walks over to him, gives him a quick noogie, then hugs him with the embrace of love only the Savior can give.

Man, I can't wait to get to heaven ! 

Guilty/Forgiven wrote:

Quote :

I mean, when they arrested him, Peter chopped off that dude's ear...

Can you see them all in heaven chillin' out watching old reels of history and they get to that part ? Everyone starts razzing on Peter, teasing him for having such a itchy trigger finger, Peter puts his head down with a sheepish grin while Jesus walks over to him, gives him a quick noogie, then hugs him with the embrace of love only the Savior can give.

Man, I can't wait to get to heaven ! 

I love that image!

For some reason when I read this passage this time, it has struck me differently than any other time I've read it.  I got really heavy for me.  I've always seen it as Nicodemus coming to Jesus in the middle of the night because he secretly wants to be a follower of Jesus and wants to know how he can have salvation.  This time, though, I noticed that Nic never actually asks Jesus anything at the beginning.  I think he's coming to Jesus at night (because the crowds would have gone home and he would be able to catch Jesus more or less alone) to give Jesus the blessing of the Jewish leaders to teach.  Then Jesus does his Jesus thing and takes the conversation in a totally different direction.  I think when Jesus says "Truly, truly I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God," he's saying first of all that their blessing means nothing because they lack the proper perspective to see what God is doing, and secondly, that the only way to get a God-perspective, to see what God is doing, is to become a brand new person spiritually.  I think in a lot of ways this is a continuation of the clearing the temple story in that Jesus is saying "you guys have it all wrong because you are relying on your own understanding of what it means to be part of God's work and the only way to change that is forget everything you think you know about being 'God's chosen people' and to start over fresh like newborn babies."  I don't think Nicodemus is confused by the birth metaphor, thinking Jesus literally means to be physically reborn as a baby, I think he sees this as an impossible thing that Jesus is saying.  How can you unlearn everything and start over fresh?  Jesus continues by explaining that he is talking about a spiritual regeneration, a regeneration that affects and changes every part of us.  Unless this happens, we can't be part of God's kingdom.  By "the kingdom of God," I don't think Jesus is talking about heaven exclusively, I think he is talking about the entire working of God in the world around us.

He goes on to say that their authority means nothing because "we speak of what we know, and bear witness to what we have seen" and none of them has ascended to heaven and been in intimate contact with God, only he has.  He then digs back into Jewish history and pulls out the example of Israel being attacked by poisonous snakes when they complained about wandering in the desert and God told Moses to make a bronze snake and put it on a pole and tell people if they are bitten by a snake to look at the bronze one and they will live.  Just like that, Jesus says, he is to be lifted up for all people so that if they will look to him, they will live.  I think this is an interesting passage that we tend to gloss over because we assume the lifting up is a foreshadowing of the Cross, but I think there is more to it.  There was no magic or medicinal properties in the bronze snake Moses lifted up.  People were healed because God told them if they looked at it when they were bitten, then they would be healed, so they believed God and did what God said to do--obedience born from faith.  A similar story is the one of Naaman who had leprosy and went to Elisha who told him to dip seven times in the Jordan River and he would be healed.  No medicinal power in that muddy river water, Naaman believed what he was told would work and he did it.  Jesus was, by all appearances a man, and seemingly a pretty ordinary looking guy.  Yes, I know he was the incarnation of the Godhead and all that, but when people looked at him, they saw an ordinary Joe, just like they saw a fake snake (or a muddy river), but God said to believe in him and we will live.  Our salvation, is the result of of faith-based obedience to God.  Saving faith is not just intellectually believing something, it is putting that belief into action.

Then Jesus preemptively refutes the claims of people who make the argument that God sends people to hell for rejecting Jesus by saying that condemnation is our present and natural state and that believing in Jesus and being born again spiritually changes that natural state.

Then Jesus wraps up his conversation with Nicodemus by bringing it back to what Nicodemus said in the beginning:  "whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God."  The Jewish leaders can see that Jesus was sent by God because he is standing in the light, doing the things he has been doing openly and not out of evil motives.

The end of the chapter is kind of interesting too.  Some translations put it in quotes like John the Baptist is saying this stuff as well.  Others leave it out, like perhaps it is John the author adding it as commentary.  I do think it is important to note that verse 36 seems to use "believes" and "obey" interchangeably.

Wow, that was quite a bit longer than I intended it to be.  Sorry about that.

Gee whiz bro, if we wanted a sermon we'd go to church...

just kidding, I enjoyed that and I think you brought up some interesting points. I need to think about it a bit before I comment.

Yeah, I thought about stopping to take up an offering in the middle.  I did grow up Baptist after all.