Reflective Bible Study

While Jesus had the reputation for being a great teacher, and as Someone who could heal pretty much anything, early on in Jesus’ ministry, before word had spread about this, we find a powerful event in John’s gospel that when we look at the details, this event might just be an example for us to follow.

For time together in this episode, we’ll be reading from the gospel of John, chapter 4, out of the New Century Version. Starting in verse 46, John tells us that:

⁴⁶ Jesus went again to visit Cana in Galilee where he had changed the water into wine. One of the king’s important officers lived in the city of Capernaum, and his son was sick. ⁴⁷ When he heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went to Jesus and begged him to come to Capernaum and heal his son, because his son was almost dead. ⁴⁸ Jesus said to him, “You people must see signs and miracles before you will believe in me.”

⁴⁹ The officer said, “Sir, come before my child dies.”

⁵⁰ Jesus answered, “Go. Your son will live.”

The man believed what Jesus told him and went home. ⁵¹ On the way the man’s servants came and met him and told him, “Your son is alive.”

⁵² The man asked, “What time did my son begin to get well?”

They answered, “Yesterday at one o’clock the fever left him.”

⁵³ The father knew that one o’clock was the exact time that Jesus had said, “Your son will live.” So the man and all the people who lived in his house believed in Jesus.

⁵⁴ That was the second miracle Jesus did after coming from Judea to Galilee.

I want to emphasize that last verse. This was only the second miracle Jesus had done after coming from Judea to Galilee. The first was turning water into wine – and though the water-wine miracle is impressive, it is nothing like healing someone who is about to die.

Perhaps Jesus had healed other people in Judea, and word had spread into Galilee about these healings and to the ears of this official. Regardless of the way news traveled, or even how this official knew to come to Jesus early on in Jesus’ ministry, the dialog between the official and Jesus is important for us to pay attention to.

John doesn’t tell us the official’s exact words, but his clear request in verse 47 was for Jesus to “come to Capernaum and heal his son, because his son was almost dead.” It is significant to note that this official came personally, instead of simply sending a servant or messenger with the request. This detail emphasizes that the official believed his request was too important to leave with a servant.

However, Jesus’ response is interesting. In verse 48, Jesus replies by saying, “You people must see signs and miracles before you will believe in me.” This response sounds odd in my mind. The official is asking for help with a clearly urgent need, and Jesus responds with a statement about belief. However, the reason Jesus answered the way He did was because the request was for Jesus to go to the place where the child was.

We don’t know if the officer had doubts in his mind or if he wanted to witness a miracle though this event, but with the way Jesus responds, it is logical to conclude that this may have been the case – that is, unless Jesus said what He said not for the man’s benefit, but for the disciples and those present following Jesus. Perhaps this response was aimed at pushing the crowd following Jesus and not as much at the official himself.

But in the official’s second request, we see persistence. Verse 49 tells us the official again asks Jesus, “Sir, come before my child dies.”

This persistence might be wise for us to model in our own lives. If God hasn’t appeared to answer a request the first time we ask it, perhaps we need to keep praying and pushing forward with our request moving forward.

Jesus’ second answer is powerful. While He doesn’t comply with the official’s actual request, He does challenge the official in a way that satisfies this father’s request for help. Up to this point in the requests and conversation, the emphasis has been on Jesus going personally to perform the miracle, but Jesus’ second response in verse 50 is simply, “Go. Your son will live.”

This answer satisfies the official, even if it doesn’t comply with his request, and John tells us that “The man believed what Jesus told him and went home.”

On the way, the official learns that his son has recovered, and that it happened at the exact time of his conversation with Jesus. This event concludes in verse 53 by saying, “So the man and all the people who lived in his house believed in Jesus.”

It is important to note that the official and everyone described in this last verse believed in Jesus, not because they had seen Jesus perform a miracle, but they believed in Jesus because of the promise Jesus had given the official. Someone skeptical of this event might dismiss this as a coincidence, but to everyone present in this event, Jesus’ promise about the official’s son living, which the official believed at face value, resulted in a long-distance miracle and a healed boy.

In our own lives, I wonder if John included this miracle as a way of challenging those who would read about this miracle to take Jesus’ promises at face value and believe Jesus’ words regardless of whether we see any change immediately. This may also be included as a challenge to bring our miracle requests to Jesus in prayer and believe that He will answer them even if we don’t see Him actively moving towards the situation.

This event includes a challenge for all of us about where our belief should be grounded. Jesus challenged those present on the idea that “seeing is believing”. Jesus and the official demonstrated a different approach: The official believed Jesus, and then afterwards, he saw the results of his belief. The official demonstrates a “believing before seeing” approach to faith.

As we come to the end of another podcast episode, here are the challenges I will leave you with:

As you are living your life, choose to believe God’s promises and Jesus’ words before you experience them personally. In some cases, you may need to obey before you see, similar to how this official had to obey Jesus on faith and start his homeward journey without Jesus with him. Choose to trust God’s promises and expect to see an answer to your prayers when God’s timing is right. He knows much more than we do about the events in our lives and what the future holds, and it makes the most sense to trust Him with the timing of our prayer answers.

Also, as you pray, read, and study the Bible personally, look for examples of events that demonstrate a believing before seeing approach to faith. There are many more examples than this one event, and as a collection, we learn how to grow spiritually with God and the Holy Spirit leading and guiding us.

And as I end every set of challenges by saying in one way or another, never stop short of, back away from, chicken out of, or doubt your way out of where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!

Coming right on the heels of Jesus kicking the merchants out of the temple, and the Pharisees challenging Him about what the children were cheering, we discover a new challenge. It would appear that the following day, as Jesus arrived in the temple and began teaching the crowds, the chief priests collectively had decided that what had happened the day before had broke the chain of command.

In our passage for this episode, we discover the chief priests challenging Jesus regarding what happened. In the priests challenge, we can see multiple layers, and we can see many ways that Jesus could fail. Let’s read what happened, and discover how Jesus responded to these religious leaders.

Our passage is found in Matthew’s gospel, chapter 21, and we will be reading it from the Contemporary English Version of the Bible. Starting in verse 23, Matthew tells us that:

²³ Jesus had gone into the temple and was teaching when the chief priests and the leaders of the people came up to him. They asked, “What right do you have to do these things? Who gave you this authority?”

²⁴ Jesus answered, “I have just one question to ask you. If you answer it, I will tell you where I got the right to do these things. ²⁵ Who gave John the right to baptize? Was it God in heaven or merely some human being?”

They thought it over and said to each other, “We can’t say that God gave John this right. Jesus will ask us why we didn’t believe John. ²⁶ On the other hand, these people think that John was a prophet, and we are afraid of what they might do to us. That’s why we can’t say that it was merely some human who gave John the right to baptize.” ²⁷ So they told Jesus, “We don’t know.”

Jesus said, “Then I won’t tell you who gave me the right to do what I do.”

Most people stop reading here, right after Jesus declines to answer these leaders, but Matthew continues by sharing more of Jesus’ response. After Jesus tells these leaders that He won’t tell them who gave Him the rights they are challenging, Matthew continues in verse 28 by telling us that:

²⁸ Jesus said:

I will tell you a story about a man who had two sons. Then you can tell me what you think. The father went to the older son and said, “Go work in the vineyard today!” ²⁹ His son told him that he would not do it, but later he changed his mind and went. ³⁰ The man then told his younger son to go work in the vineyard. The boy said he would, but he didn’t go. ³¹ Which one of the sons obeyed his father?

“The older one,” the chief priests and leaders answered.

Then Jesus told them:

You can be sure that tax collectors and prostitutes will get into the kingdom of God before you ever will! ³² When John the Baptist showed you how to do right, you would not believe him. But these evil people did believe. And even when you saw what they did, you still would not change your minds and believe.

In this passage, and in Jesus’ follow-up discussion with the religious leaders, we discover a powerful truth: Knowledge that is not applied is worthless. Verse 32 hits this point directly by saying, “When John the Baptist showed you how to do right, you would not believe him. But these evil people did believe. And even when you saw what they did, you still would not change your minds and believe.”

The belief of the tax collectors and prostitutes was visible because they repented, turned to God, and away from their sin. The evidence of their changed lives should have been enough for these leaders to praise God, except that they were too inward focused. They couldn’t deny that John’s message brought results, but they didn’t like him because he wasn’t one of them – and because he challenged them regarding their character, too.

This also brings us to the truth that someone who knows they are living sinfully and apart from God’s will is more savable than someone who believes themselves to be living perfectly for God. It is harder for an arrogant follower of Jesus to be saved than it is for the most sin-filled, evil person who decides to change, come to God, and repent. Anyone who believes they don’t need to repent has just placed themselves in the same group these religious leaders are in, and this group risks losing their salvation.

Jesus’ parable in this passage teaches us a powerful truth that we all intuitively know to be true: Talk is cheap, and actions speak louder than words. You know your true friends by how they act towards you and how they treat you more than what they simply say.

Nowhere in this passage or parable does Jesus ever imply that lying is okay. The clear ideal would be for one son to say that He would go and help, and then follow up by going and helping. However, when given the choice between someone saying they will do something and then deciding to do something else vs. someone who says they won’t help but who ultimately comes to help, you and I would always prefer the one who came.

This is the same with God. The religious leaders talked like people who followed God, but their actions, and the way they treated others were nothing like God. In a similar way, while there are many true Christians in the world today who live and love others like Jesus did, it is also not difficult to find people who claim to be Christians who are act nothing like Christ. Also, we can look among the growing number of people who are not followers of Jesus, and while many are living evil lives, there are plenty of examples of people who act like Jesus even if they don’t know who He is.

I believe Jesus is challenging these religious leaders with the truth that it is easier for someone who cares, loves, and desires good to come to Jesus and be saved, than it is for an arrogant person who claims they know Jesus to be saved.

In our own lives, we can also learn from this truth. Regardless of whether we never knew Jesus or if we grew up knowing about Him from as long as we can remember, this moment in time is a new moment, and it is a moment where we can decide to humble ourselves before Jesus and let Him into our hearts.

An arrogant pride stopped the religious leaders from discovering and accepting Jesus, and arrogant pride in our own lives and hearts risks our own salvation.

As we come to the end of another podcast episode, here are the challenges I will leave you with:

Always seek God first and humbly come before Him with a repentant heart and a teachable spirit. There will never be a time when we have learned it all, and so we should always be willing to learn, grow, and move closer to God through every experience we face in life.

As you continue seeking God and growing toward Him, be sure to always pray and study the Bible for yourself, to grow that personal relationship. While other people can help you on your journey, your relationship should be your own, and you should never let someone else stand between you and Jesus. Through prayer and Bible study, you can personally grow closer to God.

And as I end every set of challenges by saying in one way or another, never chicken out of, back down from, or move away from where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!

During one of Jesus’ earlier visits to Jerusalem after starting His ministry, John’s gospel describes a fascinating secret meeting Jesus has during the night with a leading Pharisee. In this secret meeting is found one of the most famous verses in the entire Bible, and one of the most concise summaries of God the Father’s view of humanity.

However, while this summary is at the heart of Jesus’ response to the man named Nicodemus, in many ways, it is simply the starting point for our understanding of God the Father. Let’s read Nicodemus’ secret conversation with Jesus and discover what else we can learn from this discussion.

Our passage for this episode is found in the gospel of John, chapter 3, and we will read it using the New Century Version. Starting in verse 1, John tells us that:

¹ There was a man named Nicodemus who was one of the Pharisees and an important Jewish leader. ² One night Nicodemus came to Jesus and said, “Teacher, we know you are a teacher sent from God, because no one can do the miracles you do unless God is with him.”

³ Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, unless you are born again, you cannot be in God’s kingdom.”

⁴ Nicodemus said, “But if a person is already old, how can he be born again? He cannot enter his mother’s womb again. So how can a person be born a second time?”

⁵ But Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, unless you are born from water and the Spirit, you cannot enter God’s kingdom. ⁶ Human life comes from human parents, but spiritual life comes from the Spirit. ⁷ Don’t be surprised when I tell you, ‘You must all be born again.’ ⁸ The wind blows where it wants to and you hear the sound of it, but you don’t know where the wind comes from or where it is going. It is the same with every person who is born from the Spirit.”

⁹ Nicodemus asked, “How can this happen?”

¹⁰ Jesus said, “You are an important teacher in Israel, and you don’t understand these things? ¹¹ I tell you the truth, we talk about what we know, and we tell about what we have seen, but you don’t accept what we tell you. ¹² I have told you about things here on earth, and you do not believe me. So you will not believe me if I tell you about things of heaven. ¹³ The only one who has ever gone up to heaven is the One who came down from heaven—the Son of Man.

¹⁴ “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, the Son of Man must also be lifted up. ¹⁵ So that everyone who believes can have eternal life in him.

¹⁶ “God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son so that whoever believes in him may not be lost, but have eternal life. ¹⁷ God did not send his Son into the world to judge the world guilty, but to save the world through him. ¹⁸ People who believe in God’s Son are not judged guilty. Those who do not believe have already been judged guilty, because they have not believed in God’s one and only Son. ¹⁹ They are judged by this fact: The Light has come into the world, but they did not want light. They wanted darkness, because they were doing evil things. ²⁰ All who do evil hate the light and will not come to the light, because it will show all the evil things they do. ²¹ But those who follow the true way come to the light, and it shows that the things they do were done through God.”

²² After this, Jesus and his followers went into the area of Judea, where he stayed with his followers and baptized people.

In this secret discussion, we find a number of interesting topics we could focus in on. As I was preparing this episode, I had planned to focus in on talking about how Jesus had used the phrase “Son of Man” in this conversation, and that this phrase would foreshadow how Jesus would often refer to Himself during the gospels.

But just now, as I read this to you, I don’t think I had ever noticed a different phrase. Before Jesus lets Nicodemus in on a secret, verse 13 says, “The only one who has ever gone up to heaven is the One who came down from heaven”.

Even as I quote this, I am reminded of Enoch, who walked with God and according to Genesis 5:24, was taken by God, supposedly to Heaven, as tradition would tell us. This is later restated in the book of Hebrews, chapter 5, verse 11.

I am also reminded of Moses, who even though he died before entering the Promised Land with the children of Israel, was resurrected and taken to Heaven, and Elijah, who was one of the more famous Old Testament prophets. Both Moses and Elijah appear with Jesus later on in His ministry known in the event called “The Transfiguration of Jesus”, and this event is recorded in three of the four gospels.

I am challenged by Jesus’ description of the Son of Man in this regard, because we have three clear other individuals who appeared to go up to heaven prior to Jesus having come down. However, while this might be a reason for some to doubt Jesus’ words here, in the three cases we have before us that seem to contradict Jesus’ words, every one of these individuals was “taken” to heaven rather than ascending on their own.

This is a key distinction, because this also means that no one is able to ascend to heaven on their own. Jesus is the only one capable of taking people to heaven. While it is not politically correct to state this, Jesus is the only road that leads to Heaven. This is confirmed by our pair of famous verses, John, chapter 3, verses 16 and 17 which tell us: “God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son so that whoever believes in him may not be lost, but have eternal life. God did not send his Son into the world to judge the world guilty, but to save the world through him.”

This is simply a starting point, because Jesus hasn’t stopped talking. He goes on to describe in verse 18 and 19 that “People who believe in God’s Son are not judged guilty. Those who do not believe have already been judged guilty, because they have not believed in God’s one and only Son. They are judged by this fact: The Light has come into the world, but they did not want light. They wanted darkness, because they were doing evil things.”

In our passage, like bookends on the famous set of verses, are a set of challenges for all of us.

The opening bookend challenges us to always depend on and believe in Jesus Christ, who is the Son of Man. While we might be tempted to think that we can earn salvation through something we do, we are unable and incapable of taking ourselves to heaven. Ascending to heaven is only something Jesus can do, and He promises to take us to heaven if we believe in Him, which is another way of saying that we depend on and trust Him.

The closing bookend tells us that belief in Jesus is the key to avoiding judgment. However, belief is not the only condition, because Jesus describes those who do not believe as people who did not want light, because they were doing evil things. Belief in Jesus is connected with living like Jesus, which means that we are living a life that represents God as best as we can, and when we combine faith with a life that is surrendered to Jesus, we avoid facing the judgment.

With all this said, here are the “official” challenges I am leaving you with at the end of this podcast episode:

As I always open these challenges by saying in one way or another, intentionally put God first in your life. Choose to depend daily on Jesus for strength to face each day, and trust that He is the only One who saves. While those living in the Old Testament had the lamb as a symbol pointing forward to Jesus, through the gospels, we actually have the record of Jesus’ life and what He was like.

Also, choose to study this record of Jesus’ life personally and prayerfully for yourself. By prayerfully reading the gospels with the goal of learning what Jesus was like, you will let the Holy Spirit into your life and begin to let Him change you into the person that God created you to be.

And when this happens, as I end every set of challenges by saying in one way or another, never stop short of, back away from, chicken out of, or walk away from where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!

As we continue moving into the week Jesus was crucified, we come to an event that happened in the gap that we skipped over last week. Last week, if you noticed, we jumped over the daytime and focused on two consecutive mornings, one where Jesus curses a fig tree, and the day after when they pass by the withered fig tree and learn the lesson Jesus wanted to teach them.

In this gap, we discover that Jesus spent some time in the temple, but during this period of time, He didn’t make very many people happy. Let’s read about what happened from Matthew’s gospel. Our passage is found in chapter 21, and we will be reading it from the God’s Word translation. Starting in verse 12, Matthew tells us that:

¹² Jesus went into the temple courtyard and threw out everyone who was buying and selling there. He overturned the moneychangers’ tables and the chairs of those who sold pigeons. ¹³ He told them, “Scripture says, ‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you’re turning it into a gathering place for thieves!”

¹⁴ Blind and lame people came to him in the temple courtyard, and he healed them.

¹⁵ When the chief priests and the experts in Moses’ Teachings saw the amazing miracles he performed and the children shouting in the temple courtyard, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” they were irritated. ¹⁶ They said to him, “Do you hear what these children are saying?”

Jesus replied, “Yes, I do. Have you never read, ‘From the mouths of little children and infants, you have created praise’?”

¹⁷ He left them and went out of the city to Bethany and spent the night there.

In this passage, we discover how Jesus began this week by trying to point people back to God in God’s house. For the most part, while He didn’t make any friends among the religious elite, we do see that after His rampage through the temple chasing the commerce away, He welcomed those who needed healing and those who came to praise God. This paints a beautiful picture of God, of Jesus, and about what God intended His temple to focus on.

Luke places this event immediately after Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem on the donkey. If this is when this event occurred, it provides continuity with the praise that the children shouted in the temple courtyard with what they shouted while He was traveling towards Jerusalem. When Jesus rode towards and into Jerusalem, the crowds shouted hosanna, and whether these children followed Jesus into the courtyard on the same day, or if they arrived to praise Jesus a day or two later, we see a beautiful picture of Jesus accepting those that society had rejected, and pointing everyone present towards God.

Regardless of when this event specifically occurred, a phrase in Jesus’ rampage stands out in my mind. Jesus challenged the priests and religious leaders on their focus and their priorities by saying in verse 13: “Scripture says, ‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you’re turning it into a gathering place for thieves!”

Regardless of where you believe the line should be regarding commerce within church buildings, Jesus frames His entire rampage pushing the commerce away on the scripture and ideal that God’s house would be called a house of prayer. While prayer is possible in a commercial environment, it is a stretch to connect the two.

Commerce at its core is about exchanging goods/services among people for the benefit of both parties involved. While helping others is one side of commerce, helping oneself is also included. This is the ideal framing of commerce. Some people see commerce as simply one person trying to trick or con others into giving them money. In this case, commerce is only self-serving.

However, prayer stands on the opposite side of both the positive and negative views of commerce. Prayer is all about coming before God, and submitting ourselves to His will. While prayer can include requests for help from God, prayer is inherently focused on God and not on ourselves. An exclusively self-focused and self-serving prayer is unlikely to be answered ever.

Moving to the second half of our passage, after Jesus has finished clearing the commerce out of the temple, another phrase stands out in my mind because of what it says and does not say about the religious leaders. In verse 15, Matthew tells us that “When the chief priests and the experts in Moses’ Teachings saw the amazing miracles he performed and the children shouting in the temple courtyard, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David!’ they were irritated.”

While both the miracles and the praise irritated these leaders, they choose to confront Jesus regarding the children’s praise. This is an interesting choice in my mind, but not unexpected, because while they were probably more irritated that Jesus was healing and performing miracles, there wasn’t much they could do about it. The only way Jesus was able to perform miracles, or even heal anyone, was if God was with Him, and the religious leaders know that they don’t have any solid ground to challenge Jesus on this – especially since this wasn’t the Sabbath day.

Other times the religious leaders confront Jesus regarding His healing ability, it was always framed around Sabbath observance and Sabbath rest. Since this wasn’t the Sabbath, they can’t really argue or refute His healing miracles.

But they can challenge Him regarding what the children are shouting about Him, and that’s what they decide to focus on. They really dislike the messianic implications tucked within the children’s praise. They want this praise to stop because it is drawing more people towards Jesus, and away from them.

However, Jesus knows He is the Messiah, even if He also knows that the Messiah He came to be was different from the messiah that the religious leaders were looking for. Jesus was willing to defend the children praising Him with a messianic title because He realizes that the children’s words speak truth. Jesus also knows that this event would add to the pile of reasons that the religious leaders would use to condemn Him.

Jesus knew that the cross was about to happen, and He clearly and deliberately walked along the path that led to it.

As we come to the end of another podcast episode, here are the challenges I will leave you with:

Be sure to intentionally seek God first and walk the path He has created you to walk. While the plan God has for your life may not be easy in this life, God’s plan and His path leads to eternal life in your future. Know that there will always be people, religious or otherwise, who will dislike your decision to walk with God, but know that God’s truth matters more than the world’s opinion.

Also, be sure to always pray and study the Bible for yourself to keep your connection with God strong. A personal relationship with God begins with personal prayer and personal Bible study and as I always challenge you to do, make your Bible study personal and don’t let me or anyone else stand between you and God.

And as I end every set of challenges by saying in one way or another, never stop short of, back away from, or chicken out of where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!