Reflective Bible Study

If you have ever found yourself with priorities that were misplaced, or if you have ever focused on something that you should have ignored, the passage we will be focusing on in this podcast episode may be worth paying attention to.

The passage we will be focusing in on for this episode comes at the end of a significant adventure Jesus sent his followers on. While we often think of Jesus’ followers as being unnumbered large crowds, or a small group of 12 disciples, the group Luke draws our attention to is somewhere between these two extremes.

In this event, Jesus welcomes back 72 of His followers who He had sent out in pairs as missionaries, and when they return, something significant stood out in my mind with Jesus’ welcome-back message.

Our passage for this podcast episode is found in the gospel of Luke, chapter 10, and we will be reading it using the New Century Version of the Bible. Starting in verse 17, Luke tells us that:

¹⁷ When the seventy-two came back, they were very happy and said, “Lord, even the demons obeyed us when we used your name!”

¹⁸ Jesus said, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. ¹⁹ Listen, I have given you power to walk on snakes and scorpions, power that is greater than the enemy has. So nothing will hurt you. ²⁰ But you should not be happy because the spirits obey you but because your names are written in heaven.”

This welcoming back message from Jesus is amazing. Leading up to this conclusion, Jesus had commissioned 72 of His followers to go to the neighboring cities and towns to share the great news about the Kingdom of God. When these followers return, they genuinely appear amazed and grateful for the power that God gave them when they used Jesus’ name.

In a similar way, in our own lives, it is very easy to get caught up focusing on our gifts, talents, abilities, connections, and our resources or resourcefulness, but while this is our tendency, Jesus challenges us like He challenged His followers.

This is because our tendency is to focus on us and what “we” have been given or blessed with. If we look closely at what these followers say in verse 17, we can see this hinted at. Luke tells us Jesus’ followers returned saying, “Lord, even the demons obeyed us when we used your name!”

While some might say that the focus is still rightfully being placed on God or Jesus in this statement, there are ways of sharing this idea that don’t include the words “us” or “we”. As an example, these followers could have collectively said, “Lord, the demons fled when they heard your name.”

By including the words “us” and “we”, there is a subtle hint drawing the focus onto the disciples, which then pulls it away from God. While it is not wrong for other people to look at us as followers of Jesus hoping or expecting to see Jesus, as followers of Jesus, our goal should not be collecting people we can call “our followers”.

Instead, the goal for someone who is following Christ is to point other people to follow Christ. If others follow Christ and simultaneously look up to us, then that is their decision. This is not something we should seek or strive for.

This is the subtle trap in how Jesus’ followers responded.

However, I find it interesting that Jesus doesn’t lead into His response by correcting them. Instead, Jesus opens His response by drawing attention to Satan being a defeated enemy, before then beginning to redirect their focus.

For each of us, while it is easy to get caught up focusing on what God has blessed us with, Jesus challenges us to focus on where we stand with God.

Above everything else, the primary reason for us to be happy is not because of the gifts God has given us in the present, but because of the big gift He has assured us of in the future. Every gift God could give to us today, aside from a strong relationship with Him, is nothing when compared to what He promises us when He returns. And more importantly, the primary focus of this life is to realize that we need God’s help. We ask God for help when we put our faith, hope, trust, and belief in Him, and this is the way we accept God’s promised future life in a new heaven and new earth.

Jesus’ message to His followers in this passage is significant. Jesus sees the subtle temptation and opening for pride to take hold in these followers and He shifts their focus back onto one that is aligned with God’s perspective.

It is interesting in my mind that Jesus focuses on the promise and assurance that His followers names are written in Heaven. This not only points these followers onto their future rewards, but it also subtly helps shift their perspective away from the present, earthly perspective and onto an eternity-focused, heavenly perspective.

When we intentionally stop and focus on life from the perspective of eternity, we are better able to understand many of the challenging areas of our lives in this sin-filled world. While it is a little obvious to say out loud, God knows that while bad things happen to innocent people in our sinful world, humans cannot abuse anyone out of heaven. The only way we forfeit heaven is if we choose to reject the gift Jesus offers to us.

Humans cannot abuse anyone out of heaven.

It is unfortunate that while Christians have a responsibility to share Jesus with others, too often, we do a poor job at it. However, Jesus is greater than even the broad Christian Church. For the two thousand or so years before the Jewish nation stepped into history, and before the 1500 years or so between the formation of the Jewish nation and Jesus launching the Christian movement, God has moved through individual lives leading people into realizing their need to depend on Him.

As Christians, we can easily misrepresent God and Jesus, but it would be foolish for us to think that God is surprised by this. Nothing we do can surprise God. When we screw up, God is ready with a backup plan.

For thousands of years, the devil has tried to abuse people out of heaven, but God is bigger, God is stronger, God is smarter. He won’t let Satan’s abuse separate or steal away those those He loves from being connected with Him.

God wants us to view life through His eyes, through the lens of eternity, and when we do this, we are able to understand many things regarding our present life and we are able to stay connected with Him even when times in this world get tough.

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

As I always challenge you to do, intentionally seek God first in your life. Purposefully seek to learn what He really is like in order to better be able to see life through the lens of eternity. Only when we look at life from the perspective of God can we begin to understand some of the challenges and pain that life brings our way.

Also, continue to pray and study the Bible for yourself. The best way to learn about God is by starting with the four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, and focusing on learning about Jesus. Jesus came to show us what God the Father is like, and a picture of God that doesn’t reflect Jesus is a bad picture of God.

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 be tricked into abandoning where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!

Picking back up were we left off last week, we find Jesus teaching in the temple during this same festival. However, now our passage for this week focuses on the conclusion of Jesus’ preaching in the temple during the festival that He snuck into unannounced, and in this conclusion, Jesus restates some of the key ideas we focused on last week, while also pushing the crowd further.

Let’s let John tell us how Jesus circles back around to His key point. We will be reading from John’s gospel, chapter 8, using the New International Reader’s Version. Picking back up in verse 21, John tells us that:

²¹ Once more Jesus said to them, “I am going away. You will look for me, and you will die in your sin. You can’t come where I am going.”

²² This made the Jews ask, “Will he kill himself? Is that why he says, ‘You can’t come where I am going’?”

Pausing our reading briefly, Jesus says almost the exact same thing as He said in our last episode’s passage, but this time, the Jews instead wonder if Jesus is planning on committing suicide with His statement. Last week, they thought He would be traveling to some other part of the world, and now they have decided that Jesus must mean something different.

With the emphasis on death, the Jews now wonder if Jesus is talking about death rather than extended travel.

However, Jesus continues in verse 23 with a clearer answer, and John tells us how Jesus answered:

²³ But Jesus said, “You are from below. I am from heaven. You are from this world. I am not from this world. ²⁴ I told you that you would die in your sins. This will happen if you don’t believe that I am he. If you don’t believe, you will certainly die in your sins.”

Pausing again, but only very briefly, here in verses 23 and 24 is a simple explanation of salvation. The criteria Jesus shares for experiencing salvation is that we must believe Jesus the One God sent, and believe that Jesus is the Messiah God promised, and our belief must include our faith and trust being placed onto Jesus. If we don’t believe, then Jesus tells us like He told those present in the temple that we will certainly die in our sins.

Continuing in verse 25:

²⁵ “Who are you?” they asked.

“Just what I have been telling you from the beginning,” Jesus replied. ²⁶ “I have a lot to say that will judge you. But the one who sent me can be trusted. And I tell the world what I have heard from him.”

²⁷ They did not understand that Jesus was telling them about his Father. ²⁸ So Jesus said, “You will lift up the Son of Man. Then you will know that I am he. You will also know that I do nothing on my own. I speak just what the Father has taught me. ²⁹ The one who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone, because I always do what pleases him.” ³⁰ Even while Jesus was speaking, many people believed in him.

We’ll stop reading at this verse because I want to really draw our attention onto the side-note John has just inserted. In verse 30, John tells us that “Even while Jesus was speaking, many people believed in him”. This is significant in my mind because while the crowd was confused at what Jesus was saying, their confusion did not hinder their belief.

This is not the case for everyone. Some people use their lack of understanding to be the cornerstone of their reasons for not believing, but the challenge with this line of thinking is that rarely in any other case do we need to know all the answers to believe.

For example, if we are driving down a street and we come to a stoplight, do we need to understand how electricity and relays work in order to understand what makes the different colored lights switch back and forth? Do we need to stop everything else we are doing and do all the research necessary to come to a full understanding of how the stoplight works before believing the color of light and the position of the light are instructions we would be smart to follow?

Or do we simply need to know that red means stop, green means go, and yellow means a red light is about to come?

I think that faith and belief in Jesus are very similar to how we should view our trust in a simple stoplight. While one or two reasons and answers are sufficient to begin our belief, it is only after we begin to obey the stoplight’s instructions for us that we really understand the benefits that obedience offers. While one can rationalize that they don’t understand why the Bible advises people to live a certain way, or they try to discount it as an archaic or dated way to live, only by truly living a life that is obedient to the Bible will one fully learn why the Bible’s way is superior.

While the Bible does not discuss technology or electricity, it does give a full spectrum view of human relationships, and society structures, and time and time again, even with sin factored into the equation, the Bible’s plan is the most solid. Also, while the Bible doesn’t speak to technology, it doesn’t tell us to stay locked in the past. It simply points us to the best way to live during whatever century we are living in.

Jesus concluded His statement to the Jews and the crowd in the temple by saying that He did nothing on His own, and that everything He did was pleasing to the Father. I wonder if we could say the same about our lives living over 2,000 years later. If God were to look down at the world today, which is a very different looking world than it was when Jesus walked on it, would He approve of how we are living, and how we are representing His Son to those who are longing for Godly love?

Through the way Jesus lived His life, everything He did included the Father and the Holy Spirit. While we don’t always see this in our own lives, the question I challenge myself with is whether I would continue doing what I am currently doing, or living how I am currently living, if I truly believed that God the Father and the Holy Spirit were right next to me. Would the Father approve of my life, and would my life, both the online and offline portions of my personality, reflect Jesus accurately?

As Christians, we are called to represent Jesus, and the only way we can do this well is if we understand how Jesus lived, and then intentionally model His character in our world today. While it might seem strange or uncomfortable to do, only after we have committed and begun obeying Jesus’ words will the Christian life be truly Christ-like.

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

Intentionally model Jesus and choose to obey Him even if you don’t have all your questions answered. Choose to obey, then keep your eyes open for why God would recommend for people to live this way. Like I described earlier in this episode, obey God like you obey a stoplight, because only by obeying can we better understand why it is best to obey the stoplight’s instruction.

Also, intentionally pray and study the Bible for yourself and look for principles that you can apply into your life. While some parts of the Bible are technically dated, because society and technology have changed, the principles the Bible shares are timeless, and it is these principles that we are challenged to apply in our own lives regardless of the point in history in which we live.

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 deviate away from where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!

When I read the gospels, aside from the crucifixion, one event stands out in a significant way when asking ourselves or looking for examples of Jesus showing us how much He loves those who society had marginalized. I suspect that if you were asked the same question, you might pick the same event that we will be focusing our time on in this podcast episode.

However, this event in the gospels doesn’t come to us without controversy. Most Bible’s available today will include the side-note or footnote that not all the ancient manuscripts include this event. While researching this, it is clear that this event is a very old story. However, its origins are a lot less clear since its placement and addition seem to be an afterthought and not something John original included.

However, since we don’t have any original manuscripts of John left, we are left with one of two conclusions: Either this story was added later by those copying the manuscripts, or there were some who wanted to erase this event from the gospel record and they didn’t succeed.

Either way, what happens in this event is one of the most amazing demonstrations of loving sinners that any of the gospels include. If you haven’t guessed it yet, we are focusing our episode on the story of the woman caught in adultery who was dragged to Jesus for condemnation. This event has shaped people’s perceptions of God and of Jesus throughout history and it is one of the most loving actions that anyone could ever display toward another.

Let’s read what happened, and then unpack what we can learn about God, and what people thought about Him. Our passage and event are found in the gospel of John, chapter 8, and we will read it using the Contemporary English Version of the Bible. Starting in verse 3, John tells us that:

³ The Pharisees and the teachers of the Law of Moses brought in a woman who had been caught in bed with a man who wasn’t her husband. They made her stand in the middle of the crowd. ⁴ Then they said, “Teacher, this woman was caught sleeping with a man who isn’t her husband. ⁵ The Law of Moses teaches that a woman like this should be stoned to death! What do you say?”

⁶ They asked Jesus this question, because they wanted to test him and bring some charge against him. But Jesus simply bent over and started writing on the ground with his finger.

⁷ They kept on asking Jesus about the woman. Finally, he stood up and said, “If any of you have never sinned, then go ahead and throw the first stone at her!” ⁸ Once again he bent over and began writing on the ground. ⁹ The people left one by one, beginning with the oldest. Finally, Jesus and the woman were there alone.

¹⁰ Jesus stood up and asked her, “Where is everyone? Isn’t there anyone left to accuse you?”

¹¹ “No sir,” the woman answered.

Then Jesus told her, “I am not going to accuse you either. You may go now, but don’t sin anymore.”

This event begins with almost certain judgment as the religious leaders brought a clearly guilty person to Jesus to hear a verdict of judgment. The way this event happens makes me believe that what happens “off-record” was a set up, primarily because the man, who is also guilty, is not present. Also, other events in the gospels draw attention onto the religious leaders staging events in order to trick or trap Jesus, and I don’t have any reason to believe this was not one more example of this.

I fully believe that these religious leaders brought this woman to Jesus in order to test, trick, or trap Him. While this woman deserved judgment, because she had sinned and broken the law, if Jesus judged her as guilty, He would have misrepresented God in the process. This event was staged as a test because the leaders wanted to find something they could use to discredit Jesus.

Because of the way these religious leaders acted towards Jesus, I suspect this is why Jesus, who can clearly see all the angles present in this situation, chose an action the religious leaders did not expect. Instead of answering the demands for a verdict, Jesus bends down and starts writing in the sand. Tradition says that what Jesus wrote were the sins of the accusers, but nothing included in the Bible story for this event confirms or denies this.

Jesus definitely could have written all the hidden, secret sins of everyone present. As people crowded around, the elders would have been closest, and a list of sins, even if Jesus didn’t credit the sin to a single sinner would definitely have challenged those able to read it to be uncertain of their right to accuse.

However, a different angle that doesn’t get much attention, is that Jesus wrote scriptures that emphasized God’s love and forgiveness. While this doesn’t expose others sins directly, it clearly would have allowed the Holy Spirit to impress on the consciences of the leaders the places where they fell short, and this would also have challenged their right to even accuse this woman.

As I share these ideas with you, I wonder if Jesus combined these two ideas. If Jesus had wrote sins in the sand that were shared among several of the religious leaders, and then wrote countering scriptures next to them showing God’s love and righteousness, Jesus would not have needed to included any names. Instead, without including names, each person reading would have understood Jesus’ writing to have been directed at himself, while every onlooker would not have known the individual or the context.

Also, it is worth pointing out that Jesus wrote His message in the sand or dirt. He wrote it in a place where it would be easily erased with time. While these leaders were bent on publically humiliating this woman, if what Jesus wrote were the sins of these leaders, Jesus doesn’t return the favor of publicly humiliating or shaming these leaders like they were attempting to do with this woman.

The temptation present in this event is to join the crowd and judge this woman for her sins. However, Jesus is not going to fall into the trap of judging like these leaders had already judged. Instead, Jesus chooses to place His focus on each individual, beginning with the leaders. The leaders would have loved to begin with condemning the woman, but Jesus chooses to focus on the individual leader, and on the heart of each leader. This makes each leader present uncomfortable, and ultimately, they all leave their position of judgment.

Only after all the accusers leave does Jesus then address the woman individually. Jesus could easily have chosen to accuse her when everyone else had left, but instead He tells her that her future is more important to God than her past. While Jesus doesn’t excuse this woman’s sin, He minimizes its relevance.

One of the most powerful and timeless truths in this event is that our future is more important than our past. Just like Jesus told this woman, Jesus tells each of us that our future is more important in God’s eyes than our past. Jesus tells us that our heart is more important than our mistakes, and that the relationship we have with God is what matters the most of all.

Similar to how Jesus challenges the woman caught in adultery, we too are challenged to go and don’t sin anymore. This is not a statement that claims or supports the idea that we can move forward in life without ever sinning again. Instead, this is a statement to challenge us to never intentionally choose to sin and to leave sin the moment we become aware what we are doing is wrong.

In our lives, we are always making choices, and some of those choices are between sinning and not sinning. In order to make Jesus’ challenge relevant for us, He calls us to always move forward making the choice that is not sin. There are so many places in life where we stumble that it’s virtually impossible to never sin again, but in the places where we are conscious of the choice, Jesus challenges us with the truth that choosing sin is never positive from God’s perspective.

God wants you to have the best life possible, and the only things that He calls sin are things that cheapen the vision that He has for you. God ultimately wants you in heaven with Him, and He was willing to go to whatever length necessary to help you see His love for you!

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

As I always challenge you to do, intentionally seek God first in your life and in your mind. Understand that God is interested in helping you live the best life you can live and He has a much higher vision of yourself than you can even imagine. With His help, you can become the person He created you to be.

Also, continue to pray and study the Bible for yourself in order to learn and grow closer to God and to Jesus. While life is challenging, when we dedicate time to focus on staying connected with God, He is able to help us face the challenges that life brings our way.

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 abandon where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!

One of the reasons why Jesus may have caused division among those living in first-century Judea is that He fit many of the descriptions that they had for who the Messiah would be, but not all of the ones they had in focus. Throughout Jesus’ ministry, there was a growing divide between those who believed Jesus to be the Messiah and those who simply thought He was a good man and a God-supported prophet.

Our passage, which comes from the gospel of John, is one of the best examples of this division among the people. To set the stage, and transition from where we were last week, Jesus had told His brothers that He wouldn’t go up to Jerusalem with them for this festival because He knew there were people in Jerusalem who wanted to kill Him, so they left him behind. But then a day or two later, Jesus does go up, secretly, and part way into the festival, He stands up and begins preaching in the temple to everyone’s amazement.

It is at a break in Jesus’ message that our passage in John picks up. We will be reading from the gospel of John, chapter 7, using the New Century Version of the Bible. Jumping in at verse 25, John tells us:

²⁵ Then some of the people who lived in Jerusalem said, “This is the man they are trying to kill. ²⁶ But he is teaching where everyone can see and hear him, and no one is trying to stop him. Maybe the leaders have decided he really is the Christ. ²⁷ But we know where this man is from. Yet when the real Christ comes, no one will know where he comes from.”

Pausing briefly here in the passage, we see the crowd of people talking and discussing amongst themselves. They are trying to reconcile what they see in Jesus and what they believe to be descriptive of the Messiah.

Jesus knows this, and picking back up in verse 28, John tells us Jesus’ response:

²⁸ Jesus, teaching in the Temple, cried out, “Yes, you know me, and you know where I am from. But I have not come by my own authority. I was sent by the One who is true, whom you don’t know. ²⁹ But I know him, because I am from him, and he sent me.”

³⁰ When Jesus said this, they tried to seize him. But no one was able to touch him, because it was not yet the right time. ³¹ But many of the people believed in Jesus. They said, “When the Christ comes, will he do more miracles than this man has done?”

Pausing again, we see the strong case for Jesus being the Messiah shared in the verse we just finished. Jesus performed so many miracles and He healed so many more people than anyone had ever done before, it would seem illogical for God to not have sent Him as the Messiah. I imagine that many of those present thought that if Jesus wasn’t the real Messiah, then His entire ministry would outshine the real Messiah when God’s actual Messiah would arrive. God allowing a ministry leading up to His Messiah to outshine His Messiah doesn’t make much sense in my mind.

There was no question in the minds of everyone present that God’s Spirit was working powerfully through Jesus. There was no escaping this fact. What they were trying to wrestle through was how Jesus did not fit the mold that they believed the Messiah would take.

On hearing the crowd rationalize Jesus as the most likely to be the Messiah based on the sheer quantity of miracles, we pick back up in verse 32 and learn that:

³² The Pharisees heard the crowd whispering these things about Jesus. So the leading priests and the Pharisees sent some Temple guards to arrest him.

John tells us that this was likely the final straw for the Pharisees in the crowd. Not only had Jesus just implied equality with God and that He was sent directly from God, but the crowd was starting to rationalize that He may be the Messiah after all, simply because it was unlikely that God could support anyone more than He appeared to be supporting Jesus.

Whether Jesus said what He said next while guards were standing around, or if He continued preaching before the guards arrived to arrest Him, we pick back up in verse 33 where John continues by telling us:

³³ Jesus said, “I will be with you a little while longer. Then I will go back to the One who sent me. ³⁴ You will look for me, but you will not find me. And you cannot come where I am.”

³⁵ Some people said to each other, “Where will this man go so we cannot find him? Will he go to the Greek cities where our people live and teach the Greek people there? ³⁶ What did he mean when he said, ‘You will look for me, but you will not find me,’ and ‘You cannot come where I am’?”

We’ll stop reading here for our episode today because I want to draw out a key idea that is shared in this last portion of the passage.

Jesus has just finished describing that He won’t be around much longer, because He is getting ready to return to the One who sent Him. Just a few verses earlier, Jesus had described the One who sent Him as “the One who is true”. In the minds of the people, the only One who is 100% truth, or, using another word, we could say righteous, is God in heaven.

It is amazing to me that when Jesus said the initial statement about being sent by the One who is true, the people wanted to seize Him, likely to kill Him, but just a few verses later, when Jesus describes returning to the One who sent Him, the people completely miss the point that Jesus has just described returning to God in heaven.

Those present are stuck trying to rationalize Jesus’ words thinking He is traveling to some other part of the world, but then they confuse themselves with this train of thought because they know they can travel to every part of the world that He can.

But in Jesus’ words that confuse and challenge those present, we find a powerful spiritual truth: Jesus has told everyone that many will look for Him but won’t be able to find Him. This would be incredibly true on a physical sense, but what about spiritually?

In this statement, I see a challenge to everyone who calls themselves a follower of Jesus, a disciple, or a Christian. If you are someone who claims to follow Jesus, then it would be good to be constantly looking for Him. Sure, technically Jesus is in heaven, but knowing this truth, it is extra important for us to then look for Him there.

While we cannot physically go to heaven before Jesus has returned to take us home, through prayer, we are able to spiritually enter heaven and present our needs, wants, desires, hearts, and lives before Jesus. I believe there is a spiritual angle on what Jesus told the crowd, and it has to do with the state of our hearts and our attitude.

If we choose to pray filled with sin, pride, unforgiveness, or hostility in our hearts – and we are not bringing these issues to God to ask for help with them – then I believe we will be seeking Jesus but unable to find Him. It is only when we shift our attitude and the longing of our hearts to one that desires, wants, and needs Jesus’ help that our prayers will lead us directly to Jesus. This idea then challenges us with the truth that the state of our attitude and heart may keep us from finding Jesus when we seek after Him.

With this said, as we come to the close of another podcast episode, here are the challenges I will leave you with:

Before you sit down to pray or study your Bible next, pause briefly and assess the state of your heart. Are you coming to your study time in a way that is pleasing to God, in a way that is humble and selfless, or in a way that is self-serving or prideful? Before picking up your Bible or continuing to seek God, be sure you have the right attitude and motives for doing so, because searching for God will be fruitless if you are not interested in being spiritually fruitful.

Next, when you do have the right motivation and attitude, be sure to pray and study the Bible for yourself, and not simply be studying it through the lens of a pastor, writer, or podcaster’s perspective. While Bible study guides can be helpful, they can also limit what God wants to share with you because they can limit what parts of the Bible you focus on. Prayerfully studying the Bible for yourself, and learning how to best do so, is the best way to grow fully into the person God created you to be.

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 give up on where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!