Reflective Bible Study

If you ever wondered whether Jesus was the sort of person to sneak around, the event in this passage could definitely be used as a proof text. Perhaps Jesus didn’t sneak everywhere He went, but it seems that every so often, He chose to travel in a way that did not draw attention to Himself.

It’s possible we could think this was because Jesus wanted to avoid people, but if that were the case, He simply would not have traveled to the event that our passage for this episode focuses on.

For those of you who want a reference, we will be looking at the gospel of John, chapter 7, and we will be reading from the New American Standard Bible translation. Starting in verse 10, John tells us:

¹⁰ But when His brothers had gone up to the feast, then He Himself also went up, not publicly, but as if, in secret. ¹¹ So the Jews were seeking Him at the feast and were saying, “Where is He?”

Pausing our reading briefly, it would seem that Jesus wanted to avoid the Jewish leaders who may have been looking to arrest Him at this time. Continuing in verse 12:

¹² There was much grumbling among the crowds concerning Him; some were saying, “He is a good man”; others were saying, “No, on the contrary, He leads the people astray.” ¹³ Yet no one was speaking openly of Him for fear of the Jews.

¹⁴ But when it was now the midst of the feast Jesus went up into the temple, and began to teach. ¹⁵ The Jews then were astonished, saying, “How has this man become learned, having never been educated?” ¹⁶ So Jesus answered them and said, “My teaching is not Mine, but His who sent Me. ¹⁷ If anyone is willing to do His will, he will know of the teaching, whether it is of God or whether I speak from Myself. ¹⁸ He who speaks from himself seeks his own glory; but He who is seeking the glory of the One who sent Him, He is true, and there is no unrighteousness in Him.

In this passage, Jesus shares a pretty profound statement, and it helps us frame both His own ministry, and really the ministry of many of the prophets in the Old Testament.

The verse we ended off at, which is verse 18, records Jesus telling the crowd, “He who speaks from himself seeks his own glory; but He who is seeking the glory of the One who sent Him, He is true, and there is no unrighteousness in Him.”

While Jesus is speaking about Himself in this passage, the way He phrases this statement implies a truth that can be applied to not only Himself, but to all supposed messengers from God throughout the ages.

In the Old Testament, the role of a prophet was not something that many would want. Not only were many of God’s prophets hated and hurt by those they were sent to give messages to, God often asked them to do crazy things with their lives to illustrate a truth He wanted to share with His people. And as a specific example, while it was not one of the craziest things that God ever asked someone to do, we can read about the prophet Jonah trying to run away from his responsibility as a prophet – even though that didn’t work out so well for him.

But the one thing that all God’s messengers had in common was that at their core, they were seeking to give glory and obedience to the One who sent them. Using Jesus’ words, a false prophet seeks His own glory, while a true prophet doesn’t really care about his fame or glory, but instead focuses in on the glory of the One who sent Him.

Jesus touches on this key idea in a very practical way in verse 17 when He says, “If anyone is willing to do [God’s] will, he will know of the teaching, whether it is of God or whether I speak from Myself.”

Obedience is what prompts us to be able to have the experience that can confirm or deny who Jesus really is. There are thousands, if not millions or billions, of people who are content to discredit Jesus from a place of disobedience. While sitting outside of God’s plan, a skeptic has plenty of one-sided evidence when taken at face value to reject God. Only through experientially testing God’s plan out will we be able to know the truth about who Jesus is.

This prompts me to look at the question from the crowd that inspired this statement. In verse 15, we read, “The Jews then were astonished [at Jesus’ teaching], saying, ‘How has this man become learned, having never been educated?’”

Something about this question strikes me as funny. I think it has to do with what is implied behind the question. While on the surface, the question is simply “How did Jesus get to be so intelligent since He was not formally educated?” under the surface, the implied statement is that intelligence is only developed through formal education.

Jesus was educated, but it was through an informal way – which consisted of prayerful personal study, and through what many might call home schooling, as Mary, Jesus’ mom pushed him and taught Him as He was growing up.

Sadly, I see this mentality in today’s culture. While I am not discounting formal education, which I am a product of, or encouraging home-schooling, I see a trend among people that assume degrees means knowledge. Degrees do generally mean that knowledge has been acquired, but degrees are not the only way of acquiring knowledge – and the knowledge behind a degree is highly subjective. Sure, a person passed a set of classes, signifying that they at one point knew the material, but was the material they learned the most up-to-date and practical information? Hopefully, but that is not guaranteed. Also, knowledge is great, but when it is not applied, it is not internalized, and it is eventually forgotten. While I know I learned some advanced level math in school, I don’t remember the importance of sine, cosine, and tangent except to say that they have something to do with angles and the bunch of weird buttons on my scientific calculator.

Knowledge is great. Intelligence is valuable. But when we look at Jesus, we see a bigger truth about our mission. Jesus tells the crowd and us in verse 16, “My teaching is not Mine, but His who sent Me.”

Jesus depended on God and the Holy Spirit to teach, train, and speak through Him. He did not depend on His own ability when sharing God’s message. This tells me that if Jesus depended on God’s Spirit for His message and His knowledge, God’s Spirit should be the first place I look to when seeking knowledge that is useful for my life. And part of me wonders what would happen if more of us took this approach in life.

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

As I always open these challenges by saying, intentionally place God first in your life, and if you are up for the challenge, intentionally look to God and lean on Him for knowledge in your own life. Look to God for knowledge and allow Him to teach you what He wants you to learn.

Also, as I regularly challenge you to do in one way or another, continue praying and prayerfully studying the Bible for yourself to grow closer to Jesus and allow God to develop your mind. Through Bible study, we can sharpen our mind and we can develop wisdom which can be more practically useful than intelligence in many situations. While knowledge is good, knowledge is easier to acquire than wisdom, while wisdom by many people is considered more valuable. Look to the Bible to learn wisdom!

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!

Of all the topics that the Bible shares, one of the most relevant and challenging topics the Bible deals directly with is the issue of conflict management. While some people might think of the Bible as only a place to receive spiritual truth, when we sit down to read what the Bible says, we discover that the Bible includes a lot of practical advice in other areas as well.

In the case of conflict management, anytime two or more people get together to do anything significant, expect there to be some level of conflict. I suspect that Jesus was very aware of this, and because of Jesus’ knowledge that conflict happens, I believe He included the passage we will focus on in our time together for this episode to help us navigate the interpersonal challenges we are destined to face.

However, while Jesus’ advice might seem to be too general, or too spiritual, the truth of the concept Jesus shares is amazingly relevant to every area of life.

Let’s read what Jesus advises. This teaching is found in the gospel of Matthew, chapter 18, and we will read it from the New Century Version. Starting in verse 15, Jesus continued teaching those present saying:

¹⁵ “If your fellow believer sins against you, go and tell him in private what he did wrong. If he listens to you, you have helped that person to be your brother or sister again. ¹⁶ But if he refuses to listen, go to him again and take one or two other people with you. ‘Every case may be proved by two or three witnesses.’ ¹⁷ If he refuses to listen to them, tell the church. If he refuses to listen to the church, then treat him like a person who does not believe in God or like a tax collector.

We’ll stop reading here because I want to point out a specific statement Jesus concluded this sequence by saying. Jesus’ concluding remarks in His advice are, “If he refuses to listen to the church, then treat him like a person who does not believe in God or like a tax collector.” (v. 17b)

While some people might believe this conclusion warrants looking down on or shunning those who have been excluded, the truth of this idea is that God calls us to love and witness our faith to non-believers. Note also that Jesus even invited Matthew, the author of this gospel, who was a tax collector by trade, to be one of His twelve disciples. Jesus spent time with people who did not believe in God and he had positive interactions with tax collectors. Nothing in Jesus’ ministry suggests that we should push away those who we disagree with.

However, looking at the sequence Jesus shares, this conflict resolution method has more to it than simply treating people who won’t listen like the don’t believe or belong to the church; this conflict resolution has steps that build upon one another and steps that shouldn’t be skipped over.

Verse 15 begins our passage by saying, “If your fellow believer sins against you, go and tell him in private what he did wrong. If he listens to you, you have helped that person to be your brother or sister again.” The first thing we must do if we have a conflict with someone is to talk directly to the person who we have the conflict with. At this point, they are the only one who can help resolve the conflict, and they are the only one who really benefits from being talked to. Talking about the conflict with anyone else before this step signals the start of gossip, and gossip erodes relationships.

If you have conversations about people while those people are not present, it tells everyone you talk to that you will talk about them behind their back as well. Someone who shares with others about a third party plants the seed in the mind of the one they are talking to that they cannot be trusted because if the person who is talking is sharing with them about someone else, they will also share with someone else the details that get shared with them.

While on the surface, people talking about others believe communication is happening, under the surface, those involved close off and stop sharing about themselves because when people gossip, trust ultimately disappears.

The brilliance in Jesus’ method is that there is never any gossip. The first step is a one-on-one conversation with the only person who can help remedy the situation, and if it works, then trust is actually built in this scenario and a friendship is strengthened.

But if it doesn’t work, then we move on to verse 16, where Jesus gives us the next step in the process. He says, “But if he refuses to listen, go to him again and take one or two other people with you.”

This next step is a scary one for most people, because it opens up both parties to scrutiny. If the one who feels wronged takes a couple individuals with them, then the tables may turn. Whoever has been chosen as a third-party to observe the conversation may take the side of the other person after hearing both sides. This actually happened to me a number of years ago, and describing this process actually bothers me for this reason. It is not pleasant to be told that you are on the wrong side of a conflict when you believe yourself to be right.

While we might be tempted to skip over this second step, we should resist this temptation because Jesus finishes verse 16 by saying that “Every case may be proved by two or three witnesses.” Taking one or two people with you is necessary for step number three, because if one presents a case to a third party, then it is one person’s word against another person’s word. While it is emotionally difficult for us to do, step number two gives us credible witnesses for step number three.

Those witnessing the conflict resolution in this second step are prime candidates to be witnesses for the third step, which Jesus shares in verse 17. Jesus tells us, “If he refuses to listen to them, tell the church.” This final step begins a more formal discussion about this topic with a much broader group of people, and like in the second step, it is possible the church in this case could side against the one who felt wronged. Again, there was a time – separate from the earlier case – where it felt like the church sided against me in a conflict resolution matter. I honestly don’t remember the details of what happened, and I am no longer attending that church, but I remember there being a conflict of some sort where I felt wronged.

The key for someone who is asked to be a witness in step two, or a third party juror of sorts in step number three is to objectively look at what happened, and what the one who felt wronged feels. If an apology is necessary from the one who did wrong, even if it doesn’t seem all that significant to those looking from the outside, it should definitely be recommended. If the one who did wrong refuses to apologize, even if it is a small matter, then there is likely something deeper at work in the one who did the wrong.

Apologies require humility, and humility is a vital ingredient for good relationships.

Bringing things around to where we began the discussion, “If he refuses to listen to the church, then treat him like a person who does not believe in God or like a tax collector.”

God did not call us to hate, avoid, or put down those who don’t believe in Him or those who collect taxes. He calls us to love them. Jesus loved people who didn’t believe in God, and Jesus loved tax collectors. He compliments Zacchaeus the tax collector, and He called Matthew the tax collector to be one of His twelve closest disciples. While the one who doesn’t listen to the church will be moved to the outside of the ring, there is nothing in Jesus’ words that tells us that the circle of the church is to be exclusively focused inward.

But that is another issue entirely – which we don’t have any time left for in this podcast episode. With that said, 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 choose to remain humble. Always assume the best in others, and choose to apologize even if you don’t think it is necessary.

Also, continue praying and studying the Bible for yourself to learn what Jesus is like, and the sort of love He wants us to have towards each other. It is through God’s love living within us that allows us to be humble, loving, and willing to apologize even if we don’t think it is necessary. God doesn’t let minor details stop Him from having a relationship with us, and we shouldn’t let minor thinks sabotage our relationships with others.

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

If you have ever wondered if Jesus or the disciples realized what would ultimately happen to the Messiah, you need to look no further than the event that our podcast focuses on this week. This event is recorded in three of the four gospels, and it gives us a very clear picture of both Jesus’ perspective on His mission, and the disciples’ lack of perspective about what Jesus was trying to warn them about.

For most of our podcast episodes, we pick just one of the gospels to focus in on, but because this event is pretty short, and because each gospel frames the disciples’ response a little differently, for this episode, we will pull in all three passages to help us discover the range of responses the disciples had. For all three passages, we will read them using the New American Standard Bible translation.

The first passage we will look at is from the gospel of Matthew, chapter 17, starting in verse 22:

²² And while they were gathering together in Galilee, Jesus said to them, “The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men; ²³ and they will kill Him, and He will be raised on the third day.” And they were deeply grieved.

If there was any question in your mind about whether Jesus knew death was in His future, this set of verses from Matthew sums it up. But what is amazing in my mind is that Jesus not only sees His death, He also sees the rest day, which is day 2, and the resurrection day, which is day 3.

But it seems as though the disciples missed that last part about the resurrection, because the passage concludes by saying, “And they were deeply grieved.” I suspect that if the disciples had heard the whole statement, concluding with Jesus’ resurrection on the third day, it wouldn’t be cause for alarm or grief, but instead it would be cause for amazement and/or joy. After all, Jesus says that people will kill Him, but He won’t stay dead!

This is how Matthew framed this event. Let’s now look at Mark’s gospel, and see how it frames the disciples’ response. Mark’s gospel has this event in chapter 9, starting in verse 30. Mark tells us:

³⁰ From there they went out and began to go through Galilee, and He did not want anyone to know about it. ³¹ For He was teaching His disciples and telling them, “The Son of Man is to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill Him; and when He has been killed, He will rise three days later.” ³² But they did not understand this statement, and they were afraid to ask Him.

In Mark’s gospel, we see a different picture of their response. Mark tells us they were confused, which does make sense because this prediction is both specific and unique, but it also gives another clue into the disciples when it says that “they were afraid to ask” Jesus what He meant.

Perhaps Jesus’ disciples stayed silent because no one else spoke up, or perhaps they chose to intentionally remain ignorant because each of them didn’t want to believe that Jesus would, or could, be killed. Jesus’ disciples had seen Him narrowly escape death many times before – from both angry people and from the forces of nature. I suspect that in the minds of these disciples, it would be illogical for Jesus to be captured and killed by the religious leaders. After all, every time Jesus had faced off against a group of religious leaders, Jesus was always one step ahead of any plot or scheme that they wanted to trick or trap Him with.

Fear of the truth and the choice not to ask clarifying questions stopped these disciples from learning the truth beforehand. It would only be after the resurrection, on a road leading away from Jerusalem, where a couple of discouraged disciples would ultimately learn the truth regarding the Old Testament predicting the crucified and risen Messiah.

However, while Matthew and Mark frame this event as they have, Luke puts an interesting twist on this message from Jesus to His disciples, and specifically on the disciples’ response. This event is found in Luke’s gospel, chapter 9, starting in the second half of verse 43:

^43b But while everyone was marveling at all that He was doing, He said to His disciples, ⁴⁴ “Let these words sink into your ears; for the Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men.” ⁴⁵ But they did not understand this statement, and it was concealed from them so that they would not perceive it; and they were afraid to ask Him about this statement.

Luke touches on the disciples’ reaction of fear, but he also brings out an interesting observation. Luke tells us in verse 45 that the disciples “did not understand this statement, and it was concealed from them so that they would not perceive it”.

According to Luke, the meaning of the statement Jesus shared with them was concealed from them. This implies that while Jesus shared with them, God kept the true meaning of Jesus’ words hidden until a later time. Luke’s gospel appears to say that while Jesus spoke freely with His followers about what was coming in the near future, the Holy Spirit hid the meaning from them for reasons that only God could fully know.

However, while the language of Luke’s gospel prompts us to look to God as the one hiding the truth, it is probable that the disciples were both not ready to receive or believe in the truth. If Jesus’ disciples had realized parts of this prediction over others, they may have fought the mob that did arrest Jesus because they wanted to hold onto their own view of who the Messiah would be rather than let Jesus be the Messiah He came to be.

The big truth this event tells me is that God will sometimes keep a truth about Himself hidden until we are ready to understand it. The disciples were not ready to accept the truth of Jesus’ words, so this truth was hidden from them until they were ready to pay attention and accept what had happened.

In our own lives, living over 2,000 years later, I wouldn’t be surprised if God is hiding truth from you and me until we are ready to understand and accept it. While some people might look at this as being  an example of God being unloving or keeping secrets, it could simply be because we have some preconceived ideas about God that He wants to help us break out of first. If we trust God with our eternity, we should also trust in His timing as well.

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

As I always open by challenging you, intentionally and prayerfully seek God first in your life and be open to learning from Him. Ask lots of questions and choose to be okay with waiting for His timing when responding to your questions. If you trust God to keep you safe for eternity, choose also to trust in His timing when leading, guiding, and helping you grow.

Also, as I regularly challenge you to do, continue to pray and study the Bible for yourself with the goal of opening your heart and mind to what God wants to teach you in the events you study. God is the best teacher you could have, and the Bible is one of the best sources of knowledge when wanting to grow closer to 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 doubt yourself away from where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!

If you have ever had a rumor circulate about you, you know how difficult it can be to break that rumor in light of the truth. And if you are in the spotlight, or in a place where you have people looking up to you, then this is even more true.

While the rumor mill is alive and well today, when we look back at the first century, during the time Jesus walked the earth, Jesus was one of the most famous, or infamous, people around. Almost everywhere Jesus went, He drew a crowd, whether it was a synagogue or a deserted place in the middle of nowhere. If someone knew where Jesus was, a crowd would eventually find Him and form around Him. Part of me wonders if there wasn’t always a crowd of people actively looking for Jesus, and that Jesus subtly tried to avoid the crowd whenever He needed time to rest.

However, oftentimes when big groups of people get together, they start talking, perhaps even exaggerating, the stories or things that they say, and when this happens, rumors start that either exaggerate the truth, or spread speculation that is outright false. This is just as true today as it was in the first century.

With the frame of mind that rumors were alive and circulating about Jesus during the first century, let’s read our passage to uncover a question Jesus asks His disciples about the rumors. In my mind, as we read this passage, it is unclear if Jesus really had two questions He wanted to ask, or if the first question really was designed to lead into the second question that Jesus was more interested in knowing.

Our event for this episode is found in three of the four gospels, but Matthew’s gospel includes some details that Mark and Luke don’t include. However, too often, we get caught up in the details Matthew includes that are unique that we miss the profoundness of Jesus’ questions and the responses that the disciples gave.

Because of this, for this episode and our time together, let’s look at Mark’s gospel. In Mark’s gospel, this event is found in chapter 8, and we will read from the New International Version of the Bible. Starting in verse 27, Mark tells us that:

²⁷ Jesus and his disciples went on to the villages around Caesarea Philippi. On the way he asked them, “Who do people say I am?”

²⁸ They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.”

²⁹ “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?”

Peter answered, “You are the Messiah.”

³⁰ Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about him.

In this event, Jesus opens with a question asking the disciples what the rumors surrounding Him are.

Something I find interesting in the response the disciples give is that the people living in Jesus’ time did not believe Jesus to be the Messiah that God had promised, but simply another prophet, or significant historical figure. Some might point to this detail as evidence that the people in Jesus’ time believed in reincarnation, but what is described here is a lot closer to resurrection of a historical figure than someone who is inherently immortal, continually returning in different forms.

It seems that the people believed Jesus to have been sent from God with a message for them, just like God sent John the Baptist and the prophets who came before Him. Jesus shared many similarities with the prophets God had send before, including the somewhat ironic detail that most, if not all, of the prophets were disliked by the spiritual and political leaders during their prophetic ministries. Part of me wonders if the regular Israelite living in the Old Testament had any positive or negative opinions of God’s prophets. From what I remember reading from the prophet and history portions of the Bible, I don’t recall anything being said about the common Israelite’s impression of any of the prophets.

However, the first question Jesus asks seems like more of a setup question in my mind. As I look at this conversation, I suspect that Jesus used this first question to change the subject of the conversation before asking the real question He wanted to know. While the disciples know what other people think and talked about, I believe Jesus really wants to know what they think about Him.

If other people were claiming Jesus was the Messiah, that would be one thing, but I suspect that Jesus wanted to avoid His followers making grander claims about Jesus than what the larger crowds of people were able to handle. I also suspect that since Jesus came to be a different type of Messiah than the culture at that time believed, Jesus knew that claiming the role of Messiah would not be in His best interest.

In my imagination, I wonder if there was a long awkward silence that hung in the air when Jesus shifted the focus from the larger population’s opinion of Him and onto the disciples’ opinion. As I imagine this event, I wonder if Peter responded immediately without even hesitating, or did one or two of the other disciples elbow him into making a response because the silence seemed like an eternity.

Regardless of the length of the silence following Jesus’ question, and regardless of what ultimately prompted Peter to respond in the way that He did, Peter’s answer to Jesus’ question is powerful and significant. Peter replied in verse 29, “You are the Messiah.” It is a simple, direct response, and probably the one Jesus was looking for.

Remember how I shared that Matthew includes some details that Mark and Luke don’t include. These details are shared in Jesus’ response to Peter’s declaration, and the first thing Jesus says I’ll pull into our discussion. In Matthew’s version of this event, which is found in chapter 16 of his gospel, immediately following Peter’s response, we read in verse 17, “Jesus replied, ‘Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven.’”

The one big detail that made Peter’s response different from all the rumors circulating about Jesus is that God the Father prompted this belief in Peter’s heart that Jesus is the Messiah. From all the rumors circulating, none that the disciples shared framed Jesus as the Messiah, which meant that Peter would have gotten His belief from a different source than the crowd. Jesus frames Peter’s other Source as God the Father prompting this truth on Peter’s heart.

In Jesus’ response, and in the warning to not tell others about Him, I see Jesus saying to all of His followers living throughout history that it is God the Father and His Spirit who impress upon people the truth about who Jesus is. We can share the good news, we can tell others about Jesus and how our faith has helped our own lives, but only God can really move someone to internalize the truth about who Jesus is in their own hearts. Only God can make Jesus real to someone.

Jesus warned the disciples to not go spreading this around. This could have been a message for them prior to His death, since up to Jesus’ death, the popular view of who the Messiah would be was significantly different from the Messiah Jesus came to be. Or this could have been a message for them from that point forward, and to share about what Jesus had done for them and let God’s Spirit move those they shared with into the realization about who the resurrected Jesus is.

In my mind, this second idea could be relevant for us today. We can be witnesses who share our experiences and our testimony about what Jesus and God have done in our lives, but only God and His Spirit can move someone to internalize the truth about Jesus in their hearts.

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. If you are unsure about who Jesus is or should be to you, prayerfully ask God to help you understand how He wants you to see Jesus.

With this prayer on your mind and in your heart, open up your Bible and study it for yourself looking for an answer for this question. The Bible is the best place for us to find information about Jesus, if for no other reason than the New Testament has more recorded copies and manuscripts than any and every other historical document from that era. God wants us to know about Jesus, and He preserved not just the New Testament for us to learn from, but the whole Bible as well.

Also, purposefully and prayerfully study the Bible for yourself so you can learn more about what Jesus is like, which also gives God an opening to make Jesus real to you.

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!