Reflective Bible Study

Sometime during the middle of Jesus’ ministry, John’s gospel describes a time when Jesus appears to be alone with His brothers. In this event, John records a startling detail that is profound when we look at it a little closer. John tells us that “For not even His brothers were believing in Him.” (v. 5)

This detail is significant for us to pay attention to because too often, those closest to us may be among the least supportive of us. While this is not always the case, plenty of cases can validate this statement. However, I think most times those closest to us don’t support us, they believe they are being helpful. Sometimes, help comes in the form of telling someone you love some difficult to accept things.

Perhaps we don’t feel supported by those we know love us because we know they don’t approve of something we do, some people we associate with, or a habit we have. Sometimes having a lot of history with a person is not helpful for building a stronger relationship because people can get caught up with each other’s faults.

However, the word John uses in this statement is the word “belief” and this is a little different than simply supporting someone. While believing in someone leads to supporting them and their decisions, believing in this context also means trusting, having faith in, and being loyal to the person in question. In this passage, John tells us that Jesus’ brothers – those He was closest to and had the most history with – did not believe in Him.

Jesus would have been aware of this and because of this lack of belief, trust, and faith, Jesus knows that it is better for Him not to travel with His brothers. While His brothers recognize that Jesus is special and that He can perform miracles, they miss understanding the purpose Jesus came and the counter-cultural way He saw Himself.

Reading this prompts me to think that sometimes it is better to take a step back in our faith – but not a step back in a literal sense, but a step back to then focus again on the big picture. When we look at the big picture and keep our eyes open for examples of God leading and blessing people in the world around us, we can avoid the trap Jesus’ brothers fell into because they had decades of history together – which included plenty of pretty normal events.

Part way through His ministry as He was traveling through the city of Jericho, Jesus meets a tax collector named Zacchaeus. Looking back on this event, the thing that is most remembered about Zacchaeus is the detail that he was short and chose to climb a tree to simply catch a glimpse of Jesus.

However, Jesus goes a step further and invites Himself over to Zacchaeus’ home. While the crowd grumbled and complained, Zacchaeus experiences a heart transformation, and pledges to give half his wealth to the poor and right any wrongs he may have committed in the past.

Luke concludes this event with Jesus saying a powerful blessing: “Salvation has come to this house today, because this man also belongs to the family of Abraham. The Son of Man came to find lost people and save them.” (v. 9-10)

In these two concluding verses, we see Jesus sharing another glimpse of His ministry on earth. Jesus came to bring salvation into the homes of those who will let Him in. Jesus came to adopt people who are willing into the family of Abraham to become one of God’s chosen people. Jesus came to find those who are lost, hurting, and needing help with the goal of saving them.

The context in Luke’s concluding remarks are focused in on the specific event of Jesus’ time with Zacchaeus. In an almost universal way, we can take these verses and apply them to any and every situation where someone comes to God, whether they had fallen away from God at some point in their past or even if they had never known God.

We can also take these verses and apply them to Jesus’ overall ministry. Jesus came to the earth because He wants to find lost people and save them. Jesus arriving on earth marked the start of God’s salvation being made known, and the start of God actively adopting people into His new spiritual “family of Abraham.”

When reading the different gospel accounts, I am always amazed at how certain gospels give details that other gospel writers leave out. In this well known event, Jesus succeeds at casting an evil spirit out when the disciples could not. The disciples had been able to cast out demons in the past, however, in this case, they were unsuccessful.

However, while three of the four gospels record this event, only Mark includes a key pivot point between Jesus talking to the father and healing the boy. Without this detail, it would seem as though Jesus performed this healing out of frustration, but with this detail, we see something interesting. In the first half of verse 25, Mark tells us what pushed Jesus to act, “When Jesus saw that a crowd was running to the scene, he rebuked the evil spirit.”

Word travels fast and it seems that whenever Jesus was going to be near someone who needed to be healed or helped, there was a crowd present. Seeing a crowd racing towards the scene to witness this miracle, Jesus knew the time was short. Jesus performed miracles to help individuals and families first, and if He was able to do so apart from the crowds, He seemed to prefer it.

By this point in Jesus’ ministry, He had gained the reputation of miracle worker, but the downside of this is that the people were beginning to only see Jesus as a spectacular “man”, and not as a representative from God who was giving glory to God. In other places, Jesus pulls the individual He wants to heal away from the crowds because He knew the crowd’s intention would be to glorify Him over giving glory to God. Jesus came to give glory to the Father and He wasn’t looking for glory from humanity. Jesus knew that with this large crowd present, less glory would go to the Father because the hearts of these people were only interested on praising the man Jesus.

Luke’s gospel tells us that Jesus cast out the evil spirit at the right time, because Luke 9:43 begins by telling us, “And they were all amazed at the greatness of God.” Jesus healed the boy at just the right moment to keep the glory pointed towards God – any later and the opportunity may have been missed.

This leads me to the key idea: If Jesus was more focused on giving glory to God the Father and not on receiving glory or praise for Himself, shouldn’t we, as His followers living centuries later, be focused on the same thing? When doing things for God, perhaps we should be more interested in how our actions give Him glory, regardless of the number of people present.

While teaching the disciples about conflict resolution, forgiveness, and the power of prayer, Jesus shares a profound verse that many people may simply skip over for no other reason than it is hard to understand or believe. In Matthew’s gospel, during this teaching, he records Jesus telling the disciples: “I tell you the truth, the things you don’t allow on earth will be the things God does not allow. And the things you allow on earth will be the things that God allows.” (v. 18)

On the surface, it appears as though God takes a back seat and simply lets us on earth decide what is allowable and what is not. But this seems a little too subjective of a thing for God to do. If God doesn’t change, and His law doesn’t change, then it would be odd to think He would simply swipe away part of His law if enough of humanity wanted to get rid of it.

Imagine if enough people said the command to not murder was dated and determined to remove it. Would God simply comply and ignore the command to not murder that is includes in His law?

On the surface, this appears to be the case, but what if this is a challenge for all of God’s followers regarding something different. What if, instead of God taking a back seat to humanity with regard to any regulation that has been given, this promise was given to those in the church who are closest to God, those who are most humble, and those who are quick to defer to God and His way? If God promises to allow and prohibit based on what those who are actively leaning on Him decide in cases where there is uncertainty about a specific rule, then this promise begins to make sense.

For example, there are no laws or regulations in God’s word regarding the using of electricity, automobiles, or even the Internet. In cases such as these, is the best approach to permit anything that God has not clearly prohibited, or is it better to prohibit anything that God has not specifically allowed?

Most people would conclude that it depends on a case-by-case scenario, but then we must also ask the question about who decides each case – and in situations like these, it makes the most sense for God to leave the deciding up to those who are closest to Him to determine what things to permit and what things to prohibit.

So while some people might see this as God deferring His law to humanity’s ever-changing whims, perhaps this is simply God/Jesus telling His followers that if something hasn’t been clearly directed one way or another, that God will let us decide for ourselves – and He will support whichever way we decide.