Reflective Bible Study

When reading the last portion of John’s gospel, and specifically the event where the disciples go out fishing, we can find an interesting picture of how God often shows up to work miracles. The way this event happened probably was not the way the disciples would have wanted it to go, but it was the best way for it to have gone looking back on it.

The event begins in the evening, and several of the disciples decide to join Peter who had just gotten the urge to go fishing. Perhaps Peter has doubts on whether or not Jesus would appear to them or whether Jesus would even accept Him back after his denials just weeks (maybe even days) before. Or Peter may have just been filling time while waiting for Jesus to arrive.

Whatever the reason, the disciples push out into the lake to catch fish – but their night could only be classified as unsuccessful: No fish and no Jesus showing up with them on the lake. It is not a stretch to imagine these disciples were feeling just a little disappointed.

In our own lives, often we face periods of disappointment, and times when things keep turning up empty. These times we may feel as though God has abandoned us or that He is not interested. But this is not the reason for the empty night at all.

When the sun started peaking up over the horizon, the disciples spot a person on the shore, and this person tells them to throw their nets on the other side of the boat after learning that they had caught nothing. While this sounds like a ridiculous request, the disciples obey, and they land the biggest catch they could have imagined.

It often is only after the periods of disappointment that we are truly ready to receive God’s blessing. This is not God making up for lost time with a gift of interest, but a growing experience for all those present.

If the disciples had caught fish during the night, they would have attributed their catch with their own fishing ability, but the only possible conclusion we can reach following this event is that God provided the fish. In a subtle way, Jesus says to these disciples that even if they chose to go back to a life of fishing, they will only be successful if He is with them. In a similar way, regardless of what we choose to do in life, the only way we can truly be successful in the roles we choose is if Jesus/God allows it.

The growth that comes is a growth that teaches us our need to depend on God. We often are tempted to depend on our own ability, but eventually, our abilities will fail us and we will need outside help.

God wants to help us and to bless us, but He doesn’t want His blessings to pull us away from Him. God wants to bless us in extravagant ways, but He doesn’t want His gifts to affect our relationship with Him. Too often, this is only learned after we face times of disappointment that can remind us of our need.

During Jesus series of warnings and challenges to the religious leaders living in the first century, He takes issue with how they would hold each other to their word. In the middle of these warnings, Jesus shares a concept that sounds incredibly obvious, but with how He describes it, it would seem that the religious leaders had rationalized their way out of believing it personally.

Matthew tells us that Jesus challenges these leaders by saying, “Woe to you, blind guides, who say, ‘Whoever swears by the temple, that is nothing; but whoever swears by the gold of the temple is obligated.’ You fools and blind men! Which is more important, the gold or the temple that sanctified the gold? And, ‘Whoever swears by the altar, that is nothing, but whoever swears by the offering on it, he is obligated.’ You blind men, which is more important, the offering, or the altar that sanctifies the offering? Therefore, whoever swears by the altar, swears both by the altar and by everything on it. And whoever swears by the temple, swears both by the temple and by Him who dwells within it. And whoever swears by heaven, swears both by the throne of God and by Him who sits upon it.” (v. 16-22)

In my mind’s eye, I picture these leaders having placed the emphasis on the inside objects because they were certainly holy, but not on the objects that made them holy, because these objects resided in a place where sin is present. For example, the temple was likely next to a market, so even though it was set apart and sacred, it’s neighbor was common and secular. However, what was inside the temple had only sacred and set apart neighbors, so it was by definition “more holy”.

Over all, this is a weak argument for these leaders to have had, but it is about the only rationale my mind can come up with for them elevating the temple’s gold over the temple, and the offering on the alter over the alter itself. While not stated in the first set of examples, the implication is also that swearing by heaven didn’t mean much, but swearing on God’s throne was serious – which is an equally ridiculous idea when we think about it.

This section of warnings prompts me to believe that these leaders were always looking for loopholes, and in their search for exceptions, they were then able to make more rules to help close these exceptions. In some ways, they would be like some contract lawyers living today, who write contracts and licenses that rival the length of a dictionary in order to cover almost any possible circumstance that could happen.

But what Jesus’ words really share, at least to me, is that we should be less interested in looking for ways out of the agreements we make, and instead be more discerning about what we actually agree to in the first place – and if we have made a poor choice that we cannot get out of, then we should keep our word and see it as a learning experience for moving forward.

This seems to be one of the most popular passages to draw insights from, and today we come to another powerful one.

Most of the other journal entries on this passage have dealt with the Great Feast parable, but this one will shift gears and teach on the opening portion of this passage – where Jesus teaches on humility.

Jesus opened this passage with an observation on how guests seemed to try to inch their way into places of honor. Jesus challenges this mindset by bringing out a challenging point in verse 8, “Maybe someone more important than you was invited.” In effect, Jesus is asking the question, “What do you think will happen if someone more important than you arrives and the host informs you that you are filling his seat?” Nobody likes to be embarrassed, and this mindset of trying to inch your way up in status will almost always lead to embarrassment.

But Jesus goes a step further. He challenges us to take the opposite mindset in verse 10, “So when you’re invited, take the place of least honor.” In this case, the opposite will happen. When the host enters, and he sees you at the foot of the table, he will make a point of honoring you and displacing someone else. We all love to be publically honored.

I remember an occasion where looking back on this, I had every reason to be embarrassed: I took one of the seats of honor at a special occasion (a wedding) that I was not a part of. I was invited, but other than that, I was a common guest, unworthy of a seat of honor. However, while I had no right to take a place of honor, no one asked me to move.

Perhaps this is how you have felt at times. Sometimes, when we are looking at the world, it seems as only the aggressive, selfish, and obnoxious people seem to get ahead. They push themselves into places of honor and then demand the benefits of the place that they took. Sometimes this works.

But eventually, things will equalize and all wrongs will be made right. When that time comes, Jesus has shared with us the results in advance. If we have pushed ourselves ahead of where we deserve, we will be humbled, but if we have humbled ourselves and placed others first, then we will be honored.

When the end has come and you are looking back on your life, which decision would you have preferred to have made?

During a meal Jesus ate with some religious leaders, He challenges them with how they have chosen to live and about where they were placing their focus. This all began when Jesus chose not to ceremonially wash before the meal, and this offends the host who was a Pharisee.

Following, or perhaps interrupting, Jesus’ challenge to the Pharisees, an authority on the law (i.e. a lawyer) speaks up saying that Jesus’ words against the Pharisees are offending him as well. By speaking up, this lawyer opens the door for Jesus to change His focus and extend His challenges to this group as well.

Luke tells us that Jesus replied by saying, “How terrible for you authorities on the law! You put such heavy loads on people that they can hardly carry them. But you yourselves will not lift one finger to help them. “How terrible for you! You build tombs for the prophets. It was your people of long ago who killed them. So you show that you agree with what your people did long ago. They killed the prophets, and now you build the prophets’ tombs. So God in his wisdom said, ‘I will send prophets and apostles to them. They will kill some. And they will try to hurt others.’ So the people of today will be punished. They will pay for all the prophets’ blood spilled since the world began. I mean from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah. He was killed between the altar and the temple. Yes, I tell you, the people of today will be punished for all these things. How terrible for you authorities on the law! You have taken away the key to the door of knowledge. You yourselves have not entered. And you have stood in the way of those who were entering.” (v. 46-52)

Just like He did with the Pharisees, Jesus shares three core issues with the expert lawyers. In some ways, the group of lawyers is even worse than the group of Pharisees.

The first thing Jesus challenges the lawyers with has to do with the lists of laws that they had developed. The lists of new laws they had developed to keep the people from coming close to sinning had taken their focus away from loving and helping others. The issue Jesus has with the lawyers is that they were using their minds and logic to keep people trapped rather than to help people live better lives. With a humble focus, the religious experts could have helped all the Jewish groups live better, be better, and understand God’s character better, but they had instead focused on the negative characteristics of God and turned Him into a villain rather than a loving Father.

The second issue Jesus challenged the lawyers with their honoring the prophets that their ancestors killed. In a somewhat ironic way, by giving the Old Testament prophets honor when their ancestors had rejected them, these leaders in the present were just as stuck in the past as their ancestors were. Both groups chose to focus on what God had done earlier in history while rejecting what He was choosing to do in their lifetimes. By trying to keep things the way they were before, the leaders miss out on what all of God’s prophets were pointing forward to, and the biggest problem with this approach is that these leaders ultimately reject God’s Messiah.

The final problem Jesus has with the lawyers is that instead of using their intelligence to help people grow closer to God, they used their intelligence to push people away from God. These were the people who could have helped everyone understand God’s love and His grace, but they instead pushed people away from God by focusing only on God as the judge. If someone implied that God was loving, the lawyers were quick to redirect the focus away from His love and towards His judgment of sinners.

While Jesus challenged these two groups of religious leaders to help them realize they had misplaced their focus, these leaders ultimately chose to reject Jesus rather than grow based upon His challenges. The leaders chose their pride over the humility God wanted them to have, and this decision closed them off to God like they had closed God off to the people living in the first century. When Jesus challenges us, He doesn’t do it to push us away; His challenges are meant to help us grow into the people He created us to be!