Reflective Bible Study Gospel Adventure

Discrediting Jesus: John 8:12-20

Published April 13, 2022 in Written Journal Entries

Focus Passage: John 8:12-20 (NCV)

¹² Later, Jesus talked to the people again, saying, “I am the light of the world. The person who follows me will never live in darkness but will have the light that gives life.”

¹³ The Pharisees said to Jesus, “When you talk about yourself, you are the only one to say these things are true. We cannot accept what you say.”

¹⁴ Jesus answered, “Yes, I am saying these things about myself, but they are true. I know where I came from and where I am going. But you don’t know where I came from or where I am going. ¹⁵ You judge by human standards. I am not judging anyone. ¹⁶ But when I do judge, I judge truthfully, because I am not alone. The Father who sent me is with me. ¹⁷ Your own law says that when two witnesses say the same thing, you must accept what they say. ¹⁸ I am one of the witnesses who speaks about myself, and the Father who sent me is the other witness.”

¹⁹ They asked, “Where is your father?”

Jesus answered, “You don’t know me or my Father. If you knew me, you would know my Father, too.” ²⁰ Jesus said these things while he was teaching in the Temple, near where the money is kept. But no one arrested him, because the right time for him had not yet come.

Read John 8:12-20 in context and/or in other translations on BibleGateway.com!

In this journal entry, we look at Jesus responding to an accusation that the Pharisees bring towards Him. In the scope of all the accusations the Pharisees bring, this may be the most practical one, but also the one that shows them to be the most blind to the evidence.

In this passage, the Pharisees try to discredit Jesus’ ministry by saying that He is only speaking for Himself, and that they cannot accept His testimony, because there is not a second witness. This is a valid argument, but first we must ignore and/or discredit the other evidence.

Prior to this event, John the Baptist has publically declared that Jesus was the Messiah they should follow. Also, the miraculous events surrounding Jesus’ birth and early childhood serve as a more than credible second witness. These are two easy examples of a second witness that would need to be ignored in order to make this “one witness” accusation.

However, Jesus chooses instead to focus on the clearest second witness: The Father (and to a lesser extent, The Holy Spirit). Two times before this event, God the Father had spoken directly to the people to confirm Jesus as His Son: First at the Baptism (Mark 1:9-11 / Matthew 3:13-17 / Luke 3:21-22), and secondly at the Mount of Transfiguration (Mark 9:2-13 / Matthew 17:1-13 / Luke 9:28-36). This is two direct times where The Father acts as a second witness. The Holy Spirit supported Jesus’ ministry through the countless miracles that Jesus performed.

However, Jesus counters their argument by saying that He did not come to judge them, even if they are judging Him. Too often we pick shallow arguments in order to discredit following Jesus in our own life today, but that is not Jesus’ issue, it is ours.

Jesus will be the Judge in the future, but now, He seeks to draw us to God through His testimony, the testimony of the Father, the testimony of eye-witness accounts who lived in the first century, and the testimony of thousands of believers who have lived and died during the last 2,000 years.

It is not enough to believe that Jesus existed. Instead we must believe in Jesus, which means placing our faith, hope, and trust in Him. He had the required number of witnesses – and more. Are we going to accept His testimony?

This thought was inspired by studying the Walking With Jesus “Reflective Bible Study” package. To discover insights like this in your own study time, click here and give Reflective Bible Study a try today!

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The Prayer Cliché: John 16:16-33

Published April 12, 2022 in Written Journal Entries

Focus Passage: John 16:16-33 (NIV)

¹⁶Jesus went on to say, “In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me.”

¹⁷At this, some of his disciples said to one another, “What does he mean by saying, ‘In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me,’ and ‘Because I am going to the Father’?” ¹⁸They kept asking, “What does he mean by ‘a little while’? We don’t understand what he is saying.”

¹⁹Jesus saw that they wanted to ask him about this, so he said to them, “Are you asking one another what I meant when I said, ‘In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me’? ²⁰Very truly I tell you, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy. ²¹A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world. ²²So with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy. ²³In that day you will no longer ask me anything. Very truly I tell you, my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. ²⁴Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete.

²⁵“Though I have been speaking figuratively, a time is coming when I will no longer use this kind of language but will tell you plainly about my Father. ²⁶In that day you will ask in my name. I am not saying that I will ask the Father on your behalf. ²⁷No, the Father himself loves you because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God. ²⁸I came from the Father and entered the world; now I am leaving the world and going back to the Father.”

²⁹Then Jesus’ disciples said, “Now you are speaking clearly and without figures of speech. ³⁰Now we can see that you know all things and that you do not even need to have anyone ask you questions. This makes us believe that you came from God.”

³¹“Do you now believe?” Jesus replied. ³²“A time is coming and in fact has come when you will be scattered, each to your own home. You will leave me all alone. Yet I am not alone, for my Father is with me.

³³“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

Read John 16:16-33 in context and/or in other translations on BibleGateway.com!

If there was ever a verse and theme that has been taken and turned into an almost meaningless cliché, it would be the idea and theme that we can find in Jesus’ last conversation before His arrest and death. In this conversation, John tells us what Jesus told the disciples: “In that day you will no longer ask me anything. Very truly I tell you, my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete.” (v. 23-24)

The idea that God will give us whatever we ask for in Jesus’ name is an incredibly powerful idea. In some ways, it is almost too powerful of a gift for us. But this theme has also become a cheap, shallow cliché that has prompted many people to use “God”, “Jesus”, “Father”, and “Lord” as filler words in their prayers. It has also prompted the popular prayer closing statement of “In Jesus name, Amen.”

After all, if we are calling on God in Jesus’ name, then in this set of verses, we have the clear promise that God will give us what we ask for. Jesus even goes so far as to say that we must ask God for things in order to make our joy complete.

So these verses must mean that we can pray the most selfish prayers, with the most sinful hearts, and if we end them by calling on Jesus’ name, God is then required to answer us. But for those who have tried this, reality seems to contradict Jesus’ words. Not all prayers that end with Jesus’ name being called upon are promptly answered, and not all prayers that are filled with the various names for God and Jesus are answered positively.

If this promise is not working in our lives, then this must mean we are missing something in these verses. If God made the promise, then He will keep it to give honor to His character. God will answer the promise and prayer because of who He is and not because of who we are.

When looking for conditions or prerequisites for this promise to be answered, two come to mind.

The first prerequisite is shared in the verse right before this, where Jesus says, “So with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy.” (v. 22)

This verse sets up a time period for our verse with the promise in it because Jesus then continues by saying, “In that day…” (v. 23a)

To start this promise off, Jesus refers to a day following the disciples’ sadness turning into joy, and this happened following the resurrection. It is possible that Jesus gave this promise to only those eleven disciples, but it is also possible that the first prerequisite is that we already have a relationship with Jesus. The disciples had been with Jesus for several years, and it is only after they had become close that Jesus gives them this promise. It may be the same with us.

The second possible prerequisite is found in the phrase, “Until now you have not asked for anything in my name.” (v. 24a)

With this phrase, Jesus describes that the disciples had never used Jesus’ name in a request before. This could then mean that Jesus’ promise should be valued and kept sacred rather than simply being used for every whim that comes into our minds. If anything in this promise becomes a cliché, then it has also become insincere and an insincere prayer may not even reach God’s ears.

After looking closer at this promise, it is hard to escape the truth that those who have a relationship with God and who have placed their hope, faith, and trust in Jesus can sincerely pray in Jesus’ name, and have their requests answered. You and I can be included in this promise if we are willing to place Jesus first in our lives in a meaningful way and focus on building a meaningful, sincere relationship with Him.

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Flashback Episode — A Great Reminder: Mark 3:7-12

Published April 11, 2022 in Audio Journal Entries

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Earlier during this year of podcasting through Jesus’ miracles in the gospels, we focused in on a passage where demons came out screaming that Jesus was God’s Son. While it seems like this may have been an isolated incident, it is possible that this detail was more frequent during Jesus’ ministry, and that the gospel writers simply stopped recording the detail because of how common it was. We can see this hinted in a rather generic passage of healings that Mark’s gospel includes.

Our passage for this episode comes from Mark’s gospel, chapter 3, and we will be reading it from the Good News Translation of the Bible. Starting in verse 7, Mark tells us that:

⁷Jesus and his disciples went away to Lake Galilee, and a large crowd followed him. They had come from Galilee, from Judea, ⁸from Jerusalem, from the territory of Idumea, from the territory on the east side of the Jordan, and from the region around the cities of Tyre and Sidon. All these people came to Jesus because they had heard of the things he was doing. ⁹The crowd was so large that Jesus told his disciples to get a boat ready for him, so that the people would not crush him. ¹⁰He had healed many people, and all the sick kept pushing their way to him in order to touch him. ¹¹And whenever the people who had evil spirits in them saw him, they would fall down before him and scream, “You are the Son of God!”

¹²Jesus sternly ordered the evil spirits not to tell anyone who he was.

In Mark’s passage, we don’t really learn much that could be called new based on other passages we have looked at so far this year. Previously we have seen Jesus cast evil spirits out, heal people, we have seen evil spirits declaring Jesus to be God’s Son, and we’ve seen Jesus silence these evil spirits. Jesus has also been so crowded in with people listening to Him preach that He has preached from a boat.

There isn’t much new that we can learn from this passage, but while this is the case, there are two things that are worth us focusing in on.

The first thing we’ll focus in on is that when we are living within God’s plan for our lives, God will bring people into our lives that He wants us to reach out to, people that He wants us to touch with His love, and people who will challenge us to grow. When we are living within God’s plan for our lives, don’t be surprised when word gets around about what God is doing through us.

In Jesus’ life and ministry, we see this displayed clearly and visibly in this passage from Mark’s gospel. Mark describes in verses 7 and 8 how this crowd of people “had come from Galilee, from Judea, from Jerusalem, from the territory of Idumea, from the territory on the east side of the Jordan, and from the region around the cities of Tyre and Sidon.”

While this list of places doesn’t mean much to us living on the other side of the world over 2,000 years later, what we can see present here is that within a very short period of time, word spread about Jesus to a very wide region. The word that was spreading related to Jesus’ miraculous healing ability and His counter-cultural message. People spent days traveling to hear Jesus and to get help for a loved one or themselves, and when these people who needed help arrived, Jesus was willing to give them a few moments of God’s time, and touch their lives with God’s love.

The second thing we are reminded of in this passage is that unless Satan disliked having his evil spirits possessing people, the simple fact that a person possessed by an evil spirit being caught near Jesus gives evidence for God being stronger than Satan. Every time Jesus encounters an evil spirit, the evil spirit loses. The only option an evil spirit has when faced with Jesus is try to do something to discredit Jesus’ authority – and in this passage, as with ones before, the option is to declare the truth about Jesus.

If we are primed to distrust Satan, then we immediately distrust anything that comes from his mouth – even if it is the truth. We should distrust Satan, but it is best to simply ignore anything he says because it is guaranteed to be a blend of truth and lies and it will be difficult for us to discern the truth from the lies. In place of ignoring Satan, we should intentionally focus more on studying the Bible, and on discovering what it teaches us about God. When we grow closer to God, we begin to reflect Him in our lives, and we will be better able to see the devil’s tricks.

When we look at this passage and what it reminds us about Jesus, we discover that God is more powerful than Satan; that every time an evil spirit encounters Jesus, Jesus wins; and that God is more than willing to bring people into our lives for His purposes.

God has a big plan in place for history and the end of sin, and when we look at how Jesus lived His life, we discover that God loves each of us, and that Jesus came to redeem us from the sin that has trapped us.

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

Always seek God first and let Him lead you through life. Intentionally grow closer to Him in order to see the traps and the lies Satan is spreading through the world. Remember that Jesus is infinitely stronger than Satan is and that Jesus invites us to be on His winning side.

Also, continue to pray and study the Bible for yourself, to learn and grow each day in your faith and knowledge of God. Choose to filter everything culture wants to convince you of through the pages of the Bible to discern its true value.

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!

Flashback Episode: Year of Miracles – Episode 15: In a somewhat generic passage included in the gospel of Mark, we are reminded of some amazing truths about Jesus that are often overlooked or forgotten.

Is the Past a Present: Matthew 16:5-12

Published April 8, 2022 in Written Journal Entries

Focus Passage: Matthew 16:5-12 (NCV)

⁵Jesus’ followers went across the lake, but they had forgotten to bring bread. ⁶Jesus said to them, “Be careful! Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and the Sadducees.”

⁷His followers discussed the meaning of this, saying, “He said this because we forgot to bring bread.”

⁸Knowing what they were talking about, Jesus asked them, “Why are you talking about not having bread? Your faith is small. ⁹Do you still not understand? Remember the five loaves of bread that fed the five thousand? And remember that you filled many baskets with the leftovers? ¹⁰Or the seven loaves of bread that fed the four thousand and the many baskets you filled then also? ¹¹I was not talking to you about bread. Why don’t you understand that? I am telling you to beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and the Sadducees.” ¹²Then the followers understood that Jesus was not telling them to beware of the yeast used in bread but to beware of the teaching of the Pharisees and the Sadducees.

Read Matthew 16:5-12 in context and/or in other translations on BibleGateway.com!

Occasionally, I wonder if Jesus ever laughed inside His head about something the disciples did, or perhaps about what sort of individual’s God had directed His way to be followers/disciples. During this particular lake crossing, Jesus saw an opportunity to warn His followers about two groups of people who may more subtly derail their mission in the future.

Jesus shares the metaphor in verse 6, “Be careful! Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and the Sadducees.” But the disciples think Jesus is bringing this up because they forgot bread.

Knowing they had completely missed the point Jesus gets their attention again. He asks them, “Why are you talking about not having bread? Your faith is small. Do you still not understand? Remember the five loaves of bread that fed the five thousand? And remember that you filled many baskets with the leftovers? Or the seven loaves of bread that fed the four thousand and the many baskets you filled then also?” (v. 8-10)

The disciples were caught up on their current need and this overshadowed the two food-multiplication related miracles that Jesus had done earlier. Little to no food was no problem for Jesus, but to the disciples, their present problem overshadowed their past triumphs. Baskets and baskets of leftover food were great at that time, but what about now, when all the bread is gone?

This response sheds light on the faith of the disciples, and Jesus helps draw our attention to it. While the present problem says that there is no bread, Jesus points to the many times of blessings that we can lean on from the past. If Jesus had multiplied food in the past, there is no reason food in the present or future couldn’t be multiplied again.

Before Jesus even gets to the meaning of what His original metaphor meant, He draws our attention to how we must remember the past triumphs to help our present faith. When we forget the past, we forget how God has brought us to where we are at; when we forget the past, we are unable to see how He is moving as clearly in the present; when we forget the past, our present problems seem overwhelming.

God has led us in the past. He has brought us through huge challenges. When we remember this, our present problems don’t seem as significant, and our trust in Jesus/God is able to stay firm.

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