Reflective Bible Study Gospel Adventure

One Difficult Command: John 13:31-38

Published September 10, 2021 in Written Journal Entries

Focus Passage: John 13:31-38 (NIV)

³¹When he was gone, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man is glorified and God is glorified in him. ³²If God is glorified in him, God will glorify the Son in himself, and will glorify him at once.

³³“My children, I will be with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now: Where I am going, you cannot come.

³⁴“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. ³⁵By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

³⁶Simon Peter asked him, “Lord, where are you going?”

Jesus replied, “Where I am going, you cannot follow now, but you will follow later.”

³⁷Peter asked, “Lord, why can’t I follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.”

³⁸Then Jesus answered, “Will you really lay down your life for me? Very truly I tell you, before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times!

Read John 13:31-38 in context and/or in other translations on BibleGateway.com!

During the supper Jesus shared with His disciples on the night of His arrest, He shares with them a profound idea that might sound obvious on the surface, but it has a slight twist that makes it unique. At this “Last Supper”, Jesus gives the disciples a new command.

John tells us that while they were together after Judas Iscariot had left, Jesus told them, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (v. 34-35)

On the surface, this sounds like Jesus simply is restating the “Love your neighbor as yourself” commandment He had shared earlier in His ministry as one of the top two commandments of the law. But loving one another is different from loving your neighbor.

Loving your neighbor could be understood as loving those who live near you, loving the strangers you pass by on the street, or even loving that annoying person who works near you at the office. In essence, these are people who you only casually know at best, and you unlikely would be friends with them if it were not for the geographical connection.

Loving one another is the opposite side of this coin. In this statement, Jesus commands His followers to love those they are close to, like those who are part of their family, friends, and church group. In some ways this is easier, but the challenge here is that the closer you get to know someone, the less of a mask they are able to put up, and the more you really get to know who they are. If you find something that you don’t like about them, is your response going to be breaking the friendship, or is it one that displays love and/or forgiveness? The answer is very dependent on the situation, but when in doubt, we should err on the side of showing love even if the relationship needs to end.

But in this command is also the command to love those who call themselves followers. This might be the hardest challenge of all. When we look at the broad group of people who identify themselves as “Christians”, there is very little that we could call united. There are “Christians” who hold to almost every possible belief and ideology that exists today. Sadly, the one thing that was suppose to unify us apart from a belief in Jesus is our love – for each other and for others – and this is more than simply tolerating those who believe differently than us.

Jesus’ single command for His church was to be known as the most loving place anyone could go – and while being loving does not mean ignoring the truth or discounting sin, it does mean caring for the individual in spite of the sin and helping lift them into a better place than they were before. It also means forgiving even if the other person doesn’t deserve it. With a love like this, we can accurately represent Jesus in our world today.

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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Receiving Jesus’ Reward: Matthew 20:1-16

Published September 9, 2021 in Audio Journal Entries

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As we come closer to the week leading up to Jesus’ crucifixion in Matthew’s gospel, we come to a parable Jesus shares about a landowner hiring workers for his vineyard. Like many of Jesus’ other parables, this one is attributed to the kingdom of heaven.

However, as I have read this parable, I have always been amazed at the implications and things I learn from the details in this parable, and I’m sure that this time will be no exception. Let’s read what Jesus shared and then unpack some things we can learn from this teaching. Our parable and passage are found in Matthew’s gospel, chapter 20, and we will be reading from the New International Version of the Bible. Starting in verse 1, Jesus tells those present:

¹“For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. ²He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard.

³“About nine in the morning he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. ⁴He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ ⁵So they went.

“He went out again about noon and about three in the afternoon and did the same thing. ⁶About five in the afternoon he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’

⁷“‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered.

“He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’

⁸“When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’

⁹“The workers who were hired about five in the afternoon came and each received a denarius. ¹⁰So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. ¹¹When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. ¹²‘These who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’

¹³“But he answered one of them, ‘I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? ¹⁴Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. ¹⁵Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’

¹⁶“So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”

Whenever I read this parable, one portion of the parable bothers me when we compare it with how this parable is framed. At the start of this parable, Jesus frames this parable as being about the kingdom of heaven, and at the end of the parable, we find people who are being rewarded by this landowner who are grumbling against the landowner because they don’t feel they have been treated fairly.

This detail comparison strikes me as odd because regardless of what represents the kingdom of heaven in this parable, I find it challenging to picture people complaining about the unfairness this parable presents.

Don’t misunderstand me though. Looking around at people here on earth, including those in the church and those out of the church, I can easily picture a group of people accusing God of being unfair. However, it is harder for me to picture this happening in heaven.

However, while God, who I believe is represented by this landowner, is being accused of being unfair, is there anything actually unfair happening in this parable?

If we judge this parable through our human standards, we might be able to make a case that what the landowner does is unfair. After all, those who worked for fewer hours should receive less than those who worked for more hours, especially with all other variables being the same. If someone who came later in the day worked harder and produced more than someone who was present but not all that diligent, then a case could be made for paying the one who performed better for a shorter period of time the same, or worse for that matter, as someone who worked longer but who wasn’t as productive.

However, the details of this parable remove the accusation of the landowner being unfair. Those who began first thing in the morning agreed to being paid a fair day’s wage. After the day’s worth of work, they seem to have forgotten what they had agreed to. However, forgetting the details of an agreement doesn’t make the agreement any less binding and it doesn’t make what was agreed upon any less fair.

Those who worked a full day were paid what was fair for a full day’s worth of work. In contrast, those who started later get more than they deserved for their work. Those who started later get to experience generosity because they receive more than they would have normally earned for the time they spent working.

It is interesting when we take this idea and extend it into the spiritual realm. If we ignore for a moment that those who worked the longest complained, we can see an amazing spiritual parallel in what Jesus did for us.

Let’s take the day of work in the vineyard in this parable and translate it into a lifetime of service. When we look at our lifetime service record, the only one in history with a spotless record is Jesus. Jesus began way before we even knew anything about God and Jesus will continue long after memory of us has faded from those alive on this planet.

If anyone has served for a long time, it is Jesus. Anyone and everyone who serves God is someone who started after the start of the workday because when we were born, regardless of how smart we were or what family we were born into, we had no understanding of serving God.

This also means that when God pays us for our lifetime of service, He gives us more than we deserve. Instead of limiting the reward He has planned to give us and basing it on how well we served, God decides to reward us as though we served Him like Jesus served. We are given the rewards of perfect service when our service record is anything but perfect.

And the amazing thing about this understanding of this parable is in the last phrase Jesus shared in this parable. In verse 16, Jesus tells those present, “So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”

Jesus deserved to be rewarded for His life of service, but Jesus chose to be last and to place us first. Jesus is the only one with a spotless record of service, but instead of leaning on His perfect record, He decides to trade it with our imperfect record and take the punishment for our sins. I can understand those who are skeptical of a selfless God like this, but would a God of love act any other way?

Looking at the details of this parable, and how the landowner continues to seek out people to help in his vineyard, we can conclude that God is always looking for more people to help in His vineyard. While the workday is still in progress, it is never too late to accept God’s invitation to work with and for Him.

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

As I always open the challenges by saying, intentionally seek God first and place Him first in your life. Choose to accept Jesus’ gift of His service record in place of your own. Choose to accept God’s invitation to serve in His vineyard and discover what life is like with God.

Also, continue praying and studying the Bible for yourself to intentionally grow closer to God each day. Through prayer and Bible study, we are able to open our hearts to God and we are able to let Him enter our lives. Prayer and Bible study help us serve others better and these habits help us live the life God has called us to 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 abandon where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!

Year in Matthew – Episode 36: In the parable of the vineyard workers, discover how God is extraordinarily generous with us and how we ultimately are rewarded with more than we deserve.

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Back From the Dead: John 11:1-44

Published September 8, 2021 in Written Journal Entries

Focus Passage: John 11:1-44 (CEV)

^1-2 A man by the name of Lazarus was sick in the village of Bethany. He had two sisters, Mary and Martha. This was the same Mary who later poured perfume on the Lord’s head and wiped his feet with her hair. ³ The sisters sent a message to the Lord and told him that his good friend Lazarus was sick.

⁴ When Jesus heard this, he said, “His sickness won’t end in death. It will bring glory to God and his Son.”

⁵ Jesus loved Martha and her sister and brother. ⁶ But he stayed where he was for two more days. ⁷ Then he said to his disciples, “Now we will go back to Judea.”

⁸ “Teacher,” they said, “the people there want to stone you to death! Why do you want to go back?”

⁹ Jesus answered, “Aren’t there twelve hours in each day? If you walk during the day, you will have light from the sun, and you won’t stumble. ¹⁰ But if you walk during the night, you will stumble, because you don’t have any light.” ¹¹ Then he told them, “Our friend Lazarus is asleep, and I am going there to wake him up.”

¹² They replied, “Lord, if he is asleep, he will get better.” ¹³ Jesus really meant that Lazarus was dead, but they thought he was talking only about sleep.

¹⁴ Then Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead! ¹⁵ I am glad that I wasn’t there, because now you will have a chance to put your faith in me. Let’s go to him.”

¹⁶ Thomas, whose nickname was “Twin,” said to the other disciples, “Come on. Let’s go, so we can die with him.”

¹⁷ When Jesus got to Bethany, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. ¹⁸ Bethany was only about two miles from Jerusalem, ¹⁹ and many people had come from the city to comfort Martha and Mary because their brother had died.

²⁰ When Martha heard that Jesus had arrived, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed in the house. ²¹ Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. ²² Yet even now I know that God will do anything you ask.”

²³ Jesus told her, “Your brother will live again!”

²⁴ Martha answered, “I know that he will be raised to life on the last day, when all the dead are raised.” ²⁵ Jesus then said, “I am the one who raises the dead to life! Everyone who has faith in me will live, even if they die. ²⁶ And everyone who lives because of faith in me will never really die. Do you believe this?”

²⁷ “Yes, Lord!” she replied. “I believe that you are Christ, the Son of God. You are the one we hoped would come into the world.”

²⁸ After Martha said this, she went and privately said to her sister Mary, “The Teacher is here, and he wants to see you.” ²⁹ As soon as Mary heard this, she got up and went out to Jesus. ³⁰ He was still outside the village where Martha had gone to meet him. ³¹ Many people had come to comfort Mary, and when they saw her quickly leave the house, they thought she was going out to the tomb to cry. So they followed her.

³² Mary went to where Jesus was. Then as soon as she saw him, she knelt at his feet and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

³³ When Jesus saw that Mary and the people with her were crying, he was terribly upset ³⁴ and asked, “Where have you put his body?”

They replied, “Lord, come and you will see.”

³⁵ Jesus started crying, ³⁶ and the people said, “See how much he loved Lazarus.”

³⁷ Some of them said, “He gives sight to the blind. Why couldn’t he have kept Lazarus from dying?”

³⁸ Jesus was still terribly upset. So he went to the tomb, which was a cave with a stone rolled against the entrance. ³⁹ Then he told the people to roll the stone away. But Martha said, “Lord, you know that Lazarus has been dead four days, and there will be a bad smell.”

⁴⁰ Jesus replied, “Didn’t I tell you that if you had faith, you would see the glory of God?”

⁴¹ After the stone had been rolled aside, Jesus looked up toward heaven and prayed, “Father, I thank you for answering my prayer. ⁴² I know that you always answer my prayers. But I said this, so that the people here would believe that you sent me.”

⁴³ When Jesus had finished praying, he shouted, “Lazarus, come out!” ⁴⁴ The man who had been dead came out. His hands and feet were wrapped with strips of burial cloth, and a cloth covered his face.

Jesus then told the people, “Untie him and let him go.”

Read John 11:1-44 in context and/or in other translations on BibleGateway.com!

Of the several things that stood out in this passage, the one I will focus on in this post is what isn’t said in any of the gospels, and something that makes me wonder a little bit, because it would be a question that Lazarus would have been asked dozens, if not hundreds of times: “What was death like?”

What surprises me is that any significant answer to this question would have spread like wildfire and probably would have reached Luke, who I’m a little surprised doesn’t even reference this event in his gospel at all. Matthew was there, so why isn’t this event in his gospel either?

Even broader than this single passage is the lack of information from anyone who Jesus raised from the dead sharing what death was like. Our modern culture would have us think it is like flying into the light and entering heaven, but if this is the case, being resurrected at any time would be one of the cruelest things for Jesus to do.

I’m inclined to distrust culture, because rarely do we ever get things “right”. Instead, what if death was simply a pause button on life, and those who were raised had nothing to share about death because they didn’t experience anything? Would being resurrected be as cruel then?

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The Second Call: John 21:1-14

Published September 7, 2021 in Written Journal Entries

Focus Passage: John 21:1-14 (NIV)

¹Afterward Jesus appeared again to his disciples, by the Sea of Galilee. It happened this way: ²Simon Peter, Thomas (also known as Didymus), Nathanael from Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two other disciples were together. ³“I’m going out to fish,” Simon Peter told them, and they said, “We’ll go with you.” So they went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.

⁴Early in the morning, Jesus stood on the shore, but the disciples did not realize that it was Jesus.

⁵He called out to them, “Friends, haven’t you any fish?”

“No,” they answered.

⁶He said, “Throw your net on the right side of the boat and you will find some.” When they did, they were unable to haul the net in because of the large number of fish.

⁷Then the disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” As soon as Simon Peter heard him say, “It is the Lord,” he wrapped his outer garment around him (for he had taken it off) and jumped into the water. ⁸The other disciples followed in the boat, towing the net full of fish, for they were not far from shore, about a hundred yards. ⁹When they landed, they saw a fire of burning coals there with fish on it, and some bread.

¹⁰Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish you have just caught.” ¹¹So Simon Peter climbed back into the boat and dragged the net ashore. It was full of large fish, 153, but even with so many the net was not torn. ¹²Jesus said to them, “Come and have breakfast.” None of the disciples dared ask him, “Who are you?” They knew it was the Lord. ¹³Jesus came, took the bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish. ¹⁴This was now the third time Jesus appeared to his disciples after he was raised from the dead.

Read John 21:1-14 in context and/or in other translations on BibleGateway.com!

Following Jesus’ resurrection, John records in his gospel an interesting event that I am a little surprised the other gospel writers don’t include. In this event, we find a group of Jesus disciples back by the Sea of Galilee headed out to go fishing. John describes what happened at the start of the last chapter of his gospel.

“Afterward Jesus appeared again to his disciples, by the Sea of Galilee. It happened this way: Simon Peter, Thomas (also known as Didymus), Nathanael from Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two other disciples were together. “I’m going out to fish,” Simon Peter told them, and they said, “We’ll go with you.” So they went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.” (v. 1-3)

This event, with just a couple more individuals added to it, begins to look like an earlier event that another gospel writer records early on in Jesus’ ministry. Perhaps catching nothing was something that happened regularly, so it may not have been as abnormal, but I also wonder if the disciples were pestering each other saying they must have gotten out of practice having not fished for a few years.

John continues by saying, “Early in the morning, Jesus stood on the shore, but the disciples did not realize that it was Jesus.” (v. 4)

I wonder if it was because of the distance that made the disciples unable to recognize Jesus, or perhaps He was dressed differently. John had already shared that this was the third time Jesus had appeared to them, so at the very least, some of them would have seen Him before.

In this event, Jesus then calls out to them in the boat, asking “Friends, haven’t you any fish?” (v. 5a)

Probably with a bit of discouragement in their voices, they answer “No.” (v. 5b)

At this point in the event, we begin to see the biggest parallel to an earlier event. Jesus then responds to the disciples by saying, “Throw your net on the right side of the boat and you will find some.” (v. 6a)

With this statement, Jesus echoes an earlier direction that led into a miracle leading up to the first fishermen disciples being called. Luke describes this earlier event as Jesus heading out to fish with these disciples after they have had an unsuccessful night of fishing. While discouraged, these first followers obey and they have one of the best catches of their career. (Luke 5)

Here at the end of Jesus’ earthly ministry, we find a similar event, and when the disciples obeyed Jesus, “they were unable to haul the net in because of the large number of fish.” (v. 6b)

This event echoes how the first group of fishermen disciples were called. I wonder if this after-resurrection event was a new call for these followers to reset their relationship with Jesus and start fresh with Him. After they all had abandoned Him in the garden, I wonder if Jesus intentionally repeats this earlier miracle to give them a new call and invitation to restart their journey again with Him. When we choose to come to Jesus after failing, He is willing to forgive and start fresh with us!

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