Welcome to Cam’s Reflective Bible Study Journal

Cam’s Reflective Bible Study Journal is a blog/podcast where Cam, one of Reflective Bible Study's founders, shares things he has discovered from his time studying the Bible (usually from one or more of the four gospels).

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Surprising Jesus with Faith: Luke 7:1-10

Published April 23, 2021 in Written Journal Entries
Focus Passage: Luke 7:1-10 (GNT)

1 When Jesus had finished saying all these things to the people, he went to Capernaum. 2 A Roman officer there had a servant who was very dear to him; the man was sick and about to die. 3 When the officer heard about Jesus, he sent some Jewish elders to ask him to come and heal his servant. 4 They came to Jesus and begged him earnestly, “This man really deserves your help. 5 He loves our people and he himself built a synagogue for us.”

6 So Jesus went with them. He was not far from the house when the officer sent friends to tell him, “Sir, don’t trouble yourself. I do not deserve to have you come into my house, 7 neither do I consider myself worthy to come to you in person. Just give the order, and my servant will get well. 8 I, too, am a man placed under the authority of superior officers, and I have soldiers under me. I order this one, ‘Go!’ and he goes; I order that one, ‘Come!’ and he comes; and I order my slave, ‘Do this!’ and he does it.”

9 Jesus was surprised when he heard this; he turned around and said to the crowd following him, “I tell you, I have never found faith like this, not even in Israel!”

10 The messengers went back to the officer’s house and found his servant well.

Read Luke 7:1-10 in context and/or in other translations on BibleGateway.com!

In Jesus’ entire ministry on earth, one event stands out in His mind as an example of great faith. Jesus even draws our attention to how extraordinary it really was. Our passage actually says the level of faith demonstrated “surprised” Jesus.

In this event, a Roman officer sends a message to Jesus that a servant of his is sick and about to die, and he requests Jesus’ help. Matthew shares that the officer came to Jesus personally, while Luke actually points us to this officer actually sending some of the Jewish elders from the local synagogue with the request to Jesus.

But when Jesus accepts the request and starts towards the officer’s house, another message is sent with a message that Jesus does not need to come personally, but simply delegate the healing to be done like he gives tasks and responsibilities to the officers below him.

“Jesus was surprised when he heard this; he turned around and said to the crowd following him, ‘I tell you, I have never found faith like this, not even in Israel!’” (v. 9)

The level of faith this Roman officer demonstrated is extraordinary. He likely had never met Jesus personally, and so he only had rumors and reports about Jesus to go on. But these were enough for him to know that Jesus was capable of healing his servant.

The Roman officer also realized that Jesus’ healing was not His own ability, but something that He only had because God (or the gods) looked favorably on Him. In this way, the Roman officer knew that Jesus wouldn’t need to come personally, but simply speak the command – and that when He did, God would do what Jesus had requested.

This is the basis for the Roman officer’s faith – and Jesus calls it extraordinary. The officer didn’t need Jesus present or in person and he didn’t need to see it personally. All he needed was a message back saying that the servant would be made well.

Our passage concludes by saying in verse 10, “The messengers went back to the officer’s house and found his servant well.” Before the messengers could even make it back to the house, the servant was healed. Extraordinary faith results in extraordinary healing.

This Roman officer is a model for the faith we should have. We haven’t seen Jesus in person – but we do know what He can do from the reports (gospels) that we can read. We are unworthy to have Jesus even pay attention to us – but we know that He loves us even though we don’t deserve it. We don’t need to see to believe – we simply should have faith that what we ask Jesus to do will be done according to God’s will. Just like this Roman officer did, you and I can live a life that shows an extraordinary level of faith that can even surprise Jesus! It starts by believing without needing to see with our own eyes.

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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Inviting a Sinner: Matthew 9:9-13

Published April 22, 2021 in Audio Journal Entries

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As we continue in Matthew’s gospel, we come to an event that is probably the least surprising event to find in Matthew’s gospel, but one that I’m a little surprised Matthew puts as late as he does in his gospel. Perhaps this event came earlier and Matthew wants to minimize its significance, or perhaps Matthew was really one of the last disciples to join the group.

Our passage for this episode focuses in on Matthew describing his call to be a disciple, and in some ways, Matthew really downplays this event for the significance it probably had on his life. This event is found in Matthew’s gospel, chapter 9, and we will read it from the New Century Version. Starting in verse 9, Matthew tells us:

9 When Jesus was leaving, he saw a man named Matthew sitting in the tax collector’s booth. Jesus said to him, “Follow me,” and he stood up and followed Jesus.

10 As Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and “sinners” came and ate with Jesus and his followers. 11 When the Pharisees saw this, they asked Jesus’ followers, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”

12 When Jesus heard them, he said, “It is not the healthy people who need a doctor, but the sick. 13 Go and learn what this means: ‘I want kindness more than I want animal sacrifices.’ I did not come to invite good people but to invite sinners.”

Let’s stop reading here because I want to draw our focus on several things that we have just read.

First, Jesus’ actual call for Matthew is very downplayed. The entire event is only one verse long. The first half of the verse sets the stage for Matthew’s invitation, and the second half is Jesus simply giving Matthew the challenge to follow. The verse concludes with Matthew standing up and following Jesus, with no hesitation or question.

Before moving on to what happened that evening, let’s look a little closer at Matthew’s invitation. While it is possible that Matthew was alone in the tax collector booth, this is unlikely. What is more possible is that there were at least one or two guards hired to assist and protect him. Tax collectors were hated people, and their presence reminded the people more than most things that they were not in a country owned by them. It also didn’t help that most tax collectors were corrupt, and it is likely that the corrupt tax collectors moved ahead faster and that they were praised rather than punished.

It is interesting in my mind the timing of when Matthew includes his call in relation to the events in his gospel. Matthew has already included three chapters focused on a powerful sermon, and several miracles. While it’s possible Matthew learned about this from the other disciples who were present for those events, I wonder if Matthew was a part of the crowd listening as Jesus shared this sermon, and that the Holy Spirit had been working on Matthew’s heart for a while.

Being called to be a follower of a Rabbi was a great honor, and Matthew knew that this likely was his only chance. While we don’t know the path that led Matthew to becoming a tax collector, Matthew’s quick response to Jesus’ call indicates that he would rather be doing something else. Matthew might have even studied to become a Rabbi’s disciple but ultimately was not chosen.

The logic behind this idea is because Matthew, more than any other gospel writer, draws our attention onto the prophecies in the Old Testament that Jesus fulfilled. Someone who studied to become a Rabbi’s disciple would be the most educated in Old Testament prophecy.

Moving to the events of that evening, we discover that Matthew hosts a dinner at his home, and he invites all his tax collector and other “sinners” friends over to meet Jesus. While we read this event and are quick to judge the Pharisees who are subtly judging Jesus’ actions, at this point in Jesus’ ministry, I don’t believe that the Pharisees as a group are as opposed to Jesus as they ultimately will be. In my mind, this group of Pharisees might have simply wanted to know Jesus’ motives for acting differently from every other religious teacher in that era.

However, it is also possible that the Pharisees asked Jesus’ disciples because they wanted more reasons to incriminate Jesus in their own minds. I don’t know if Jesus responded before the disciples had a chance to open their mouths, or if the disciples who were asked did not have an answer.

But the biggest phrase that is fascinating in my mind is Jesus’ opening to His response. In verse 12, Matthew tells us that when Jesus heard the question asked to His disciples about why He eats and socializes with tax collectors and sinners, Jesus replies first by saying: “It is not the healthy people who need a doctor, but the sick.”

While the rest of Jesus’ response summarizes Jesus’ reasoning, this opening could be seen by some to be an insult to those Jesus spent time with. Jesus’ opening could also be a subtle message to the Pharisees that Jesus’ focus would always be on those who need help, healing, and encouragement.

However, I wonder if Jesus was implying in His opening that the Pharisees who were asking the question were the healthy people in contrast to those who Jesus was eating with. I wouldn’t be surprised to think that this is what the Pharisees heard Jesus say. The Pharisees probably took Jesus’ opening to mean that they were healthy, and they saw Jesus’ message as a compliment.

But Jesus ultimately challenges them on one of God’s messages from the Old Testament, and with the idea that He came to invite sinners and not “good people”.

In the events surrounding Matthew’s invitation, we discover a window into Jesus’ focus for His ministry. Jesus came to help those who were sick, hurting, and who needed help, and Jesus came specifically to invite sinners to return to God. Jesus’ focus for His ministry was not on helping those who did not believe they needed help, on those who believed themselves to already be right with God, or on those who looked down on others.

Jesus lived His life from God’s perspective in His response. Jesus lived showing kindness more than demanding obedience. While obedience is important, kindness and God’s love is more central to God’s character. When we are being representatives for God, we are to above everything else, show God’s love and kindness to those He brings into our lives while we are personally being obedient to Him the best way we know how.

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 model God’s love and His kindness to those who He brings in to your life. Jesus lived a life that was kind, compassionate, and loving to those who society had rejected, and He calls us to do the same. Don’t be surprised that when we live and love like Jesus, that those who are self-righteous will look down on us for who we are associating with, because those who were self-righteous in the first century looked down on Jesus too.

Also, continue praying and studying the Bible for yourself to keep your personal relationship with God strong and growing stronger. A personal connection with God will give you the right motives and love for helping those who God brings into your life, and when we’re connected with God, He will lead us to those who He knows need His love.

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!

Year in Matthew – Episode 16: Part way through Matthew’s gospel, we discover Matthew sharing about how Jesus met and invited him to be a disciple. Discover what we can learn from this event, and what Jesus teaches us about His mission and His focus while here on earth!

Join the discussion. Share your thoughts on this passage.

Spirit and Truth: John 4:1-45

Published April 21, 2021 in Written Journal Entries
Focus Passage: John 4:1-45 (HCSB)

1 When Jesus knew that the Pharisees heard He was making and baptizing more disciples than John 2 (though Jesus Himself was not baptizing, but His disciples were), 3 He left Judea and went again to Galilee. 4 He had to travel through Samaria, 5 so He came to a town of Samaria called Sychar near the property that Jacob had given his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, worn out from His journey, sat down at the well. It was about six in the evening.

7 A woman of Samaria came to draw water.

“Give Me a drink,” Jesus said to her, 8 for His disciples had gone into town to buy food.

9 “How is it that You, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” she asked Him. For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.

10 Jesus answered, “If you knew the gift of God, and who is saying to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would ask Him, and He would give you living water.”

11 “Sir,” said the woman, “You don’t even have a bucket, and the well is deep. So where do You get this ‘living water’? 12 You aren’t greater than our father Jacob, are You? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and livestock.”

13 Jesus said, “Everyone who drinks from this water will get thirsty again. 14 But whoever drinks from the water that I will give him will never get thirsty again—ever! In fact, the water I will give him will become a well of water springing up within him for eternal life.”

15 “Sir,” the woman said to Him, “give me this water so I won’t get thirsty and come here to draw water.”

16 “Go call your husband,” He told her, “and come back here.”

17 “I don’t have a husband,” she answered.

“You have correctly said, ‘I don’t have a husband,’” Jesus said. 18 “For you’ve had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.”

19 “Sir,” the woman replied, “I see that You are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, yet you Jews say that the place to worship is in Jerusalem.”

21 Jesus told her, “Believe Me, woman, an hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know. We worship what we do know, because salvation is from the Jews. 23 But an hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth. Yes, the Father wants such people to worship Him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”

25 The woman said to Him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When He comes, He will explain everything to us.”

26 “I am He,” Jesus told her, “the One speaking to you.”

27 Just then His disciples arrived, and they were amazed that He was talking with a woman. Yet no one said, “What do You want?” or “Why are You talking with her?”

28 Then the woman left her water jar, went into town, and told the men, 29 “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did! Could this be the Messiah?” 30 They left the town and made their way to Him.

31 In the meantime the disciples kept urging Him, “Rabbi, eat something.”

32 But He said, “I have food to eat that you don’t know about.”

33 The disciples said to one another, “Could someone have brought Him something to eat?”

34 “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to finish His work,” Jesus told them. 35 “Don’t you say, ‘There are still four more months, then comes the harvest’? Listen to what I’m telling you: Open your eyes and look at the fields, for they are ready for harvest. 36 The reaper is already receiving pay and gathering fruit for eternal life, so the sower and reaper can rejoice together. 37 For in this case the saying is true: ‘One sows and another reaps.’ 38 I sent you to reap what you didn’t labor for; others have labored, and you have benefited from their labor.”

39 Now many Samaritans from that town believed in Him because of what the woman said when she testified, “He told me everything I ever did.” 40 Therefore, when the Samaritans came to Him, they asked Him to stay with them, and He stayed there two days. 41 Many more believed because of what He said. 42 And they told the woman, “We no longer believe because of what you said, for we have heard for ourselves and know that this really is the Savior of the world.”

43 After two days He left there for Galilee. 44 Jesus Himself testified that a prophet has no honor in his own country. 45 When they entered Galilee, the Galileans welcomed Him because they had seen everything He did in Jerusalem during the festival. For they also had gone to the festival.

Read John 4:1-45 in context and/or in other translations on BibleGateway.com!

One of the most profound conversations in Jesus’ life and ministry is shared in John’s gospel, and it is a conversation Jesus has with a Samaritan woman. While Jews and Samaritans disliked each other, Jesus chose to cross the national and gender divide by first traveling through Samaria, then by striking up a conversation with this woman.

It is in this conversation that I find something both profound and perplexing. During the conversation, the woman shifts the topic away from herself and onto something that she had wondered about: “‘Sir,’ the woman replied, ‘I see that You are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, yet you Jews say that the place to worship is in Jerusalem.’” (v. 19-20)

Basically, this woman is asking if the place where we choose to worship is important. She is asking if the “where” is as important as the “who”.

Jesus response is fascinating. He tells her, “Believe Me, woman, an hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know. We worship what we do know, because salvation is from the Jews. But an hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth. Yes, the Father wants such people to worship Him. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” (v. 21-24)

In Jesus’ response we see something interesting. Jesus minimizes the “where” in her question, but He elevates the “how”. This makes the “who” and the “how” of worship the most important factors in Jesus’ eyes.

The “who” is God. God wants us to worship Him. While the context is Jesus talking about worship directed towards the Father, I believe that worship that elevates any member of the Godhead is appropriate.

The “how” is where things get trickier. The description Jesus gives is “spirit and truth” and He gives this description twice for emphasis. Jesus compares the spirit side of worship to God being spirit, so there must be not only a spiritual side to our worship, but something that draws our attention away from our “physical” selves. Not only this, the only way we truly can bring spirit into our worship is with the Holy Spirit living and moving within us. This one side to worship that God wants from His followers elevates “true” worship past what most worship services supply on a given weekend.

However, the “truth” side of this challenge is where things get really challenging. It seems that everyone has their own flavor of what “truth” is. In this postmodern society, truth – in a spiritual sense – is becoming viewed at a more relative and less absolute. But one thing that most people can agree on is that worship should be aimed at pleasing the one we are worshiping. If we are choosing to worship God, then our worship should conform to what He views as truth.

God wants worshipers who have the Holy Spirit and His truth in their hearts – and when this is the case, it doesn’t matter where they are when they turn to Him!

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!

Subscribe to this blog and never miss an insight.

Leading People to Jesus: John 6:1-15

Published April 20, 2021 in Written Journal Entries
Focus Passage: John 6:1-15 (NASB)

In one of the most famous events in all four gospels, Jesus turns what is a hopelessly small meal for a small boy into a lunch that was able to feed over five thousand people. However, while all four gospels include this event, only the gospel of John gives details about where the food came from – and how the food ultimately reached Jesus.

After Jesus has challenged the disciples to get food, we read about an unlikely turn of events. “One of His disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to Him, ‘There is a lad here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are these for so many people?’” (v. 8-9)

What stands out to me in this event is the appearance of Andrew. This lesser known disciple was the brother of the famous disciple Simon Peter, the one who was looked to as a leader of the group of disciples, and the one who always seemed to either say something that was out of line or something that was incredibly profound.

Aside from Peter, James, and John, who were Jesus’ closest disciples, most of the other disciples don’t show up much by name in the gospels. There are Thomas, Matthew, Philip, and Andrew who occasionally appear, and there is Judas Iscariot who was the one to betray Jesus.

However, John tells us in his gospel that this was Andrew who brought the boy with his lunch to offer it to Jesus. This event in some ways echoes the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, where Andrew chooses to follow Jesus, and then he goes to get his brother and share with him the news that Jesus is the Messiah.

Andrew is the model disciple who is always seen bringing people to Jesus. While he wasn’t one of the most famous in the group of twelve, he may have been the most persuasive.

In our own lives, we might not be the most famous followers of Jesus, but we still can share what we know with others and we can still help others by simply bringing them to Jesus.

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!

Subscribe to this blog and never miss an insight.