{"id":874,"date":"2024-02-23T03:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-02-23T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/reflectivebiblestudy.com\/gospeladventure\/?p=874&2024"},"modified":"2024-02-20T17:00:24","modified_gmt":"2024-02-21T00:00:24","slug":"coming-back-empty-handed-john-7-37-52","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reflectivebiblestudy.com\/gospeladventure\/coming-back-empty-handed-john-7-37-52\/","title":{"rendered":"Coming Back Empty-Handed: John 7:37-52"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"spoiler spoiler-style-2\"><div class=\"spoiler-title\">Focus Passage: John 7:37-52 (NIV)<\/div><div class=\"spoiler-content\">\r\n<p><sup>37\u00a0<\/sup>On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, \u201cLet anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. <sup>38\u00a0<\/sup>Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.\u201d <sup>39\u00a0<\/sup>By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.<\/p> <p><sup>40\u00a0<\/sup>On hearing his words, some of the people said, \u201cSurely this man is the Prophet.\u201d<\/p> <p><sup>41\u00a0<\/sup>Others said, \u201cHe is the Messiah.\u201d<\/p><p>Still others asked, \u201cHow can the Messiah come from Galilee? <sup>42\u00a0<\/sup>Does not Scripture say that the Messiah will come from David\u2019s descendants and from Bethlehem, the town where David lived?\u201d <sup>43\u00a0<\/sup>Thus the people were divided because of Jesus. <sup>44\u00a0<\/sup>Some wanted to seize him, but no one laid a hand on him.<\/p> <p><sup>45\u00a0<\/sup>Finally the temple guards went back to the chief priests and the Pharisees, who asked them, \u201cWhy didn\u2019t you bring him in?\u201d<\/p> <p><sup>46\u00a0<\/sup>\u201cNo one ever spoke the way this man does,\u201d the guards replied.<\/p> <p><sup>47\u00a0<\/sup>\u201cYou mean he has deceived you also?\u201d the Pharisees retorted. <sup>48\u00a0<\/sup>\u201cHave any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed in him? <sup>49\u00a0<\/sup>No! But this mob that knows nothing of the law\u2014there is a curse on them.\u201d<\/p> <p><sup>50\u00a0<\/sup>Nicodemus, who had gone to Jesus earlier and who was one of their own number, asked, <sup>51\u00a0<\/sup>\u201cDoes our law condemn a man without first hearing him to find out what he has been doing?\u201d<\/p> <p><sup>52\u00a0<\/sup>They replied, \u201cAre you from Galilee, too? Look into it, and you will find that a prophet does not come out of Galilee.\u201d<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"passage-read-more\">Read <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?search=John 7:37-52&amp;version=niv\" title=\"Read the passage on BibleGateway.com\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"hyperlink-underlined\">John 7:37-52<\/a> in context and\/or in other translations on BibleGateway.com!<\/p><\/div><\/div>\r\n<p>During the final days of a major festival that happened in the middle of Jesus\u2019 ministry on earth, the chief priests sent guards to arrest Jesus. Jesus had chosen to finish the festival teaching and preaching in the temple, and the leaders saw this chance to arrest Jesus.<\/p>\r\n<p>So they sent guards to arrest Him, but the guards end up returning empty handed. The Pharisees demanded to know, \u201c<strong>Why didn\u2019t you bring him in?<\/strong>\u201d (v. 45)<\/p>\r\n<p>The guards responded, \u201c<strong>No one ever spoke the way this man does.<\/strong>\u201d (v. 46)<\/p>\r\n<p>It is here that the Pharisees reveal their motives and their character. The Pharisees believe Jesus to be an imposter and a liar. We can see their thoughts through their response: \u201c<strong>You mean he has deceived you also? Have any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed in him? No! But this mob that knows nothing of the law\u2014there is a curse on them.<\/strong>\u201d (v. 47-49)<\/p>\r\n<p>The Pharisees and chief priests have incriminated themselves. They accuse the crowd of being cursed, but the crowd\u2019s true thoughts are divided. A curse on the crowd could cause confusion, but this statement simply shows how closed-minded these leaders have become. They claim the mob knows nothing of \u201cthe law\u201d, and in the context, they are referring to the Old Testament scriptures \u2013 but just a few verses earlier, John points out one cause of the crowd\u2019s division being over something that was prophesied in the Old Testament.<\/p>\r\n<p>The Old Testament prophecy stated that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem and Jesus was raised in Galilee. The crowd\u2019s division over this apparent contradiction shows that they all knew the Old Testament writings.<\/p>\r\n<p>And this leads into a big truth I see displayed in this passage: <strong>When someone has closed their minds to an idea, they will then begin to justify their decision in often irrational ways.<\/strong> The Pharisees and chief priests irrationally claimed the crowd was cursed just to emphasize their point to the guards. All this ended up doing is confirming that they had chosen to stand against Jesus and what He was doing, and regardless of what happened, they were closed-minded towards anything that didn\u2019t confirm that Jesus might be the Messiah people were believing Him to be.<\/p>\r\n<p><strong>While the chief priests had closed their minds to believing in Jesus, the guards returning empty-handed tells us they were still undecided regarding whether Jesus was the Messiah. We are in the same position as the guards today. If we are still on the fence regarding who Jesus is, it is worth wrestling out this question for ourselves because our choice on this matter has eternal results!<\/strong><\/p>\r\n<div id=\"aj-wrap-up--874\" class=\"aj-wrap-up\"><p><em>This thought was inspired by studying the <strong>Walking With Jesus<\/strong> \u201cReflective Bible Study\u201d package. To discover insights like this in your own study time, <a class=\"underline\" href=\"https:\/\/reflectivebiblestudy.com\/\" title=\"Check out Reflective Bible Study!\">click here<\/a> and give Reflective Bible Study a try today!<\/em><\/p><p><em><a class=\"underline\" href=\"javascript:void(0);\" onClick=\"rbs_aj_inline_subscribe(this, '874');\">Subscribe<\/a> to this blog and never miss an insight.<\/em><\/p><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"During the final days of a major festival that happened in the middle of Jesus\u2019 ministry on earth, the chief priests sent guards to arrest Jesus. Jesus had chosen to finish the festival teaching and preaching in the temple, and the leaders saw this chance to arrest Jesus. So they sent guards to arrest Him, [&hellip;]","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-text"],"nelio_content":{"autoShareEndMode":"never","automationSources":{"useCustomSentences":false,"customSentences":[]},"efiAlt":"","efiUrl":"","followers":[2],"highlights":[],"isAutoShareEnabled":false,"networkImageIds":[],"permalinkQueryArgs":[],"series":[],"suggestedReferences":[]},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Coming Back Empty-Handed: John 7:37-52 - Reflective Bible Study Gospel Adventure<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/reflectivebiblestudy.com\/gospeladventure\/coming-back-empty-handed-john-7-37-52\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Coming Back Empty-Handed: John 7:37-52 - Reflective Bible Study Gospel Adventure\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"During the final days of a major festival that happened in the middle of Jesus\u2019 ministry on earth, the chief priests sent guards to arrest Jesus. 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