Medicine Hat Joe

Week 37  Acts 8

Right away after Stephen was executed chapter 8 opened with this: on that day a severe persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout the land (the other versions I checked all said “all” and all said “except”).
So there are two facts.
1. all the believers in Jerusalem left town
2. the 12 apostles stayed in town.
The explanation for the exodus of the believers was persecution.
By contrast there’s no explanation about why the 12 apostles stayed-put.
The problem with non-explanations is that I’m left wondering ‘why?’ Why did the 12 stay? I start thinking about what the answer could be. That might lead me to develop a theory about it – maybe… Leadership Mobility Decisions When Confronting Adversity.
There are a couple things I can do when faced with no explanation:
1. I can just read what’s in the text and decide to disregard speculative questions like ‘why did the 12 stay?’ (I don’t know so I don’t guess).
2. I can try filling-in my own answers or explanations (I don’t know but I can hypothecate).
Readers do both. With #1 I’m on pretty solid ground – I limit myself to The Text. With #2 I have to keep in mind that filling-in blanks is a conjectural exercise. What I end up with is The Text + My Addition to The Text.
It’s a distinction worth remembering. The text is The Text but My Addition to The Text isn’t.

Note: quote from Acts 8:2 (CSB)

Week 37  Acts 8

Simon the Magician appears once in the bible in Acts 8. Twenty-six verses and then never mentioned again.
He’s a pretty intriguing character. Famous & charismatic & mysterious:
Simon practiced sorcery…and amazed all the people of Samaria
He boasted that he was someone great
People said this man is rightly called the Great Power of God
He had amazed (people) for a long time with his sorcery.
Simon was a powerful & arrogant & well-established practitioner of dark magic. So it was against the odds when he believed and was baptized by Philip.
The last part of his story gets interesting… Simon offered Peter money so he would have power to dispense the Holy Spirit. It was an outrageous offer and Peter lowered-the-boom – told Simon to repent of his wickedness. The story ends with Simon asking Peter: pray to the Lord for me so that nothing you have said may happen to me.
That’s it. No report that Simon repented for himself. Just that he asked Peter to stand-in for him as a kind of proxy-repenter.
I looked outside the bible. There’s quite a bit about Simon. If it’s reliable none of it is very hopeful. It looks like he returned to sorcery and stayed a pagan & magician & heretic. A convert who un-converted.
Acts 8 doesn’t spell that out and it’s possible that Simon stayed true to the faith. But later tradition is pretty emphatic – after testing-the-waters of faith Simon decided he didn’t like what he’d found.

Note: quotes from Acts 8:9-11 & 24 (NIV)

 

Week 37  Acts 7

Almost 90% of chapter 7 is Stephen’s public speech. I’ve tended to think of it as his life-on-the-line self-defense speech. And my bible agrees – it adds the title “Stephen’s Defense”.
But there’s not a lot of self defense there. Mostly it’s a recap of Israel’s history. And Stephen ends up telling the court: you stiff-necked people!…You are just like your ancestors: You always resist the Holy Spirit! Was there ever a prophet your ancestors did not persecute? They killed those who predicted the coming of the Righteous One…and now you have murdered him.
It’s  pretty inflammatory. No detectable diplomacy.
I decided to take Stephen’s concluding idea about resistance and reread the speech with that in mind. Resistance & rejection did show up occasionally (but subtly):
• because the patriarchs were jealous of Joseph, they sold him as a slave into Egypt
• Moses was challenged: who made you ruler and judge over us?
• later Moses was rejected – even though he was sent to be their ruler and deliverer by God himself
• finally: our ancestors refused to obey Moses. Instead, they rejected him and in their hearts turned back to Egypt.
Stephen likely knew from the start which way the judicial winds were blowing. So instead of defending himself he gave a selective history of Israel that pointed out Israel’s resistance & rejection (and finally) persecution & murder of people the Lord sent. Looks like in his last speech Stephen decided to accuse the guilty rather than defend himself.

Note: quotes from Acts 7:51-52 7:9 27 35 & 39 (NIV)

Week 37  John 16

People make use of the bible in different ways. I heard where back-in-the-day people would put a bible under their pillow at night to keep witches away. The theory was that the witch had to count all the words of the bible before doing her evil plan…so hopefully the sun would rise before she finished. That might or might not be a yarn.
One practice that’s not a yarn is where people close their eyes & flip open the bible randomly & put their finger on the page. The theory there is that the word or phrase or verse they landed on contains some useful thing. One word for this type of drill is bibliomancy (and since divination usually figures in as a part of bibliomancy a lot of bible readers wouldn’t include that aspect). I’ve tried open-and-point a couple of times.
My normal practice using the bible is to sit down and read and in my reading I look for information. Reminders. Connected ideas. New angles. Personal prompts. Insights. I try fitting fittable things together. Try not to get out-of-my-depth.
I don’t have a Life Verse but if I did it’d likely be this pretty straightforward & understandable one: in the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world. Anyone could have written the first phrase. It’s the second that’s the big one – and the one that I need to refresh regularly: Be brave. Jesus has overcome the world.

Note: John 16:33 (ESV)

Week 37  John 16

Yesterday I noticed that people in the gospels had a hierarchy of connection with the Lord. Circles #1 & #2 & #3 each had a different position on the Familiarity Gradient. Circle #1 people had a close day-to-day tightness with Jesus that decreased in Circles #2 & #3 (the numbers rose as physical distance increased). But the one really unique & rare advantage that all three shared was that every one of them had an actual sensory connection with the human Jesus. Whether closer or more distant all of them had material contact with Jesus. So…I need a fourth circle for people who never saw him.
Circle #4 is numerically the biggest circle and it includes every person who has ever heard Jesus’ teaching and had their soul animated and has decided to follow him (and in that way Circle #4 is similar to Circles #1-3).
The big difference is that no one in Circle #4 has ever had any contact with the physical Jesus. That seems like a disadvantage. Which I think is why Jesus in his last conversation told the disciples: I am telling you the truth. It is for your benefit that I go away, because if I don’t go away the Counselor will not come to you. If I go, I will send him to you.
The coming of The Counselor was guaranteed to be a definite benefit. Even so none of us in Circle #4 have gotten to see Jesus. Which seems like a liability.

Note: quote from John 16:7 (CSB). See also September 5/26 post ‘concentric circles’.

Week 36  Acts 1

The disciples had to find a replacement for Judas. They were looking for a specific kind of candidate: one of the men who…accompanied us during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out…beginning from the baptism of John until the day when (Jesus) was taken up.
I wondered how large the candidate pool would be. Small I would think. I figure there were at least three circles of people loyal to Jesus:
Circle #1: the original 12 disciples (Judas excepted)
Circle #2: people who accompanied Jesus ‘all the time’ (that was the stated requirement). The group  included the two candidates in Acts 1 – Joseph Barsabbas & Matthias – and also a few other close & permanent & perpetual & full-time followers (the women named in Luke & the 70 men two chapters later might have been part of Circle #2).
Circle #3: people who were loyal to Jesus but not part of his day-to-day activities. People like Nicodemus. Joseph of Arimathea. The demon-possessed man of the Gadarenes. Zacchaeus. The Samaritan woman. The man born blind. Mary & Martha & Lazarus. Inside the circle…but not as close as the day-to-day insiders.
Anyway…I think Joseph Barsabbas & Matthias were part of that small & tight followership of Jesus that I’m calling Circle #2.

Note: quote from Acts 1:21-22 (ESV). The Circle #2 women are in Luke 8:1-3 and the 70 disciples in Luke 10:1 . Note 2: outside the circles were the thousands & thousands of people who’d had some exposure to the Lord’s teaching & miracles but had made the decision to not get on-board.

Week 36  John 7-21

John does a nice job of identifying the towns & regions where Jesus is travelling. It means I can track Jesus as he moves up-and-down the country between Galilee & Judea. At least I can up until chapter 6. After that the only place names that I find are in the south. It looks like in that last big chunk of John’s gospel – chapters 7-21 – Jesus doesn’t get back to his home territory.
So anyway that idea was in the back-of-my-mind when I noticed there were three religious festivals that Jesus attended in those last 15 “chapters-in-the-south”:
• Feast of Tabernacles
• Feast of Dedication
• The Passover
At first I didn’t think much about it. Then it registered: holidays aren’t consecutive – they’re spaced out. What were the dates of the festivals?
• Tabernacles: late-September / early-October
• Dedication: late-November / December
• Passover: March / mid-April.
If Jesus stayed in Judea during that whole time (which is what John led me to think) then he was in the south more than six months (possibly from October to April).
How likely was it that Jesus never went back to Galilee during those last six months of his life? It’s hard to say. Personally I think he might have returned.  John didn’t say he did. On the other hand he didn’t say he didn’t.
It’s maybe one of those questions that’s worth being aware of. But not really something that needs a definitive answer.

Note: the three festivals are in John 7:2 10:22 & 11:55. Festival dates came from gotquestions.com and my online Search Assist.

Week 36  John 2-13

While I was reading Luke’s gospel I noticed that he packed together a whole lot of events that all took place in the north – up in Galilee. Then he had Jesus leaving the north country and beginning a long road trip toward Jerusalem. Along the way more stories were told – a kind of multi-chapter travelogue. So since I was still thinking about that when I got to John’s gospel I decided to track Jesus’ geographic locations & relocations. What I found was that John – unlike Luke – recorded several trips between Galilee and Judea:
In John 2 Jesus started his public activities up north in Cana & Capernaum. Then he heading south to Judea.
He left Judea in chapter 4 and returned north (going through Samaria).
After spending time in Galilee it was back to Jerusalem in 5. Then north to Galilee in 6 and back to Jerusalem for the Feast of Booths in 7.
I couldn’t find any other north-south trips recorded by John. It makes it seem that from chapter 8 on Jesus stayed in or around Jerusalem.
As far as travels go Luke and John really seem to come at the story differently. I realize that trying to jigsaw the accounts together would be tricky. I figure I’m on more solid ground reading each of the gospels independently rather than attempting to do a scissors-and-paste rewrite trying to shoehorn them all into a seamless narrative.

Week 35  John 8

Jesus was talking to some attentive Jewish people and he told them: if you abide in my word, then you are truly disciples of mine.
I had a sense that John used the word “abide” quite a bit in his writing so I checked my word book. In the NT:
• Abide is used ~20 times (~16 by John (in his gospel & letters))
• Abides ~28 times (~23 by John)
• Abiding ~6 times (~4 by John)
John uses the word about 43 out of 54 times – roughly 80%.
“Abide” is the term that’s used in the bible I’m reading but it’s a bit of a tricky word. It has a couple of meanings (for example it can mean put-up-with). And even if I use what I think is John’s meaning here – stay or hold-on or stick-around – the word “abide” isn’t too commonly used (at least not around here).
I checked a bunch of different versions to see what they did with John 8:31:
• Abide is used ~12 times
• Continue ~28 times
• Remain / remain faithful ~10 times
• Obey ~9 times.
Overall I like the idea of continuing. Persisting. Carrying-through.
if you continue in my word…
…if you remain faithful to my teaching
if you keep on obeying what I have said…
In any case I think John’s main idea is that even though it would be possible to adopt Jesus in a temporary or faddish way (like taking up watercolour painting or Chinese cooking) it’s not recommended.

Note: quotes from John 8:31 (NASB CSB CEB CEV)

Week 35  John 4

In John’s long story about Jesus meeting the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well there’s one exchange that really jumps out: the woman said, “I know that Messiah…is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you – I am he”.
Generally speaking (maybe 99-times out of 100) Jesus was very reluctant to make any claims about being the messiah. But not on this occasion: I, the one speaking to you – I am he (in other words ‘I am the messiah’).
There’s an important side note & question for NT readers: who-in-the-world is the Messiah? It’s a good question. The OT is fuzzy on Messiah. Then in the gospels he just magically appears.
I checked online: in the period of Roman rule…the Jews’ expectation of a personal messiah acquired increasing prominence. Okay. Then it says that the messiah was the expected king of the Davidic line…who would deliver Israel from foreign bondage and restore the glories of its golden age.
So a well-developed theory about the Messiah had evolved in the ~400 years not reported in the bible between Malachi & Matthew. Looks like first-century Jewish readers were schooled in the idea. By contrast a modern bible reader has no familiarity whatsoever with Messiah. That information is outside the bible.
Anyway the point here is that Jesus broke precedent at Jacob’s well when he said emphatically that he was Messiah.

Note: quotes from John 4:25-26 (NIV) & Britannica online (Messiah August 25, 2026)