Medicine Hat Joe

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)

Week 34  Luke 4

Quite a bit of Jesus’ activity took place in Galilee – the northern section of Palestine – and Matthew Mark & Luke all tell a story about Jesus going back to his hometown there. The stories are similar and sound like they’re describing the same event:
• the location is Nazareth
• the townspeople are surprised when they hear Jesus
• they’re skeptical – him being a local boy and all
• they take offense
• Jesus refers to the familiarity-breeds-contempt proverb
With Matthew & Mark the point seems to be Jesus’ reaction to being rejected – he accounts for it by quoting the proverbial saying: a prophet is not without honor except in his hometown.
Luke’s much longer account agrees but has another point to make. Jesus reminded the crowd of two famous OT stories:
1. Elijah’s miracle for the widow of Zarephath (a Sidonian)
2. Elisha’s miraculous cure of Naaman (a Syrian).
The thing worth noting in both cases is that Elijah & Elisha reached out past national borders to help foreign people. There were plenty of destitute people in Israel…but Elijah helped an alien. There were lepers galore in Israel…but Elisha cured a foreigner and an enemy.
So right at the front-end of Luke’s gospel there’s a subtle tip-off that the intensely nation-centric view of Israel in the OT is set for a reboot. From the look of it Israel wouldn’t be absolutely excluded. But soon enough they won’t be the exclusively privileged ones anymore.

Note: quote from Matthew 13:57 & Mark 6:4 (ESV)

Week 34  Luke 4

The first two things that Luke reported about Jesus as an adult were that a) he was baptized by John and that b) he was tempted by Satan. Then right away he began his public work in Galilee. One of his early stops was his own hometown – Nazareth.
Jesus was instinctively able to read-his-audience: I know what you’re going to say… ‘We heard of great happenings in Capernaum; do things like that here, in your own country!’
It’s hard to make sense of the comment without reading the same story in Matthew & Mark and getting a bit of background…
Matthew: (Jesus) did not do many miracles there (Nazareth) because of their lack of faith
Mark: (Jesus) could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them. He was amazed at their lack of faith.
So Jesus had already done public miracles in Capernaum. But he couldn’t replicate them in Nazareth.
It’s something to keep in mind. It means if someone asked whether there was anything Jesus couldn’t do the answer would be: “Yes. For instance he couldn’t heal a person who wouldn’t believe he could”.
That said I also tend to think that – strictly speaking – the Lord could overpoweringly and irresistibly force a miraculous physical cure onto a sick guy who had no faith. But what would be the point?

Note: the Nazareth story is in Luke 4:16-30. Quotes from Luke 4:23 (NTFE)  and Matthew 13:58 & Mark 6:5-6 (NIV)

 

Week 33  Luke

A couple of years ago I discovered that Luke structured his gospel along geographic lines. Chapters 3-9 take place in Galilee & the northern regions. The next ten chapters are about Jesus’ last trip to Jerusalem.
For me it’s hard to believe that Luke 10-19 all happened on that one trip. On the other hand it’s Luke who’s telling the story.
For example let’s say I walk from Medicine Hat to Vancouver. Then in a travelogue I tell the story:
…Progress is good. If the weather holds I’ll get to Revelstoke tomorrow and stop there for a day. I like the place. I remember passing through about ten years ago. I was in a cafe eating a bacon-and-egg sandwich and an old guy at the next table started talking. Said he’d panned for gold in the area when he was in his twenties. Told me a creepy story about a time he was working a stream that came down out of the mountains. He was alone and it was getting late in the day…
Technically speaking the old man’s eerie tale might have nothing directly to do with the trip. But it enhances my story. I leave it in.
When I read the gospels I basically want just one thing: an account that’s true. Beyond that it’s Luke’s story to choose what he chooses and tell the way he tells it. So I can go along without a bunch of analytical nitpicking & second-guessing.

Note: see October 1/21 post near the end

Week 33  Luke 2

Simeon approached Mary & Joseph & the baby Jesus. He told Mary: this child is appointed for the fall and rise of many in Israel, and as a sign to be opposed…to the end that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed.
The phrase about Jesus being a sign to be opposed made me wonder. Other versions agreed that Jesus would be opposed. He’d be:
spoken against
contradicted
not accepted
rejected.
But why did Simeon use the expression a sign to be opposed? Why not just say ‘this boy will meet opposition’. That would be simpler and clearer. If there’s some technical reason for saying Jesus would be a sign to be opposed instead of ‘Jesus will be opposed’ I don’t know what it is.
Anyway my bigger interest was that Jesus would not just be opposed but that the opposition would reveal something about opponents. Opposition against Jesus would be to the end that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed. So opposition showed two things. There would be the actual and obvious animosity & hostility. But opposition was the outgrowth of what was going on inside an opponent’s head. Simeon seemed to be saying that opposing Jesus was an external demonstration that verified what was going on inside a person. Jesus would be a lightning rod for a person’s private & (usually) hidden convictions.

Note: quotes from Luke 2:34-35 (NASB and KJV21 DRA ICB NET)