Month: September 2020

Week 40

I was aiming to finish the gospel of John on September 30 but didn’t. I only got as far as the Lazarus story in chapter eleven.
It’s not like I needed to finish John today. It just seemed a bit tidier to me – an arriving-at-the-end-of-the-book at the same time as I arrived-at-the-end-of-the-month kind of thing.
If I had to blame anyone I’d blame John – he’s pretty demanding and he’s really slowed me down. Some days I’ve only read a chapter or two.
None of the gospels are exactly like reading the Medicine Hat News. They’re all doing some deep mining. But I think John drills down deepest of the four. So I’m taking some time, trying to make sense as I go, trying to fit pieces.
I think that lots of people figure the NT is an easier read than the OT. I don’t totally agree with that. There aren’t a lot of places in the NT where I can zoom along at highway speed. Reading the NT I’m feeling like the prairies are behind me now and I’m heading west into some mountain driving.
I looked at my numbers today. I need to read 1730 pages by December 31 and so far I’ve read 1492. The year is 75% gone; reading is 86.24% finished.
That seems good, and I feel like I’m in pretty good shape. But in a cautious not-counting-my-chickens sort of way.

 

Week 40 John

A man who had been blind his whole life met the Lord, and then he could see.
So that was pretty nice development for him.
But it was a miracle, and people started asking questions.
For the religious leaders – the Pharisees – the big problem wasn’t so much the miracle. The big problem was who was responsible for it.
John already explained four chapters ago that the religious people hated the Lord because: he had spoken of God as his Father, thereby making himself equal with God. That couldn’t be tolerated.
So the religious leaders told the blind man that he could credit God, but he could not credit the Lord. The reason they gave: we know he is a sinner.
The man maybe wasn’t the smartest guy in the world, plus he was being pressured by powerful people to conform. So at first he didn’t argue.
But as he thought about it it made no sense to him to discredit the Lord. In the end, the way he explained it to the Pharisees was like this:
God doesn’t listen to sinners,
But he is ready to hear those who worship him and do his will.
Never since the world began has anyone been able to open the eyes of someone born blind.
If this man were not from God, he couldn’t do it.
The blind man’s options were limited: line up with the establishment or else.
So he took or else.

Note: quotes from John 5:18, 9:24, 31-33 (NLT)

Week 40 John

John is interested in how people respond to the Lord. Matthew-Mark-Luke are too, but I think John more.
So for example in chapter two the disciples see the water-into-wine miracle and they believe. Ditto for the Samaritans in chapter four. But not ditto for the people in chapter five who want to kill the Lord.
In chapter six-seven John really starts hammering on the idea that the Lord is a division-maker. Some people believe. But there’s also grumbling and uncertainty and argument. People walk away from the Lord in one verse but in the next verse others believe. People think the Lord is marvelous but others think he’s demonic. There’s dispute and uncertainty – let’s arrest him, no let’s believe him.
About halfway through chapter eight I stop when I read something the Lord said: you are of this world; I am not. That is why I said that you will die in your sins; for unless you believe that I am who I say I am, you will die in your sins.
It’s pretty decisive. The Lord is an Alien Lord. A Totally Otherworldly Master who says to me that my options are: a) to believe that he is who he says he is, or b) to not believe that he is who he says he is.
A clear choice, and the stakes are pretty high.

Note: quote from John 8:23-24 (NLT)

Week 40 John 

The Lord took the road north out of Jerusalem and headed for home.
I check the map in the back of my bible. First-century Palestine is a kind of Samaritan Sandwich. Jerusalem is at the bottom near the Dead Sea, and then about eighty kilometres north is Galilee – two slices of rye. In-between is the ham-and-cheese of Samaria. As far as Jewish people were concerned Samaritans were derelicts, duds, third-raters.
But halfway home the Lord stopped and had a conversation with a Samaritan woman.
While I was reading I was thinking about what the Lord said to Nicodemus yesterday. Whoever believes in the Son-of-Man will get eternal life. I had the sense in chapter three that the mysterious Son-of-Man in verses thirteen-fourteen was actually the Lord himself, and that the mysterious Son-of-Man was the same person as the Son-of-God in verses sixteen-seventeen-eighteen. Does the Lord equal the Son-of-Man equal the Son-of-God? If yes then that’s pretty important.
Still, the Lord was kind of cagey with Nicodemus.
He wasn’t half as cautious with the Samaritan woman. She had said: I know the Messiah will come – the one who is called Christ. When he comes, he will explain everything to us. And the Lord replied: I am the Messiah!
In Matthew-Mark-Luke the Lord was usually reluctant to say who he was. He was pretty guarded.
But not here. I am the Messiah isn’t exactly low-profile.
And the Samaritan woman believed him.

Note: quotes from John 4:25-6 (NLT)

Week 39 John

Nicodemus came to the Lord privately. He knew that the Lord was special, but maybe wasn’t sure how, why, or in what way.
The first thing the Lord said was: unless you are born again, you can never see the kingdom of God.
Nicodemus hadn’t asked about the kingdom of God, and when he was told about being reborn he didn’t get it at all. He thought-out-loud, wondering if it was a kind of reincarnation scheme where you’re born and then die, and then get born once again. Is that it?
The Lord said no: humans can reproduce only human life, but the Holy Spirit gives new life from heaven.
Even if I could be reborn a hundred or a thousand times in a material world each time my spirit would stay just as dead.
Nicodemus still didn’t get it and the Lord went on for another twelve not-so-simple verses. But he did say this: as Moses lifted up the bronze snake on a pole in the wilderness, so I, the Son of Man, must be lifted up…so that everyone who believes in me will have eternal life.
Birth #2 is a more-than physical birth that begins a life that keeps on going.
And how does that happen? The Lord says it happens when I believe in him.

Note: quotes from John 3:3, 6, 14-15 (NLT). The bronze snake story is in Numbers 21:4-9.

Week 39 John

Right away you get the sense that John’s gospel is different.
He doesn’t start with the story of the Lord’s birth like Matthew and Luke did; doesn’t accelerate like Mark and have the Lord suddenly appear as a grown man.
John goes back a lot farther, as far back as far back can get and says that: in the beginning the Word already existed.
John’s The Word is a bit of a mystery. I wish he hadn’t started there. But he did, and even though he didn’t spell it out in big block letters he isn’t giving me an unsolvable riddle either. A dozen verses down the page he says that: the Word became human and lived here on earth among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness. And we have seen his glory, the glory of the only Son of the Father.
That helps quite a bit. I’ve just finished reading the first three gospels and it sounds like John’s description of The-Word-who-became-human pretty much fits with the Jesus of Matthew-Mark-Luke. John doesn’t say the actual words: Jesus Christ is The Word. But before he’s finished his introduction he’s said everything else but.
John says one other thing about The Word: no one has ever seen God. But his only Son, who is himself God…he has told us about him.
Why did The Word materialize? To visible-ize the invisible God.

Note: quotes from John 1:1, 14, 18 (NLT)

Week 39 Luke

Usually temptation-toward-wrong just seems to bubble up spontaneously and mysteriously from some deep place inside. But sometimes it has outside help.
The Lord was thinking about just that kind of outsider-assistance temptation, thinking about some guy who maybe has a friend, and he prompts and encourages his friend toward wrong.
The Lord told his disciples: there will always be temptations to sin, but how terrible it will be for the person who does the tempting.
In a world where there are always temptations-toward-wrong it’s tough enough for a guy trying to manage his temptation. But when a Temptation Promoter comes along advertising and endorsing a temptation then the tempted-guy’s temptation-management problem gets harder.
Being a Temptation Promoter is pretty ugly. And pretty serious too. How serious? The Lord didn’t spell it out but he gave an example. Imagine being a Temptation Promoter. Imagine getting ferried ten miles off the west coast of Vancouver Island straight out into the big water and then imagine getting a concrete block tied around your neck and then imagine getting pushed overboard into the Pacific Ocean.
Try to imagine how bad that would be. Pretty bad. But the Lord said that getting dragged down into the cold dark would be a better fate than the actual (but not named) prospect that’s waiting for a Temptation Promoter.

Note: quote from Luke 17:1 (NLT)

Week 38 Luke

It would have been front-page news: Governor Sanctions Murder of Galilean Pilgrims.
People in the crowd reported the story to the Lord.
The Lord could have gone on a Pilate-is-a-homicidal-tyrant rant but he just asked the crowd: do you think those Galileans were worse sinners than other people from Galilee?
It was a good question. It’s a pretty safe bet the Lord asked that exact question because that’s exactly what people did think – if some guy dies violently and prematurely he was likely a bad person.
But the Lord’s his own answer to his own question was: not at all!
That really gave people something to think about because thinking that bad-things-happen-to-bad-people was a pretty good and satisfying try-to-make-sense formula.
But the bigger surprise was that that wasn’t even the Lord’s point. Right away he said: you will also perish unless you turn from your evil ways and turn to God (he repeated this two verses later: I tell you again that unless you repent, you also will perish).
So the Lord seemed like he wanted to make a distinction between dying – which no one can avoid – and perishing – which people can avoid.
Conditional on if they repent and turn to God.
Which if it’s true seems like a key thing to keep in mind when it comes to personal post-mortem planning.

Note: quotes from Luke 13:2, 3 & 5 (NLT)

Week 38 Luke

A guy in the crowd asked the Lord about dividing up the family inheritance. Like any normal guy I guess he wanted to get his fair share.
The Lord didn’t give any legal advice. But he did say: Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.
Earning money, winning money, getting money are all pretty regular things. We do what we can to get our hands on money, and most of us accept the general rule: the-more-the-better.
But the point the Lord was making was that monetary acquisitiveness isn’t a stand-alone economic activity. Our lifelong money-making adventure has a hand-in-glove connection to a non-economic driver that the Lord called greed.
I draw two circles side-by-side on a sheet of paper. I call one The-Money-Making-Circle. The Lord says don’t forget about the other circle. The-Greed-Circle. Keeping my Money-Making-Circle clean & clear is pretty tricky business because greed wants to intrude invade and overlap. Wanting-more wants in. The Lord says to be wary of it.
I can find out how many dollars I have in the bank. Calculating the number of personal units of greed I’ve invested is quite a bit bigger a problem.
Money is like a slip of litmus, green until it discolours in the presence of concentrated desire.

Note: Luke 12:15 (NIV)

Week 38 Luke

One day the Lord was speaking to a crowd.
He said that if anyone wanted to follow him there was an if and a then: if any of you wants to be my follower, you must put aside your selfish ambition, shoulder your cross daily, and follow me.
If I don’t want to follow the Lord then there aren’t any requirements. But if I do I have to:
a) set aside my selfish ambitions, and
b) pick up my cross each day.
It’s a short list. Innocent-looking. Kind of ambiguous. Not too complicated. I might think that I don’t really have major selfish ambitions. And I might figure that I do lift up one end of my cross from time to time. But the thing is the Lord’s saying that, unfortunately I’m definitely selfishly ambitious, and I’m clearly cross-reluctant. Both of which get in the way of following. So maybe if I’m a follower my first priority is mulling over what my joe-focused ambitions are, and also try to figure why the cross seems like such a drag on my daily schedule.
Many things about the Lord are pretty appealing. But there’s a no-kidding-around side to him too.

Note: quote from Luke 9:23 (NLT)