Author: admin

Week 41 John

The Lord said to his disciples: I have told you these things so that you won’t fall away.
It’s disturbing to think about starting with sky-high hopes of following the Lord forever then gradually dipping to lowering-hopes and eventually quitting the Lord forever. I don’t guess people plan that they’ll be temporary followers. But none of us know how things will pan out.
Anyway the Lord anticipated the potentiality of a Follower’s Devolution and said: I have told you these things so that you won’t fall away.
So…what are the these-things that he told them? I figure there’ll be some in chapter fifteen so I look there:
Remain in me, and I will remain in you
Those who remain in me…will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing
Remain in my love. When you obey me, you remain in my love
Love each other in the same way that I love you…the greatest love is shown when people lay down their lives for their friends
The world would love you if you belonged to it, but you don’t.
Not the easiest and most implementable list of things in the world. But it’s things like these that’ll a) help me not to fall away, and b) in the event I do stumble will keep me from free-falling forever.

Note: quotes from John 16:1 & 15:4, 5, 10, 12, 19, 26 (NLT)

Week 40 John

The blind man in chapter nine suddenly saw. And so some religious leaders began badgering the Lord…asking him to spell out in plain language who he was (did he think he was the Messiah?) The Lord didn’t answer the question. He said: I have already told you, and you don’t believe. The proof is what I do in the name of my Father. But you don’t believe me because you are not part of my flock.
There’s two pretty interesting things here. The First Thing is that the leaders want plain-language  talk but the Lord points them to the indirect language of miracles…The water-to-wine. The near-death resuscitation. The lame man walking. And now the blind man seeing. Miracles should have ratified the Lord. But they didn’t. And why they didn’t is the Second Thing.
The Lord said: you don’t believe me because you are not part of my flock.
Technically-speaking you’d think a miraculous event had power to convince. But the Lord implied that you had to get on board first to facilitate belief.
As though a guy had to trust first so he could actually believe.
Which maybe makes sense. For example I believe the universe is currently expanding because someone reliable told me it was. The confidence-trust I have was the start of my belief.
As though I come onside so things can clarify.

Note: quotes from John 10:25 & 26 (NLT)

Week 40 John

I’m impressed by how much travelling the Lord did.
I notice it here because I was tracking his movements in Luke. Up until chapter nine Luke concentrated exclusively on what the Lord was doing up-country in Galilee. Finally the Lord left for Jerusalem – and Luke spent the next ten chapters talking about that one trip. You’d get the impression from Luke that the Lord spent all of his public ministry years in Galilee and then in the end travelled to Jerusalem. But John clarifies that impression…
Right after the very first miracle it was Passover time and: Jesus went to Jerusalem.
Then a bit later: Jesus returned to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish holy days.
He was back in Galilee in chapter six but then John said: it was nearly time for the annual Passover celebration.
Sometime later the Lord was on the road again: it was time for the Feast of Shelters in Jerusalem.
A couple of chapter later: it was now winter, and Jesus was in Jerusalem at the time of Hanukkah.
From the sound of it the Lord was very familiar with The City.
Luke was a pretty scrupulous investigator so I figure he was well aware of the Lord’s frequent road trips and he had reasons for composing his gospel the way he did. But John helps by spelling out a more detailed itinerary.

Note: quotes from John 2:13, 5:1, 6:4, 7:2, 10:22 (NLT)

Week 40 John

John the Baptist…
Each one of the gospel writers mentions him. Some of them say more about him than others. Some give details that others skip. But there’s a unanimous point they all make – John the Baptist was the material realization of a prophecy Isaiah had forecast more than four-hundred years before.
I flipped back to Isaiah and looked at the passage that Matthew Mark Luke and John all agree went from fuzzy long-range forecast to rock-solid reality on the day John the Baptist began publicly teaching. Isaiah told Israel to expect to hear a voice saying: make a highway for the Lord through the wilderness. Make a straight, smooth road through the desert for our God. Fill the valleys and level the hills. Straighten out the curves and smooth of the rough spots. Then the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all people will see it together.
Matthew Mark & Luke say that John was The Voice that Isaiah was talking about. But in John’s gospel John the Baptist says it for himself…
Are you the Messiah? No!
Are you Elijah? No!
Are you the Prophet? No!
Q: then who are you? A: John replied in the words of Isaiah “I am a voice shouting in the wilderness, prepare a straight pathway for the Lord’s coming”. The wait is over.

Note: quotes from Isaiah 40:3-5 & John 1:23 (NLT). And see Isaiah references in Matthew 3:3, Mark 1:2 and Luke 3:4.

Week 40 John

John begins his gospel talking about The Word: in the beginning was the Word.
It sounds at first like The Word is something non-personal. But right away John adds that: the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
So The Word isn’t a thing. John says: he (The Word) was with God in the beginning.
If The Word was in the beginning with God it sounds like he was different than God.
But The Word was God – which sounds like he was the same as God.
So The Word and God were the same and also different.
Hmmmm… John adds a couple more things about The Word:
Through him all things were made
In him was life, and that life was the light of men
He was in the world…(but) the world did not recognize him
The Word became flesh and lived for a while among us.
It’s only when John gets to verse 17 that the to-this-point-unidentified Word is given a name: Jesus Christ. So that helps.
John adds one more detail: no one has ever seen God, but God the only Son…has made him known. The Word was different than God – there was God the Son & God the Father – and that elemental difference meant that the Son (who visibly & materially became flesh-and-blood) could disclose the Father (who was immaterial and invisible).

Note: quotes from John 1:1, 3, 4, 10, 14, 18 (NIV)

Week 39 John

Each of the gospels tells the story of the Lord Jesus.
Different writers. Different ideas. Different points-of-view. Different objectives. It makes common sense that they’d be a bit different. If they were all the same I’d only need one. In spite of their differences it’s surprising to me that Matthew Mark Luke are as similar as they are. And then comes John.
John is different. Different enough that if I was on a flight to Mars and I could only take two gospels John would have to be one of them (for me it would be John & Luke. But whatever…one would have to be John).
John seems to think along different lines than the other three. Not on a completely different wavelength, and not to say the first three gospels aren’t unique. But I think MM&L are unique and similar. John has taken the less-travelled road. Sure…he has the same hero with the same awesome talents and the same fateful finale followed by the same oh-man-what-a-relief! revival. But all along the way there’s subtlety and novelty and singularity and originality.
Three songs written in a major key and then the fourth in a minor.
Three guys shooting baskets at one end of the court…the fourth one making free-throws alone at the other.
John’s gospel story is a great one. But I know I’m in the deep end of the pool right from the start.

Week 39 Luke

At the beginning of September I started tracking place-names in the gospels. And reading through Luke during the last ten days I saw quite a few places named: Nazareth Bethlehem Jerusalem the Jordan Galilee Capernaum Nain the Gerasenes Bethsaida.
But that was at first. Once I got past chapter nine I began noticing that place-names quit showing up. The end of the chapter said: as the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem. When that last journey began I didn’t spot any geographic markers in chapters ten eleven twelve thirteen fourteen fifteen or sixteen (in the middle of that section it said that the Lord: went through the towns and villages, teaching as he made his way to Jerusalem. And a bit later: on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus travelled along the border between Samaria and Galilee). But I only got reoriented when the Lord arrived in Jericho & Bethphage & Bethany and then finally ended his trip at the end of chapter nineteen –the temple in Jerusalem.
The Lord’s last journey from Galilee to Jerusalem took about ten chapters. Roughly 425-verses – about 37% of the book – were devoted to the days it took to travel that 100 kilometer stretch of road.
Luke was by far most interested in that long trip up to Jerusalem during those last weeks of the Lord’s life on earth.

Note: quotes from Luke 9:51, 13:22, 17:11 (NIV). End of September reading progress: I finished Luke yesterday so I’m 85% done.

Week 38 Luke

There’s a short paragraph in chapter nine where king Herod sits thinking: so who is this man about whom I hear such strange stories? It’s not like Herod had absolutely no idea who the Lord was. He’d heard rumours: when report of Jesus’ miracles reached Herod Antipas, he was worried and puzzled because some were saying, “This is John the Baptist come back to life again.” Others were saying, “It is Elijah or some other ancient prophet risen from the dead.”
Personally I’m not super-interested in what Herod was thinking but I did pick up a kind of reverb just nine verses later. The Lord is alone with his disciples and he asks them: Who do people say I am? “Well,” they replied, “some say John the Baptist, some say Elijah, and others say you are one of the other ancient prophets risen from the dead.”
So what’s the line on the Lord?
Is he John the Baptist?
Elijah?
Another prophet?
Herod’s wondering. People are wondering. The disciples are wondering. But when the Lord asks the twelve the light suddenly goes on for Peter as he realizes: you are the Messiah sent from God.
Popular guesswork had elevated the Lord to a Very Special Status. But it turns out that the VSS designation was selling him short. John or Elijah or Isaiah-or-Jeremiah-or-Ezekiel-or-Daniel were all special but not special enough. Not even close.

Note: quotes from Luke 9:9, 7-8, 18-19, 20 (NLT)

Week 38 Luke

Matthew Mark & Luke all mention the Temptation of Christ.
In that story the Devil says something that’s pretty interesting. It’s during the second temptation when that weird almost semi-visionary & anti-gravity event occurs: the Devil took (Jesus) up and revealed to him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. It seems fantastical – an extraordinary display of brute power. Then the Devil says that if the Lord will worship him he – the Devil – will turn over the kingdoms of the world to him – the Lord. What caught my attention was what the Devil said next: I will give you the glory of the kingdoms and authority over them – because they are mine to give to anyone I please.
That’s a dramatic claim: they are mine to give to anyone I please!
I know the Devil isn’t hand-cuffed by having to tell the truth so the claim might be a lie. But the Lord doesn’t challenge him on it (I know that doesn’t mean that it isn’t a lie but I’m surprised the Lord totally disregards the kingdoms-are-mine claim).
Anyway what concerns me most is that if it actually is true – that the Devil really does have authority and a kind of ownership over the nations of the world – then what?
Well…for starters it complicates things for everyone living on earth. And personally & specifically it complicates things for me living here in Medicine Hat Alberta.

Note: quotes from Luke 4:5, 6 (NLT)

Week 38 Luke

Right away you notice the difference between them.
Mark starts like this: here begins the Good News about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God. Then he devotes seven verses to John the Baptist. A total of five to Jesus’ baptism and temptation. And six verses on disciple-selection. By verse 21 the Lord’s ministry has begun.
Luke is more patient. He tells the long back-story of John’s miraculous conception and the long back-story of Jesus’ even more miraculous conception. Then the birth of John and the birth of Jesus.
Luke’s also interested in John’s early life: John grew up and became strong in spirit. Then he lived out in the wilderness until he began his public ministry. And he’s interested in Jesus’ early life too: so Jesus grew both in height and in wisdom, and he was loved by God and by all who knew him. It takes Luke 183 verses to do what Mark does in 21.
Mark’s account has drive and energy and action and it blasts-right-through from one thing to the next – a kind of Life of Jesus in bullet-points. Luke is different. Thoughtful deliberate careful; an orderly narration of events.
I don’t think Mark wrote his gospel in a bus on the way to work. And I don’t think Luke sat in a library researching his material. But if I found out they did I wouldn’t be surprised.

Note: quotes from Mark 1:1, Luke 1:80, 2:52 (NLT)