Medicine Hat Joe

Week 42  John 4

Back in chapter 1 people asked John the Baptist if he was the Messiah and he said I am not the Messiah (my question in John 1 was: who is The Messiah?)
And now the Samaritan woman tells Jesus I know the Messiah will come.
So I’m wondering again: who in the world is The Messiah?
I looked up Messiah in my word book. The name is used twice in the OT. Hmmm…
If I don’t find The Messiah in the OT does that mean he isn’t there? Not necessarily (but it does mean that the term Messiah isn’t used in the bible version that I’m using).
Another thing – maybe the bible I’m reading used an alternate name. An alias (for instance the Superlative Stranger). Me not finding the title The Messiah doesn’t mean he isn’t there under a different name.
I decide on a couple of things. A) I figure that it’s not safe to say The Messiah is inconsequential in the OT. But B) I think that even if he was operating under an alias he’s not a marquee OT person. That’s why I’m perplexed because what I’m seeing while I’m reading the gospels is that The Messiah seems to be a well-known & anticipated popular figure. So the question is: how did the shadowy mystery man of the OT develop into the gospel’s legendary folk hero?

Note: quotes from John 1:20 & 4:25 (NLT). Messiah in the OT is Daniel 9:25-26 (NASB) (the note says Messiah = Anointed One)

Week 42  John 3

A long time ago I heard a story about a guy who had escaped from the Cambodian Killing Fields. He landed in a Thai refugee camp where someone gave him a bible. He treasured the bible because it was the best paper he could find for rolling his cigarette tobacco. Smoking his way through the bible he got to John 3 but before lighting up he read the verse for God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
He didn’t believe in the Lord but the words about how God loved the world stuck with him.
That basic idea – that God loved the world – is a helpful point to get reminded about from time-to-time since other bible content seems to dispute it.
So there’s a couple of things for a bible reader to keep in mind. First: if I’m reading an episode in the bible and I get the sense that God hates the world then I’m coming away with an inaccurate sense of God’s feelings. Second: if I find a basic principle in the bible (for instance God loves the world & is working a plan to save people) then other things that I read – even things that sound like they’re contradicting it – don’t get to make the basic axiom non-axiomatic.

Note: quote from John 3:16 (NIV). Eventually the Cambodian cigarette-guy believed in the Lord.

Week 41  John

I was thinking that if a guy asked me which gospel writer devoted the highest percentage of his gospel to the actual words of Jesus then I’d say John – but that would be a guess.
So I thought I’d a) count the number of verses in each gospel then b) count verses with Jesus’ words then c) calculate the percentages.
Step One was to count the verses:
Matthew 1070
Mark 680
Luke 1150
John 880
Step Two was more problematic. Counting Jesus’ words verses would take way too much time. So I skipped Matthew-Mark-Luke.
But I did find 431 verses in John. 49%… which seemed like a fairly high percentage. But it’s not very accurate.
For example one time Jesus told the crowd he was the bread that came down out of heaven. His words. In the next verse some people are wondering how can he say I am the bread that came down from heaven? So his exact words quoted (and counted as his words). But Jesus didn’t say them the second time. So maybe I shouldn’t have counted them.
And there’s a couple of other places where I counted a whole verse but Jesus said almost nothing: remove the stone or I am he.
The What Percentage question is interesting enough. But a better question is not how much he said but what he meant by what he said. And my sense is that he says quite a few things in John that are pretty weighty head-scratchers.

Note: quotes from John 6:41 42 11:39 18:6 (NASB)

Week 40  Luke 24

Two men – Cleopas & an unnamed man – were walking from Jerusalem to the town of Emmaus. They had been followers of Jesus. But Jesus was dead & gone now.
Along the way they chanced on a stranger. They told him about Jesus:
He was a prophet who did powerful miracles, and he was a mighty teacher in the eyes of God and all the people. But our leading priests and other religious leaders handed him over to be condemned to death, and they crucified him. We had hoped he was the Messiah who had come to rescue Israel. This all happened three days ago.
That was it. The gospel from beginning to end. Jesus was a great teacher. He helped and consoled a lot of people. Generous. Kind. Gave wise advice – great principles to live by. A big following (but powerful & murderous enemies too). So the story came to an abrupt end. Good guy. Good story. A lot of good memories.
But the stranger challenged their gospel story: wasn’t it clearly predicted by the prophets that the Messiah would have to suffer all these things before entering his time of glory?
Along the Emmaus Road Cleopas & his friend were having to rethink their gospel story.
The road trip turned out to be an eye-opener for them. Their Short Gospel Story was a long way from being over.

Note: quotes from Luke 24:19-21 26 (NLT)
End-of-month reading report: 84% of reading completed in 75% of the year.

 

Week 39  Luke 22

Then Satan entered into Judas Iscariot. So just like that – smoothly and slickly – Judas – who was one of the twelve disciples– was now demon-possessed.
There was the before-Satan-Judas. But in 22 Satan entered Judas he became something else. Plain-old Judas was transformed into a dangerous new binary-guy. Judas-and-Satan. Judasatan. On the surface maybe quite a bit the same as before. But now taking cues from Satan.
I thought back to the story of the demon-possessed boy. His father described it: an evil spirit keeps seizing him, making him scream. It throws him into convulsions so that he foams at the mouth. It is always hitting and injuring him. It hardly ever leaves him alone.
I thought back to the demon-possessed guy from the Gadarenes – homeless and naked, he lived in a cemetery…The spirit had often taken control of the man. Even when he was shackled with chains he simply broke them.
With Judas it was different. He was no raving lunatic. He pretty much stayed Judas on the outside. His possession was pretty subtle.
But covertly he:
A) began negotiating with the Lord’s enemies
B) settled on a bounty
C) conspired how to betray Jesus
D) planned an opportunity
Judas didn’t go crazy. Didn’t mutate into a violent monstrosity-of-a-guy. Normal-seeming Judas. Co0l-handed & quietly going about his regular activities. But now locked into his satanic extra-curriculars as well.

Note: quotes from Luke 22:3 9:37-43 8:26-39 (NLT)

 

Week 39  Luke 21

Let’s say three people donate money to a charity:
A) an investment banker donates $1000
B) a middle-class wage-earner donates $100
C) a poor widow donates $10
The question is: ‘Who Gave the Most?’
And the answer is: A) gave most (and he’s followed by B) who gave less & C) who gave almost nothing).
The Lord took a different view: this poor widow has given more than all the rest of them. For they have given a tiny part of their surplus, but she, poor as she is, has given everything she has.
So a second factor has to be considered: Charitable Capacity. The question for a donor is: what is my financial load-bearing charitable capacity? (The Lord called it my surplus).
I can do a simple budget breakdown:
• What is my total income? (I’ll call it x)
• What are my non-negotiable expenses? (they are y)
• What Surplus Cash do I have when my non-negotiables are covered? (x – y = z). Z is my ‘discretionary loot’ (my surplus).
My original question has to be modified to: Who Gave the Largest Percentage of Their Surplus?
And now the answer changes to: C) (the widow by a gigantic margin).
In the short-run the widow didn’t do herself any financial favours. But I’m reading about her two-thousand years later – so she was that much of an exception. It’s maybe true that the Lord helps the person who helps herself. But in this story he commended a woman who didn’t.

Note: Luke 21:3-4 (NLT)

Week 39  Luke 18

The story is about a widow who brought a legal case before a mean & wretched judge. He didn’t care about her case at all. But she kept coming back. Again & again & again. Until finally he acted.
The story wasn’t really about the law. It was about prayer. Luke said the Lord told the story to illustrate people’s need for constant prayer and to show them that they must never give up.
So there are two lessons about praying:
a) I should pray as much as possible
b) even if nothing happens I shouldn’t get discouraged & quit praying.
Praying and not getting depressed need to go hand-in-hand.
A big factor – at least when it comes to Ask / Request Prayers – is the time element. I go to a coffee shop and I wait a minute or two for my order. But not twenty. With an Ask Prayer it’s a different thing. If I ask and  nothing happens then my normal reactions – impatience frustration annoyance – are counterproductive. They’re more of a hindrance than a help.
Luke is saying that Ask Prayers can have different response times. They range from Right Away all the way up to A Very Long Time (months or maybe even years).
No one needs patience for a Right Away response. But years? That sounds like a recipe for frustration (or quitting).
Still…my normal reaction – getting mad & quitting because an Ask Prayer isn’t answered – isn’t what Luke recommends.

Note: quote from Luke 18:1 (NLT)

Week 39  Luke 11

Luke says that right after the Lord gave the disciples a sample prayer (the Lord’s Prayer) he kept right on talking about the same topic: then, teaching them more about prayer he used this illustration…  The illustration is about an annoying neighbour. And the point of that story was: keep on asking. A rule for prayer: be persistent. Pray repetitively. Over & over & over.
It’s a helpful tip. I already know that faith is one of the key things I need for prayer to work. Faith is something that I either have or don’t have. If I have it my prayer can be successful. If I don’t have it it can’t. So I somehow have to get faith for my prayer to work. It’s a prerequisite. Faith first…then a successful prayer result.
Anyway the guy in the story goes next door at midnight and hammers on the neighbour’s door again & again & again until he gets what he’s after. So that’s a bit of a different quality than faith. The guy doesn’t seem to need a special gift to keep banging on the door. He just has to do it and keep doing it.
Q: how do I get prayer to work? A: keep on asking.

Note: quotes from Luke 11:5 9 (NLT). Follow-up question: Did the Keep-On-Asking Guy need faith too? Maybe. But it doesn’t say so. Just persistence. (I read Luke 17:5-6 a bit later and it has something to say too.)

Week 38  Luke 5

A paralyzed man came to Jesus and Jesus told him your sins are forgiven. If Jesus had just healed the man that would have been one thing. But he told him your sins are forgiven. That was a problem.
In the OT only God could forgive a person’s sins (a regular person couldn’t). That’s why the religious teachers said to Jesus who but God can forgive sins? Everyone knew the answer: nobody can.
This created a dilemma for Jesus since it’s very difficult for a person to prove that he’s God (in fact it might be impossible to prove in a formal or – let’s say – scientific way).
So Jesus used an indirect proof. He illustrated his hard-to-prove & invisible divineness by using his super-normal power in a visible way (his method was based on the principle: if I can’t prove something absolutely I’ll try kind-of proving it).
He explained the logic like this: I’m going to do Impossible Thing #1 (a miracle) so you’ll have a reason to believe I can do Impossible Thing #2 (forgive sin).
Jesus did Impossible Thing #1 (healed the man). The audience now had a real event to mull over: since he did Impossible Thing #1 does it stand-to-reason that he can also do Impossible Thing #2? Decision-time.
Impossible Thing #1 didn’t absolutely prove Impossible Thing #2. But Luke does confirm that when Impossible Thing #1 happened everyone was gripped with great wonder and awe and they admitted that we have seen amazing things today.

Note: quotes from Luke 5: 20 21 26 (NLT)

Week 38  Mark 16

Mark’s gospel ends with two optional endings (the bible doesn’t say Take Your Pick. But that’s kind of what it comes down to.)
I decided to look a bit more carefully at the details recorded in Mark’s Longer Ending. I wanted to see if I could find the details from those 12-verses in any of the other gospels. Would other gospels confirm Mark? Or not? I did a quick survey and found these items in the Longer Ending:
On Sunday morning Jesus rose from the dead
Mary was first to discover the news about the Lord
Mary told the disciples but they didn’t believe her
The Lord appeared to two men on a road
The two men told the disciples but the disciples didn’t believe them
The Lord appeared to the eleven disciples (scolded them for not believing)
He told them to preach the gospel everywhere
He told them that they would be able to do miraculous things:
1. Cast out demons
2. Speak new languages
3. Handle snakes safely
4. Drink poison
5. Heal people
The Lord then returned to heaven.
Only one of the details is new to me. All the rest I could find in the gospels or the book of Acts. That detail? I can’t think of anywhere the bible says poison will not hurt me.
My conclusion? Even if I’m not absolutely sure who wrote Mark’s Longer Ending I can accept it with just the one exception: the Poison Guarantee.

Note: the Longer Ending is in Mark 16:9-20