Author: Jeff Englund

John 7: 21-23

“Jesus said to them, “I did one miracle, and you are all amazed. Yet, because Moses gave you circumcision (though actually, it did not come from Moses, but from the patriarchs), you circumcise a boy on the Sabbath. Now if a boy can be circumcised on the Sabbath so that the law of Moses may not be broken, why are you angry with me for healing a man’s whole body on the Sabbath?'”

If I understand this correctly (and I don’t claim to be an expert!) Jesus is pointing out that under the strict interpretation of the Fourth Commandment circumcision should not be done because it is a form of work, which is forbidden on the Sabbath. Later, after giving the Ten Commandments,  God gave Moses the instruction about circumcision telling him that boys were to be circumcised on the eighth day after they were born. (Leviticus 12:3) The Jews had to choose to place the importance of one law over the other and at some point they decided that circumcising a child on the eighth day was more important than observing the Sabbath rest.

Interestingly, Jesus does not condemn the Jewish leaders for their choice of doing “work” on the Sabbath. Continue reading “Anger”

John 7: 19b-20

‘”Why are you trying to kill me?”

“You are demon-possessed,” the crowd answered. “Who is trying to kill you?”’

I suspect that calling someone “demon-possessed” 2,000 years ago would be similar to calling someone “crazy” today.

Why are you trying to kill me?

You’re crazy! Who is trying to kill you?!

As we have seen throughout our study of John, Jesus demonstrates again and again that he is God by knowing things only God could know. He knows the hearts of men, and he knows that the Jewish leaders are plotting to kill him. The crowd, on the other hand, has no idea what is going on. “Who is trying to kill you?” they ask. They do not realize that within a short time they will be shouting, “Crucify him! Crucify him!”

So where do we go with this? Continue reading “Crazy”

John 7: 19a

” Has not Moses given you the law? Yet not one of you keeps the law.”

Hmmmm… Which law do you suppose Jesus is referring to?

God gave Moses the Ten Commandments which would serve pretty well if you wanted a Users Manual from the Creator of the Universe. To that, he added a large number of laws specific to Israel and the covenant God made with Abraham. Then there were all of the hundreds of laws added by the Jewish leaders during the exile and afterward.

If you had to pick one of these three groups of laws as being more important than all of the others, it would be hard not to pick the Ten Commandments. They were given directly to Moses by God and written by God on stone tablets.

It was the fourth commandment that had stuck in the craw of the Pharisees. Continue reading “Laws”

John 7: 18

” Whoever speaks on their own does so to gain personal glory, but he who seeks the glory of the one who sent him is a man of truth; there is nothing false about him.”

This verse makes me feel very self-conscious. I occasionally have the opportunity to speak to Believers about God and His Word. For a person who enjoys the attention that being a speaker brings, there is always a danger of getting caught up in the glory of being in the spotlight. When that happens what we say becomes less important than saying what will get us more attention.  Continue reading “Glory”

John 7: 17

” Anyone who chooses to do the will of God will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own.”

Do you choose to do the will of God? How do you know what that is? Has it led to a knowledge of whether Jesus was speaking God’s word or speaking on his own?

Jesus says that a person who “chooses to do the will of God” will find out if his (Jesus’) teachings come from God or if he is speaking on his own. Continue reading “Finding Out”

John 7: 16

” Jesus answered, ‘My teaching is not my own. It comes from the one who sent me.’”

Are you a teacher?

In fairness, I think it is safe to say that everyone is a teacher at some point in their life. Some of us take up the trade as a profession, and some teach out of necessity.

If we teach someone a skill, that is a way of passing on knowledge. I remember my dad teaching me how to hold a metal file when I was very young. He had been a machinist before he went to college and so when it came to files, he knew what he was talking about.

Likewise, Jesus shared with others what his Father had shown to Him. Oddly, this sharing of the Father’s will came into conflict with the Jewish leaders who also claimed to be teaching what God wanted people to know.

The people of Jesus’ day were confronted by two different truth claims. Continue reading “Choosing”

John 7: 14-15

” Not until halfway through the festival did Jesus go up to the temple courts and begin to teach. The Jews there were amazed and asked, “How did this man get such learning without having been taught?'”

Hmmm… Ever wonder how smart Jesus is? Being God means never having to worry about someone else knowing more than you do. There are many reasons to believe Jesus is God. Some are subtle and some are overt. The reason in this passage is a bit on the subtle side. Jesus knows the scriptures because he saw them being written. He knows Moses and David personally. He and Abraham go way back. So when Jesus speaks about the scriptures, he is not referring to words that he has studied as a man would study them. Instead, he speaks about what he knows.  Continue reading “God Smart”

John 7: 11-13

‘ Now at the festival the Jewish leaders were watching for Jesus and asking, “Where is he?”

Among the crowds, there was widespread whispering about him. Some said, “He is a good man.”

Others replied, “No, he deceives the people.” But no one would say anything publicly about him for fear of the leaders.’

Jesus knows the hearts of people, and he knows what is going on when others do not. In verse 1 of this chapter, it says, “He did not want to go about in Judea because the Jewish leaders there were looking for a way to kill him.” Maybe by giving his brothers the idea that he was not going to go to the festival, he was really protecting them from being put in a situation where they would have to betray Jesus to the Jewish leaders. Now they could honestly say, “He is not here,” if asked.

But what about the drama in Jerusalem? Continue reading “Deceit”

John 7: 10

” However, after his brothers had left for the festival, he went also, not publicly, but in secret. ”

This passage is an interesting example of why we need to be careful about how we approach the Biblical texts. What I mean is that approaching the Bible with a casual reading can be a recipe for misunderstanding and wrong conclusions.  Continue reading “Why?”

John 7: 6-9

‘ Therefore Jesus told them, “My time is not yet here; for you any time will do. The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify that its works are evil. You go to the festival. I am not going up to this festival, because my time has not yet fully come.” After he had said this, he stayed in Galilee.’

Here we have another example of Jesus’ heavenly perspective showing up in his speech. The idea that someone has an appointed time for some very personal event is unique. We might casually use the phrase, “It’s not my time…” for this or that, but we speak from the perspective of a human who is guessing or making an excuse. (e.g. – “I didn’t win because it just wasn’t my time.”) Jesus, on the other hand, speaks of a specific time that is preordained.  Continue reading “My Time”