John 9 – Page 2 – Three Minute Bible

January 22, 2019January 22, 2019

Work

Again and again, the issue of the Sabbath comes up as a point of contention between the Pharisees and Jesus. Jesus intentionally provokes the Pharisees on this subject over and over. Why?

They brought to the Pharisees the man who had been blind. Now the day on which Jesus had made the mud and opened the man’s eyes was a Sabbath. Therefore the Pharisees also asked him how he had received his sight. “He put mud on my eyes,” the man replied, “and I washed, and now I see.”
Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.”
But others asked, “How can a sinner perform such signs?” So they were divided.

John 9: 13-16

Did it ever occur to the Pharisees that complying with rules about what you can and cannot do on the Sabbath might be considered “work” in itself? In the name of avoiding work, they had made work out of the Sabbath.

January 21, 2019January 20, 2019

Magic

Have you ever thought about why Jesus used mud when he healed the man’s blindness? After all, Jesus had already calmed the storm, walked on water, and healed the man at the pool called Bethesda simply by telling him to get up and walk.

January 20, 2019January 19, 2019

I Am the Man

When my youngest son was in high school, he had worn glasses for most of his life and as was the custom for many young people, he had let his hair grow quite long. When he decided to switch to contacts instead of glasses, he also arranged to cut his hair short so that when he went back to school the next Monday he looked like a different kid. In fact, he looked so different that nobody recognized him. For a whole day, he enjoyed being the “new kid” until his friends finally figured it out.

His neighbors and those who had formerly seen him begging asked, ” Isn’t this the same man who used to sit and beg?” Some claimed that he was.
Others said, ” No, he only looks like him.”
But he himself insisted, ” I am the man.”

John 9: 8-9

January 19, 2019January 18, 2019

Born Blind

There is a story in the Old Testament about a man named Naaman. He was an important man in his time as he commanded the entire army for the kingdom where he lived. He suffered from leprosy which in those days was a death sentence.

One day he heard about a prophet in Samaria who could cure leprosy, but when he heard what the cure was, he balked. What he was told to do was beneath his dignity. Eventually, he chose to humble himself, and his reward was that he was healed.

After saying this, he spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man’s eyes. “Go,’ he told him, “wash in the Pool of Siloam’ (this word means “Sent’). So the man went and washed, and came home seeing.

John 9: 6-7

January 18, 2019January 17, 2019

The Light of the World

I confess that it is very hard for me to get my head around the idea that Jesus is God. I believe it, but I don’t understand it.

Part of the reason is that being a man, I keep wanting to stuff my image of Jesus into the limitations of what I understand being a man to be all about. But because he is God, he draws on His knowledge of what heaven is like and what his Father is like. When he speaks, he speaks in human metaphors, but he is often talking about things no human has ever seen.

As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.

John 9: 4-5

January 17, 2019January 16, 2019

The Works of God

Do you ever wonder what God does with his spare time? I mean sure, He created the universe and all that is in it, and he keeps the whole thing running day in and day out. He also hears everyone’s prayers and keeps busy answering prayer and giving prophets things to say. All of these things tell us who God is and inform us about God. But does he do more?

Neither this man nor his parents sinned,’ said Jesus, ‘but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.’

John 9: 3

January 16, 2019January 16, 2019

Defects

Today we begin a new chapter in John’s gospel, and with the new chapter comes a new scene. When we left Jesus he was arguing with a crowd of indeterminate size. In this scene, he is walking with his disciples. In the last chapter, he may have been in the temple grounds. In this chapter we do not know where he is, but we know he is in a place with people and as the story unfolds we see that he is near the temple, so he is probably still in Jerusalem.

As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”

John 9: 1-2

I wanted to stop the story here because I find the question that the disciples asked very interesting. They see a man born blind and they immediately conclude that the reason for his blindness was that someone sinned, either the man’s parents or somehow the blind man himself sinned. This was not a question in their minds, but a fact. The only question was whose sin caused the blindness.