Daily Meditations on the Bible / We stand with Israel
Grace and peace be yours in abundance through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.
Summary: Recognizing someone you know is a kind of “knowing” that is hard to describe. Seeing a loved one after twenty years means seeing someone whose appearance has changed a lot, yet we “know” who they are. This is the kind of knowing that Peter refers to in this passage.
Continue reading “2 Peter 1:2 — I’d Know You Anywhere”
… who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father…
In our post titled, “God’s Eye” we discussed how God’s view of time is different than our own. In today’s passage, Peter affirms the idea that God knows the future. He uses the word, “foreknowledge” to describe how God chooses us.
Perhaps you have had a sense of “deja vu” now and then? It is the feeling that you have already been someplace or done something before you have actually experienced it. To be clear, that is not anything like foreknowledge.
Continue reading “1 Peter 1: 2 (a) — An Absence of Uncertainty”
Jesus, knowing all that was going to happen to him…
John often refers to what Jesus knows. As we read John’s gospel account of Jesus’ ministry, it is easy to pick out the people who don’t “get” Jesus. They simply don’t know who Jesus is. But Jesus knows who they are. In fact, Jesus knows their hearts (John 2: 24-25).
There is an interesting illustration of what it means to “know” in the second chapter of John. The story is set in Cana at a wedding feast. The party has run out of wine, and Jesus’ mother, Mary, takes this minor crisis to her son. Jesus then changes the water into wine. In verse 9, it says, “… the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine. He did not realize where it had come from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew.”
The servants knew what had happened because they had filled the jars with water. They had seen the water poured into the cup given to the steward. They heard the steward declare that not only was the water actually wine, but it was “the best.” John distinguishes between what the servants know and what the steward knows. The steward does not know where the wine has come from. The servants do because they were there and they know what they have seen and heard.
Similarly, Jesus knows what is going to happen to him because he has already seen and heard what will be done. Please do not ask me how this works. I don’t know. I do know that God exists outside of time and that God is both the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. God’s ability to foretell what will happen with certainty and knowledge is one of the things that makes God God.
As Christians, we often marvel that Jesus would go to the cross knowing what would happen. Today, for a moment, let us just marvel at the fact that Jesus knows.
Food for Thought: What does it mean for you that Jesus knows everything about you. Not only what has happened to you in the past and what is happening now, but what will happen during every moment that remains of your life on earth?
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Continue reading “Knowing (III) – John 18: 4a”
Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God…
If this were a mystery story we would want to know what Jesus knew and when he knew it. John tells us what Jesus knew. He knows that all things are under his power. Presumably that means all things. Even Judas. Even the Romans.
John also tells us that Jesus knows where he had come from and where he was going. That alone is worth a blog post. Who among us knows where they are going? Do you know someone who has a plan for their life and is on a mission? Is this person spectacularly successful? Do they really know where they are going or is there an element of chance in their life?
The real mystery is how did Jesus know? Again and again, in John’s gospel John points to the fact that Jesus is more than just a man. He is a Traveler. He has come from someplace and is going someplace. His time in the Middle East was short but powerful. In three years Jesus changed the world forever.
Continue reading “Mystery – John 13: 3”