Matthew 7:21-23

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’ (NIV)

As it stands in most of the English translations, this three-verse pericope could be summarised as follows: neither calling on the name of the Lord, nor performing great miracles and other supernatural acts is any guarantee of being accepted into the Kingdom of Heaven, but only doing the will of the Father.

This doesn’t seem at face value to be unreasonable; but it is an unreliable reading of the text; one which rather misses the point Jesus is making. 

The core wrong assumption, which skews our reading of this passage, is the idea that the Kingdom is a matter of “qualifying to be admitted”. What Jesus is actually saying is the opposite: that nothing else will avail you if you fail to take up the free invitation to come into the Kingdom.

I am sure that will seem an absurdly discordant thought to many, but that illustrates our problem. We think we know what Jesus should be saying, so we often miss what He is actually saying. Let’s look at a more literal rendering of the passage, with the Greek first.

Οὐ πᾶς ὁ λέγων μοι· Κύριε κύριε εἰσελεύσεται εἰς τὴν βασιλείαν τῶν οὐρανῶν, ἀλλ’ ὁ ποιῶν τὸ θέλημα τοῦ πατρός μου τοῦ ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς. 

πολλοὶ ἐροῦσίν μοι ἐν ἐκείνῃ τῇ ἡμέρᾳ· Κύριε κύριε, οὐ τῷ σῷ ὀνόματι ἐπροφητεύσαμεν, καὶ τῷ σῷ ὀνόματι δαιμόνια ἐξεβάλομεν, καὶ τῷ σῷ ὀνόματι δυνάμεις πολλὰς ἐποιήσαμεν; 

καὶ τότε ὁμολογήσω αὐτοῖς ὅτι Οὐδέποτε ἔγνων ὑμᾶς· ἀποχωρεῖτε ἀπ’ ἐμοῦ οἱ ἐργαζόμενοι τὴν ἀνομίαν.

Matthew 7:21-23, SBL Greek

“Not all of those saying [literally ‘the one saying’] to me ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter for themselves [εἰσελεύσεται is middle voice, not active or passive] into the Kingdom of the Heavens, just the one bringing forth the pleasure of my Father in the Heavens.”

“Many will say to me in that the Day, ‘Lord, Lord, didn’t we prophesy in your name, and in your name cast out demons, and in your name do many [manifestations of divine] power?”

“And then I will agree with them, that ‘I never knew you. [You] Depart [or withdraw defeated, retire] from me, the workers of lawless conduct [or lawlessness, i.e. the opposite of  δικαιοσύνη, righteousness]’”

Matthew 7:21-23, my literal rendering

I will give you a smoother rendering at the end of this chapter, but for now let’s look at the key elements in this passage.

The killer blow in this scenario, which Jesus is painting for His listeners is the phrase, 

ὁμολογήσω αὐτοῖς

“I will agree with them”. This is a terrifying statement, and it is no wonder that at the end of Matthew 7 we hear that the crowd were out of their minds with fear at His teaching (ἐξεπλήσσοντο οἱ ὄχλοι ἐπὶ τῇ διδαχῇ αὐτοῦ). This is a moment any sentient being wants to avoid: explaining to Jesus all the things we have done in His name and hearing Him say in reply, “You are quite right: I never knew you.”

In case the point is eluding you, put yourself in the scenario. You run to Jesus, saying “Lord! So much we have done together and walked out together, and now I finally see you face to face! This is the best!” And He replies, “You bet! We have so much to talk about! Go on in, they are expecting you. I just need to deal with these folks. They have been doing all kinds of random stuff, and claiming they did it for me…”

Now do you see? Who do you want to be? The well-known and loved son or daughter of the house, or person trying to establish the right of entry based on their CV (or maybe their LinkedIn profile)?

What about this question: confronted by a stranger who has led an exemplary life and can prove it, on the one hand; and your own child who has made endless mistakes, on the other; who do you let into your house?  I am pretty sure it is your child.

Please note, I am not unaware that some parents have very difficult relationships with their children; I am simply restating what Jesus says, that it is about whether you belong in the household or not. Are you known?

Will the child of the household have done amazing things (prophesying, miracles, sending demons on their way)? Of course! How could they not have, when they have been walking with Jesus. But what would a parent think if their child stood outside the front door crying out, “can I come into your house? I cleaned my room and I did my homework…” Your child barges straight in, saying “I’m home!”

Panning back in this passage in Matthew, we also need to recognise that Jesus is not (despite numerous commentators to the contrary) the bringer of a new and better set of instructions (i.e. better than the Mosaic Law). His instructions to his Disciples are to equip them to operate in the Kingdom. So just doing stuff which appears to comply with those instructions, but failing to be in the Kingdom, is to miss the whole point, and to miss the boat as well.

“Not all of those saying to me ‘Lord, Lord’ will take themselves into the Kingdom of the Heavens, just the one who has nailed what pleases my Father in the Heavens.”

“Many will say to me in that the Day, ‘Lord, Lord, didn’t we prophesy in your name, and in your name cast out demons, and in your name do many miracles?”

“And then I will agree with them:

 ‘I never knew you! 

Depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’”

John 14:1

One of my favourite phrases in the Gospels: Μὴ ταρασσέσθω ὑμῶν ἡ καρδία·

The third person imperative is shrinkingly rare in English (Wilfred E. Major and Michael Laughy’s excellent Ancient Greek for Everyone suggests “someone help him!” and “nobody move!” as examples) and is more usually rendered with “Let”, as in “Let not your hearts be troubled”. The problem with “let” is that it softens the force of the imperative. So what about,

“Your heart is not to be churned up!”

The rest of the verse can be read as 2nd person present indicative active or as 2nd person imperatives – or even a mix. But something like “You trust yourselves to God; so trust yourselves to me, also.” (Rendered for sense rather than word for word exactitude)

But that’s not the most telling thing about the passage (and yes, I love the next bit about the Father’s house being full of apartments, just as much as you do; but that isn’t it). It is the verse before “Your heart is not to be churned up” that gives us context.

If you are saying, but it is verse 1! then please remember, chapter breaks (and verses, themselves) are later additions. Jesus never said, “Okay – take this down: ‘ Verse one…'”

So what does the previous verse say?

Jesus is replying to Peter and says, “You will lay down your (singular, meaning Peter) life for me? I tell you the truth, the cock won’t crow until you will have disowned me three times. Your (plural, addressing all the disciples) heart is not to be churned up; you trust into God, and you must trust into me.”

Now what Jesus says to Peter is even more devastating than it appears at first glance. Remember that Jesus has just told the disciples, “one of you is going to betray Me.” They don’t know who He means (even though Judas has already been identified by Jesus), and now He tells Peter that before cockcrow he will have disowned Jesus three times. Peter must have been thinking, “No! I’m the one who is going to betray Him? No! No! Why? How… …but He knows everything…”

So here is the full force of Jesus’ words. Right at the point where Peter’s whole world is threatening to fall apart (and of course, things only get worse, before they get better); right there and then, Jesus commands Peter and the other ten (since Judas has already left) Your hearts are NOT to be troubled! You trust yourself to God, and you are going to trust me, too.

If you have ever doubted the power of Jesus’ grasp, such that He can say “and no one can snatch them out of my hand” (John 10:28), then hear Him now. How tough is the situation you are facing? Very tough? Worse than the one Peter faced?

Well I hope not, but even then, Jesus is still able to command you: “You are not going to be troubled, shaken or stirred, let alone churned up inside by this: I’ve got you.

John 12:25

If you have read the previous post on John 12:24, especially if you did so with your Bible open, there is just the faintest chance that you have been shouting “hey! you! What about the next verse?” Because here is how it reads in the NIV:

Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.

And actually, it is a lot stronger than the NIV suggests: it isn’t “will lose it”, but rather “DESTROY IT, UTTERLY”.

So shouldn’t we conclude that Jesus is in fact setting the bar at the level of “be ready to die, because that is what you are called to…”?

Let’s dig a little deeper though. Here is the sentence in Greek:

ὁ φιλῶν τὴν ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ ἀπολλύει αὐτήν, καὶ ὁ μισῶν τὴν ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ τούτῳ εἰς ζωὴν αἰώνιον φυλάξει αὐτήν.

The word which the NIV translates as “life”, ψυχὴν, does indeed mean life… except that what I just said is highly misleading. Words in one language don’t mean anything in another language. Plenty of times there is enough obvious equivalence in what two words in different languages reference, for us to get away with saying “x means y”. Just be careful not to say that in front of a philologist or semiotician.

But ψυχή is one of the many exceptions. We really don’t have a single word in English that encompasses what ψυχή means. Depending on context, you might see it translated as “soul” or “life” or “self” or “mind” or “departed spirit” (i.e. ghost) or “personality” or “emotional self” – and it is actually sitting in the midst of those disparate concepts but without a single English equivalent.

And as we can see also in this verse, Jesus does know the word that just “means” life, as in “the state of being a living being”, because He says εἰς ζωὴν αἰώνιον -” to (or for) life eternal”. So why doesn’t He use ζωή throughout, if He means to say “the one who loves his life…”?

There is a big clue at the start of verse 27: Νῦν ἡ ψυχή μου τετάρακται – “now my ψυχή (same word) has been churned up.” Are we going to read that as “Now my life has been churned up”?

I doubt it. “Soul” might be the easy way out, except I think it is a cop out – I am not convinced most of us understand “soul” in the way the ancients used it, we just think we sound more spiritual if we refer to it from time to time. “Self”- the bit of me that is really me – is usually the best compromise for ψυχή, and it works here… and in verse 25.

So in verse 27 you might drop the word and keep the meaning by saying simply “Now I am churned up inside”.

In verse 25 you would probably say this:

The one loving his “self” (or possibly “self identity”) will destroy it; and the one hating his “self” in this world, will guard it to eternal life

(v 25, my rendering)

What is this saying? Very much as we read John 12:24, I think: if you put all your energy into maintaining yourself, your opinions, your ways of doing things, because you have allowed your sense of self to become paramount and untouchable, you (YOU) will end up destroying your “self”; there won’t be a “you” left to talk about. But if you hate (which in the Greek has some flavour of refusing to countenance something) your “self”, you will actually end up guarding “you” so that there is a “you” left to engage with eternal life.

And that to me sounds exactly like “unless a seed falling into the ground should die, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” If you are a seed, preserving your identity means you will rot and end up with no existence; only the seed who “dies” actually has a life!

John 12:24

ἀμὴν ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν, ἐὰν μὴ ὁ κόκκος τοῦ σίτου πεσὼν εἰς τὴν γῆν ἀποθάνῃ, αὐτὸς μόνος μένει· ἐὰν δὲ ἀποθάνῃ, πολὺν καρπὸν φέρει.

Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. (NIV)

This is another of those simple but always-mistranslated verses (as I shall explain); but there is more to see here than just that.

Starting with the mistranslation, this verse does not say “unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies…”.

Instead it says “unless the grain of wheat, falling to the ground, should die…”

What is the difference? In the NIV and most English versions I have looked at, the implied “choice” is between “fall to the ground and die” and “don’t fall to the ground and die”. So if the seed chooses “not”, where is it? Stuck on the plant, up in the air and away from the soil.

The Greek is clear, however: Jesus is talking about the seed which is already falling to, or into, the ground. The choice is “die” versus “don’t die”. And as Jesus says, if it chooses “don’t die” then it remains alone – not on the plant but in the ground.

If you are tempted to say, “so what?” then you may be missing the force of what Jesus is saying. He is speaking of Himself in the first instance, of course – but also of us. He has come on assignment to the place God sent Him. If He chooses now not to embrace what His assignment demands, then He will just remain; and remain alone, despite all the people who surround Him. If He dies He will bear much fruit; He will reproduce and there will be many more men and women living up to the same life that Jesus modelled and which God intended to be “normal” for humankind.

The same applies to us: how many of us reach the place God has sent us, for a purpose; and then refuse to allow anything to change in us? We refuse to allow what would actually turn us from a dry seed to a fruitful plant.

On this occasion, I honestly can’t tell whether this is misdirection for effect (a strategy you can see over and over again in the words of Jesus, preventing the enemy – and those around Him – from catching what is going on); or simply the effect that the word “death” has on us, as people.

Because that is what we focus on: the dying. And so we have sermons on dying to self, dying to ambition, dying in accidents or through illness (because God intends to work out His purpose through us by removing us completely?) and who knows what else.

Now yes, I am aware of how the story continues: Jesus dies, for real, on the cross. But I think He is challenging our understanding of death here. (This is the potential “misdirection for effect” piece.)

Does a seed actually die – in our human sense of “game over, gone and never returning” – in order to germinate? We now know that dormant seeds are actually alive, a life which is measurable because they are respiring (taking in oxygen, emitting CO²) – very, very slowly. So what happens when they germinate? The embryo that the seed has been keeping alive through that slow respiration now comes fully alive, pushes out a radical and either pushes or pulls its way to the surface. What was an apparently static seed is now a fast-moving plant.

So does the seed die? Well yes, the hard coat of the seed splits and is lost, and the food store is consumed in powering the new plant until it can commence photosynthesis, so if you go looking for the seed as it was, you can only find bits of its remains.

But you don’t need to know 21st century biology to find nothing to mourn in the death of a seed. Do you think farmers followed the sower across their fields, weeping for the loss of their precious seed? “O my lost seeds, how I miss you; if only I had held onto you”?

Are you crazy? The farmer already sees a mighty harvest in his head, he isn’t mourning, he is celebrating (on the inside; yes, yes, I know farmers) – even before the first green shoots appear.

“Death” in a seed is actually about all the constraints coming off. Instead of shallow little breaths on a cycle of months, the former seed is now snorting in air and powering its way up towards the Sun, photosynthesis and fruitfulness.

So how did Jesus see His approaching death? Extremely seriously. “Father, if it is possible for this cup to pass me by…”

But if Jesus, before His death, walked on water and healed the sick; Jesus after His death walks through walls and locked doors and receives all authority in Heaven and upon the Earth (and in the full sense of ἐξουσία, that includes all resource as well). Just think what He was already able to do with the measure of authority He had before He died; and you will realise this was a very, very bad day at the office for the ruler of this world. (ὁ τοῦ κόσμου ἄρχων, which is how Jesus refers to Satan several times in John’s Gospel)

Jesus died, once for all. And – to state the obvious – our authority in the earth ends when we die. So when we suffer physical death, that brings our part of the assignment to an end. But in life, as those who come to Jesus, to share in His death and in His resurrection life, and hear Him say “Go!…”, we are like seeds being carried into the ground, where God intends that we should be fruitful.

But: if we insist on maintaining our familiar selves, and refuse to embrace the change that becoming a fruitful plant demands, then we will remain alone. And eventually rot. It is God’s intention that the constraining protection of the seed be removed, so that we can be let loose and become who we really are.

Yes, that is a kind of dying; but who wouldn’t want that?

John 10:27

τὰ πρόβατα τὰ ἐμὰ τῆς φωνῆς μου ἀκούουσιν, κἀγὼ γινώσκω αὐτά, καὶ ἀκολουθοῦσίν μοι

“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.”

I am sure you recognised the passage from the title of this post. John 10:27 sums up a great deal of what Jesus has said in his dialogue with the Jews (meaning here the Pharisees) in the first part of chapter 10, where He identifies Himself as the Good Shepherd who sets down His life for, or even over (as a covering against the wolf), the sheep.

There is a recurrent theme in the first part of John 10 – His sheep hear and listen to Him, they won’t listen to a stranger, He knows them, they know Him, and He leads them out, and they follow.

He even goes on to reveal that He has other sheep, not from this courtyard (αὐλή is a courtyard before a house, whether that is a general purpose courtyard or a cattle yard surrounded by walls and farm buildings; and this matters because the temple had multiple courtyards also – for priests and Levites, Jewish men, Jewish women and children; and even (previously clogged with traders) a courtyard for Gentiles); and they too will listen to Him and follow Him, so that there will be one Flock, one Shepherd.

Easy then to miss that the first half of John 10 follows on directly from John 9. The NIV recognises this by adding in the word Pharisees in John 10:1 – they are making the point that the conversation is continuous across the (always artificial and not original to the text) chapter division. Jesus is still talking to the Pharisees who said to Him, “What, are we blind too?”

I mention this only because the main subject of John 9 – the man born blind – gives us a perfect example of what Jesus summarises in John 10:27. Starting from John 9:1 we read that:

• Jesus saw the man born blind (he wasn’t brought to Jesus, nor did he call out to him);
• The disciples asked a question which they presumably thought showed theological insight – “whose fault is this, his or his parents?”
• Jesus told them it was neither, it was so the works of God might be seen, and that they all needed to get on with those works while He, the light of the world, was still present;
• He spat on the ground, made mud and put it on the man’s eyes.
• He told him to go to the Pool of Siloam and wash.
• The man went, washed and came home seeing.

To summarise the story so far from the blind man’s point of view: a complete stranger rubs mud in his eyes and tells him to go and wash in a specific Pool. He does so and comes home seeing. At this point he has never seen Jesus; but he heard His voice telling him what to do, and obeyed.

There is a gathering uproar over the fact that the blind man now sees, hingeing on the fact that someone has broken the Sabbath and made mud to rub in the blind man’s eyes. The Pharisees are divided even as they try to nail Jesus for Sabbath mud-making – some at least asked, “how can a sinner do such signs?” They call in the parents of the man to grill them – they are afraid of being put out of the Temple so push everything back on their son. He in turn, having answered respectfully to begin with, becomes pretty sparky when he sees that the Pharisees aren’t actually interested in the facts, leading to “how dare you lecture us!” and his ejection (presumably from the Temple).

Jesus hears that he has been thrown out, so finds him and asks “Do you trust (the primary meaning of πιστεύω) in the Son of Man?”

Stop a moment. This man has received astonishing healing today, but he has had to put up with some serious trials with it. Someone, uninvited, rubs mud in his eyes, he gets dragged before the religious leaders of his nation, and ends up being exceedingly rude to them (I am not saying they didn’t deserve it), and thrown out on his ear; so it would have been entirely reasonable if he had said to Jesus, “Enough of the stupid questions, already!”

So why doesn’t he? He doesn’t know Jesus by sight (a faculty he only received for the first time after he left Jesus earlier). Did he literally recognise Jesus’ voice from one sentence spoken earlier? Quite possible. But even when he had never heard that voice before, he obeyed it. So now, instead of a snappy answer, he says “and who is He, Lord, in order that I might trust in Him?” Jesus replies, “You have seen Him; the one speaking with you, that’s Him.”

And the man says “Lord, I trust” and worships Him.

Jesus then says, “for a verdict (or decree or resolution) I have come into this world, in order that those not seeing may see, and those who see may become blind” – which leads to the Pharisees’ indignant question, “what, are we blind too?”

And everything Jesus says in the first part of John 10 is in answer to this question: sheep demonstrate their identity by who they are listening to and following; and they are known and know. The man born blind illustrates this perfectly; he hears Jesus and follows what he says and receives healing AND the knowledge of who Jesus is. His increasingly angry theological debate with the leaders gets him, and them, nowhere.

The proof of the sheep is in the listening.

(John 6:44)

We are looking at just one verse from a passage which begins with some of those who have been fed by Jesus in the wilderness asking “when did you get here” (ie to Capernaum); and ends with most of Jesus’ disciples leaving Him, on account of the “harshness” of His teaching about bread.

But verse 44 is pretty safe, surely? If you are as old as me, you sang Suzanne Toolan’s well-loved chorus, “I am the Bread of Life”, with its lines “no one can come to me / unless the Father draws him / And I will raise him up/…/on the last day.” – which is pretty close to the NIV:

No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day.

Now I have always heard that “draws” in a rather soft, winsome sense, much as you or I might invite a stray cat to come and have some milk. “Don’t be afraid, come and drink.”

Which is all very well, except that the word used, ἑλκύσῃ, means (to quote Messrs Liddell, Scott and Jones) “draw, drag, with collat[eral] notion of force or exertion.” If you have been picturing gentle attraction (as I have), then we have it all wrong. This is the word used when a soldier grabs the body of his fallen foe by the ankle and drags him out of the fray so that he can strip him of his armour; it is a word for dragging someone along in chains. The “softest” application I can find is of drawing your cape behind you, or of drawing your sword; and both of those still speak of irresistible force applied. Neither the cape nor the sword has any say in the matter, nor in the speed at which they must move.

So what is going on here? Let us pan back one notch. The Jews speaking with Jesus have just started muttering among themselves, on account of Jesus saying that He is the bread that came down from heaven, when in fact they know who He is – “Jesus son of Joseph, and don’t we know His father and His mother?” (And in passing, this suggests strongly that they are from Nazareth, and that they had followed Him back from the feast in Jerusalem to the wilderness north of Tiberias, where they were fed with 5000 others, and then on to Capernaum; all because they were trying to work out what the heck was going on with someone they knew from childhood.)

And Jesus replies, “Don’t mutter with one another. No one is able to come to Me, unless the Father who sent Me drags him, and I will make him stand in the last day.”

Is it ‘make him stand’ or ‘raise him from the dead’; and what exactly does “ἐν τῇ ἐσχάτῃ ἡμέρᾳ” mean – in the last day, in an absolute sense, or “in the most extreme of days” or “in the most difficult day”? All good questions, and worth exploring.

What isn’t debatable, is the demonstrated truth of this whole passage: no one is attracted to truth.

Let me soften the shock. Jesus says it over and over again: “I have told you the truth and you don’t believe me.” But if you read John 6 and find yourself getting uncomfortable about the statements Jesus makes about His flesh and blood being real food and real drink, and how only those who eat His flesh and drink His blood have eternal life, then you are in numerous company. Clearly, most of His disciples were so disturbed as to withdraw; and even Simon Peter never said “no, we’re good; we understand exactly what you are saying, and couldn’t agree more.”

When Jesus asked the Twelve if they didn’t also want to leave Him, Simon just said three things:

1. To whom would we go?
2. You have words of eternal life.
3. We have believed and we know that You are the Holy One of God.

Which sounds a lot like “I may not understand or even like what you have been saying, but I know I haven’t got any other options because I know who You are.”

Or “I am here because the Father dragged me to You; and that much I can understand.”

This latter part of John 6 is Jesus speaking absolute truth; and yet no one is saying “wow, that’s amazing, sign me up.” It seems to me that we can be far too concerned about what sits comfortably with our own opinions, political and social preferences and so forth. But the Kingdom of God is God’s Kingdom; He is the very definition of good and true, and He doesn’t need to consult your opinion or mine to establish how His Kingdom operates. But fortunately – and uncomfortably – for us, He is GOOD!

As I have reflected on this, I can see the truth of Jesus’ statement in John 6:44 in my own life. I did not want to become a believer, that did not fit with my preferences one bit. Once I had been dragged to Jesus, I got pretty excited (an understatement); but before I got there, I found the truth that “no one comes to the Father but by me” hugely distasteful. And in my walk with God since, I now find myself having arrived at a clarity about the Kingdom which I in no way wanted to find; I was very happy with “Oh, God knows what He is doing, He must mean it for the best” and I did not want to engage with the exercise of authority or the imperative to embrace prosperity or any other inconvenient truth. But once again, having arrived here I see that God is good, beyond my wildest understanding.

Jewish men used to cover their heads when they read the beginning of Ezekiel, in order to prevent Ezekiel’s vision of God and the whirling wheels driving them out of their wits. And yet these poor folks had to cope with Jesus, the One who came down from Heaven, telling them literal truth face to face. It was too much for most of them.

We can be attracted to some romantic notion of the Good Teacher, or “gentle Jesus, meek and mild” or Jesus the revolutionary or Jesus the whatever. But you cannot come to Jesus as He really is without the Father dragging you to Him. Truth – the genuine article – is just too confronting for us, and the sooner we can agree that we don’t head in the direction of truth under our own steam, the sooner we can stop leaning on our own understanding.

Or as Isaiah 53 has it:

He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.

(Isaiah 53:2b, NIV)

If God is dragging you, be sure it is for your good – and for the good of many others.

(John 6:1-15)

I already wrote about the feeding of the 5000, from Matthew’s version of events. That they are exactly the same event is an assumption; we know for sure that Jesus fed a multitude on at least two occasions, which we refer to as the feeding of the 5000 and the feeding of the 4000, but John’s account can reasonably be seen as referring to the same event as Matt 14 et al.

But there are a couple of reasons to cover John’s version as well. One is more technical (why have the translators read it this way?), and the other more likely to impact your life. Technical first.

As the NIV has it…

“Some time after this, Jesus crossed to the far shore of the Sea of Galilee (that is, the Sea of Tiberias), and a great crowd of people followed him because they saw the signs he had performed by healing the sick.” (John 6:1-2 NIV)

But this is strange for a number of reasons. In John 5 we are in Jerusalem, at a feast of the Jews and Jesus heals a man who had spent 38 years in his weakness by the pool. (ἦν δέ τις ἄνθρωπος ἐκεῖ τριάκοντα ὀκτὼ ἔτη ἔχων ἐν τῇ ἀσθενείᾳ αὐτοῦ·) There is then a long passage about Jesus’ authority and who testifies on His behalf.

John 6 opens with “Μετὰ ταῦτα”, which is not in any sense “some time after this” (a phrase which implies the passing of significant time) but rather “after these things”. It can be a day or two later, or a week, or it could be straight away: it is a statement of the order in which things happen, not of the passing of time.

So the question is, what does “Μετὰ ταῦτα ἀπῆλθεν ὁ Ἰησοῦς πέραν τῆς θαλάσσης τῆς Γαλιλαίας τῆς Τιβεριάδος.” mean; and in the context of “Jesus has just done some things in Jerusalem, it has to be, “After these things Jesus went away beyond the Sea of Galilee, [beyond] Tiberias.” The picture is that Jesus travelled from Jerusalem, northwards, beyond Tiberias to the north west shore of the Sea of Galilee, and not (as the NIV at least suggests) from Capernaum to some undisclosed location across “the Sea of Galilee, of Tiberias”. On this occasion πέραν is “beyond, further than”; it is the adverbial noun πέρα + the genitive, and not the adverb πέραν “on the other side”, which occurs later in the same chapter when the disciples do cross the lake.

This reading is confirmed in verse 17 when the disciples go down to the shore of the Lake and get into a boat (a boat which happens to be there); not the boat (the boat they came over in, because there was no such boat.) They hadn’t come across the lake, they walked from Jerusalem. It is a good two day journey at least; we don’t know how long it took them, nor do we know what portion of the crowd walked all the way from Jerusalem – clearly some of them, since they had seen the signs Jesus had done upon the weak or feeble (ἐπὶ τῶν ἀσθενούντων – same word as the man at the pool.) – and how many they had picked up along the way and as they came through or around the major centre of Tiberias.

Does this correction matter a hill of beans? In one way, clearly not; and yet just changing the text because we think it probably meant to say something else is a bit of a risky venture. Furthermore, it is only when we understand the journey Jesus had taken that we can understand the likely dynamics later in the chapter, when some of the people who were fed followed Jesus to Capernaum and start asking Him questions. I have already mentioned the disciples climbing into a boat; but what about those trying to follow Jesus. If they had crossed the lake following Jesus in the first place, where were their boats; and if they had walked from Capernaum, why didn’t they just walk back? Instead they do nothing until some skiffs from Tiberias turn up, and then take those across the lake. Sounds like they were operating outside the territory with which they were familiar; and – unless you posit a fleet of 4-500 skiffs – it also sounds like not everybody who got fed, then tried following Jesus to Capernaum. Ask yourself who would be concerned to do so (and look at the questions they ask when they do find Him.)

For now, let’s look at the feeding of the 5000 itself.

Jesus goes up into the hillside (mountain is rather overstating the case) and sits down with His disciples. It was near to the Passover, the Feast of the Jews. Therefore Jesus lifting His eyes and seeing that a great crowd was coming towards Him, He said to Philip, “Where shall we buy bread in order to feed these?” He said this to test him, for He already knew what He was about to do.

Pause a moment. We know from the temptation by Satan that Jesus was not prepared to do magic, turning rocks into bread. (Before you ask: water into wine, yes, and both are drinkable liquids). And we know – or should know – that Jesus works with what is on offer, be it everso small; but never with nothing. Jesus already knew what He was about to do implies that He knew something was on offer. He could have known this by revelation, but I think it is far more likely that when He raised His eyes, He saw not only the crowd, but also the answer to how they could be fed.

Philip tells Jesus what isn’t available (ever do that?). Andrew says “there is a small boy here who has five barley loaves and two small fish; but what is that to such a great crowd?” Which is of course “the something” Jesus blesses and with which He feeds the 5000 men reclining on the grassy hillside.

The way the story reads, there is no suggestion that word had gone out over the hillside saying “where can we get bread to feed this crowd”, and that the boy had then responded by bringing his lunch to the disciples. I think it is far more likely that the boy, for whatever reason, had decided to bring some food to Jesus and His disciples, probably because he thought they might be hungry. So when Jesus raised His eyes to look at the crowd, He also saw that a boy had brought food to offer to them (Jesus and His disciples) to eat.

So why does He ask Philip where they can buy bread to feed the crowd? To test Him, yes – provided you understand that this is Jesus coaching Philip, not trying to trip Him up. And also, I would argue, because Jesus’ goodness includes the best sense of humour, ever. Do you think it is possible that Philip didn’t spend the rest of his life recounting this one? “Remember that time that huge crowd turned up on the hillside, and Jesus with a straight face asked me where we were going to buy bread for them all. And there was I running the numbers and feeling desperate, and the next minute He is giving thanks for some little kid’s lunch and next thing you know, 5000 men are stuffed full! He was always pulling my leg in the hope that I would finally get it – and in the end I did!”

And, critically, after everyone is stuffed to satisfaction, Jesus tells the disciples to gather up all the leftover fragments, in order that nothing be wasted. Twelve baskets of food. The disciples didn’t miss out on the blessing the little boy was bringing them as their lunch; instead of 5 loaves and two small fish between 12, they each had their own basket of bread and fish.

So here’s the thing that matters. Jesus was never showing off what He as Son of God could do; He was forever modelling what we as His disciples need to be doing, and how we go about that. So what model do we see here?

1. When you see huge need (which in the Kingdom is the same as huge opportunity),
2. don’t leap into action until you can identify (with Holy Spirit’s help)
3. the little bit of what is needed which you and He can work with to meet the opportunity,
4. give it to Jesus,
5. do exactly what He tells you, and
6. have your eyes open for the overflowing double portion which is there for you once the need is met to full satisfaction.

Don’t let anything be wasted!

(John 5:36-38)

The back end of John 5 is one of those passages which can. become a bit of a blur to a reader who is less than awake, alert and eager, just because of the repeated and rearranged words and ideas. But here are just two sentences (three verses) which spoke to me.

ἐγὼ δὲ ἔχω τὴν μαρτυρίαν μείζω τοῦ Ἰωάννου, τὰ γὰρ ἔργα ἃ δέδωκέν μοι ὁ πατὴρ ἵνα τελειώσω αὐτά, αὐτὰ τὰ ἔργα ἃ ποιῶ, μαρτυρεῖ περὶ ἐμοῦ ὅτι ὁ πατήρ με ἀπέσταλκεν, καὶ ὁ πέμψας με πατὴρ ἐκεῖνος μεμαρτύρηκεν περὶ ἐμοῦ. οὔτε φωνὴν αὐτοῦ πώποτε ἀκηκόατε οὔτε εἶδος αὐτοῦ ἑωράκατε, καὶ τὸν λόγον αὐτοῦ οὐκ ἔχετε ἐν ὑμῖν μένοντα, ὅτι ὃν ἀπέστειλεν ἐκεῖνος τούτῳ ὑμεῖς οὐ πιστεύετε.

(John 5:36-38, SBL Greek Testament)

“I have bigger testimony than that of John, for the works which My Father gave me in order that I might finish them, these works which I do, they witness concerning me that the Father has sent me; and the Father who sent me, this one witnesses concerning me. You’ve never heard His voice, nor ever seen His form, and you do not have His word remaining in you, because this one whom He sent, in Him you don’t believe.”

(My very literal rendering)

What struck me once again is just how much this is about a) relationship and b) deeds, rather than words. In fact Jesus is saying, in effect, that “if you listened to the testimony of the deeds, and had a relationship with me (by trusting me), the words would fall into place for you.”

And of course in the passage immediately following, Jesus points out that they are such busy beavers, searching the Scriptures because they are sure that “in them they have eternal life” – but they miss the whole point: the Scriptures point directly to Jesus, and yet they won’t come to Him to have life.

So that is the central thought – faith in Jesus is not a propositional thing, it is about His deeds and about our response to them, and to Him.

The interesting extension of this thought would be that you and I have also been “given works to do, in order that we should finish them”. (If you doubt this, step back, watch Jesus and listen to how He trains His guys, and then commissions them; they have an overarching assignment, as do we, but follow the story through Acts and you will see each had his own assignment; as do we…)

If you see and receive the Kingdom, and understand how good God is, and how much He has equipped you with (“Everything!” says Peter in 2 Peter 1:3), then you can also expect that, as you engage with the works God has given you to do, those works you do will testify about who you are, and about the One who commissioned and sent you.

Which is a very exciting thought.

(John 5:9-15)

I wasn’t going to cover the “after story” of the feeble man at the Pool, but changed my mind: because it raises one absolutely fundamental issue.

The easy part is this: when Jesus tells the man to get up, pick up his bed and walk, he does exactly that, and walks off, while Jesus disappears into the crowd. When the Pharisees tell the man off for breaking the law – “It’s the Sabbath; it is not legal for you to carry your pallet!” – the man replies, “The one who made me healthy, this one said to me “pick up your pallet and walk”. And when the Pharisees ask “who was that?”, he has no idea. It is almost as if it hadn’t occurred to him that this might be important.

But later, Jesus finds him in the temple and says to him, “See, you have become healthy. No longer stray, lest something meaner comes into being for you.”

First thing: Jesus originally asked the man, “are you willing to become healthy?” Now Jesus is pointing out that exactly this has happened: “See, you have become healthy.”

But what happens next? Because this is the big deal. Is Jesus threatening the man with punishment if he doesn’t reform his ways? “God will punish you with something worse if you don’t stop sinning”?

First question, if the man was paralysed (or enfeebled) for 38 years because of God’s judgement upon him, why didn’t Jesus insist that he stop sinning first, so he could be healed? Second question, why had God not judged every other sinner the same way? (And I really suggest you don’t go down the “his sin was one of the really bad ones” path, because that is Pharisee thinking.)

We only think like this, seeing God’s judgement at work in illness, because we have bought a lie. If you want to trace the lie back, read Genesis 3 again. God does not say “I have cursed the earth because of you.” He says, “Because of you, the earth is cursed.” Adam is the one who activated and enacted the curse; the curse is a consequence of his actions. It wasn’t something God did. Neither did God punish the man at the pool, nor threaten to do worse if he didn’t stop sinning. Sin separates us from God because it aligns us with the rule on earth of God’s enemy, Satan. How did Satan ever get to rule? In Genesis 3, Adam hands over his authority over the earth to the Serpent. That’s how. As God knows full well, Satan in charge means Adam and his descendants are going to no longer experience the provision of God’s blessing, but rather live in want and abject poverty, because that is where Satan wants to keep God’s beloved children.

And – here comes the big lie – he is especially keen to leave them believing they are in this mess because God is mad at them.

Jesus had compassion on the man from the start, and when he wasn’t sharp enough to answer “Yes!” to His leading question, came up with a simpler solution that even this man could respond to. (“Get up!”) Knowing that, even after he has been made healthy again, he isn’t necessarily going to help himself going forward, Jesus seeks him out and warns him: “You just spent 38 years unable to fend for yourself. Stop sinning / straying / missing the road (insert your preferred translation of μηκέτι ἁμάρτανε) lest something meaner happens to you”; or even “lest a greater weakness comes upon you”.

We are never told how he has been straying, but Jesus clearly knew enough to issue the warning, and was trying to help the man avoid a worse fate than 38 years, lying incapable by the pool. But the key point is that Jesus wasn’t threatening him with something He, Jesus, would bring upon him, but rather warning him against continuing on a path that could allow even worse consequences to come upon him.

Choosing to go our own way, or sinning, or anything other than following God’s way, especially after we have come to know something of God’s invitation to us, is like saying to the Evil One, “Come on in and mess with my wealth, my household, my marriage, my family and my health. I give you all the authority.” Of course, not many people are dumb enough to do that wittingly. But it is what Adam did, and his descendants don’t seem to do much better.

Grace is God finding something so simple that even we – not exactly the sharpest sticks in the forest – can respond to His invitation and instruction, and be healed and saved. And then not go back to making ourselves subject to the Serpent.

(John 5:2-9)

This one is for those who struggle with the chunks of Greek. That’s because what matters in this passage stands out in pretty much any translation. It begins with Jesus having returned to Jerusalem for a Feast…

There was in Jerusalem near the Sheep (Gate) a diving pool called in Hebrew, Bethesda (house of mercy or grace), which had five covered colonnades. In these were lying a large number of the sickly, the blind, the lame, the shrivelled.

There was one man there who had been sickly for thirty-eight years. Seeing this one laying there, and knowing that he had already been there a very long time, He said to him, “Are you willing to become healthy?”

The feeble man answered Him, “Lord, I don’t have a man to throw me into the diving pool when the waters are disturbed. While I am still coming, someone else goes down.”

Jesus said to him, “Get up, pick up your pallet and walk!”

And immediately the man was healthy and picked up his pallet and walked off.

We aren’t going to bother with the Jewish leaders coming after him for carrying a pallet on the Sabbath, nor the archaeological treasure trail it took to find a five-colonnaded cistern in Jerusalem, nor anything else except the operation of faith for healing we see in this passage.

As I have noted previously, Jesus responds to faith and not to need. But at first sight you might think this is a story with no faith, only Jesus’ compassion for someone who has been in need for so very long. But let us take a step back, first.

Jesus never prays for anyone to be healed, nor does He ever tell His disciples to pray for healing. In the Gospels, healing is something you (as Jesus or one of His disciples) do, not something you ask God for.

But Jesus doesn’t heal this man; at least, not in the way He heals others, which is most often a combination of touch (assuming they are present), and of speaking a word of completed healing over them (“you are healed”, “your child lives” or whatever). So why doesn’t Jesus just tell him, “You are healed”?

Remember the woman who was healed when she touched the hem of Jesus’ garment. Jesus didn’t even know she was there, until He perceived power going out of Him. He says to her, “Don’t be afraid daughter; your faith has healed you.” And the same is true in every incident where Jesus heals; He heals where there is faith. In Nazareth “He could only heal a few because of their lack of faith.” Now look at our man by the pool.

“Are you willing to be healthy?” Jesus asks. (And there is whole lot behind that question which can be pretty confronting; illness can so easily become part of our identity. It is a good question to ask yourself, especially if you find yourself talking about “my illness”. Really? You want to keep it?)

So yes, “are you willing to be healthy?” A simple “yes” would do, but instead the man says he doesn’t have anyone to throw him in the pool. What does he think would happen if he did? Being thrown into a deep diving pool as a cure for chronic weakness and inability to move yourself sounds almost certain to succeed, but possibly not in the way he expects (he will no longer be sick; just dead). The interpolated explanation appearing as verse 4 in some manuscripts may well be correct (i.e. they thought an angel came from time to time and troubled the waters, first one in gets healed); but was it really faith in an angel troubling the waters, or just a deluded hope based on a popular myth, actually involving methane bubbling up from the leaves on the bottom? I see no evidence God can work with wishful thinking, or treat it as if it was faith.

Jesus clearly doesn’t find any faith in the man’s answer that He can work with, but His genuine compassion for the man will not be brooked: since the man didn’t say “No” in answer to Jesus’ question, He takes the conversation a step further, to the point where the man will either respond with faith or not at all. If he responds, he can be healed; if he doesn’t, he stays where he is.

“Get up! Pick up your pallet and walk!”

Perhaps the man caught an echo that warned him that this was the voice which created the Universe with a word; he doesn’t stop to consider, but leaps up – and becomes healthy again as he does. He picks up his pallet and walks off.

And yes, of course he runs into trouble for Sabbath-day pallet-carrying, and ends up identifying Jesus for the Jews as the one who told him to break the sabbath.

Once we have stopped laughing at the man; kind laughter, since he ends up healed despite himself; most of us (including me) should be laughing at ourselves. There is a fundamental issue at work here, which is that whether we are looking at a problem we have – illness, debt, family issues – or at a challenging assignment (“hey Gideon, you’re the mighty warrior who will deliver the whole nation of Israel…”), we frame the problem or challenge the way we think we can solve it. (Or more often, can’t solve it).

The disciples did it all the time, and it mostly sounds like this: “Even if I had ‘x’, which I don’t have, and can’t imagine having, it still wouldn’t be enough to solve / do even the teeniest little part of this. We’re all doomed…” Or someone asks you if you are willing to be healed, and you answer that you haven’t found anyone to throw your helpless body into the deep, deep diving pool.

So if He asks you, “Are you willing to be healthy?” (or prosperous, or reconciled, or successful or whatever it is that you need), can I suggest that we dump all the reasons “why not”, and instead just say “Yes”.

And then do whatever He tells us.