(John 4:43-54)

Here is the above passage, in the NIV. It has two extraordinarily strange features; please tell me you can see them…

After the two days he left for Galilee. (Now Jesus himself had pointed out that a prophet has no honor in his own country.) When he arrived in Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him. They had seen all that he had done in Jerusalem at the Passover Festival, for they also had been there.

Once more he visited Cana in Galilee, where he had turned the water into wine. And there was a certain royal official whose son lay sick at Capernaum. When this man heard that Jesus had arrived in Galilee from Judea, he went to him and begged him to come and heal his son, who was close to death.

“Unless you people see signs and wonders,” Jesus told him, “you will never believe.”
The royal official said, “Sir, come down before my child dies.”

“Go,” Jesus replied, “your son will live.”

The man took Jesus at his word and departed. While he was still on the way, his servants met him with the news that his boy was living. When he inquired as to the time when his son got better, they said to him, “Yesterday, at one in the afternoon, the fever left him.”

Then the father realized that this was the exact time at which Jesus had said to him, “Your son will live.” So he and his whole household believed.

This was the second sign Jesus performed after coming from Judea to Galilee.

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Did you see them?

The first strange feature relates to verse 44, which in the NIV is the comment in parentheses. “For Jesus Himself bore witness that a prophet in his own country (homeland, or place of his fathers) does not have honour.” And verse 45 says “Therefore when He came into the Galilee, the Galileans welcomed Him…”

Ummm. Jesus of Nazareth; Nazareth in Galilee; a prophet not honoured in His own country, but hold on, the Galileans just welcomed you. What is going on here?

The other strange feature is a bit further on. To the father with a dying child, He says, “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will never believe.” Ouch! What is this, training the disciples on ‘how to exercise tough love’?

Well no. If “weary, thirsty and hungry by the well” couldn’t provoke Jesus into becoming grumpy, it is unlikely a father asking for help for a dying child could do it. This should be enough to warn us that we have got the wrong end of the stick, somewhere along the line.

There are a whole raft of assumptions going on in the way this passage has been read by translators. The first is that “the Galileans” are those merry country folk, who follow Jesus around and hang on His every word. But look at how John uses the term οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι (the Jews, or the Judaeans) elsewhere. He doesn’t mean all the Jews, and certainly not the thousands of Jews of Judaea who followed Jesus to hear Him speak at times, but rather the leaders of the Jews – temple leaders, religious teachers and the like. So when John speaks of οἱ Γαλιλαῖοι “the Galileans”, we should at least be asking exactly who these are. Yes, thousands of Galileans followed Jesus around, but οἱ Γαλιλαῖοι is not necessarily these ordinary folks. If I suggested that οἱ Γαλιλαῖοι are “the community leaders of Galilee”, then a moment’s reflection should help us realise these were invariably hostile to Jesus. Pharisees, scribes and their ilk.

If you shifted your thinking in the way I have just suggested and then looked at the sentence, ὅτε οὖν ἦλθεν εἰς τὴν Γαλιλαίαν, ἐδέξαντο αὐτὸν οἱ Γαλιλαῖοι, πάντα ἑωρακότες ὅσα ἐποίησεν ἐν Ἱεροσολύμοις ἐν τῇ ἑορτῇ, καὶ αὐτοὶ γὰρ ἦλθον εἰς τὴν ἑορτήν, how would you translate ἐδέξαντο? The NIV reads it as “welcomed”, but that is only one option, and by no means a plausible one.

ἐδέξαντο is in fact ambiguous: it is 3rd person plural aorist indicative middle for sure, but it could be one of two verbs, δέχομαι (take or accept) or δείκνυμι (bring to light or show forth). Both these verbs have a suitably hostile sense. (“Suitably” because we should have been primed to expect hostility by “a prophet in his own πατρίδι has no honour.”)

δέχομαι would give us “waited for him, as for an enemy”; and δείκνυμι would give us “informed against him”. Both of those fit; I incline to the latter because it explains more about what happened next, but feel free to choose.

And you should of course be seeing the phrase “they had seen everything He had done in Jerusalem at the feast, for they also have been at the feast” in a different light: this is not Jesus’ Galilean fan club, they are ‘very concerned citizens with an axe to grind’ – against Jesus.

The reason I favour “informed against Him”, is that Jesus goes back to Cana; and yet a royal officer or official from Capernaum hears that He is back in the Galilee and comes post haste to beg His help for his dying child. (And while we don’t know exactly where Cana was, from the end of the passage it is clear that it is at least a day’s journey between Cana and Capernaum, by whatever mode of travel the official was employing; therefore this was not a case where someone just saw Jesus down at the local market and mentioned it in passing to the official.)

The official had heard Jesus was back because the leaders of the Galilean Jews had informed against Jesus – “the troublemaker is back here after causing trouble at the feast”, but whereas they – the Galilean leaders – were trying to provoke the legal authorities to take action to stop Jesus, the official saw it as a lifeline for his child, and dashed off to Cana to see Jesus.

So why does Jesus say “Unless you see signs and wonders – σημεῖα καὶ τέρατα – you people won’t ever believe”?

“You people” is the NIV’s way of flagging that the verb is 2nd person plural, and I agree that it is the best way (short of actually writing “you (plural)”) to show the dynamic here. Jesus is not saying “you (the royal official)”. He is saying “you (the group you represent and are part of)”.

Why does Jesus do this? I think that Jesus knows exactly what has happened, namely that His return to the Galilee has been reported to the authorities, and that this official has heard via this channel. As far as I can see, He also only ever prods people in this way for their own benefit, and especially in order for them to clarify their position in their own heads. For example, with the Syro-Phoenician woman in Matthew and Mark, He brings up the subject of “dogs eating the children’s food” so that the woman can establish a position of actual faith from which to claim her daughter’s healing (which she does: “Lord, dogs get to eat what falls from the table!”)

So imagine for a moment that this official is a modern police inspector, who has an ailing child and who has heard Jesus’ whereabouts because someone has informed against Him. Is he here because He believes Jesus can heal the child, or will he cover His presence here to his colleagues by saying he “was observing the accused”?

And that is why He says what He does. In other words, “I know exactly how, and from whom, you heard I was here, and I am pushing back so that you can show me – and especially yourself – that you mean business, and are not hedging your bets.” (“Hedging your bets” is a process which utterly excludes the possibility of faith.) And the father does show himself and Jesus that he means business: first by not defending himself or challenging “you people”, but by simply repeating “Lord, come before my child dies”; and secondly by acting immediately in faith when Jesus says “Go, your child lives.”

The man believed the word Jesus spoke to him and left. When he meets his servants on the way – he came to see Jesus without them, so yes, he was indeed serious – they tell him the child is fine and that he got better at the exact time Jesus said “your child lives.” So he and his whole household believed.

And there is a beautiful narrative arc to this: the Galileans informed against Jesus, (trying to stir up trouble) which enabled the royal officer to hear Jesus was back and, as a result, save his son. And he and his whole household believed.

Probably not quite what οἱ Γαλιλαῖοι intended!

(John 4:31-38)

This passage sits in the middle of the story of the woman at the well, at Sychar. Before it, the woman has left her jar and headed off to tell all her neighbours about “a man who told me everything I ever did.” After this passage the Samaritans are believing, originally because of the woman’s testimony, and then because of their own experience of Jesus, during the two days He stays with them.

But the bit in the middle of this sandwich is… all about food. And it is interesting that the story of the woman begins with Jesus asking for a drink and never getting it, but instead offering a drink of living water to the woman; and now, when He has sent the disciples off to buy food, He doesn’t seem to eat any. But there is one tiny bit which we may be reading incorrectly; and it might just matter. Here is 31-34 in Greek:

Ἐν τῷ μεταξὺ ἠρώτων αὐτὸν οἱ μαθηταὶ λέγοντες· Ῥαββί, φάγε. ὁ δὲ εἶπεν αὐτοῖς· Ἐγὼ βρῶσιν ἔχω φαγεῖν ἣν ὑμεῖς οὐκ οἴδατε. ἔλεγον οὖν οἱ μαθηταὶ πρὸς ἀλλήλους· Μή τις ἤνεγκεν αὐτῷ φαγεῖν; λέγει αὐτοῖς ὁ Ἰησοῦς· Ἐμὸν βρῶμά ἐστιν ἵνα ποιήσω τὸ θέλημα τοῦ πέμψαντός με καὶ τελειώσω αὐτοῦ τὸ ἔργον.

‘In the middle of all this (the disciples wondering what He wanted with a woman, and the woman heading off to the city), the disciples asked Him saying, “Rabbi, eat!”‘

‘He said to them, “I have meat (meat as opposed to drink, not necessarily part of an animal) to eat, which you do not know.”‘ (“know by reflection”, so could be taken as “you haven’t worked this out yet.”)

‘Therefore the disciples said to one another, “Someone didn’t bring Him something to eat, did they?” (“did they” implied by structure using μή)

And here is the bit I am talking about:

‘Jesus said to them, “Things to eat, for me, are just in order that I should do the will of the one who sent me, and that I should finish His work.”‘

Before I explain why this might be significant, let’s make the obvious point: if Jesus wanted to say “my food is to do the will of Him who sent me etc”, He would have said something like βρῶσιν ἐμοῦ …, which is literally ‘my food/meat’. Ἐμὸν βρῶμά is unnecessarily complicated, and reads much more like “with respect to me, what is eaten is in order that…”

And of course, most English translations suppress the ἵνα (“in order that”).

So what I think Jesus is saying, is not “doing what God wants is better than eating to me”, but rather “the whole point of food is so I (and you) can get on with the job we’ve been given.” The first option sounds very pious, but have you tried it? For a start, how long would you be able to keep doing what God assigned you to do if you just stopped eating food, permanently? Not long? Then “doing the will of God” probably isn’t your actual food.

The second option, and which I believe Jesus was actually saying, is actually a fundamental principle of the Kingdom. Not just food, but every good thing that is ours in the Kingdom is, yes, ours because God loves us as His children; but in an instrumental sense, it is given to you so that you can get on with the (wonderful, exciting, satisfying) assignment He has given you. Food; healing; provision; prosperity; revelation; you name it, if you thought it was an end in itself, you are missing the point.

But just a minute. Didn’t Jesus say “I have food to eat which you don’t know”? Yes He did, and yes, I totally agree that He is saying that something in His conversation with that deeply thirsty woman, and in what is already happening as a result of that conversation (crowds heading out to the well from the city) is both satisfying (a food word) as well as being “as sustaining as food” to Him. And that is the subtle but important point I think we need to take from this passage. Jesus is saying “I get joy and satisfaction out of pursuing My assignment, so if I don’t need to eat at this precise moment – well isn’t that why I eat in the first place, so I can get on with doing things that will please the One who sent Me and so I can finish His work?” Which is all about joy and satisfaction. I fear that we have used our minor misreading of the text as yet another spur to embrace self-denial and – ultimately – self-righteousness.

1st person: “You seem to be doing it really tough!” Second person: “Oh, well, my food is to do God’s will…”

And one more thing: τὸ θέλημα τοῦ πέμψαντός με, “the will of Him who sent me” is actually not about “the plan of Him who sent me” (which would be βουλή) but rather “what He will willingly, gladly endorse”.

So before we tackle the last part of this passage, let me summarise: was Jesus tired, thirsty and hungry? Yes, yes and yes. Would that stop me enjoying the moment? Most days I can think of, yes I would be grumpy, at least until I got some water. Did it stop Jesus going with the joy. Not at all. And as we will see, He even has a joke at the disciples’ expense.

Verse 35: “Don’t you say that, ‘it is yet four months and then the harvest comes?’ Behold I say to you, lift up your eyes and see the fields that are white for harvest.”

As has long been recognised, the “fields” Jesus is referencing are the ones between Sychar and the well, now flooded with people making their way out (in the heat of noon) to see this man who might be the Messiah.

“Already the reaper draws his wage and gathers fruit for eternal life, in order that the sower can rejoice with the reaper. For in this the word is made true, that one is the sower and another one is the reaper.”

Notice this is all about a) wages and b) joy. Jesus is seeing joy and reward before His little team; this is going to be a great experience for them. And because (I would guess) they were exhibiting puzzlement as they desperately tried to catch up with what was going on, He makes His joke.

“What is so hard to understand about this – I have set something in motion here (I sowed) and you are going to harvest it (all these people headed our way). Just like I sent you to get food from the city. Someone else did all the hard work to produce the food, and you just have to go to town and come back with a bag of sandwiches!”

(John 3:1-21)

Read Part 1 first; and then you might need help to collect your thoughts. This passage can so easily read as one of those “I say ‘tomato’, you say ‘93.8 km/hour, but only on Sundays'” kind of moments, when two people appear to be speaking past each other; and here with John also apparently bringing up the rear with an editorial gloss. And that is not at all what is going on here. Let me summarise:

Nicodemus kicks off with a statement to the effect that the signs Jesus performs demonstrate that He is a teacher sent by God. Jesus replies by saying that he, Nicodemus, can’t ever understand what he is seeing, unless he should be begotten anew (we normally say born again, but that is imprecise) by water and [God’s] breath (taking the middle ground between “wind” and “Spirit”). Otherwise he is like someone hearing the wind and seeing the trees bend but having no idea where the wind is coming from or to where it is heading.

Why does Jesus then talk about “we”? Precisely because Nicodemus is talking about ‘signs’. They aren’t ‘signs’ at all – that is just like hearing the sound of the wind, without knowing what is happening – they are things that Jesus and His disciples are doing together as Jesus – the only one who has seen Heaven – trains His disciples in the operation of the Kingdom of Heaven. So they can all speak of what they know by observation (and involvement), and bear witness to what they have seen; but Nicodemus and his fellow Pharisees won’t accept the testimony.

Pause for a moment; go back to the wedding at Cana, which I covered in a previous post. Even John calls it “the first of His signs which He performed in Cana of Galilee, and His disciples believed in Him”, but that isn’t the important bit. The important bit is that Jesus, and a handful of household servants, demonstrated how the Kingdom operates, for the disciples to observe and learn from.

When Nicodemus confesses that he doesn’t understand how these things can come about, Jesus points out that as “the teacher of Israel”, he should know; but rather than disparaging him and leaving him wondering, Jesus proceeds to teach him what he, as the teacher of Israel, is going to need to understand to make sense of what lies ahead. Jesus didn’t say to Nicodemus, “come follow me” – at least, not as far as we know. And yet, as I pointed out before, Nicodemus speaks up for Jesus in the Sanhedrin, and then helps Joseph of Arimathea to bury Jesus – both acts requiring the courage of his convictions, in the face of the authorities cutting every corner and ignoring every moral and legal imperative in order to see Jesus dead. So we can be confident that Jesus knew what He was doing in instructing the instructor. So what did He teach him?

Start from verse 14. In the same way that Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so Jesus, the Son of Man, will be lifted up also, in order that every one who trusts in him might lay hold of eternal life. (Just like the Israelites who had been bitten by snakes and who, to be saved, had to trust in, and look upon, the remedy God sent via Moses, a bronze model of their problem – as Nicodemus would have known, perfectly well.)

But why? Verse 16: because God so loved the world that He gave the only-begotten Son, in order that everyone trusting in Him might not perish but lay hold on everlasting life. For God didn’t send the Son in order that He might judge the world, but in order that He (God) might save the world through Him (the Son). The one trusting in Him is not brought to trial (κρίνεται in the passive is more than just ‘judged’ ); the one not trusting in Him has already been judged (perfect passive, the completion of being brought to trial is ‘judged’) because he has not trusted in the name (reputation/ fame and not just ‘name’) of the only-begotten Son of God. (This is a rather different story from the Pharisees’ own internal narrative, which was more like “everyone who isn’t us is judged”.)

Why is the one not trusting in Him judged? Verse 19. This is the judgement: that “the Light” has come into the world and men loved the darkness more than the Light, because their deeds were wretched.

And remember: this is not a general statement about people in general; Jesus is speaking to Nicodemus as a representative of “you (plural) have not received our testimony”. It isn’t necessarily an accusation against Nicodemus personally, but Jesus is describing the people Nicodemus represents as “your deeds are wretched”. Most translations say “evil” but this goes beyond what Jesus says. On a side note, we see ἀγαθός and πονηρός as “good” and “evil”, but “noble / serviceable” and “wretched / oppressed” are much nearer the mark.

Their deeds were wretched, and this made them love darkness more? Why? Verse 20. Everyone who achieves (πράσσων) cheap and shoddy things (φαῦλα) hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works are exposed (cross-examined, put to the proof). The one [either ποιέω] making true or real things [or ποιόω] making true things of a certain quality (in other words, who has worked with the truth to the best of their ability and capacity) comes to the Light, in order that it may be made manifest that their works have been worked in God.

If you look back over the last five paragraphs, summarising the instruction Jesus gave to Nicodemus, you will see that this is inescapable judgement on the Pharisees and all their kind. “You have been playing your own religious games, thinking you were the righteous, but your failure to come to the Light has already judged you; it demonstrates that you know your works would not look well in the Light.”

And of course, it also explains why Jesus has given so much time and straight-from-the-shoulder instruction to Nicodemus, the teacher of Israel. Nicodemus is the one Pharisee who stands free of that judgement, having come to the Light without deception and with an open heart. I am sure Nicodemus went away still trying to piece it all together; but I am equally sure He knew God had spoken to him, and that as a man speaks to his friend.

(John 3:1-21)

There was a man of the Pharisees, called Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This one came to Jesus by night and said…

Well, he thought he was proffering an olive branch. “Rabbi, we know that you have come from God, a teacher; for no-one is able to do these signs that you do, unless God is with him.”

And we could summarise the response he gets from Jesus as: “You haven’t got a clue.” Now, from anyone else, this would be verging on the insulting, but in fact, Jesus treats Nicodemus with far more seriousness and dignity than we may realise; which doubtless accounts for the fact that Nicodemus remains in the frame, speaking against the run of sentiment in the Sanhedrin (John 7:50) and helping Joseph of Arimathea with Jesus’ body in John 19.

Let’s break this down.

Jesus’ initial response to Nicodemus is as direct and uncompromising as I have already suggested. Nicodemus thinks he has given Jesus an endorsement; Jesus tells him that he has no chance of seeing (or understanding) the Kingdom unless he is begotten (not born) anew. The effect of this is definitely to dismiss what Nicodemus has said; if he thought he was building a bridge of flattery or even simple approval, Jesus makes it clear He has no time for such games. But: He does not dismiss Nicodemus.

When Jesus does not wish to talk to Pharisees, He ties them in knots and they have to back off. This Pharisee, He does indeed engage with. Nicodemus may have been struggling to keep up, but Jesus gave him more straight answers than the sum total of all His other interactions with Pharisees.

Firstly, Nicodemus asks how a man can be begotten when he is already old – can he enter into him mother’s womb a second time, so she can bring him forth? Jesus answers that unless someone is begotten of water and πνεύματος, he is not able to enter the Kingdom of God. Begotten of water we assume is a reference to the water of baptism, although this is not entirely obvious from the immediate context (although the passage from 3.22 to the beginning of 4 centres on Jesus, or rather His disciples, baptising more than John the Baptist); begotten of πνεύματος is likewise assumed to be the baptism of the Spirit, which again is a long way ahead in time and chapters, but which has already been alluded to by John the Baptist. The note we should take of course is that πνεύματος primarily means a “blast of wind”, and by extension “air”, and then “breathed air” and “the breath of life”. It does also mean spirit, but that is far from its primary sense. And Jesus is going to use this same word in a moment where it must at least mean wind. I am not seeking to overturn our traditional reading of γεννηθῇ ἐξ ὕδατος καὶ πνεύματος, but I am trying to suggest that “begotten of water and wind”, or “water and breath”, may well have been what Nicodemus heard. And of course, when a word has multiple meanings, we have to seek clarification from context; but sometimes speakers – especially Jesus – are deliberately playing on the ambiguities.

He goes on: “that which is begotten of the flesh is flesh; and that begotten of the Spirit (which is now clarified by being set in opposition to “flesh”) is Spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, “You must be begotten anew.” The πνεῦμα blows where it wishes (which must mean at least wind; but maybe there is deliberate ambiguity, and we should be thinking of both wind and spirit here?), and you hear its voice, but you don’t know whence it comes nor where it is going. This is how it is with everyone who has been begotten of the πνεύματος” (which sounds more like spirit again, but Nicodemus might be hearing wind or even breath). And that probably is how we should hear this: God’s πνεῦμα is just like any other πνεῦμα you can name; unless you are begotten of that πνεῦμα, you just hear its passing and see its effects, but you haven’t got a clue where it came from or where it is headed.

No surprise then that Nicodemus is reduced to “How is it possible for these things to be?” (more properly, “to come into being?”)

And here is the real turning point in the passage. Jesus says, “You are the teacher of Israel and these things you have not observed?” And that last word is important. Yes, γινώσκεις, from γιγνώσκω, is “know,” but in the sense of “know or perceive by observation.” And that – seeing, observing – is going to be very important in a moment. It is easy to read “you are Israel’s teacher” as disparagement; but on the contrary, I find that Jesus takes this opportunity to instruct the teacher of Israel more comprehensively than He often instructs His disciples. And – to leap ahead – I think it also fits best with a reading of verses 16-21 In which we understand that Jesus is continuing His instruction of Nicodemus, and not – as most seem to have it – as John editorialising. (I am saying that if you have a “red letter” bible, John 3:16-21 should all be in red, too.)

In other words, Jesus tells Nicodemus why he cannot understand the Kingdom from where he is standing, but goes on to explain what he would understand if he took the journey and was standing in the Kingdom. And that makes what He says here, prime instruction for every one of us, also, if we wish to fully know, perceive and observe the Kingdom.

Jesus now switches to first person plural (we). Is He using the “royal we”? That would be a little out of character. I think He really means “we”, as in, “my disciples and I”. The Pharisees weren’t just seeing Jesus walking and healing and speaking; they saw men with Him who were – at least – seeing Jesus do all these things, but also themselves beginning to heal and speak and do whatever Jesus had taught them. So although He goes on to make the point that He (Jesus) is the only one who has seen heaven, at this point He is saying that there is a whole group of them who speak of what they know, and bear witness to what they have seen – which is the workings of the Kingdom, here on earth (which Nicodemus, the teacher of Israel, may have heard of and even seen, but hasn’t yet perceived). After all, Nicodemus’ opening statement referenced signs; Jesus is just saying there is a group of us who actually do and witness this stuff on a daily basis; “but you (plural, meaning the Pharisees) don’t accept our testimony”.

So here is the problem: “If I have spoken to you of earthly things (like the need to be begotten anew in order to see the Kingdom of God, and that flesh begets flesh) and you don’t believe me, how, if I speak to you of heavenly things, will you believe me?”

Why does that matter? Because there is only one person who has seen heaven – Jesus Himself – so if Nicodemus is struggling to believe things that have been happening in his own earthly realm, how will he get anything only Jesus has seen for Himself?

And then from verse 14 to 21, Jesus sets out for him exactly what he needs to understand about the agenda and assignment Jesus has been given, and for which the signs are simply a stamp of authority. Which I will break down in the next post.

(John 2:13-22)

Jesus cleansing the temple: He has a whip, He overturns tables, the disciples quote Psalm 69:9. It puts me in mind of the T-Shirt I saw once: “Jesus is coming back, and boy is He mad!” However, if we are picturing Jesus filled with wrath and wreaking destruction, we might need to read the nuances of the language a little more carefully. Here’s the NIV on this passage:

When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple courts he found people selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!” His disciples remembered that it is written: “Zeal for your house will consume me.”

The Jews then responded to him, “What sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?”

Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.”

They replied, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?” But the temple he had spoken of was his body. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken. (John 2:13-22, NIV)

It is worth noting to begin with, that all four Gospels have an account of this episode (see also Matt 21:23-27, Mark 11:15-17 and Luke 19:40-20:2). John has some details that are unique (e.g. the whip and Psalm 69), and only John concludes with “destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it!” – although Matthew, Mark and Luke all have this assertion as one of the pieces of testimony brought against Jesus at His trial.

Secondly, let me explain why I am even bothering to explore this passage. The T-Shirt I quoted earlier may be a little more extreme than most of us would be comfortable with, and yet the idea that “God is mad at me/you/and everybody” is pretty widespread. We feel we have probably given Him cause. But: it just isn’t true. My own Pastor says this at just about the end of every service: “God isn’t mad at you.” I can’t overemphasise just how important and true that statement is – and as my Pastor clearly knows, just how often we need to hear that truth.

In a nutshell I would put it like this. We are absolutely (as people who haven’t yet seen and responded to the Kingdom) in dire peril. That is not because God is mad at us, but rather because we are aligned with a regime already marked for destruction. God is bringing final judgement upon Satan and his allies, and He – God – has done everything to ensure that no man or woman needs to perish with that condemned regime. Go and read again, with understanding, John 3:16 – and 17. Of course, He cannot force us to respond to His love. But mad at us? Not at all.

So let us look at the passage more carefully. Whips and zeal and table-turning may be causing us to miss the picture.

The Passover was near, so Jesus goes up to Jerusalem. And sure enough, He finds in the Temple, those selling cattle and sheep and doves, and τοὺς κερματιστὰς καθημένους. Liddell & Scott & Jones, my go-to Greek dictionary, asserts that κερματιστὰς is “money-changers”, based on this single appearance of the word in John. Matthew and Mark use κολλυβιστής, or “small money changers” (as does John in the next sentence) and κερματιστὰς helps us understand what that term means. κερματιστὰς is, I think, a participle (possibly ill-formed) from κερματίζω, “I chop up or cut into pieces”. It covers coining precious metal into money, and changing money into smaller coins. So κερματιστὰς is almost “those clipping coins”.

Why were there money changers in the temple? Because the coins in circulation in Judaea were Roman currency (remember Jesus asking the Pharisees whose image was on the coin?), meaning they carried an image of the Emperor and a subscription alluding to his divine status. So, no you can’t pay your tithes and vows with pagan coin, you must change your pagan coins for temple coins. John’s use of κερματιστὰς is alerting us to what kind of operation this is: you give me a valuable Roman coin, I give you a smaller and less valuable temple coin.

How does Jesus respond to this? Making a φραγέλλιον (Latin flagellum or “small scourge” – perhaps more like a “kitten o’nine tails”) out of σχοινίων (small ropes, cords or threads), He ἐξέβαλεν them all from the temple, both the sheep and the cows, He ἐξέχεεν the coins of the money-changers and ἀνέστρεψεν their tables, and to those selling doves He said, “Take these hence, lest you make my Father’s house a house of ἐμπορίου.

ἐκβάλλω is “throw or cast out” (nets, demons, enemies etc). Sounds violent enough, but it is also “drive out”. I think this is what the small scourge of small cords was for (personally I find a tap with a light stick across the back is good for getting stock to walk forward, but haven’t tried a light flagellum) and on this occasion, I think that is all He was doing – moving stock out of the temple court.

ἐκχέω is poured out (or even spread out) – again it is a more intentional outpouring than the obvious alternative, σκορπίζω, which does mean scatter and would fit the traditional picture – of Jesus throwing the marketplace into chaos – much better.

ἀναστρέφω is invert or turn upside down, or even (of troops) turn around, but is not a violent word as far as I can see – think of the teenager putting chairs upside down on tables at 11 pm at a fast food restaurant, not Robin Hood kicking over the Sheriff of Nottingham’s banquet table. I think He is saying, “the bank is closed.” τραπέζας are tables, but also banks – since traditional banking (and tax-farming) required just a table.

Why didn’t He drive out the doves? As has long been recognised, a cow walking out the gate of the temple can be followed and recovered, but not so a dove flying free. What is of more interest is what Jesus said to the sellers of doves: “take these hence, lest you make (μὴ ποιεῖτε) my Father’s house a house of trading.” ἐμπόριον is generally a trading-station, a market and so on. In the genitive with the word for house, οἶκον ἐμπορίου, we probably have to say something like “a house of trading” rather than “a house of trading-station” or “a house of market”; the plural of ἐμπόριον means merchandise, but here it is singular.

The really key point is the word “lest” – in Matthew, Mark and Luke, Jesus combines quotes from Isaiah 56 and Jeremiah 7 to produce the sentence “My house shall be called a house of prayer, but you are making it a den of robbers”. The significance of this is almost certainly that the original of Isaiah 56 is “a house of prayer for all nations (goyim, Gentiles)” and that the “market” was set up in the outer court of the Temple, the so-called Court of the Gentiles or Nations. In other words, your market is blocking access for the Gentiles to the Temple, quite apart from its inappropriateness in a house of prayer.

But in John, Jesus says take these away, lest you turn my Father’s house into a market. (Yes, I am reading μὴ ποιεῖτε as an optative of fearing, rather than an imperative prohibition). To me that sounds more like a warning (you are in peril) than an accusation (I am mad at you). Perhaps the language of the Synoptics (the combined Isaiah / Jeremiah quote in Matthew, Mark and Luke) is stronger, but in Mark’s version at least, it is framed more as a warning to the whole population, not just the traders; and was enough to make the Chief Priests and Teachers of the Law want to kill Him, which suggests they knew He was holding them responsible – not the traders alone.

Why have I gone to such lengths over this? Simply because I don’t think we should be reading this as if Jesus was giving in to a fit of anger; the language is all wrong for that. On the contrary, I believe He very firmly shut the market down, by walking the animals out the gate (and you better believe the sellers of stock went out after them); pouring out the coins of the money-changers (perhaps to make a visual point: “what a lot of money you seem to have taken in; how much did your customers receive to give to the Temple?”) and turning their tables upside down (“sorry, you are shut”). And then giving the dove sellers a warning of peril: “take these things away, because you really wouldn’t want to find you had turned my Father’s house into a caravanserai, would you?”

And we know that this reading of John is correct, because of what happens next. If Jesus had “attacked the market”, we can be pretty sure He would have been arrested by the Temple police (or at least, the attempt would have been made). Instead, the Jews (which perhaps we should read as the leaders of the Jews, ie chief priests etc) asked Him, Τί σημεῖον δεικνύεις ἡμῖν, ὅτι ταῦτα ποιεῖς;

That word σημεῖον is ambiguous. Yes, in the Gospels we normally assume it is “sign” as in “miraculous sign”; but it does simply mean “mark”, including mark of ownership, signal from a commander or admiral to do a thing, and so forth. So rather than “What sign are you showing”, I think we should read it as “what authority can you show us for your actions in doing these things?” That is, you have just closed down the Temple market, on whose say so?

Jesus of course, does answer in a way that at least could include the notion of miraculous sign (deliberately playing on the ambiguity, and not actually what “the Jews” were expecting – they wanted to see His authority); “Loose (disassemble, unbind, take apart; ‘destroy’ is by extension, only) this Temple and in three days I will raise it”. Which is a σημεῖον miraculous sign, whichever Temple you thought He was referencing – the building or His body – but also, absolutely, His σημεῖον mark or signal of authority for all His actions: “I will be put to death and on the third day I will rise again.” (Which leads naturally to “all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me…”)

Interestingly, in all three of the Synoptics, the cleansing of the Temple is closely followed by the episode in which the chief priests and teachers of the law ask Jesus “by what authority” He is doing “all these things”; this reading of John of the request for a σημεῖον as “a request to see His authority for His actions” therefore aligns with the other three accounts. And the core point is – start a fight in the Temple and you get arrested; shut down, firmly but fairly, a trading station in the Temple and someone is going to ask to see the paperwork.

(John 2:1-11)

In John’s Gospel, the first sign Jesus does is a rather irrelevant one. Instead of something useful (a healing, a feeding, a raising from the dead), He makes wine for a party where everyone has already had more than enough to drink. Strange…

Having gathered at least some of His original disciples (of whom we know Andrew, Simon Peter, Philip and Nathanael by name), Jesus goes to the Galilee where He and His disciples… attend a wedding. His mother is there, also.

Let’s take it from verse 3, in my “as literal as is comprehensible” translation from the Greek.

The wine having failed, Jesus’ mother said to Him, “they have no wine”. And Jesus said to her, “what is that to you and me, woman? My hour has not yet come.”

His mother said to the servants, “whatever He should tell you to do, you do it.”

There were six stone water jars there, laid up for the [ceremonial] washings [required] of the Jews, each holding 20 to 25 gallons [somewhere between 18 and 27 Imperial Gallons if you want accuracy]. Jesus said to them, “Charge the water pots with water.” And they filled them to the brim.

And He said to them, “Now draw it and carry it to the president of the banquet,” and they carried it. When the president of the banquet tasted the water having become wine, and did not know where it came from, although the servants who had drawn the water knew, he called out to the bridegroom and said to him, “All men set out the fine wine first, and then when they have drunk [or are drunk], the lesser. You have guarded the fine wine until now!”

This beginning of signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee, and manifested His glory, and His disciples believed in Him.

This is an extremely well known passage, so just two observations, one small and one rather more significant.

First, why did Jesus say “My hour has not yet come”? This is stranger than it may seem at first glance. Jesus had starting gathering disciples, so what for, if not “His hour”? Second, since He did the “required miracle”, was He acting outside His assignment and if so why? And why does His mother respond by telling the servants to do whatever He tells them?

The simplest explanation I can see is that His mother – who after all, knew perfectly well that her eldest son had an assignment to save His people from their sins – had been getting anxious about the approach of the time when He would pursue that assignment. Maybe even saying to Him, “It is not your hour yet.” In which case Jesus is simply playing one of the oldest of games played between sons and mothers, that of quoting back previously expressed opinions when asked to undertake a task. “Please could you drive me to the shops.” “O, but I am not to be trusted behind the wheel of a car, I thought?” In other words, Jesus is gently reflecting to His mother that His time has in fact come, and she knows it. Respectful and humorous at the same time.

The second observation is more fundamental. How much wine did the wedding party need? Yes, they had run out, and that was problematic because the globally accepted norm, as we see it in contemporary documents from all Empires from Rome to China, was that as long as the guests had a thirst, the wine would still be served. In terms of what they had already consumed, everyone may already have had enough. The ἀρχιτρίκλινος (president of the banquet) makes it clear that everyone has, or is, already drunk. Clearly people were still going, but it would be hard to argue that they needed more. In fact the biggest need may well have been to turn up more wine in order to preserve the honour of the bridegroom. In a small village, having your marriage eternally referenced as “the one where they ran out of wine” could be crippling.

Put yourself in Jesus’ place. We don’t know how many people were at the wedding, but it probably wasn’t huge – no one has been able to identify the location of Cana with any certainty, which is at least in part a function of it not having been “on the map” in size or importance. You see six stone water jars; how much wine should you produce?

Based on need, your answer might range from none! to “half a bucket in the bottom of one of the jars”.

And here is the point. That is how we think, how the disciples often thought and how the Pharisees always thought. But if you want to see the Kingdom, you have to lose that mindset, and fast. That is never, ever how God operates.

You see this, time and again, in Jesus’ ministry. He always starts with what is available, which is usually well short of what is needed; and then He meets the faith He finds and multiplies the one by the other such that there is a superabundance. If you talk to Him about what is needed, you are just digging a hole for yourself.

Think again about the feeding of the five thousand. Jesus told the disciples they would feed the people and they did; but in terms of faith, it was probably mostly in the crowd who, when Jesus told them to lie down ready to eat, fully expected to be fed. Otherwise they wouldn’t have lain down at all, but wandered off to look for food. And, after feeding the 5000 men and uncounted women and children, the disciples were able to gather 12 baskets of food left over from the five loaves and two fish they had handed out. Like I said, superabundance.

Here at Cana, it is the servants we should be looking at. They knew there was a crisis: there was no wine left. Mary told them “whatever He tells you, you do it.” Jesus told them to charge the water pots with water. What did they do? Filled all six to the brim. It is absolutely true to say that if they had walked off in disgust, there would be no miracle. If they tipped half a pint into each pot, there would be a three pint (2 of our bottles) miracle. 162 gallons of water, with each pot full to the brim – a 980 (750ml each) bottle miracle. Just short of 82 cases of the best wine, ever.

Did Jesus say how the wine was to be used? By sending it to the president of the banquet, He certainly rescued the groom’s reputation, if in a slightly eccentric manner (“all men set out the fine wine first and then when everyone is drunk, the lesser stuff – but you have carefully guarded the fine wine until now (when most of us can’t tell the difference!)” Beyond that, He gave no instruction.

Did the party continue until it was all gone? Possibly, but then the miracle might be known as “how terrible judgement was wrought on Cana”. More likely everybody had some – it was pretty good stuff! – and that far more was left over. And the newly-married couple found they had a more than double portion blessing of 100+ gallons of best wine to sell, share or lay down for the future. (Bad news for all the sheep or goats who needed to become wineskins…) Were the bride and groom supposed to feel guilty because they had too much? No, and neither are you.

Let me repeat: “This beginning of signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee, and manifested His glory, and His disciples believed in Him.” He manifested His glory, true, but also His yardstick for blessing. There is no mark on His ruler that says “what they need”, any more than there is one saying “what they deserve”.

Just “a good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, poured into your lap” (meaning you are sitting down and not “doing” anything, let alone doing something to deserve it). God only deals in abundance and overflow. Without that, most of us will put our assignment from God on hold, waiting for “when I have x…” And those of us who do get on with the assignment will constantly be crippled by lack of resource. Don’t say “but that is the way of the Cross”; it is no such thing.

And that’s what we need to start understanding if we are to ever see His Kingdom. To return to the opening statement of this piece, this miracle was far from irrelevant: Jesus was making a major statement of intent. The reason we don’t see it is because we have a religious mindset and think Jesus got taken off-course by His mother.

With a Kingdom mindset, it all looks rather different.

(John 1:10-14a)

We can be unwittingly passive, as believers. Even the name, “believers” says it all: we believe that God will turn up and do something. What we actually need to believe is that God has already equipped us with everything we need, so that we can get on with the assignments He gives us.

And this passivity certainly leaks into our bible translations. For example:

He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God — children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God. The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. (John 1:10-14a, NIV)

What is the picture here? Poor Jesus, coming unrecognised and unappreciated. Fortunately, some people did welcome Him, and were given the right to become God’s children. We aren’t told how that right is to be exercised, but it is clearly something God does for them.

Let’s see what something closer to the original Greek sounds like. I have broken it into sentences and ‘sense groups’.

Ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ ἦν, καὶ ὁ κόσμος δι’ αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο, καὶ ὁ κόσμος αὐτὸν οὐκ ἔγνω.

“He was in the world, and the world came into being through Him, and the world didn’t spot Him [know by observation, as opposed to know by reflection; could equally be rendered as “didn’t point Him out” (make Him known)]“

εἰς τὰ ἴδια ἦλθεν, καὶ οἱ ἴδιοι αὐτὸν οὐ παρέλαβον.

“He came to His own, and His own did not receive from Him” [and yes, “from” is the key missing word – it is the ‘παρ’ in παρέλαβον. It could equally be rendered “didn’t receive an inheritance from Him”. ]

ὅσοι δὲ ἔλαβον αὐτόν, ἔδωκεν αὐτοῖς ἐξουσίαν τέκνα θεοῦ γενέσθαι, τοῖς πιστεύουσιν εἰς τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ,

“But to as many as laid hold of Him – those trusting in His reputation [both ‘name’ and ‘fame’] – He gave the authority over resource to become God’s children…”

οἳ οὐκ ἐξ αἱμάτων οὐδὲ ἐκ θελήματος σαρκὸς οὐδὲ ἐκ θελήματος ἀνδρὸς ἀλλ’ ἐκ θεοῦ ἐγεννήθησαν.

“…those [i.e. children] brought into being not by blood nor the pleasure of flesh, nor the pleasure of a husband, but [by the pleasure] of God.”

Καὶ ὁ λόγος σὰρξ ἐγένετο καὶ ἐσκήνωσεν ἐν ἡμῖν…

“And the Word became flesh, and pitched His tent among us…”

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Let me put that together for you with a little more freedom, so that it makes a coherent whole.

“He was in the world, the world was made by Him, but the world didn’t take notice. He came to His own people and they were none the wiser (they didn’t bother to receive anything from Him). But those who grasped Him – both recognised and laid hold of Him, because they believed and trusted in what they saw in Him – He gave to them authority – authority backed up by command of resources – enabling them to become children of God. Children of God, how? It was God’s pleasure that this should happen, not a rush of blood between husband and wife. (It is the Father’s good pleasure to give you the Kingdom, right?) And the Word of God became a flesh and blood human and pitched His camp amongst us.”

Do you see? This is a little different. This is not poor Jesus not being received by the cold and lonely world. This is the invasion that makes the Normandy Landings look like a kindergarten picnic, but with the great and the good, and especially those who should have known better, failing to notice or receive any relief or benefit as a result. BUT: those who saw and recognised something life giving, something they weren’t going to just let walk away from them, those who laid hold of Him: these He gave power to; the power, authority, resources and means they needed to exercise in order to become what God intended: God’s children. This was God’s pleasure, that they should receive all this from the Son and so become His Children, His household and His Kingdom. And lest they think for a moment that this was metaphorical or an offer of pie in the sky when they die, here is the Word; the Son; a flesh and blood human and living cheek by jowl with you, there for you to lay hold of, there to show you how you make use of His inestimable gift of the authority to become.

And there isn’t a passive thought in that passage.

As a footnote, to understand ἐξουσία you need to forget most of what you see around you, or what you may have experienced at work (“they said I had authority, but really I just have endless responsibility”). In the world of the Greek city states, which is where the language we are using comes from, ἐξουσία meant that for the good of the city you had been appointed to a role in which it was 100% your responsibility to determine what happened next AND where you had full power and discretion over the disposition of all resources. If you needed to man and equip ships to beat off the Persian fleet, then you could assign the men, and everyone’s household goods to that end. Of course, if you failed to act, or failed to win, there were consequences. But ἐξουσία is neither vapid nor empty as a term.

Authority demanded action; it had to be exercised. True for us, too.

(Luke 5:33-39, also Matt 9 and Mark 2)

The Pharisees asked (actually, “accused” is closer to the mark) Jesus why John the Baptist’s disciples regularly fasted and prayed, and their own disciples also – but His disciples just kept on eating and drinking.

Jesus answers them with three figures: the bridegroom and his friends; the old cloak that needs patching; and the new wine that needs a skin. Matthew, Mark and Luke all have this passage, with minor variations.

Most notably, Matthew and Mark both talk about using uncarded rag to patch an old cloak, whereas Luke says you wouldn’t cut a patch from a new cloak to fix the tear in an old one; in Matthew and Mark the implication is that unshrunk cloth pulls away from the old well shrunken cloth, in Luke that you wouldn’t ruin a new cloak to fix an old one.

The last figure (of wine and wineskins) is similar. You don’t ruin old wineskins and lose the new wine by putting the one in the other.

The first figure is however a little different. The bridegroom’s friends are there to celebrate with him; when he is taken away from them then they will indeed fast. The difference here is that this is not something expected in most marriage celebrations.

However, what all three figures do is make the point that comparing Jesus and His disciples (in the context, including a crowd of tax-farmers and ne’er-do-wells) with the established religious movements of the Baptist and the Pharisees is a mistake. The first figure says that this is a celebration of a forthcoming wedding, not a religious exercise; the last two that trying to fit what Jesus is doing into the framework of established religious movements – maybe “religious movements”, full stop – will only cause loss and destruction on both sides.

But Luke includes one detail which the others omit, and which is always mistranslated.

“And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for they say, ‘The old is better.’” (Luke 5:39, NIV)

We read this and conclude that following Jesus is after all a bit rough and ready – “nasty new wine, not as smooth and mellow as old wine” and so on. There is, after all, something beautiful about mellow old religion, that we lose when we respond to the awkward demands of Jesus.

Except…

καὶ οὐδεὶς πιὼν παλαιὸν θέλει νέον· λέγει γάρ· Ὁ παλαιὸς χρηστός ἐστιν. (Luke 5:39, SBL Greek NT)

“And no one drinking old wine is willing [to drink, to try] new; for he says “the old is fine”.

χρηστός is the key word here. It does not, ever, mean “better”. It means adequate, useful, serviceable, good of its kind. That is an important distinction, and we should hear the hint of “damning with faint praise” inherent in the phrase. Jesus is not saying that people refuse the new because the old is so much better; like someone who has had a few flagons already, they say “what do you want to bother me with new wine for, this stuff is fine.”

In other words, familiarity with religion and religious practice is a hindrance to even trying to understand what Jesus has on offer. This would explain why Jesus’ house is full of such atypical disciples (from a religious point of view).

And, since so many explain this verse with reference to the judging of old versus new wine, we don’t actually know how either would have tasted in Jesus day. But we might do well to be a bit cautious: wine that has spent a few years in a goat skin may have little in common with the 1952 Chateau Lafite Rothschild, which has spent its life in a glass bottle in a cool cellar, and been rotated on its axis every few months to keep the cork wet. Clearly the new wine must be more active, biologically (hence the danger to old skins), but old wine may have been pretty sour, too.

So Luke 5:39 should actually be understood as a prod and a positive provocation to His interlocutors (ie the Pharisees who had questioned Him about why his disciples just kept eating and drinking.)

“You are happy with your religious observances, which is why you can’t begin to imagine how good it is in the Kingdom. (But maybe you should find out, instead of carrying on like a maudlin drunk in a tavern.)”

The Kingdom isn’t eating and drinking, but it sure is worth celebrating.

(Matt 14:15-21)

I touched on this a couple of posts back (Peter Gets It), but I find myself drawn back to Matthew’s version of the Feeding of the Five Thousand, because it reads differently from how we often tell it. It deserves a post of its own.

We know the story (we think) – Jesus heard John had been executed, and went to a deserted spot, by boat; the crowds followed on foot and Jesus had compassion and healed all the sick people they brought. The disciples were worried about having so many people stuck in a remote place with no food, so asked Jesus to be responsible and send them away to buy food for themselves in the villages round about. (How that would have worked out – 5000 men plus an unknown number of women and children buying food in the villages around a remote spot sounds more like a plague of locusts than a shopping expedition; but from the disciples’ perspective, it would have no longer been their problem, nor Jesus’ either.)

So Jesus says “they don’t need to go away: you give them something to eat.” And yet again, the disciples fail the test – “we don’t have anything except five loaves and two small fish” – so Jesus has to step in and save the day.

There is something really wrong in our heads if we are reading scripture this way. It is as if we think Jesus went out of His way to prove how inadequate the disciples were for three years (or however long), but then, when He rose from the dead, said, “Well, you’re “it” now, I guess…”

That would make Jesus the world’s worst teacher. Which He most certainly wasn’t, and isn’t.

Let’s look more closely:

ὁ δὲ Ἰησοῦς εἶπεν αὐτοῖς· Οὐ χρείαν ἔχουσιν ἀπελθεῖν· δότε αὐτοῖς ὑμεῖς φαγεῖν. οἱ δὲ λέγουσιν αὐτῷ· Οὐκ ἔχομεν ὧδε εἰ μὴ πέντε ἄρτους καὶ δύο ἰχθύας. ὁ δὲ εἶπεν· Φέρετέ μοι ὧδε αὐτούς. (Matt 14:16-18, SBL Greek Testament)

Jesus said to them (the disciples), “It is not necessary that they have to go. You, you give them to eat.”

They said to Him, “We don’t have [anything] here except for five loaves and two fish.”

He said, “Bring them here to me.”

Pause a moment. The One who said “Let there be light” – “and there was”, says to the disciples, “You, you give them something to eat” – and they don’t. Really?

Look again and you will see they do.

Read more widely and you will also see that God responds quite differently to “nothing” than He does to “nothing – except this small / irrelevant / hopeless thing”.

Because the disciples say “nothing except five loaves and two fish”, Jesus is able to say, “bring them to me”. He doesn’t perform magic, nor does He multiply the loaves and fish. If He had, we would read that the disciples had to keep coming back to Jesus to pick up another armful of bread and fish.

He orders the crowd to recline on the grass (i.e. ready to eat when the disciples feed them) and He gives thanks for the food – the “nothing except five loaves and two fish” – with which the disciples were going to feed the five thousand; broke the loaves and gave them back to the disciples. The disciples gave them to the people, who all ate what the disciples gave them and were were satisfied ( reclining on the χόρτου or ‘pasture’, they all ἐχορτάσθησαν or ‘ate their fill’, a term more normally used of cattle!) The disciples collected the leftovers (twelve baskets). Those who ate were five thousand men, not counting the women and children. (οἱ δὲ ἐσθίοντες ἦσαν ἄνδρες ὡσεὶ πεντακισχίλιοι χωρὶς γυναικῶν καὶ παιδίων.)

So what happened?

1. Jesus had already issued the order: “you give them food.”
2. Almost inadvertently, the disciples identified the food with which they would feed the crowd.
3. Giving the food to Jesus, they enable Him to agree with them that this is the food now set aside for God’s assignment and with which they will feed the people. (What would have happened if they had said “No, Lord, that’s silly. We won’t give you the bread and fish”? There wouldn’t have been anything to write about, I suspect know.)
4. He also effectively tells the crowd to get ready because the disciples are about to feed them; given that they had just seen all their sick healed, they almost certainly responded with expectation (“neat, we are going to be fed!”) and trust (which is what faith is), so not only did Jesus agree that the loaves and fish was dinner, the crowd did too.
5. So when Jesus gives the food to the disciples, and they give it to the crowd, the crowd are fed.

Which was Jesus’ command to them in the first place.

So when Jesus gives you a command, you should expect that He will then help you walk that out. In fact, you should probably expect that until you receive and act on His instructions, communicated by Holy Spirit, you won’t be able to fulfil His command.

What you should NOT AT ALL expect, is that He has just set you up “to fail. Again.”

You. You do it!

(Matt: 9:9-13)

The Calling of Matthew: Jesus passes a tax-farmer at his table, says “follow me” and the tax-farmer follows Him. Perfect. And at the end of the day, Matthew hosts a big dinner at his house for all his tax-farmer friends and other ne’er-do-wells.

(Tax farmers are people who buy the right from the Government to collect taxes on the Government’s behalf; to cover their costs, they are allowed to collect whatever they can over and above the actual taxes they have to pass back to the Government. And no, they aren’t very popular, least of all when the Government is a foreign power occupying your country. Think “milking a cow until it runs dry” and you will understand the term tax farmer.)

Of course, the Pharisees gate-crash Matthew’s party and ask Jesus’ disciples why He eats with tax-farmers and sinners. Jesus shuts them up with a simple saying and an instruction to read scripture more carefully.

But perhaps we should too. (Read scripture more carefully, that is.)

Verse 10 in the NIV says “While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples.”

But here’s the Greek:

Καὶ ἐγένετο αὐτοῦ ἀνακειμένου ἐν τῇ οἰκίᾳ, καὶ ἰδοὺ πολλοὶ τελῶναι καὶ ἁμαρτωλοὶ ἐλθόντες συνανέκειντο τῷ Ἰησοῦ καὶ τοῖς μαθηταῖς αὐτοῦ.

Spot the name Matthew. It isn’t there. (If you guessed μαθηταῖς, good work on transliteration but no cigar: μαθηταῖς is disciples.)

The only place Matthew is mentioned is in verse 9, sitting at his table and then getting up and following Jesus.

So visualise this: Jesus tells Matthew to follow Him, and Matthew follows. Imagine his surprise when Jesus leads him to his (Matthew’s) house for dinner, and invites lots of other people in, who are followed in by a bunch of nosey Pharisees.

And of course, that isn’t what happened. Here is my literal translation of verse 10:

And it happened, Him reclining in the house, and behold many tax-farmers and sinners [if you must; I prefer “those not doing so well”] coming reclined with Him and His disciples.

“To eat” is understood as part of “reclining”. The real question is “the house”: which house is that?

And the answer is “Jesus’ house,” of course.

If your immediate response is “but Jesus didn’t have a house”, my question is “why on earth would you think that?” (The answer is, of course, because you have been told that Jesus didn’t have a house. Funnily enough, no one ever quite says He was a homeless man living on a park bench, but that is the implication of not having a house; either that, or endless sofa surfing.)

We don’t know if He owned this house, or rented it, but it is what Rabbis did; they had a house where they lived and which had enough space for their immediate disciples to gather to them or even live with them. Even if we didn’t know that is what Rabbis did (and in Orthodox or Hassidic communities in places like New York City, still do), the gospels are full of references to Jesus’ house and home being in Capernaum. I have written on this at greater length in the Seeing the Kingdom book, which will be available soon(ish), so I won’t repeat everything I wrote there. All I will say now is “read carefully and always note context”, and you may well see it for yourself.

But that isn’t the main point of this post, just a necessary building block if we are to understand what is going on with the Pharisees. Despite what you may have heard, their problem is not so much the fact the Jesus hangs out with, and eats with ‘sinners’ – which is bad enough in their eyes – but rather when they come to His house, hoping to be welcomed and accorded a place of honour as wise men in their own right, come to share enlightened discourse and debate with the Rabbi, they find instead that this Rabbi’s house is full of people who would never in a million years be invited into the house of any other Rabbi; which also means they (the Pharisees) can’t get a place to recline and have to stand around watching.

And when they ask the disciples what is going on here, it is Jesus who replies. The question He is answering is the one I have alluded to above: why on earth does a Rabbi surround himself with riff-raff instead of welcoming potential religious allies, all of them men of good standing and acknowledged righteousness.

“Why do I fill my house with ‘these people’? Easy!”

“It is not necessary for the strong to have a doctor, but those having (or suffering) evil (ἀλλὰ οἱ κακῶς ἔχοντες).

“But go away and learn what this is: ‘Mercy I wish, and not sacrifice.’ For I didn’t come to call the righteous but the wretched.”

We translate this as Mercy because that is the most usual translation for Ἔλεος (along with ‘pity’ and ‘compassion’.) But Hosea 6:6 (which is the passage Jesus quotes) in Hebrew is even stronger: “For lovingkindness (khesed, חֶ֥סֶד) is my desire and not sacrifice.”

The Pharisees are missing the whole point of what they are observing, because for them their religion is about status and recognition. Spending time as the disciple of a well-regarded Rabbi – which Jesus still was, albeit an awkward and worrying one – was a stepping stone to becoming a Rabbi oneself, at some point in the future.

Jesus is saying “that isn’t the game we are playing here: people come to Me because they are wretched and they know I have – and am – the answer. So yes: I fill my house with people who need God’s practical lovingkindness, rather than those who want to debate cases and conditions from the Law.” And, of course, He is also making disciples who will learn to do what He does, ready to fulfil a specific commission; not use their time with Him as a springboard to their own self promotion.

This certainly is a helpful picture to keep in mind as we learn to follow Jesus (do we think we are strong or are we maybe in need? All about me, or all about Him?) And it maybe even more relevant as we obey His commission and make disciples. Are we just recycling the righteous, or are we creating a space that those “having evil” feel welcomed into and able to learn and change?