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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Kerygmania: The Gospel of John, a verse at a time.
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Nigel M
Shipmate
# 11256
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Posted
John 4:23-24
quote:
Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.
I pretty sure the subject of what "spirit and truth" means here has been discussed before in Kerygmania, but I can't remember where. There are some passages in the Jewish Scriptures that link to this saying and may be focus of Jesus' (or John's!) statement.
Perhaps in the context of the debate between Jews and Samaritans concerning which place of worship was the true one, Jesus is here emphasising the spirit aspect - and hence the reference to God being spirit (with no matching mention of God being truth).
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Anselm
Shipmate
# 4499
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Posted
I wonder (off the top of my head) whether "spirit and truth" is a way of subtlety rebuking both Jew and Samaritan approaches to worship.
The "truth" is the rebuke to the Samaritans since they were heterodox in regards to the scriptures, and temple as the centre of worship.
The "spirit" is the rebuke to the Jewish arrogance, since their own faith acknowledged the inadequacy of (how shall I call it?) "Old Testament Judaism". The prophets, and hence their own faith, looked forward a new age, a new covenant, the Age of the Spirit, (eg Jer 31, Ezek 36, Joel 2). It won't be enough to be an 'orthodox' OT Jew, if you miss out on participating in the Age of the Spirit - the age to be ushered in by the Messiah.
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carpe diem domini
...seize the day to play dominoes?
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pimple
Ship's Irruption
# 10635
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Posted
They are all about God pouring his spirit into the people, giving them new heart. But if you scroll down the Joel quote you find he's still banging on about Mount Zion and Jerusalem!
Perhaps Jesus had this prophecy in mind in the saying quoted by Matthew (7:21):
Not every one that saith unto me Lord, Lord will be saved; but he that doeth the will of my Father vthat is in heaven.
Joel had said:
And everyone who calleth on the name of the Lord shall be saved.
For Jesus, actions speak louder than words. For John, beliefs speak louder than anything. He repeats - or Jesus does - the remark about true believers in the face-off with Pilate in Chap.18
[ETA This is not meant in any way to criticise Anselm's interesting and informative post]
[ 17. December 2008, 04:03: Message edited by: pimple ]
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In other words, just because I made it all up, doesn't mean it isn't true (Reginald Hill)
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Nigel M
Shipmate
# 11256
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Posted
There's a couple of issues here that I guess will apply:-
1] Just what did the Samaritans believe? Given that they venerated the first five books (Torah) only, would they have discounted anything from the prophets as being un-godly propaganda from those schismatic Jerusalem Jews (even if the prophet was said to have been operating in the northern Kingdom)?
2] What approach was John taking as an author? Granting he was writing with the aim of effecting change in his audience, was he nevertheless recounting historical events with an eye to accuracy, or was he adapting the episodes he knew about to suit his aim, or was he making up the episodes? If he had an eye to accuracy, then presumably [1] above is an important issue. If not, then it may be that Jewish prophecies were part of the presupposition pool, because who in John's audience would have cared much for what the Samaritans thought?
I tend towards the belief that John did select historical events that suited his key aim. I suspect that it did matter to John that this episode involved a Samaritan, rather than anyone else, just as it mattered to him that Nathaniel was a 'true Israelite' (1:44-49) and Nicodemus a Pharisee on the ruling council in Jerusalem (3:1): Galilee, Jerusalem and now Samaria. Each with a distinctive view of who Jesus was - Son of God, Teacher, Prophet – and each one with antipathy towards the other.
Perhaps John is recording the need for believers to overcome parochial mindsets and go beyond mere geography (which links to Anselm's point), and that would imply the need to act on the basis of a different mindset (as pimple says). Recognition of Jesus seems to count for something here!
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fusilli
Shipmate
# 2930
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Posted
If I could just add a little to Anselm's excellent post:
[spirit] is also a rebuke to the Samaritains as they "worship what you do not know" (v22) and it is the Spirit who reveals him;
[truth] is also a rebuke to the Pharisess because "salvation is from the Jews" (also v22) but the Pharisees, by their pervertion of the law made it very difficult for their fellow Jews to find salvation and almost imposible for anyone else.
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I want to be weaker, give help to the strong ("Deeper" by Martin Smith)
"... my power is made perfect in weakness" (2 Cor 12:9)
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Nigel M
Shipmate
# 11256
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Posted
Hard on the heels of spirit and truth comes this climax:
John 4:25-26
quote:
The woman said, “I know that Messiah (called Christ) is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”
Jesus replied, “I Am – the one speaking to you”.
It's not brought out in the English translations too well - and that may be because it isn't relevant) - but I adapted it in the above quote: Jesus' reply uses the “I am” phrase (ego eimi = εγο ειμι). It's an emphatic of saying “That's me” - and that may be all that's intended here - but John does record this phrase on Jesus' lips in other places. most notably in John 8:58, where it really does seem to be a link to God's personal name (Yahweh). Could be John is making a 'Messiah = Lord' thing here in chapter 4.
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Nigel M
Shipmate
# 11256
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Posted
John 4:27
quote:
At this point the disciples came back. They were shocked because Jesus was speaking with a woman. However, none of them asked what he wanted or why he was speaking with her.
My mother used to warn me about speaking to strange women, too.
John may be having a bit of fun at the disciples' expense here - actually, apart from that resurrection thing, what else do you find in common in the 4 gospels? - because in verse 26 Jesus makes that dramatic explanation about his speaking to her. The disciples miss it, either because they were not privy to the context, or because they were still behind the times in understanding Jesus and his mission. And perhaps they were more familiar with those Proverbs about strange women.
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pimple
Ship's Irruption
# 10635
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Posted
John just doesn't strike me as a man of fun, I'm afraid. But the remark about what the disciples didn't say or do is typical - and interesting. There must be a reason for it. Without pre-empting discussion on another verse too far ahead, there is a parallel (possibly) in the "epilogue". When the disciples see the risen Jesus on the shore, they all recognise him, but nobody asks him who he is.
Is it fear? Awe? Or does John mean "....because they didn't have to" (nudge,nudge)?
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In other words, just because I made it all up, doesn't mean it isn't true (Reginald Hill)
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pimple
Ship's Irruption
# 10635
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Posted
Moving on, then? John 4:28-30
quote:
Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, "Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?" They left the city and were on their way to him.
She left the water jar there by the well! She was in a great hurry to share her discovery.
"...everything I have ever done" sounds a bit OTT - but perhaps that was the way it was, and John paraphrased the conversation for us. A perfectly normal , valid, reasonable thing for narrator to do. But what a pity!
[ 07. April 2009, 18:37: Message edited by: pimple ]
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In other words, just because I made it all up, doesn't mean it isn't true (Reginald Hill)
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Nigel M
Shipmate
# 11256
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Posted
Apologies, I didn't post on the earlier post, pimple.
I wonder if part of the background up to now has also been the expectations that this woman-at-the-well event was going to match the similar events in the Old Testament: e.g., Isaac and Rebekah (Genesis 24), and Jacob and Rachel (Genesis 29). Here a man (Jesus) meets a woman stranger at a well. Does it end up in marriage? The woman's conversation seems to suggest she was veering that way - but Jesus trumps things by referring to her previous husbands.
Anyway, rhetoric at work at the well. I wonder what the town people's expectations of a Messiah were? There doesn't seem to be any inhibitions on the part of the people to having the news broken to them by a woman. And at a well - with marriage in the air? Lots of little messianettes running around later? The plot could go anywhere!
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pimple
Ship's Irruption
# 10635
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Posted
Bump. See "Well well well" ?
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In other words, just because I made it all up, doesn't mean it isn't true (Reginald Hill)
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pimple
Ship's Irruption
# 10635
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Posted
A difficul passage to split up follows. But shipmates may, of course, chew over each verse for as long as they like:
John 4:31-38
Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, "Rabbi, eat something". 32 But he said to them, "I have food to eat that you do not know about." 33 So the disciples said to one another,"Surely no-one has brought him something to eat?" 34 Jesus said to them, my food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work.
35 Do you not say, 'Four months and then the harvest? But but look around you and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. 36 The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together.
37 For here the saying holds true 'One sows and another reaps'. I sent you to reap that for which you did not labour. Others have labored, and you have enetered into their labour."
The metaphor seems a bit strained to me (but he would say that, wouldn't he? ![[Biased]](wink.gif) but there's a very powerful message coming across here, which I think John has probably captured in spite of himself!
[ 05. May 2009, 11:56: Message edited by: pimple ]
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In other words, just because I made it all up, doesn't mean it isn't true (Reginald Hill)
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pimple
Ship's Irruption
# 10635
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Posted
Somethiong got lost there in the editing process. Too rushed. Stupid fucking system. You sort it out! ![[Mad]](angryfire.gif)
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In other words, just because I made it all up, doesn't mean it isn't true (Reginald Hill)
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
( ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif) )
(There, there...)
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
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Nigel M
Shipmate
# 11256
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Posted
Well (an apt word for this passage), I got as far as v.31 “Eat something” and felt the Lord was leading me to the kitchen.
Time passed, and having wiped matters prandial from my mouth, I returned to the fray and noted Jesus' ability to turn the mundane into a riddle. I wonder if Jesus was like this all the time?
quote:
A guy walks into a pub and sees Jesus at the bar. “Hi there, J; how's it hanging?”
“I will hang for three days and will then draw the world to me.”
Pause while brain ticks over – and back again. “I'll have what he's having” (addressed to bartender). Turns back to Jesus: “So... nice day out, then?”
“My Father has days of eternal bliss.”
“Don't we all” said with a chuckle, broken abruptly while brain wonders at the appropriateness of that response, but unable to figure out just what would have been an appropriate response. “Nuts, perhaps?” Passing the tray along the bar.
“The time is coming when nuts will be ground down to dust and will be blown away by the wind.”
“Yeah, I'm allergic, too.” Sips thoughtfully at drink. Realises that this approach is unlikely to achieve philosophical nirvana, so adopts gulping at drink approach. “How's the old woman, then?”
“You have had seven women and the woman you have now is not a woman.”
A guy totters out of a pub...
Focus, Nigel, focus. The old proverb quoted in v.37 (“One sows and another reaps”) doesn't occur in this form in the Jewish Writings. It could be that Jesus is telling his followers that whatever they think has been taught (sown) in the minds of people outside of Israel, those people don't need to be initiated into a Judaic catechism before they can properly be 'saved.' They are ready for the Kingdom right where they are, if only the Kingdom apostle knows how to address them.
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Jamat
Shipmate
# 11621
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Posted
quote:
John 4:31-38
Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, "Rabbi, eat something". 32 But he said to them, "I have food to eat that you do not know about." 33 So the disciples said to one another,"Surely no-one has brought him something to eat?" 34 Jesus said to them, my food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work
My take on John's account is that he is portraying Christ as the new Moses. Clearer later in the loaves miracle but Jesus' metaphor of spiritual food and him as source of same harks back to the manna event in exodus.
Practically, he simply points out that We don't live by bread alone but by every word. The 'rhem' word (spoken) word suggests that when God speaks into us, we feed spiritually.This is
all most udoubtedly true (food for thought.)
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Jamat ..in utmost longditude, where Heaven
with Earth and ocean meets, the setting sun slowly descended, and with right aspect
Against the eastern gate of Paradise. (Milton Paradise Lost Bk iv)
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Nigel M
Shipmate
# 11256
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Posted
An intriguing phrase on Jesus' lips in verse 34:-
quote:
My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish/accomplish/bring to a conclusion his work
What did that mean? Jesus was to finish off God's work? Did he? Which work was finished? Or does it refer to something ongoing?
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Jamat
Shipmate
# 11621
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Nigel M:
An intriguing phrase on Jesus' lips in verse 34:-
quote:
My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish/accomplish/bring to a conclusion his work
What did that mean? Jesus was to finish off God's work? Did he? Which work was finished? Or does it refer to something ongoing?
Speculating here but since it was A Samaritan woman who is the relevant person here, he could be making a point that his calling was also ultimately to the gentile world. His work was 'complete' when his message, reached the wider world not just jews. This statement pre empted later events in other words.
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Jamat ..in utmost longditude, where Heaven
with Earth and ocean meets, the setting sun slowly descended, and with right aspect
Against the eastern gate of Paradise. (Milton Paradise Lost Bk iv)
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Nigel M
Shipmate
# 11256
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Posted
Yes, that's a possibility - Jesus as a model of the Jewish responsibility to be a light to the gentiles. He represents Israel as it was meant to be and goes into Samaria to 'gospel' a representative of the Samaritans.
I just wonder if that would really constitute bringing God's plan to a conclusion? I suppose reconciling the world to God could be the ultimate conclusion and Jesus sets the pace for his followers.
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Jamat
Shipmate
# 11621
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Nigel M:
Yes, that's a possibility - Jesus as a model of the Jewish responsibility to be a light to the gentiles. He represents Israel as it was meant to be and goes into Samaria to 'gospel' a representative of the Samaritans.
I just wonder if that would really constitute bringing God's plan to a conclusion? I suppose reconciling the world to God could be the ultimate conclusion and Jesus sets the pace for his followers.
Agree, as if prefiguring Paul in Romans 8-10, the jews rejection is the Gentiles opportunity.
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Jamat ..in utmost longditude, where Heaven
with Earth and ocean meets, the setting sun slowly descended, and with right aspect
Against the eastern gate of Paradise. (Milton Paradise Lost Bk iv)
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Jamat
Shipmate
# 11621
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Posted
John 4:39-46(a)
39 And from that city, many of the Samaritans believed in him because of the word of the woman who testified."He told me all the things that I have done."
40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they were asking him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days.
41 and many more believed because of his word.
42 And they were saying to the woman, "It is nolonger because of what you have said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves and know that this one is indeed the saviour of the world."
43 And after two days he went forth from there into Galilee.
44 For Jesus himself testified that a prophhet has no honour in his own country
45 So when he came to galilee, the Galileans received him having seen all the things that he did in jerusalem at the feast for they themselves also went to the feast.
46 he came therefore to Cana of galilee where he had made the water wine....
This is a big chunk and a transitional passage.
One of the things that strikes me is how the Samaritans seemed to widely accept what the Jews would not accept, ie Jesus' Messianic claims. Yet he would not stay there and become identified with them. He has the record of moving through Gentile territory, but never staying long.
It is also interesting that in this instance, when he went to Galilee, his home area he was accepted, but for a different reason from the Samaritan acceptance. In Galilee, they were remembering his miracles done in jerusalem. The Samaritans, were convinced by his word.
Interesting.
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Jamat ..in utmost longditude, where Heaven
with Earth and ocean meets, the setting sun slowly descended, and with right aspect
Against the eastern gate of Paradise. (Milton Paradise Lost Bk iv)
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Nigel M
Shipmate
# 11256
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Posted
Signs and Worders – the two halves to the gospel!
John 4:46b – 47
quote:
In Capernaum there was a royal official whose son was sick. When he heard that Jesus had come back from Judea to Galilee, he went to him and begged him to come down and heal his son, who was close to death.
If John is deliberate in his plot thus far, he has recorded Jesus engaging with a religious Jewish teacher (Nicodemus), a religious Samaritan woman, and now he brings on a senior civil servant. Is this administrative officer a Gentile? It would be neat move it he was – given that we would then be moving outwards from Jerusalem and the Jewish religious establishment, through Samaria and now on to the world (First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin!), in a script reminiscent of the post-resurrection call to be witnesses to the good news “in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts1:8, see also Luke 24:47). An echo of this here in John, perhaps?
The thing is, though, that John doesn't specify the ethnic origin of the administrator. Presumably he worked for Herod Antipas, the Tetrarch. Capernaum seems to have been a fairly cosmopolitan place, with a mix of Jews and Gentiles. Matthew and Luke record this place as the home of the Roman Centurion who asked Jesus to heal his servant (Matt. 8:5-13; // Lk. 7:1-10) and there has been some debate in the commentaries about whether that episode was linked to the John account.
So, perhaps a Gentile (Roman?) official, but not clear to us from John's account. Perhaps it was obvious to his audience and therefore not worth spelling out.
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Jamat
Shipmate
# 11621
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Posted
What we know of Antipas is that he was religious, taking note of John the Baptist despite later having him executed.
As a politician and a religious Jew, it is perhaps likely that he would employ Jews as officials as this would be more acceptable to his constituents and his conscience.
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Jamat ..in utmost longditude, where Heaven
with Earth and ocean meets, the setting sun slowly descended, and with right aspect
Against the eastern gate of Paradise. (Milton Paradise Lost Bk iv)
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Nigel M
Shipmate
# 11256
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Posted
That's quite possible, though he was accountable to Rome and seems to have gone out of his way to curry favour with his political masters – e.g., building Tiberius as his capital and dedicating it to the emperor. Not an enviable position: balancing religious sensibilities with political realities.
John 4:48
quote:
So Jesus said to him, "Unless you people see signs and wonders, you simply will not believe."
Often wondered about this. Were the Jews wrong to insist on some validation of the claims by assorted leaders and Messiahs that kept popping out of the woodwork? How else to test the claims? Without a sign that the claimant was supported by God, wouldn't any old charlatan lead the people astray? From the religious leaders' point of view, they seem to be between a rock and a hard place. Unless John is on about something else...
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Jamat
Shipmate
# 11621
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Posted
Do you think this reflects that John's account is selective and not chronological. If so, Jesus may well have done many miracles there already and is objecting to people wanting him to perform for the throng as if he was doing party tricks while they fail to see the messianic significance of what he is doing. The official may have been pushed to the fore by curious but uncommitted Jewish leaders as another of the 'tests' we read quite a lot about in the Gospel.
Mostly speculation I know.
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Jamat ..in utmost longditude, where Heaven
with Earth and ocean meets, the setting sun slowly descended, and with right aspect
Against the eastern gate of Paradise. (Milton Paradise Lost Bk iv)
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Nigel M
Shipmate
# 11256
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Posted
I'm sure he is selective – in fact he admits as much in respect of content in 20:30 (“Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book.”), and I have wondered whether he is selective as to chronology as well. The tricky thing is that he makes liberal use of time markers to mark sections of material (which often coincide with geographical markers, too). For example:
1:29 - “The next day...” (after the prologue and the Baptist's witness), with location given in verse 28 as the other side of the Jordan;
1:35 - “The next day...”;
1:43 - “The next day...” where Jesus leaves for Galilee;
2:1 - “On the third day...” which might be the third day after arriving in Galilee (Cana)?;
2:12 - “After this...” Jesus goes to Capernaum;
2:13 - “Almost time for Passover...” Jesus goes to Jerusalem;
3:22 - “”After this...” Jesus goes to the Judean countryside;
4:1-2 - “When Jesus knew...” Jesus then leaves for Galilee;
4:40 - “When the Samaritans came to him...” Jesus stayed two days;
4:43 - “After the two days...” Jesus travels to Galilee.
There seems to be a deliberate time stamp to the narrative. The only exception to the rule is the introduction of Nicodemus in 3:1 - “Now there was a man...” This type of phrase usually introduces a new section and here it might also signal a break in the chronology. John might have introduced his work with an extended 'witness', running from the prologue to the Temple cleansing (which appears closer to the end of the narratives in the other three gospels). This larger section – 1:1 to 2:25 is about testimony: the Baptist's testimony features strongly and ends with the statement that Jesus did not need human testimony (2:25).
This might mean that chapter 3 signals the start of an 'out-of-chronology' larger section, running from chapter 3 to the end of 4, dealing with encounters with individuals representative of different backgrounds (possibly): Nicodemus, Samaritan woman, governmental official.
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pimple
Ship's Irruption
# 10635
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Posted
Originally posted by Nigel M:
quote:
There seems to be a deliberate time-stamp to the narrative
I always understood - or rather, was told - that this was indeed John's intent. And that's why it makes such good drama. There's a unity of time, place and action. Time: the week before the Passover. Place: Jerusalem ( or the journey to it) Action: Crucifixion and resurrection.
Some of the later insertions seem to subvert this, as do the long discourses towards the end. Maybe they only reason they don't work for me/us dramatically is that we don't have the time/patience for long speeches. Greek drama had longer ones (I think) and had 'em rooted to their seats.
[ 07. August 2009, 11:27: Message edited by: pimple ]
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In other words, just because I made it all up, doesn't mean it isn't true (Reginald Hill)
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Jamat
Shipmate
# 11621
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Posted
FWIW perhaps we could distinguish between a micro-chronology and a 'macro' one. IO Words, the gospel of John is filmically constructed (and constructed it certainly is). We have chronologically patterned scenes within a wider epic structure which in overall design may contain flashbacks or 'flashforwards'.
John does progress from Christ's baptism to his resurrection, and uses the Passover feasts of his ministry life as markers. However, the long dissertations and the famous encounters with, say Nicodemus and others, could have been inserted out of chronological order to fit John's literary design. Thus one has 7 'I am' statements and seven messianic signs.
What think you?
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Jamat ..in utmost longditude, where Heaven
with Earth and ocean meets, the setting sun slowly descended, and with right aspect
Against the eastern gate of Paradise. (Milton Paradise Lost Bk iv)
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Nigel M
Shipmate
# 11256
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Posted
It's certainly worth testing to see where it might end, Jamat. I've been wanting to test out a thought arising from your post, but haven't had the time to do it yet: Could the various references to Passovers be, in fact, just the one and same Passover feast, that John surrounds with his narratives from earlier occasions?
So, for example, chapter 2 has Jesus up for the Passover, performing signs and irritating the institutional religious leaders. This ends with a statement about 'testimony' and then John breaks away to another (prior) occasion with chapter 3. We catch up with the Passover narrative again towards the end of the Gospel.
Not sure how that pans out with the rest of John's Gospel yet, though...
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Jamat
Shipmate
# 11621
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Posted
Perhaps the cleansing of the temple also is an event out of order since it is so different to the synoptics. One thinks John is seeking a very 'patterned' account.
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Jamat ..in utmost longditude, where Heaven
with Earth and ocean meets, the setting sun slowly descended, and with right aspect
Against the eastern gate of Paradise. (Milton Paradise Lost Bk iv)
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
{BUMP}
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Kerygmania host
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See you later, alligator.
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Nigel M
Shipmate
# 11256
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Posted
Another good thread that disappeared below the radar until the happy bump! The thread was halfway through an episode in John 4 - the healing of the official's son. Considering that the poor son has been close to death since August, I'll push on to provide the opportunity for posting, in case the poor son goes down another time.
John 4:49-50
quote:
The royal official said [to Jesus], "Sir, Come down before my son dies." Jesus replied to him, "Off you go; your son will live." The man believed the word spoken to him and departed.
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Pooks
Shipmate
# 11425
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Posted
This is one of those verses that could be used to inspire faith or make someone feel really condemned for the lack of it. I have to admit that when I am doing well spiritually, reading this does inspire me to think that all things are possible with God. But whenever I hear it from the lips of a faith healing preacher, I always feel a little dubious, if not down right consternation - depending on how it‘s being used.
There are so many possibilities on how this verse is understood, I would love to hear what the shipmates think of this.
Posts: 1547 | Registered: May 2006
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pimple
Ship's Irruption
# 10635
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Posted
So the man trusted Jesus, and everything was ok. Compare this with Jesus's reassurance that Lazarus wasn't in mortal danger. They buried him anyway. Some people never learn!
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In other words, just because I made it all up, doesn't mean it isn't true (Reginald Hill)
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
Um, that isn't PRECISELY what Jesus told them... But wait till we get there (if we ever do).
Regarding the "He's okay, go home" bit, I think anybody who generalizes from this is asking for trouble. If Jesus says it, yeah, sure, you betcha. But if anybody else says it to me, I'm afraid I'd still be dragging them along by the ear until I saw it with my own eyes. And really, anybody who has a problem with that (the hypothetical faith healer) is sending up major red flags. I'd probably say, "Bud, you ain't Jesus."
That said--Jesus does seem to adapt himself to the faith maturity (or lack thereof) of the people he's dealing with. Some he simply says the word and sends them off; we hear of no cases where the person in question does what I would have done, and says, "Come along with me." So presumably Jesus judged these great-faith folk correctly (either that, or you can cook up a Gospel cover-up conspiracy theory, take yer choice).
To others, he goes along for the walk (Jairus' daughter comes to mind).
To still others, he actually "does" something--smooths mud on their eyes, sticks his fingers in their ears, whatever. No doubt he could have just "said the word" but apparently saw some specific value for the person in going further.
A good doctor, I'd say.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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pimple
Ship's Irruption
# 10635
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Posted
Amen to that. That and much more! ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
[ 03. December 2009, 10:36: Message edited by: pimple ]
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In other words, just because I made it all up, doesn't mean it isn't true (Reginald Hill)
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pimple
Ship's Irruption
# 10635
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Posted
Sorry pardon - I jumped the gun with my earlier post. Here's the rest of the story - which I shall make no comment on, but eagerly await yours:
quote:
As he was going down, his slaves met him and told him that his child was alive.52 So he asked them the hour when he began to recover, and they said to him, "Yesterday at one in the afternoon the fever left him."53 The father realised that this was the hour when Jesus had said to him, "Your son will live." So he himself believed.54 Now this was the second sign that Jesus did after coming from Judea to Galilee.
[John4:51-54]
[ 18. December 2009, 13:30: Message edited by: pimple ]
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In other words, just because I made it all up, doesn't mean it isn't true (Reginald Hill)
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Nigel M
Shipmate
# 11256
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Posted
One of those annoying facts about John's Gospel is that he sets the listener up to expect a series of 'signs', he even starts to count them, but then he leaves off! We have “the beginning of the signs” in 2:11 (water into wine at Cana), here we have “the second of his signs” (healing the official's son), but from here on we are left to count for ourselves. We have general references to signs in places, or requests from Jesus' opponents to perform signs, but nothing clearly signalled as part of a series. Assuming, that is, that John had intended to set out a series of signs.
All a reader might know thus far in the Gospel would be:-
1] The signs reveal Jesus' glory (2:11);
2] This might be a reference back to the Introduction at 1:14 (“We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only son...”);
3] The disciples had been told they would see great things associated with belief (1:51), including “the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man”;
4] And that is likely a link back to Dan. 7:13, where one like a son of man approaches the Ancient of Days to be given authority, but also back to Jacob's ladder (Gen. 28:12).
A couple of signs, then, pointing (it seems) at demonstrating Jesus' association with God's authority figure, who reveals glory and aims to prod people into belief. Nicely charismatic!
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pimple
Ship's Irruption
# 10635
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Posted
Can I start the introduction to Sign No.3? Maybe I should wait until after Christmas. That gives y'all a few days to add comments on the current verses.
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In other words, just because I made it all up, doesn't mean it isn't true (Reginald Hill)
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Jamat
Shipmate
# 11621
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Posted
John 4;46-54
This is perhaps noted as a sign because it happened outside of Judea. The fact that it happened at Cana where the first sign occurred is interesting since that sign (water into wine) seems specifically performed for the disciples. It says and they believed on him as a consequence.
This second sign is more public since it is done for a prominent person. I think that Jesus was sending a message to the leaders whom he knew would hear about him. I think that his actions at this stage of his life, were calculated to force a decision to be made about him. He could not be ignored and must therefor be accepted or rejected. The leaders have a track record of sending deputations to observe and question. My understanding was that this was current practice in dealing with a prospective messiah. They did it with John the Baptist too. Jesus is forcing them to seek him out as well as blessing the official, who as was one of Antipas's people. The sign becomes therefore a political statement for him as well.
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Jamat ..in utmost longditude, where Heaven
with Earth and ocean meets, the setting sun slowly descended, and with right aspect
Against the eastern gate of Paradise. (Milton Paradise Lost Bk iv)
Posts: 3228 | From: New Zealand | Registered: Jul 2006
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Nigel M
Shipmate
# 11256
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Posted
John 5:1-3
quote:
After this there was a Jewish feast, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool called Bethzatha in Aramaic, which has five covered walkways. A great number of sick, blind, lame, and paralyzed people were lying in these walkways.
A fair whack of discussion has arisen out of these few verses. Which Jewish feast and does it matter? Is it really 'Sheep Gate' that is being referred to, or another – and where is it anyway? Does it matter? Is it Bethzatha, or Bethesda, or something else? Does it matter? Should it really be 'Aramaic' when the Greek says 'Hebrew'? Does it matter? Does the use of the present tense (“Now there is in Jerusalem...”) argue for a pre-AD 70 date for John's Gospel? Some later manuscripts add “waiting for the moving of the water” at the end of this passage and a few begin the following verse with a note that an angel of the Lord would pop down from time to time to stir things up, giving the opportunity for the first disabled person to get into the water and be healed. Does it matter that this was probably a later addition and therefore not part of what John had to say?
Such a dense passage (linguistic scholars do like the 'dense' word), packed with situational settings and a fair number of questions. But, really, does it matter?
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pimple
Ship's Irruption
# 10635
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Posted
To whom? Do you mean should it matter?
I guess it depends on whether people are genuinely curious or just filibustering.
Everything matters to somebody, and "does it matter?" sounds most uncharacteristically dismissive from someone who delves deeper than most. Usually.
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In other words, just because I made it all up, doesn't mean it isn't true (Reginald Hill)
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Nigel M
Shipmate
# 11256
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by pimple:
To whom? Do you mean should it matter?
It does sound rather dismissive in the cold light of day! It was more a thinking out aloud as I read those few verses again - Thought: John packs a fair amount of geography into this section; presumably he meant to do so (i.e. he wouldn't waste valuable parchment space on boring his readers with a "And here's one of me with Granny at the seaside - and another one - and another one..."). So, why is it there? That's the question for me. Why did John think it worthwhile to keep his readers up to speed on location, location, location?
Strangely (to my ears-at-a-distance), John leaves out of this background section the fact that it was the Sabbath (it crops up later - there, now I've spoilt the plot!). He provides an enigmatic temporal fixing point: the "Jewish Feast," without being very specific on that, but then gives us GPS co-ordinates for the place. Is this significant, I wonders, yes I does. You're right - that could be broken down into:-
[1] Was this intended to be significant for John's intended audience?
[2] Is it significant for us today?
Number [2] above might depend on the answer to [1] to an extent, though it's always possible to find a significance in a text even if the author hadn't intended anything along those lines. The burgeoning tourist trade at the supposed location in Jerusalem, for example!
I haven't come across a 'Geography of John' piece of research to assess whether his desire to fix locations in such a way is thought to be significant. Commentaries struggle more with the textual variant issue - which might imply that copyists, even from earliest times, also struggled with these geographical references. Quite possibly once Jerusalem had been done over by the Roman armies, and as copies of the Gospel moved further afield, memories faded or were simply absent as readers/copyists struggled to work with place names they were not familiar with. That fact alone raises one of those "Does it matter?" questions because, although I doubt a major piece of dogma stands or falls on the precise location of a pool of water in Jerusalem, it highlights the question of veracity in the text as a Text from God.
More questions than answers, I'm afraid! But that's what I get when I haven't had my first cup of tea for the day. Time for a brew and, who knows, that might lead to the third miraculous sign for the day (the first being waking up, the second posting here without tea).
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pimple
Ship's Irruption
# 10635
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Posted
Jolly decent of you, Sir! I thought I was the only one around here who thought out loud and posted before waking up proper...
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In other words, just because I made it all up, doesn't mean it isn't true (Reginald Hill)
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pimple
Ship's Irruption
# 10635
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Posted
And now for a big, big, jump....
Right, with my believer's hat on I'd like to say that the question of veracity as a true text from God is a wonderfully intriguing one. Those who want to impart the good news (then and now) take great pains to get things exactly right. Do they/we sometimes try too hard?
God can surely take care of himself and speak for himself, and since the only way he speaks is through fallible human beings (?) then
it follows that when slips are made, the TROOF should shine through. This does not make the evangelist sub-stndard, merely human.
One thing a poet really likes is when a reader gets more out of a poem than the author puts in - provided she hasn't missed the point completely. How many evangelists can share this delight?
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In other words, just because I made it all up, doesn't mean it isn't true (Reginald Hill)
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Jamat
Shipmate
# 11621
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Posted
The feast plus the location plus the sabbath adds up to quite a package. The net result was the huge controversy over the respect for the sabbath and the miracle seems to serve the purpose of provoking a response by the leaders to Jesus' messianic claims..one of a number of incidents that do so. regarding the location, it seems that John is structured around Jesus' visits to jerusalem culminating in the 'triumphal' entry.
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Jamat ..in utmost longditude, where Heaven
with Earth and ocean meets, the setting sun slowly descended, and with right aspect
Against the eastern gate of Paradise. (Milton Paradise Lost Bk iv)
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Nigel M
Shipmate
# 11256
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by pimple:
...the TROOF should shine through.
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
...provoking a response...
The idea that John was following a model established by Jesus – that of provoking a response – is a neat one. I'm sure the same could be said of all the biblical writers, but John seems to be capable of knitting together a variety of styles to do this. He sets up a historical framework ('at a certain place in a certain time'), spins a good yarn (story-telling as narrative), weaves in tension (confrontation of Jesus with religious teachers), knits it together with theology (seamless cohesion between the plot and the bits where John makes a point about God and his ways of working), ties it off with some tidy metaphors (light v. darkness, receive v. not-receive, life v. condemnation...), and then to exhaust my knitting metaphor, he 'pulls the wool over our eyes' in a nice sense, of course, by having us think we were just reading a book only to stop us dead in our tracks afterwards when it dawns on us that he had successfully drawn us into another world and forced us (even if we were unaware of it) to decide for or against the message. Clever John, eh?
This is probably where God's truth lights up the darkness. A message by a human, in human words, cleverly arranged, causes rampant dislocation in our personal worlds because it allows God by the Spirit to challenge us.
Actually - it's also an interesting thought that we should try to read John (and other writers) as poets. Reading out loud probably helps here - though not a la church intonational monotone!
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pimple
Ship's Irruption
# 10635
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Posted
Yes. If you look at the Gospel of Thomas - just a haphazard collection of sayings at first sight, it is easy to see how the synoptic writers might have come by some of their material, and also the crying need for context, to avoid simply treating the sayings as "Holy Writ" to go all glossy-eyed over, rather than demands for action in the old prophetic tradition.
John takes the process one stage further. He does not feel constrained by the synoptists'
chronology, because the historical framework is just that, a framework, and not the chief point.
Why, I can hear him saying "Chronology? Does it matter?"
Jamat's point about the way John structures the gospel - a week of visits to Jerusalem - each heightenng the tension, and seven (?) signs spaced out to emphasise both the enormity of what Jesus' enemies are about to do - which will be set against - ah, well, wait and see - we're not there yet. Something like that? is what I was taught too.
[ 27. April 2010, 19:12: Message edited by: pimple ]
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In other words, just because I made it all up, doesn't mean it isn't true (Reginald Hill)
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Nigel M
Shipmate
# 11256
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Posted
I do try to convince my bosses when I stroll into an office a few months after everyone else has gotten up that, really, chronology doesn't matter. “Take on board the approach to life adopted by African churches,” I reason, “a meeting at 08:30 in the a.m. is really a guideline, not a law...”
The time has come (Ha!) for me to move things on, seeing as it's down to me because I posted the first comment on the last verse entry (I need to keep up to speed on these rules!).
However, so as not to be greedy, I'll comment on the next verse before I post it. There's always a way around rules.
Actually, there is a bit of a dilemma here: the next verse (four and the last bit of three) may not have been one from John's pen. I'll let John step outside for a breath of fresh air at this point (he could do with a break) while I take a look at this enigma.
Some modern versions omit the uncertain text (set out below) without comment, some add the text in a footnote, others include them in the main text within brackets, yet others barge through the lot without comment. A sample of English versions can be found here. Additionally, the popular edition of the Jerusalem Bible includes the text without comment, the NET edition has it in a footnote, The KJV includes without comment, the New KJV includes it but adds a footnote concerning the uncertainty around the text, whereas the 21st Century KJV probably felt such a footnote gave too much away to devilish manuscripts because it reverts to the KJV approach. The Eastern Orthodox bible includes the text in main body, but with footnotes and brackets to indicate its provenance.
The problem is that the earliest manuscripts available do not have the text. It appears only in later copies.
So – a question I have come across before in the relation to this and similar texts (e.g., parts of chapters 8 and 21) is: If this text was not part of John's original writing, and therefore not part of the really early church's Scripture, should a Christian preach from it? Should any Christian be seeking to apply significances from this text to his or her life?
The relevant stretch of text at issue is as follows – following the list of types of disability in the first half of verse three:
quote:
John(?) 5:3b-4
...waiting for the water to move. For an angel of the Lord went down from time to time into the pool and stirred up the water. Whoever first stepped in after the stirring was healed from whatever disease which he suffered.
Posts: 2826 | From: London, UK | Registered: Apr 2006
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pimple
Ship's Irruption
# 10635
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Posted
Well, if context is all (is it?) where's the context if we don't know why all those sick people gathered there?
I guess the first readers of John would not have had a problem with angels stirring the waters (an echo of Genesis?). My only "objection" would be the arbitrariness of the "first come, first (and only) served" rule. Sounds like Lear's (or Gloucester's) "Like flies to wanton boys are we to the gods..."
Perhaps some copyist who knew the oral tradition decided to put it back in the story after John had decided to leave it out as unhelpful.
Preach on the doubtful verses? As my old mentor would say, "Very interesting. Where's the gospel?"
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In other words, just because I made it all up, doesn't mean it isn't true (Reginald Hill)
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