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As a guy who writes books and teaches for a living, I’ve definitely got some ideas. But reading this morning in John 7, I was brought back to the truth that, well, what I’ve got to teach really isn’t that important. What I need to do is relay information that has existed for centuries, truths that existed even before there were centuries. In John 7:14, Jesus, goes to the temple and begins to teach. And apparently he knew what he was talking about. People remarked at how learned he was, even though he wasn’t a student. Of course what he was teaching was that he, in flesh and bone, was the fulfillment of the prophesies in the ancient text. The prophesies had told of a coming Messiah. The Jews, of course, rejected him because he didn’t look the part (He wasn’t like the image they had built up in their imagination) but none the less, he knew the text inside and out (most of the people who knew the text inside and out rejected him, so that’s not praise for knowing the text). Jesus says of his teaching “My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me.” And I [...]

In John 7, Jesus decides to go to Galilee and avoid Judea because the Jews in Judea were hatching a plan to kill Him. I often turn my faith into voodoo like seances and emotion-filled prayers in seeking God’s will, while Jesus Himself just uses common sense. I’m not going to Judea, He says, because those guys are trying to kill me. I’ll go over to Galilee instead. I hear they have a Dairy Queen. I remember reading a big report from a church I used to go to, a vision statement outlining the plan for the church to grow. It involved buying new property and building a new building and  more than quadrupling the size of the congregation over the next twenty years or so. When I read it, I remember thinking that the vision lacked common sense. The church was in a rural area, and there was no growth happening in the community. It seemed like, if you wanted to reach more people, you’d just send another pastor into an area closer to town and plant another church. It would be a lot cheaper to do it that way anyway. But the vision was couched in a lot [...]

In John 6, Jesus loses some of his followers after He tells them they have to eat his flesh and drink His blood. I imagine they thought he was crazy. And I would have thought he was crazy too. But it was the twelve disciples who remained. And why? It’s not because Jesus clarified he was speaking metaphorically (it might have been nice for him to have clarified that, though) it was because they said they had no other choice. They believed he was the son of God, and they really had no other options. They literally said to him “where else are we going to go?” The striking thing about this passage, for me, was that Jesus lived out the earlier theme from John that he did not get his glory from man. He had no need for man’s approval. (contrast this with our own desire for approval from each other) He did not care that they thought he was crazy. And it’s not because he was captain confidence, it was because man literally had no glory to offer him at all. His glory would come from the father. Ever been to a foreign country where the food was [...]

Lately I’ve been reading from the book of John, every morning. And it’s been a different experience than in past years. In the past, I’ve approached the Bible looking for a principle or bit of wisdom I can apply to my life. But lately I’ve been more fascinated by Jesus Himself. When I’m done reading for the morning, I find myself thinking not so much about what I read, or parsing phrases, as much as the captivating character of Christ. I ask myself whether He would like me. I wonder what He would want to talk about if I were to have met Him. I wonder what He would confront me about. I feel like I am reading the book the way a kid would read the book. It’s been a very fun adventure. If I place myself in a scene with Christ, I am most comfortable on the outskirts, an anonymous follower hidden in the crowd. I’d stare at Him for sure, until He stared back, after which I’d quickly make conversation with somebody else hoping He wouldn’t come over. I’d probably do this for a few weeks until I knew I could trust Him. And this only because [...]