Friday, March 10, 2006

Invalid @ the Pool John 5.1-18

NLT John 5:1 Afterward Jesus returned to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish holy days. 2 Inside the city, near the Sheep Gate, was the pool of Bethesda, with five covered porches. 3 Crowds of sick people-- blind, lame, or paralyzed-- lay on the porches. 4 5 One of the men lying there had been sick for thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him and knew he had been ill for a long time, he asked him, "Would you like to get well?" 7 "I can't, sir," the sick man said, "for I have no one to put me into the pool when the water bubbles up. Someone else always gets there ahead of me." 8 Jesus told him, "Stand up, pick up your mat, and walk!" 9 Instantly, the man was healed! He rolled up his sleeping mat and began walking! But this miracle happened on the Sabbath, 10 so the Jewish leaders objected. They said to the man who was cured, "You can't work on the Sabbath! The law doesn't allow you to carry that sleeping mat!" 11 But he replied, "The man who healed me told me, 'Pick up your mat and walk.'" 12 "Who said such a thing as that?" they demanded. 13 The man didn't know, for Jesus had disappeared into the crowd. 14 But afterward Jesus found him in the Temple and told him, "Now you are well; so stop sinning, or something even worse may happen to you." 15 Then the man went and told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who had healed him. 16 So the Jewish leaders began harassing Jesus for breaking the Sabbath rules. 17 But Jesus replied, "My Father is always working, and so am I." 18 So the Jewish leaders tried all the harder to find a way to kill him. For he not only broke the Sabbath, he called God his Father, thereby making himself equal with God.

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Well, any more discussion? I know that John and I still were talking about how much of a shock that would have been to the Jewish ears with Jesus saying that God was working on the Sabbath. Why do you think it was such a shock, and what does that say about God? Can God do anything God wants....Including changing the way God has told his creation to live? And if you want to go a little deeper,...(heh heh.....yeah here it comes)..... does God change his mind?

OK that should last us through the week, heh....

Oh and if anyone wants to read and see other posters like the picture I showed tonight then you can go to:
despair.com
It really does have some VERY funny things!



Thanks again for coming and Can't wait for next week! KUTPs!

7 Comments:

At 8:25 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Maybe God just shows us a different side of himself that's always been there.

 
At 9:42 AM, Blogger DGH said...

Hey John:

Could you find the part in the Law (OT) that talks about not "working" on the sabbath, and could we understand that walking with a mat in your hand to be "working" or was this just an intrpretation of the law that the Pharisees "clarified"?

Because if Jesus was not "changing" the law then the implicatons of God changing his mind might not be true. But I was wondering.

 
At 12:38 PM, Blogger John said...

Yeah...
Ex 20:10 and Ex 23:12 and Ex 35:2, for starters. Most of the biblical material on the Sabbath is pretty-much generic "don't work" kind of statement. The place where it gets really developed into how far you can walk, how much grain you can gather, etc is in the Mishnah and the Talmud (post-biblical rabbinic commentaries). If anyone is curious, I can get some portions of either of those.

 
At 1:50 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hello All,
In Matthew 5:17-18 Jesus says, "Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished". Do you think that this answers the question about whether or not God changes his mind? We tend to think that his thoughts and ways are eternal and that he does not change his mind.
In verse 20, Jesus goes on to say, "Unless your rightiousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven". It seems like Jesus is telling us not to get caught up in the strict interpretation of the law, as the Pharisees have, but rather to follow his example.
One other passage...John 1:17 says, "For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ". This is such an interesting verse, because it is saying that Moses simply gave the law and for years the Jews have applied their own truth to the law. When Jesus came He brought absolute truth to the law. We kind of see Him as a living interpretation of the law who takes all of the guess work out of how God wants us to live.

 
At 12:36 AM, Blogger DGH said...

Funny how God gives the law...and then we (humans) tend to "take it under consideration".

I agree that God might not change his mind...and there are several other verses to share that would cause greater questions...that we will not get into, heh... but

I find it so interesting that we take what God gives us and then we mold it in some ways to fit our own understandings. I know that i do this all the time and most of the time it is just me assuming something, and then finding out later that it just is not the case.

We try to obey all of God's laws and then we "clarify" them and then even make up a few on top of them all to help us follow the origional ones, heh. wow!

 
At 8:54 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Maybe the law is just to love...period. What do you all think?

 
At 11:55 PM, Blogger DGH said...

I think it is summed up by Christ as that...but that is another discussion al together, heh.... becase that text says love the LORD your God with all of who you are (I summed it up here, heh) and love your neighbor as yourself. but I have heard it said that the word "and" in this text really should be read "in other words"...so that loving God and loving others is considered to be the same kind of love. Anyway thanks!

 

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