Participants: Deyvy Rodriguez & Jon Paulien
Series Code: JBOTB
Program Code: JBOTB00012A
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00:20 Hello friends and welcome back
00:21 to this program "Books of the Book." 00:23 We are so glad that you are taking this time to join us 00:27 and be part of this Bible study. 00:29 My name is Deyvy Rodriquez 00:31 and again I welcome you to the Gospel of John. 00:35 We are studying this with Dr. Jon Paulien. 00:37 He is a Bible scholar. 00:40 He is the Dean of religion at Loma Linda University 00:43 in Loma Linda, California. 00:44 And today we are talking about the "Bread of life." 00:48 And if you have a Bible you can certainly join us 00:50 and open your bibles beginning in chapter 6 today. 00:55 Dr. Paulien, thank you again for being with us. 00:59 It's really good to be with you, Deyvy. It's been a good time. 01:03 Now earlier in a different program 01:07 you said that the Gospel of John is a spiritual gospel. 01:12 So I was a bit surprised to hear that 01:14 because I thought, well, aren't all the gospels spiritual? 01:17 And so explain to us what does that mean 01:20 when you say that the Gospel of John is spiritual. 01:23 That's an excellent question. 01:25 I think all of the gospels are there 01:27 to tell the story of Jesus. 01:30 So there's value in simply knowing the story of Jesus, 01:34 who He was? 01:35 What He did? 01:37 What He said? 01:38 But the Gospel of John has a deeper purpose than that. 01:42 The story of Jesus is there. 01:44 There's stories that the others don't have. 01:46 There's a few stories that they all have in common, 01:48 but in John each of these stories 01:51 is a pointer to something else, as well. 01:54 It's a pointer to something deeper. 01:56 It's seeking the deeper spiritual focus 02:00 that underlies the stories 02:02 and it takes you another step further. 02:04 And I think that's really important 02:06 because in today's world what our eyes see, 02:10 our ears hear, our hands handle 02:13 really distracts us from God more than leads us to Him. 02:17 Unless, we can learn like John 02:20 to see glimpses of Jesus in other people, 02:24 glimpses of Jesus in the circumstances that we have. 02:26 When we take bread, it reminds us of the bread of life. 02:31 When we drink water, shall we? Sure. 02:36 Mmm, that's good. 02:39 So what about the water? 02:40 Reminds us of the water of life. 02:42 In the next program, we'll have a lot to say about that, see. 02:45 So John is inviting us to look past the surface 02:49 of what our five senses can tell us. 02:51 And to go deeper and to see glimpses of Jesus, 02:54 glimpses of God in everything that comes. 02:57 And he teaches us how to do that in the gospel 03:00 by taking the stories and going beyond the surface with them. 03:04 Well, let's see some more of those glimpses in chapter 6. 03:07 Now briefly tell us the background on this chapter. 03:12 Okay, I think if you, if you open chapter 6, 03:15 you notice right away that this is in Galilee. 03:19 Now here's one of the striking things, 03:21 the Gospel of John focuses on Judah and Jerusalem 03:27 whereas Matthew, Mark and Luke all focus on Galilee. 03:30 In the Gospel of John the only parts of the Gospel 03:33 that take place in Galilee outside of the story 03:36 at the very end are the wedding of Cana, 03:40 the story of the noble man 03:42 who wants his son healed in Capernaum. 03:45 And this chapter 6 is in Galilee, that's all. 03:51 So most of Jesus' time is spent in Jerusalem, 03:54 chapter 5, He is in Jerusalem at an unnamed feast. 03:57 We talked about that in last program. 03:59 In chapter 7, He is in Jerusalem at the feast of Tabernacles. 04:04 So sandwiched between Jerusalems 04:07 is this story in Galilee once again. 04:10 From chapter 7 through pretty much the end of the book 04:14 everything is in Jerusalem, in Judah, 04:16 the surrounding area except the very last scene. 04:19 So Gospel of John focuses on the parts of Jesus' life 04:24 that we were particularly in Jerusalem 04:26 and the surroundings. And that makes it unique. 04:29 I would suggest that the other three gospels 04:32 were probably written well before John. 04:35 He knew what was in them 04:36 and he is going in a different direction. 04:39 He's emphasizing parts of Jesus' career 04:41 that they missed for whatever reason. 04:44 I think that probably the last year or so 04:50 of Jesus' life in Galilee 04:52 is what the other three gospels focus on. 04:54 John focuses on the whole ministry of Jesus 04:58 and particularly the parts in Jerusalem and Judea. 05:02 Now what is going now in chapter 6 then? 05:07 Well, it's Passover time. 05:09 And we already mentioned that John is a spiritual gospel 05:13 and I've noticed that whenever Passover shows up, 05:18 there's references to the cross 05:21 and references to the Lord's Supper. 05:23 Now one of the features of John that's interesting, 05:26 there's no Lord's Supper. 05:28 The cup, the bread, you know, the ceremony around the table 05:32 it's not there in the Gospel of John. 05:35 When he does go to that event he emphasizes the foot washing, 05:39 but says pretty much nothing about the dinner itself. 05:43 So in John, the Lord's Supper is not explained, 05:46 probably because it's already been adequately explained 05:48 by Paul and Corinthians and by the other three gospel writers. 05:52 But what John does is bring the Lord's Supper 05:56 surprisingly into other venues. 05:59 For example, this is a test. 06:02 All right. All right. 06:04 Where would you see 06:05 the Lord's Supper and the wedding of Cana 06:07 because there's a Passover in that chapter? 06:11 Well, I don't think there is even a dinner there. 06:15 That's a wedding feast. Yes. 06:18 There's a miracle there where Jesus turns the water into wine. 06:21 Into what? Wine. So we see a wine. 06:24 So, What's wine? 06:27 Represents the blood of Jesus-- 06:28 The Lord's Supper. Okay. 06:30 Okay. Where's the bread? 06:33 In chapter 2, at the wedding of Cana. 06:36 I am going to fail this question, this quiz test. 06:40 If you go to the cleansing at the temple, 06:42 He replaces the temple with His body. 06:47 Okay, doesn't say bread anywhere there 06:49 but He replaces it with his body. 06:51 You have multiple references to the cross in chapter 2. 06:54 We've already noticed that we were there. 06:56 But there's a reference to the wine 06:58 and then the body of Jesus and those who read that 07:02 Passover is mentioned, wine body of Jesus. 07:05 You see hints of the Lord's Supper. 07:07 Here in chapter 6 and in chapter 21, 07:11 both of them at Passover time, 07:13 we are going to see other hints of the Lord's Supper 07:17 embedded in the text. 07:19 And why don't we go there right now? 07:21 Sure. Chapter 6:11. 07:23 Because He is teaching us 07:26 to see divine things in the ordinary things, 07:30 our spiritual eyes need to be trained 07:33 and that's what John is doing. Chapter 6:11. 07:40 "And Jesus took the loaves, and when He had given thanks 07:43 He distributed them to the disciples, 07:45 and the disciples to those sitting down 07:47 and likewise of the fish, as much as they wanted." 07:52 Now it may not be obviously English language 07:55 but when you get to the Greek that lies behind the text, 07:58 you see he has chosen to describe the scene 08:02 in Lord's Supper language. 08:05 Jesus, what does it say there? 08:07 "He took the loaves, He gave thanks," 08:11 and by the way the Greek word for thanks is eucharisto 08:14 which means, yeah, we say Eucharist for the Lord's Supper. 08:19 So it's using a special way of praying 08:22 that's associated with the Lord's Supper. 08:24 "He took the bread, he blessed it, 08:27 gave thanks and distributed 08:29 to those who were seated around Him." 08:32 This is language that triggers the mind to the Lord's Supper. 08:36 And here's the exciting thing about this. 08:39 In the Gospel of John, 08:41 Lord's Supper references come in relation to Passover, 08:46 there's mention of Passover in verse 4. 08:48 But Lord's Supper references come in ordinary circumstances. 08:53 A wedding, here's a picnic lunch. 08:58 In Chapter 21, "Breakfast by the beach." 09:01 In the ordinary aspects of life, 09:05 the supernatural is brought in. 09:08 And so we see that he is bringing God into everything. 09:14 And this is really crucial for our time 09:17 because it is extremely distracting in today's world. 09:21 You have for example bright lights, 09:25 you have the internet, you have television and so on. 09:29 And someone was just saying a little bit earlier, 09:32 "Hey, I go to a health club to exercise 09:35 and there's a TV screens everywhere. 09:36 I want to get away from that. I want to exercise." 09:39 You see, and not be watching connected again some more. 09:42 So the world today closes in around us 09:45 and no one has ever seen, heard or touched God 09:50 which means that the things we can't see, hear and touch 09:55 tend to crowd Him out of our consciousness. 09:59 And John is inviting us to see touches of the divine 10:05 that every time we sit down to eat, 10:07 even in a picnic that we remember the Lord's Supper, 10:10 what we drink, what we eat here is a miracle of God. 10:16 No farmer grows anything. 10:20 Growth of plants is a miracle of God. 10:23 You can nurture plants, you can trim them, 10:28 you can fertilize, you can water 10:30 but the growth itself is a miracle. 10:33 The greatest engineer in history 10:35 can't make a blade of grass, you see. 10:37 So it's learning to see the realities of God 10:41 in the wider circumstances of life. 10:44 And so one thing that I've learned from an old friend, 10:48 Glenn Coon was to thank God for the ordinary things of life. 10:52 And one way to do that is just make a list of ten everyday. 10:56 Just ordinary things, thank you Lord for the cat. 11:00 Thank you Lord for the color of the carpet, 11:02 thank you Lord for that beautiful orchid 11:04 that just opened up today, you see. 11:06 Each one of these things is a miracle 11:08 in the larger scheme of things, 11:09 but those miracles are crowded out of our consciousness, 11:13 by the simple fact that the world is so much with us. 11:19 Moving on, in the text 11:21 and because the text is so big and our time is so short, 11:25 we just going to touch base with a few things in this chapter. 11:28 In verses 16-21 11:30 you have the story of the walking on water 11:34 and why don't you read that for us? 11:36 Chapter 6:16-21. 11:40 "Now when evening came, His disciples went down to the sea, 11:43 got into the boat, and went over to the sea toward Capernaum. 11:48 And it was already dark, and Jesus had not come to them. 11:51 Then the sea arose because a great wind was blowing. 11:54 So when they had rowed about three or four miles, 11:58 they saw Jesus walking on the sea 12:00 and drawing near the boat and they were afraid. 12:04 But He said to them, "It is I, do not be afraid." 12:07 Then they willingly received Him into the boat, 12:10 and immediately the boat was at the land 12:13 where they were going." 12:16 This is probably the only story 12:19 outside of the crucifixion itself 12:21 that all four gospels have in common. 12:23 The baptism of Jesus is referenced in all four, 12:25 but John doesn't actually portray it. 12:28 So the story of the walking on water 12:30 is one of the main connections 12:32 between John and the other gospels. 12:36 And for John I think just to be brief 12:40 the boat represents the church in a real sense. 12:44 As John is speaking 12:46 the disciples are the members of the church 12:49 and life is all around them. 12:51 Life is store me, life is distracting. 12:54 They can't see Jesus. 12:56 This is touching base back on what we just noticed 12:58 with the Lord's Supper in chapter 6. 13:00 So life is overwhelming to them 13:02 and in the process Jesus shows up 13:05 and how do they react when Jesus shows up? 13:09 And they were afraid. 13:10 It says, "They saw Jesus approaching 13:12 and they were terrified." 13:14 Okay. Why are they terrified? 13:16 One of the other gospel writers thought he was a ghost, you see. 13:19 But disciples feel like they are abandoned, 13:23 they feel like they are alone. 13:24 The second generation when John dies they are going 13:28 to feel abandoned by God in a real sense. 13:31 And so this story reminds them 13:33 now Jesus comes to you in the storm. 13:38 He comes to you in the suffering. 13:39 He comes to you in the challenges of life. 13:42 And the spiritual gospel encourages us 13:45 to see Jesus in the midst of the turmoil, 13:49 in the midst of the difficulties that we face. 13:51 Earlier you said also that the Gospel of John 13:54 is your favorite book of the Bible 13:56 your favorite gospel. I suspect. 13:58 And I am understanding why now, 14:00 because you said that the Gospel of John is a spiritual gospel 14:04 and when we start to read, 14:06 you know, we often just read a story, 14:08 oh, there's another miracle, 14:10 you know, second miracle and so on and so forth. 14:12 But when we start to just dwell on the text 14:15 and start to see those glimpses of divinity 14:19 and how they apply to my life today 14:22 as you just mentioned those points, 14:24 it becomes powerful, isn't that right? 14:27 Well, friends we are still continuing 14:29 to study the Gospel of John and we are in chapter 6, 14:32 stay with us as we continue to see glimpses of Jesus. |
Revised 2014-12-17