Hello friends and welcome back.
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This is "Books of the Book."
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My name is Deyvy Rodriquez
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and we're so glad
that you can take this time
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and join us as you
open your Bibles with us.
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We're studying
the Gospel of John
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and you're welcome
to pick up with us.
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We are in Chapter 12
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and it has been
an amazing experience
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with this Bible study.
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We're studying
with Dr. Jon Paulien.
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He is currently
the dean of religion
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at Loma Linda University
and he comes all the way
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from Loma Linda, California.
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And I keep telling
him I've been blessed.
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I've seen so many spiritual
applications from this book
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and as he says this is
an-- this is a spiritual gospel.
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And, Dr. Paulien, when you
say this is a spiritual gospel
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because you said it before,
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but tell us
briefly what do you mean
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when the Gospel
of John is spiritual?
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Aren't all the
gospels spiritual?
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It depends I guess
on how you come at it
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but I think the primary motive
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of the Matthew, Mark and
Luke is to get the story down.
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This is what Jesus did.
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This is what Jesus said
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that the simple
telling of the story is enough.
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But in John the story
is only the beginning.
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Each of the stories
functions like a parable
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with all kinds of
spiritual meanings.
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And so John I guess is content
that the story has been told
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and now he's going to
take aspects of the story.
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Especially ones that
only he seems to know about
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or only he emphasis and
use that story to go deeper.
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And the reason for this is
that as the apostles went out
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they would tell
the story of Jesus
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but then they
would interpret it.
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But once the apostles are dead,
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the interpretation has
to come out of the story.
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So John felt
that the three gospels
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that were there
before by themselves
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were not everything that
the second generation needed.
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The second generation
needed the interpretation,
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needed the
deeper spiritual meaning
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they brought to them
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so that they could function
without the living apostles.
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And when you say the
second generation again
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it's that a group or
that generation who have--
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who never got to
see physically Jesus
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or His miracles being
performed. Or His disciples.
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So we happen to be
that generation. Yeah.
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You see, as long as
the disciples are alive
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remembering
everything Jesus did,
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they can interpret it all.
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But once the apostles are dead,
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the words on the
page have to do the job.
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And so John I
think is seeing that
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the three other
gospels are very, very good,
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very, very
important, very useful
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but they are not fully
gonna do the task by themselves
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of reaching a generation
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that doesn't
have that living voice
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that only has the
words on the page.
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So John puts words on a page
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that will
elaborate these things.
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And I like what you said
also that the first generation
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who were present in the lives,
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in the life of Jesus
don't have an advantage
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over our faith, you know. Right.
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In fact you can even
said that it could be to,
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to our advantage that we
didn't see Jesus physically.
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Time and again in
the Gospel of John,
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the people are standing
there with Jesus have doubts.
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They don't get
it. They reject Him.
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Physical presence of Jesus
is no guarantee of anything
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but if our hearts are
open to the Holy Spirit
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and to the words of the gospels.
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We can have everything
they could have had and more.
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So today, now
we're talking about--
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we're at Chapter 12.
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Tell us what are we
studying today in this chapter?
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Well, Chapter 12 is kind
of a transition in the gospel.
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We've been working through
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some three years
of Jesus' ministry.
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John touches
based on a story here
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and saying there another
story, Jesus' public ministry.
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And with Chapter 12,
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we're coming to the close of
the public ministry of Jesus.
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This is the last part
of His public ministry.
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And with Chapter 13,
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He's is gonna go into the closet
so to speak with His disciples.
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And what goes on there
is not for the wider world
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but He's gonna
deal directly with them
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and He becomes much more of
a teacher in Chapters 13-17.
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In its public work, its
in more about what He does
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and the miracles and one and one
encounters with various people
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who have not been
believers before very public.
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But now we're at the point
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where we gonna
start transitioning
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to a more personal
private kind of ministry.
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Okay, and where shall we begin?
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Well, Chapter 12 has a
series of short vignettes
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kind of like stories where
they are just little pieces
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of the last few
days of Jesus' ministry.
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It starts like a week
before His crucifixion
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and will see
several little stories here.
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The first one is the
climax of the Mary story I think
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and that's in Chapter 12:1-8.
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So why don't we start there?
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"Then, six days
before the Passover,
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Jesus came to Bethany,
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where Lazarus was
who had been dead,
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whom He had
raised from the dead.
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There they made Him a supper,
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and Martha served,
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but Lazarus was one of those
who sat at the table with Him.
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Then Mary took a pound of
very costly oil of spikenard,
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anointed the feet of Jesus,
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and wiped His
feet with her hair.
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And the house was filled
with the fragrance of the oil.
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But one of the
disciples, Judas Iscariot,
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Simon's son, who
would betray Him, said,
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'Why was this fragrant oil
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not sold for
three hundred denarii
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and given to the poor?'
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This he said, not
that he cared for the poor,
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but because he was a
thief, and had the money box,
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and he used to
take what was put in it.
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But Jesus said, 'Let her alone,
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she has kept this
for the day of My burial.
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For the poor you
have with you always,
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but Me you do not have always.'"
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Part of the concept
that the spiritual gospel
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is that various characters
in the story play bigger roles
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that they are almost
like actors in a drama.
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And here you have
three characters in a story.
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You have Mary,
Martha and Lazarus.
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They happen to be
brothers and sisters.
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One single family
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but each of
them relates to Jesus
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a little bit differently.
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And in Mary we see the kind
of person who is up and down,
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you know,
sometimes she is, you know,
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really locked in for
the spiritual things.
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Sometimes she gets caught
in some unfortunate situations.
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But here she
represents absolute sold out
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love and devotion to Jesus.
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She is gonna give the
equivalent of the years wages
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and just sort of
wasted on a moment.
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You know, Martha
wouldn't have done that.
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She would have calculated,
this is really costly.
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You know, couldn't we
just dip our finger in
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and smell up the room
and that would be enough.
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I mean, she pours
enough perfumes out there
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to smell up the
whole neighborhood.
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Maybe Jerusalem is even catching
at two miles away you'll see.
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It's an absolutely wasteful.
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I mean Judas is right
in the sense it's a waste.
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But she feels nothing is waste
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if it expresses her
absolute devotion to Jesus.
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So she represents
all those believers who,
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well, they may not be the
most stable people on earth.
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They love Jesus
with all their hearts
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and they are willing to
do even wasteful silly things
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in the eyes of other people
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in order to express
their devotion to Jesus.
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Martha on the other hand,
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she reflects faith,
service, steadiness,
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you'll see and she
represents those believers
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that Jesus can count
on so to speak, you know.
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She'll be there
even when all else fails.
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She'll be cooking and cleaning
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when nobody else
feels like doing it.
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She is steady, she's solid.
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Lazarus, he
represents the resurrection hope
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that all of us have.
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He already tasted
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what we will all one day
experience in Jesus Christ.
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So the characters here--
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John is not just
telling the story
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but he is unpacking it in ways
that we can pick a character
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that we relate to
and really bring it home.
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Now there is
another character in here
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that I don't
think we-- Oh, yeah.
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Leave out in John, it
certainly didn't leave out
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and I just hope that we
don't chose this character
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but that is Judas
and apparently he--
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it seems that he
cares for the poor
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and his following statement was
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why was this
fragrant oil not sold for,
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you know, three hundred
denarii and given to the poor?
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So it almost seems like,
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you know, we
could have used this
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and multiplied the
blessing to many others--
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Yeah, done a
lot of good with it.
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This is a waste. Right.
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And the next verse
the narrator kind of,
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you know, he says the following,
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you know, he said this not
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because he cared for the
poor but because he was a thief.
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So speaking of characters
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who does this
character represent?
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Well, one thing the
scholars have noticed
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in the Gospel of John
is a strong dose of irony.
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Irony is a literarily concept
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where what's
there on the surface
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is the opposite of reality.
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You know, it's kind of
like somebody has a baby
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and he gives a cigar
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and the person
lights up the cigar
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and blows up in his face.
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It's a particle joke, you see.
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The idea was that
this was a pleasant gift
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in honor of something
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and then it kind of
blows up in the face
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and everybody
laughs at the victim.
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You see, kind of a thing.
00:10:31.62\00:10:32.65
So irony is kind
of in that regard.
00:10:32.68\00:10:35.53
And Judas is playing the
idiot here in a real sense
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because he's so serious.
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This is a waste and this money
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should have been
given to the poor.
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Well, the
reality is, he's the one
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in charge of
giving money to the poor
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and he is stealing from the bag.
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So the irony is
the surface he says
00:10:54.74\00:10:57.76
this money should
be given to the poor,
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the reality is he is the poor.
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He's the one that is
lifting from the bag.
00:11:02.42\00:11:04.88
Almost like saying, why don't
I get a piece of that? Yeah.
00:11:04.91\00:11:07.34
It has to go through me. Yeah.
00:11:07.37\00:11:09.29
And-- He is upset that there
00:11:09.32\00:11:11.46
isn't-isn't little bit
more that he can pull out of.
00:11:11.49\00:11:13.88
But, you know,
there's a deeper irony here
00:11:13.91\00:11:16.30
and John always
goes a little bit deeper.
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The amazing thing is this.
00:11:18.76\00:11:21.34
In reality no one in
the history of the world
00:11:21.37\00:11:25.01
has ever given more to
the poor than Jesus did.
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I mean than Judas did
when he betrayed Jesus
00:11:29.42\00:11:32.51
because in giving
Jesus up to the cross
00:11:32.54\00:11:36.20
that was a gift that
did more for the poor
00:11:36.23\00:11:39.22
than anything else
anyone has ever done.
00:11:39.25\00:11:41.07
So Judas of
course didn't intend that
00:11:41.10\00:11:44.19
but in betraying Jesus,
00:11:44.22\00:11:45.72
in essence he gave the world
a huge gift at his own loss.
00:11:45.75\00:11:49.70
I never really saw that,
that spirit application that
00:11:49.73\00:11:55.12
he didn't-- it wasn't obviously
no monetary value or anything
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but it was a greatest gift
to humanity he gave Jesus. Yeah.
00:11:58.80\00:12:02.50
And that's how God
works. God takes actions of our.
00:12:02.53\00:12:06.39
Sometimes our
actions are well intentioned.
00:12:06.42\00:12:09.87
Sometimes they
are ill intentioned.
00:12:09.90\00:12:12.04
In this case it
was ill intentioned.
00:12:12.07\00:12:14.23
And yet God can use
the nasty things people do.
00:12:14.26\00:12:18.36
The anger, the
hatred, evil deeds
00:12:18.39\00:12:22.14
and God can take those
00:12:22.17\00:12:24.35
and bring
something good out of it.
00:12:24.38\00:12:25.87
And that brings a
little bit of hope
00:12:25.90\00:12:27.94
to people who
have had been robbed,
00:12:27.97\00:12:31.51
people who have been abused,
00:12:31.54\00:12:33.91
people who have suffered
at the hands of angry people
00:12:33.94\00:12:37.44
to realize if God could
take Judas' miserable act
00:12:37.47\00:12:43.02
and bring the greatest things
00:12:43.05\00:12:44.50
that has ever happened
on this earth out of it,
00:12:44.53\00:12:46.73
salvation for all
who will receive it.
00:12:46.76\00:12:49.91
Then the things that have
happened to me in my suffering,
00:12:49.94\00:12:53.39
God can use that to bring
something beautiful out of it.
00:12:53.42\00:12:57.56
And so that there's a
sideline to all the story.
00:12:57.59\00:13:01.67
Another side of this is that
00:13:01.70\00:13:04.38
often our greatest strength
is our greatest weakness.
00:13:04.41\00:13:08.28
Judas' strength
was handling money
00:13:08.31\00:13:12.05
and in that strength
the disciples trusted him.
00:13:12.08\00:13:15.69
They never asked,
00:13:15.72\00:13:16.96
you know, what
the bottom-line was.
00:13:16.99\00:13:18.44
Judas can take care
of, he is good at that,
00:13:18.47\00:13:20.42
we'll let him handle it.
00:13:20.45\00:13:22.06
But his greatest strength
00:13:22.09\00:13:23.29
became his greatest
temptation, you see.
00:13:23.32\00:13:26.59
Like a pharmacist.
00:13:26.62\00:13:28.66
A pharmacist great strength
00:13:28.69\00:13:30.53
is being able to give
people exactly what they need.
00:13:30.56\00:13:34.24
But that
strength is also weakness
00:13:34.27\00:13:35.95
because pharmacists are--
00:13:35.98\00:13:37.62
have the ability to
become drug abusers themselves
00:13:37.65\00:13:41.91
and nobody can check them.
00:13:41.94\00:13:43.60
They are the ones
in charge of it, see.
00:13:43.63\00:13:45.31
So the temptation is there.
00:13:45.34\00:13:46.96
At our school of pharmacy
00:13:46.99\00:13:48.33
we train pharmacists in
the importance of ethics
00:13:48.36\00:13:51.58
that they above all people
have to be true to themselves
00:13:51.61\00:13:55.28
when no one else is looking.
00:13:55.31\00:13:57.18
Because nobody can monitor
00:13:57.21\00:13:58.69
what the
pharmacist does with the drugs
00:13:58.72\00:14:01.00
because pharmacist
is the monitor, you see.
00:14:01.03\00:14:03.86
So your greatest strength
and your greatest weakness--
00:14:03.89\00:14:06.55
I'm not ragging
on pharmacist please.
00:14:06.58\00:14:08.60
I'm just using it
as an illustration
00:14:08.63\00:14:10.28
that the area in which
we're most talented and strong
00:14:10.31\00:14:13.66
can sometimes be
the place where we fall
00:14:13.69\00:14:16.44
and we have to be
aware of that. Right.
00:14:16.47\00:14:17.67
And as Paul says,
he who thinks he stands
00:14:17.70\00:14:21.10
let him take heed lest he fall.
00:14:21.13\00:14:24.23
And there was Peter
also in his self sufficiency.
00:14:24.26\00:14:26.91
He believed, he
trusted in himself
00:14:26.94\00:14:28.81
and yet that's
when he denied the Lord.
00:14:28.84\00:14:32.82
We do know the tragic
story of Judas unfortunately
00:14:32.85\00:14:37.63
but that is, that is quite sad,
00:14:37.66\00:14:40.57
you know, and we
were talking about
00:14:40.60\00:14:41.66
in earlier programs
how Jesus said that,
00:14:41.69\00:14:45.99
that there is,
there are also wolfs.
00:14:46.02\00:14:48.58
You know, Jesus said
He's the good shepherd
00:14:48.61\00:14:50.04
and then there are
wolfs in sheep's clothing
00:14:50.07\00:14:53.44
and referring to the Pharisees.
00:14:53.47\00:14:55.68
Who the Pharisees had casted out
00:14:55.71\00:14:57.14
the blind man from the synagogue
00:14:57.17\00:14:59.14
and Jesus took him.
00:14:59.17\00:15:02.00
But as we see here there was,
00:15:02.03\00:15:04.06
it seems that even
within His disciples
00:15:04.09\00:15:07.07
there was wolf,
can--is that applicable,
00:15:07.10\00:15:10.21
would that be fair to say?
00:15:10.24\00:15:12.49
If we allow Satan
to get into our lives,
00:15:12.52\00:15:15.68
he can turn even our
well intentioned efforts
00:15:15.71\00:15:19.32
into great destruction.
00:15:19.35\00:15:21.75
What was--I think Judas actually
has some good intentions.
00:15:21.78\00:15:25.36
He was trying to
provoke Jesus to get out there
00:15:25.39\00:15:28.81
and do what he was
supposed to do to become a king.
00:15:28.84\00:15:31.60
What was in Judas'
heart that led him to,
00:15:31.63\00:15:34.79
to eventually betray
Jesus or turn him into,
00:15:34.82\00:15:39.59
turn him into the
religious leaders to death?
00:15:39.62\00:15:42.79
Well, let's get
into that in a moment
00:15:42.82\00:15:44.30
but I think right now
we need to go to a break.
00:15:44.33\00:15:46.19