Participants: Deyvy Rodriguez & Jon Paulien
Series Code: JBOTB
Program Code: JBOTB00017A
|
00:20 Hello friends and welcome back.
00:22 This is "Books of the Book." 00:23 My name is Deyvy Rodriquez 00:25 and we're so glad that you can take this time 00:28 and join us as you open your Bibles with us. 00:31 We're studying the Gospel of John 00:33 and you're welcome to pick up with us. 00:35 We are in Chapter 12 00:37 and it has been an amazing experience 00:39 with this Bible study. 00:41 We're studying with Dr. Jon Paulien. 00:44 He is currently the dean of religion 00:45 at Loma Linda University and he comes all the way 00:48 from Loma Linda, California. 00:50 And I keep telling him I've been blessed. 00:52 I've seen so many spiritual applications from this book 00:56 and as he says this is an-- this is a spiritual gospel. 01:01 And, Dr. Paulien, when you say this is a spiritual gospel 01:04 because you said it before, 01:06 but tell us briefly what do you mean 01:08 when the Gospel of John is spiritual? 01:11 Aren't all the gospels spiritual? 01:15 It depends I guess on how you come at it 01:17 but I think the primary motive 01:19 of the Matthew, Mark and Luke is to get the story down. 01:23 This is what Jesus did. 01:24 This is what Jesus said 01:26 that the simple telling of the story is enough. 01:29 But in John the story is only the beginning. 01:34 Each of the stories functions like a parable 01:37 with all kinds of spiritual meanings. 01:40 And so John I guess is content that the story has been told 01:46 and now he's going to take aspects of the story. 01:50 Especially ones that only he seems to know about 01:53 or only he emphasis and use that story to go deeper. 01:59 And the reason for this is that as the apostles went out 02:05 they would tell the story of Jesus 02:07 but then they would interpret it. 02:10 But once the apostles are dead, 02:14 the interpretation has to come out of the story. 02:18 So John felt that the three gospels 02:21 that were there before by themselves 02:24 were not everything that the second generation needed. 02:26 The second generation needed the interpretation, 02:29 needed the deeper spiritual meaning 02:32 they brought to them 02:33 so that they could function without the living apostles. 02:36 And when you say the second generation again 02:38 it's that a group or that generation who have-- 02:41 who never got to see physically Jesus 02:44 or His miracles being performed. Or His disciples. 02:47 So we happen to be that generation. Yeah. 02:49 You see, as long as the disciples are alive 02:52 remembering everything Jesus did, 02:53 they can interpret it all. 02:55 But once the apostles are dead, 02:58 the words on the page have to do the job. 03:01 And so John I think is seeing that 03:04 the three other gospels are very, very good, 03:06 very, very important, very useful 03:09 but they are not fully gonna do the task by themselves 03:13 of reaching a generation 03:15 that doesn't have that living voice 03:17 that only has the words on the page. 03:19 So John puts words on a page 03:22 that will elaborate these things. 03:25 And I like what you said also that the first generation 03:29 who were present in the lives, 03:30 in the life of Jesus don't have an advantage 03:33 over our faith, you know. Right. 03:36 In fact you can even said that it could be to, 03:40 to our advantage that we didn't see Jesus physically. 03:44 Time and again in the Gospel of John, 03:45 the people are standing there with Jesus have doubts. 03:48 They don't get it. They reject Him. 03:51 Physical presence of Jesus is no guarantee of anything 03:55 but if our hearts are open to the Holy Spirit 03:58 and to the words of the gospels. 04:01 We can have everything they could have had and more. 04:04 So today, now we're talking about-- 04:07 we're at Chapter 12. 04:10 Tell us what are we studying today in this chapter? 04:12 Well, Chapter 12 is kind of a transition in the gospel. 04:17 We've been working through 04:18 some three years of Jesus' ministry. 04:21 John touches based on a story here 04:24 and saying there another story, Jesus' public ministry. 04:29 And with Chapter 12, 04:31 we're coming to the close of the public ministry of Jesus. 04:35 This is the last part of His public ministry. 04:38 And with Chapter 13, 04:40 He's is gonna go into the closet so to speak with His disciples. 04:44 And what goes on there is not for the wider world 04:47 but He's gonna deal directly with them 04:50 and He becomes much more of a teacher in Chapters 13-17. 04:57 In its public work, its in more about what He does 05:00 and the miracles and one and one encounters with various people 05:05 who have not been believers before very public. 05:08 But now we're at the point 05:10 where we gonna start transitioning 05:12 to a more personal private kind of ministry. 05:16 Okay, and where shall we begin? 05:18 Well, Chapter 12 has a series of short vignettes 05:24 kind of like stories where they are just little pieces 05:27 of the last few days of Jesus' ministry. 05:30 It starts like a week before His crucifixion 05:33 and will see several little stories here. 05:35 The first one is the climax of the Mary story I think 05:39 and that's in Chapter 12:1-8. 05:42 So why don't we start there? 05:46 "Then, six days before the Passover, 05:48 Jesus came to Bethany, 05:49 where Lazarus was who had been dead, 05:52 whom He had raised from the dead. 05:55 There they made Him a supper, 05:56 and Martha served, 05:58 but Lazarus was one of those who sat at the table with Him. 06:01 Then Mary took a pound of very costly oil of spikenard, 06:06 anointed the feet of Jesus, 06:08 and wiped His feet with her hair. 06:11 And the house was filled with the fragrance of the oil. 06:14 But one of the disciples, Judas Iscariot, 06:17 Simon's son, who would betray Him, said, 06:20 'Why was this fragrant oil 06:22 not sold for three hundred denarii 06:24 and given to the poor?' 06:26 This he said, not that he cared for the poor, 06:28 but because he was a thief, and had the money box, 06:31 and he used to take what was put in it. 06:34 But Jesus said, 'Let her alone, 06:37 she has kept this for the day of My burial. 06:40 For the poor you have with you always, 06:44 but Me you do not have always.'" 06:47 Part of the concept that the spiritual gospel 06:51 is that various characters in the story play bigger roles 06:56 that they are almost like actors in a drama. 06:58 And here you have three characters in a story. 07:01 You have Mary, Martha and Lazarus. 07:03 They happen to be brothers and sisters. 07:05 One single family 07:07 but each of them relates to Jesus 07:08 a little bit differently. 07:10 And in Mary we see the kind of person who is up and down, 07:16 you know, sometimes she is, you know, 07:19 really locked in for the spiritual things. 07:21 Sometimes she gets caught in some unfortunate situations. 07:25 But here she represents absolute sold out 07:29 love and devotion to Jesus. 07:31 She is gonna give the equivalent of the years wages 07:36 and just sort of wasted on a moment. 07:38 You know, Martha wouldn't have done that. 07:40 She would have calculated, this is really costly. 07:42 You know, couldn't we just dip our finger in 07:44 and smell up the room and that would be enough. 07:47 I mean, she pours enough perfumes out there 07:49 to smell up the whole neighborhood. 07:51 Maybe Jerusalem is even catching at two miles away you'll see. 07:55 It's an absolutely wasteful. 07:57 I mean Judas is right in the sense it's a waste. 08:01 But she feels nothing is waste 08:04 if it expresses her absolute devotion to Jesus. 08:07 So she represents all those believers who, 08:10 well, they may not be the most stable people on earth. 08:14 They love Jesus with all their hearts 08:16 and they are willing to do even wasteful silly things 08:19 in the eyes of other people 08:20 in order to express their devotion to Jesus. 08:23 Martha on the other hand, 08:25 she reflects faith, service, steadiness, 08:30 you'll see and she represents those believers 08:33 that Jesus can count on so to speak, you know. 08:36 She'll be there even when all else fails. 08:39 She'll be cooking and cleaning 08:40 when nobody else feels like doing it. 08:42 She is steady, she's solid. 08:44 Lazarus, he represents the resurrection hope 08:47 that all of us have. 08:49 He already tasted 08:51 what we will all one day experience in Jesus Christ. 08:54 So the characters here-- 08:57 John is not just telling the story 08:59 but he is unpacking it in ways that we can pick a character 09:04 that we relate to and really bring it home. 09:06 Now there is another character in here 09:08 that I don't think we-- Oh, yeah. 09:10 Leave out in John, it certainly didn't leave out 09:12 and I just hope that we don't chose this character 09:15 but that is Judas and apparently he-- 09:20 it seems that he cares for the poor 09:23 and his following statement was 09:28 why was this fragrant oil not sold for, 09:31 you know, three hundred denarii and given to the poor? 09:33 So it almost seems like, 09:35 you know, we could have used this 09:37 and multiplied the blessing to many others-- 09:39 Yeah, done a lot of good with it. 09:43 This is a waste. Right. 09:45 And the next verse the narrator kind of, 09:46 you know, he says the following, 09:49 you know, he said this not 09:50 because he cared for the poor but because he was a thief. 09:53 So speaking of characters 09:55 who does this character represent? 09:58 Well, one thing the scholars have noticed 10:00 in the Gospel of John is a strong dose of irony. 10:05 Irony is a literarily concept 10:10 where what's there on the surface 10:12 is the opposite of reality. 10:14 You know, it's kind of like somebody has a baby 10:17 and he gives a cigar 10:19 and the person lights up the cigar 10:20 and blows up in his face. 10:21 It's a particle joke, you see. 10:24 The idea was that this was a pleasant gift 10:26 in honor of something 10:27 and then it kind of blows up in the face 10:29 and everybody laughs at the victim. 10:31 You see, kind of a thing. 10:32 So irony is kind of in that regard. 10:35 And Judas is playing the idiot here in a real sense 10:39 because he's so serious. 10:41 This is a waste and this money 10:44 should have been given to the poor. 10:46 Well, the reality is, he's the one 10:48 in charge of giving money to the poor 10:51 and he is stealing from the bag. 10:54 So the irony is the surface he says 10:57 this money should be given to the poor, 10:59 the reality is he is the poor. 11:02 He's the one that is lifting from the bag. 11:04 Almost like saying, why don't I get a piece of that? Yeah. 11:07 It has to go through me. Yeah. 11:09 And-- He is upset that there 11:11 isn't-isn't little bit more that he can pull out of. 11:13 But, you know, there's a deeper irony here 11:16 and John always goes a little bit deeper. 11:18 The amazing thing is this. 11:21 In reality no one in the history of the world 11:25 has ever given more to the poor than Jesus did. 11:29 I mean than Judas did when he betrayed Jesus 11:32 because in giving Jesus up to the cross 11:36 that was a gift that did more for the poor 11:39 than anything else anyone has ever done. 11:41 So Judas of course didn't intend that 11:44 but in betraying Jesus, 11:45 in essence he gave the world a huge gift at his own loss. 11:49 I never really saw that, that spirit application that 11:55 he didn't-- it wasn't obviously no monetary value or anything 11:58 but it was a greatest gift to humanity he gave Jesus. Yeah. 12:02 And that's how God works. God takes actions of our. 12:06 Sometimes our actions are well intentioned. 12:09 Sometimes they are ill intentioned. 12:12 In this case it was ill intentioned. 12:14 And yet God can use the nasty things people do. 12:18 The anger, the hatred, evil deeds 12:22 and God can take those 12:24 and bring something good out of it. 12:25 And that brings a little bit of hope 12:27 to people who have had been robbed, 12:31 people who have been abused, 12:33 people who have suffered at the hands of angry people 12:37 to realize if God could take Judas' miserable act 12:43 and bring the greatest things 12:44 that has ever happened on this earth out of it, 12:46 salvation for all who will receive it. 12:49 Then the things that have happened to me in my suffering, 12:53 God can use that to bring something beautiful out of it. 12:57 And so that there's a sideline to all the story. 13:01 Another side of this is that 13:04 often our greatest strength is our greatest weakness. 13:08 Judas' strength was handling money 13:12 and in that strength the disciples trusted him. 13:15 They never asked, 13:16 you know, what the bottom-line was. 13:18 Judas can take care of, he is good at that, 13:20 we'll let him handle it. 13:22 But his greatest strength 13:23 became his greatest temptation, you see. 13:26 Like a pharmacist. 13:28 A pharmacist great strength 13:30 is being able to give people exactly what they need. 13:34 But that strength is also weakness 13:35 because pharmacists are-- 13:37 have the ability to become drug abusers themselves 13:41 and nobody can check them. 13:43 They are the ones in charge of it, see. 13:45 So the temptation is there. 13:46 At our school of pharmacy 13:48 we train pharmacists in the importance of ethics 13:51 that they above all people have to be true to themselves 13:55 when no one else is looking. 13:57 Because nobody can monitor 13:58 what the pharmacist does with the drugs 14:01 because pharmacist is the monitor, you see. 14:03 So your greatest strength and your greatest weakness-- 14:06 I'm not ragging on pharmacist please. 14:08 I'm just using it as an illustration 14:10 that the area in which we're most talented and strong 14:13 can sometimes be the place where we fall 14:16 and we have to be aware of that. Right. 14:17 And as Paul says, he who thinks he stands 14:21 let him take heed lest he fall. 14:24 And there was Peter also in his self sufficiency. 14:26 He believed, he trusted in himself 14:28 and yet that's when he denied the Lord. 14:32 We do know the tragic story of Judas unfortunately 14:37 but that is, that is quite sad, 14:40 you know, and we were talking about 14:41 in earlier programs how Jesus said that, 14:46 that there is, there are also wolfs. 14:48 You know, Jesus said He's the good shepherd 14:50 and then there are wolfs in sheep's clothing 14:53 and referring to the Pharisees. 14:55 Who the Pharisees had casted out 14:57 the blind man from the synagogue 14:59 and Jesus took him. 15:02 But as we see here there was, 15:04 it seems that even within His disciples 15:07 there was wolf, can--is that applicable, 15:10 would that be fair to say? 15:12 If we allow Satan to get into our lives, 15:15 he can turn even our well intentioned efforts 15:19 into great destruction. 15:21 What was--I think Judas actually has some good intentions. 15:25 He was trying to provoke Jesus to get out there 15:28 and do what he was supposed to do to become a king. 15:31 What was in Judas' heart that led him to, 15:34 to eventually betray Jesus or turn him into, 15:39 turn him into the religious leaders to death? 15:42 Well, let's get into that in a moment 15:44 but I think right now we need to go to a break. |
Revised 2014-12-17