And welcome back.
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We are studying the last
chapter of the Gospel of John
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and with us is Dr. Jon Paulien
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to help us with
this Bible study.
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So Dr. Paulien, now
they catch a 153 fish
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and so what is Jesus doing next?
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What does He tell them
after they catch all these fish?
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He says, "Bring them over here."
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He adds them to the breakfast.
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Jesus evidently
had been fishing too
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and I guess you could tell me
if I want to be more like Jesus,
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I should maybe
get into fishing also.
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Its clearly, He was able
and willing to do that. Yeah.
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But anyway, Jesus
fixes breakfast over a fire
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that He had gone by the beach
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and that was a
privilege to visit
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what's likely had been on
that spot a couple of times.
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And it seems to being
kind of a quiet breakfast.
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Let's read verses 12-13.
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"Jesus said to them,
"Come and eat breakfast."
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Yet none of the
disciples dared ask Him,
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"Who are You?"
knowing that it was the Lord.
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Jesus then came
and took the bread
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and gave it to them,
and likewise the fish."
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So it seems to be
kind of a quiet breakfast
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you know, they are kind of like,
okay, what's going on here.
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I don't know quite
how to relate to it.
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So they know it's the Lord
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but they just
don't want to ask to Him.
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They don't really know
how to relate to Him now.
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Something is
different and they capture that.
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Interestingly, the
language here in the original
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is the language
of the Lord's Supper.
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He came, He took the
bread, He distributed to them,
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you know, did the
same with the fish.
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So it's kind of a bread
and fish communion almost
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and it's part of John's practice
of putting the Lord's Supper
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in other places
then in Chapter 13
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where you would expect it.
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And the Lord Supper
appears at a wedding,
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at a picnic lunch
and a picnic breakfast.
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So it's reminding us
to keep Jesus in mind
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in the everyday things of life.
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Moving on, verses 14 and 15.
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"This is now the third
time Jesus showed Himself
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to His disciples after
He was raised from the dead.
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So when they
had eaten breakfast,
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Jesus said to Simon
Peter, "Simon, son of Jonah,
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do you love Me more than these?"
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He said to
Him,--" Hang on there.
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Okay. Yeah.
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There's something you are not
going to see in English here.
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But the word, "Do you
love Me more than these?"
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In the Greek it's
one of those rare places
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where the masculine and
the neuter are the same.
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So you can't tell
just by looking at these
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whether it's
masculine or neuter.
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Now why does that matter?
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If its masculine,
Jesus is saying to Peter,
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"Do you love Me more
than the other disciples?"
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And that's believable,
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because Jesus does
seem to have the disease--
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I mean, Peter seems to
have disease of comparison.
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He likes to compare
himself with the Lord,
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you know, I will
follow You even though
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everybody else
leaves you behind.
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I love You more
than anybody else.
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You know, well what about
him, following us on the beach?
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What's going to happen with him?
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So he is constantly comparing.
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So it could be Jesus
is saying to him, you know
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"Do you really love Me
more than these disciples?"
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As if to invite him to
say, "Well, Lord, you know,
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I was little
over the top there."
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In which case,
the silence of Peter
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to that question
would be a confession.
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You know, yeah. Okay.
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But the neuter
would be interesting.
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"Do you love Me
more than these?"
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And that would be the boats,
the nets, maybe even the fish.
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In other words, are you
committed to the mission, Peter?
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You know, are you going to
go back to business as usual
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or you going to make me
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and the mission here
the center of your life?
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So it isn't clear
from the Greek itself
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whether He is
referring to the disciples,
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"Do you love Me more than these
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or do you love me more
than the fishing tackle
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and all of the rest
of what's going on here?"
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So it's interesting
how in the English language
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where we don't even
think about such things,
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people have just assumed,
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"Do you love Me more
than the other disciples?"
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and that maybe
what He is saying. Yeah.
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But it isn't the 100%
clear in the original. Right.
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And whatever the
Greek word would apply to
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it seems that the question,
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"Do you love Me
more than these?"
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I think even for us if
you were to answer that,
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there should be nothing
that we love more than Jesus.
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Whatever it is or whoever it is.
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So then, can I
keep reading verses?
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Why don't you read 15-17.
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"He said to Him, 'Yes,
Lord, You know that I love You.'
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He said to him, 'Feed My lambs.
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He said to him
again a second time,
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'Simon, son of
Jonah, do you love Me?'
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He said to Him, 'Yes,
Lord, You know that I love You.'
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He said to him, 'Tend My sheep.'
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He said to him the third time,
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'Simon, son of
Jonah, do you love Me?'
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Peter was grieved because
He said to him the third time,
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'Do you love Me?'
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And he said to Him,
'Lord, You know all things,
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You know that I love You.'
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Jesus said to
him, 'Feed My sheep.'"
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Now the word love
takes on many roles
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in the English
language, you know.
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I love my wife,
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I love Jesus, I love pizza,
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I love France, you know.
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You can say love
about many different things.
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In the Greek language there
are different words for love.
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There are actually four
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different kinds
of love in the Greek.
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One of these is
self-sacrificing love.
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What we've
learned to know as agape.
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A second is phileo,
it isn't Philadelphia.
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It means the love of a brother,
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the love of family type of
love, friendship and family.
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Then there's eros
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and that is
erotic love, sexual love
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and then there's
storge which is affection that
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you know, would be appropriate
to animals or acquaintances
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and things like that.
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So the New Testament
doesn't use all of these words
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but two of them
are in this passage
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and you can't
tell from the English
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which one is being used.
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But scholars have noted
that Jesus starts out saying,
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"Peter, do you agape Me?"
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and Peter response,
"Yes, Lord, I phileo You."
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In other words, do you love
me with self-sacrificing love?
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And Peter says, "Of course Lord,
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I love you like a friend."
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And then Jesus asked
again, "Do you agape Me?"
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And Peter says,
"Yeah, I phileo You."
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And then the
third time Jesus says,
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"Do you phileo
Me?" And Peter agreed.
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It's almost as if Jesus
is offering him some slack
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that Peter
can't quite make it up
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to the standard of
cruciform self-sacrificial love.
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But more recently
scholars have looked
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more carefully at this
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and they have determined
that in the Gospel of John
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these two words are
used interchangeably.
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For John, they don't
seem to mean different things
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but he can use each of them
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for what the
other might signify.
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So probably we shouldn't make
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too much of the changes of word.
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Even through I think a lot
of people have heard about that
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because it's been
used by many preachers
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through the years of saying.
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Ah, you know, poor Peter
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couldn't quite
come up to the standard
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but you and I, we can
agape Jesus, you know.
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So probably that's not the point
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but what the point is, is
Jesus is cutting really deep.
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I mean, Jesus is not
about surface life change.
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When you say, do you love me?
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And the person response...
Really, do you love me?
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Listen, I got to ask you
one more time, "Do you love me?"
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I mean Peter is kind of like,
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come on, you know, what
else can I say, what else--
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I know I messed up
but Lord please, you know.
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And Jesus is just
boring deep down into his heart
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and into his soul.
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And he is not
satisfied with shallow,
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surface type of following.
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And instead, He
invites Peter to go truly,
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truly deep to deal
with the sin in his life
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and to truly commit to Him.
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So that third time
the Jesus asks Peter,
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"Peter, do you phileo me?"
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What did Peter, how did
Peter responded the third time?
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"Yes, Lord, I phileo You again."
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Yes, he was--
So, he never changes.
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So, he never changes, yeah.
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Is that significant or is
it not, that's the debate.
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Probably, it isn't.
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Why don't we go
on to verse 20-21,
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where Peter betrays the
disease of comparison again?
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"Then Peter, turning around,
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saw the disciple whom
Jesus loved following,
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who also had leaned on
His breast at the supper,
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and said, 'Lord, who is
the one who betrays You?'
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Peter, seeing
him, said to Jesus,
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'But Lord, what
about this man?'"
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So Peter here is
still, you know, comparing
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but I think what Jesus
is saying here is look,
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you know, Peter would like
to be the head of the church,
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you know, the big guy
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and John is also going
to play a significant role.
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And Jesus is saying to
Peter, "He is not your concern.
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He is not in your jurisdiction."
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So Jesus is
pulling back from the idea
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that there's one dictator,
head of the church and so on.
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The church is to
have multitude of leaders
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and a multitude of
counselors, their safety.
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And then in the very
next, the rumor in verses 21-23
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it gets into the rumor
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that John would
live to see Jesus come
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and he uses that
to dispel this rumor
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and then let's go to very
last two verses of the gospel.
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"This is the disciple who
testifies of these things,
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and wrote these things,
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and we know that
his testimony is true.
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And there are also many
other things that Jesus did,
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which if they were
written one by one,
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I suppose that
even the world itself
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could not contain the books
that would be written. Amen."
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Well, it's time
to go to conclusion
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but before we do, just
one little extra thought.
00:10:41.67\00:10:45.92
Disciples catch a lot of fish
and those are directed by Jesus
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but they are
connected to the disciples.
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If this is a
parable of the church
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in the second generation,
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who are the fish
that Jesus caught?
00:10:57.38\00:11:00.56
And some have suggested,
00:11:00.59\00:11:02.42
maybe those fish
represents some people
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that Jesus takes directly
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that never actually
join the church on this earth
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but they still belong to Jesus.
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Maybe Muslims, Hindus,
00:11:11.43\00:11:13.43
who knows that there are others
as well who become connected
00:11:13.46\00:11:17.60
to Jesus in other ways
than through the church.
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There's something
to think about. Yeah.
00:11:20.05\00:11:21.82
But here in the
conclusion we see that there's
00:11:21.85\00:11:25.05
abundant number of
gospels could be written
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and John has been validated
00:11:28.02\00:11:30.10
as one of the
true gospel writers.
00:11:30.13\00:11:32.52
However the gospel
that matters the most
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is the one that Jesus
will write on your heart.
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Your gospel is the
testimony of the words
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that Jesus left behind in
these gospels in your life
00:11:47.39\00:11:51.13
and its transforming effect.
00:11:51.16\00:11:53.96
So there's no end to the books
00:11:53.99\00:11:57.02
that could be
written about Jesus
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but the key is this,
00:11:58.83\00:11:59.86
our account of
the Gospel of John
00:11:59.89\00:12:02.44
is coming to an end.
00:12:02.47\00:12:04.94
The story of Jesus' impact
on your life is only beginning.
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You know, Dr. Paulien,
00:12:11.33\00:12:12.78
I think that the Gospel of
John is now my favorite gospel.
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Good for you.
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God bless
friends till next time.
00:12:17.02\00:12:18.82