John the Baptist’s testy interaction with the religious establishment – John 1:19-34, Part 4

Because John the Baptist said the darndest things, you can imagine it did not sit well with the religious leaders, especially when he called them snakes.  And that brings us back to the passage we are studying this week: John 1:19-34. We learn in John 1:19 that the religious elite back at their HQ in Jerusalem heard about this Elijah-like prophet baptizing people in the Jordan River, in the wilderness, so they dispatch some of their underlings to go out and see what John was all about.

Look at verse 20.  The underlings ask John, “Are you the Christ?,” which is another way of saying, are you the Messiah?  Are you the savior of Israel?  John says, “I am not.”

So in verse 21, they ask him, “Are you Elijah?”  It sure seemed like it, as we learned in the previous post.  But that would be weird, right?  Elijah come back to life 1000 years later?  I think the agents asked this with a sneer, just salivating in the hope that he would say “Yes” because he was dressing and acting like Elijah.  Then when he said, “Yes, I am Elijah,” they were tear him down verbally because that is ridiculous.  People dead 1000 years don’t come back to life.  But John answered, “No.”

So then in verse 21, they ask, “Are you The Prophet?”  Notice that they did not ask, “Are you A prophet,” but they asked John, “Are you THE Prophet”.  What are they talking about?  Is there some special prophet that was supposed to show up?  Yes, there was.  In Deuteronomy 18, which I wrote about here, Moses told the people that a prophet would come, a prophet like him to lead the people.  So there was, in the thinking of some, the idea that a great prophet like Moses would rise up and lead the people.  Was this just another way of talking about the Messiah?  Or was this a person that had already appeared in the Old Testament, say a Samuel or Elijah?  We don’t know.  But it doesn’t matter because John clears it up.  Nope, he says, he is not the prophet.

So in verse 22, it seems the agents from the religious establishment are getting frustrated, “Just tell us who you are.”  They have to report back to their superiors at HQ in Jerusalem, and so far John has given them nothing. 

John replies in verse 23 by quoting the ancient prophet Isaiah.  Actually he shortens Isaiah chapter 40, verse 3 to, “I am the voice of one calling in the desert, ‘Make straight the way for the Lord’.”  Again, John connects himself to the Jewish peoples’ prophetic desert tradition.  Specifically, he is saying, “I am not the Messiah, but instead I am one who is calling people to prepare for the Messiah who is coming.”  John’s ministry was one of telling people to get ready for the Messiah by confessing their sins, turning away from a life of sin, and pursuing God’s heart of love and justice.  Then the people would be baptized as a sign to all that they had washed away their old life of sin, and they were now pursuing their new life of following God. 

John, in other words, was right in line with the prophets of old who spoke bold truth to people about how their lives were out of line with heart of God. 

Notice in verse 24 that the agents of the religious establishment ask John why he baptizes, considering the fact that he has already told them he is not the messiah, Elijah or the prophet.  John’s response again points to his mission, his purpose.  He is the forerunner, preparing the way for someone else.

Who is that someone else? We’ll find out in the next post.

Was John the Baptist a wild man? – John 1:19-34, Part 3

Did John really go wild? In the previous post, I mentioned that much artwork depicting John the Baptist has him looking like a caveman.  Why? 

Because in Matthew 3:4 we read this about John, “John’s clothes were made of camel’s hair, and he had a leather belt around his waist. His food was locusts and wild honey.” 

Clothes made out of camel’s hair?  What would that even be like?  Google it, and you might be surprised that there’s a whole camel hair clothing industry, and perhaps John wore a garment that wasn’t so wild as it first seems.  Actually camel’s hair clothing can be quite soft.  Camel’s hair, being so accessible in the ancient near east, was often used for clothing.

But there seems to be another reason John had this clothing, one that was not at all wild like a caveman.  In 2 Kings 1:8, we read this: “He was a man with a garment of hair and with a leather belt around his waist.”  That’s the same description as John the Baptist’s clothing, except 2 Kings 1:8 was talking about a man who lived nearly 1000 years before John the Baptist.  That man was the famous prophet Elijah, and he wasn’t a caveman either.  Instead, the symbolism was very clear.  John the Baptist was purposefully dressing in the same style as Elijah. 

If you’re wondering “Wouldn’t that style have gone out of fashion in 1000 years?” the answer is almost certainly No.  You and I are used to fashion trends changing wildly year to year and season to season.  Especially decade to decade and century to century.  Not so in biblical times.  In fact, there are some nomadic peoples that still wear ancient clothing styles in our day.  Certainly there were changes and innovations over time, but a basic camel’s hair cloak was common for centuries. Some scholars suspect that many people would have worn them.

So what about eating locusts?  That seems wild.  Eating bugs?  When my wife took groups to Cambodia they purchased fried and seasoned bugs of many varieties, and team members would try them!  There is scholarly debate about what John’s diet of bugs and honey could mean, but the majority opinion is that it was rather wild.  Honey is delicious, so maybe he soaked the bugs in honey?  Either way, John was cultivating a prophetic aura.  He wanted people to make the connection between himself and the great prophet of history, Elijah. 

Even his choice of living in and ministering in the desert or wilderness had prophetic overtones, as the prophet Moses led the Israelites through the wilderness.  It seems the people centuries later in John’s day made the connection.  Matthew tells us in Matthew 3:5-6 that, “People went out to him from Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole region of the Jordan. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River.”

Let’s talk about the prophetic role a moment.  We tend to think of prophets as people who give messages from God about the future.  But that’s more rare in the biblical view than what you might think.  Instead, most prophecy is in the category of “If-Then” prophecy, and it still has a relationship to the future.  If you don’t stop sinning, then your future will not be good.  If you turn from your sinful way, then your future will be good.

Instead of telling the future, prophets tended to tell the truth about what people were doing now.  Remember our study through Ezekiel?  All his skits and dreams and really weird behavior?  All of that was primarily a very creative way that God was trying to get his people’s attention about their current behavior.  Almost always, the message was “You are sinning!  Stop it, return to me, or you will face the consequences.” 

God’s prophets were very clear indications of God’s desperate love for his people.  God, through his prophets, attempts to intervene, pleading with the people to return to him.  John was in that line of prophets, calling the people back to God.  But John’s prophetic ministry had a unique twist.  He was the forerunner. 

Turn to Malachi 4:5 and 6, the very last words of the Old Testament.   “See, I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes. He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers; or else I will come and strike the land with a curse.”

That ancient prophecy was yet another reason why John is cultivating his image to be like the return of Elijah. But this Elijah 2.0 had the responsibility of preparing the people for the Lord.

How did John accomplish that ministry. It depends. The crowds of peasants seemed to adore him, flocking to him to be baptized.  They loved John’s preaching because he was not afraid to tell the truth about the nation. 

But there were some other people who didn’t seem to have a good impression. Why? John was bold.  Prophets like Elijah and John are often bold in speaking God’s truth.  John called out hypocrisy, injustice, and sin.  John said the darndest things.  For example, in Matthew 3, listen to what John says,

“He saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to where he was baptizing, he said to them: “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not think you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.”

Did you hear that?  John called the religious leaders, snakes! But there’s more. Another time John confronted King Herod.  We read in Matthew 14:3-5,

“Now Herod had arrested John and bound him and put him in prison because of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife, for John had been saying to him: “It is not lawful for you to have her.” Herod wanted to kill John, but he was afraid of the people, because they considered him a prophet.” 

Though the people loved John, not long after the episode above, Herod had John killed, and that means John’s prophetic ministry lasted likely only a few months until Jesus came on the scene. During those months, John’s primary ministry was calling the people to repent of their sins and be baptized.  Because he said the darndest things, John’s message did not sit well with the religious or political leaders.

In fact, as we return to John 1:19-34, we’ll learn more about the religious leaders’ concerns about John in the next post.

Photo by Moritz Bruder on Unsplash

The backstory of John the Baptist – John 1:19-34, Part 2

Who was John the Baptist? In this post we begin to learn the backstory of John the Baptist. While our current blog series is studying the Gospel of John, and while this week we are learning about John 1:19-34, to get the backstory of John the Baptist, we need to turn elsewhere. The full account starts in Luke chapter 1, verse 5.  Let me summarize it.

In first century Palestine, living near Jerusalem, a priest named Zechariah and his wife, Elizabeth, were very godly Jews, but they were unable to have children.  In their old age, God blessed them by telling them they were miraculously going to have a son.  God told them to name their son, “John.”  God said John was going to grow up to be a great prophet like the prophet Elijah, calling people to return to the Lord.  Specifically, God says in verse 17, that their son’s prophetic ministry and purpose was “to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.” 

John is going to be a prophet.  What is a prophet?  A prophet is one who hears from God and the speaks the word of God, most often by calling out sin and directing people to repent of their sin and place their hope in God.

Skip ahead to Luke 1, verse 57, and there we read about John’s birth, and we learn more about John being a prophet.  Notice, particularly, verses 76-80.  In directing you to read verse 76, I am jumping right into the middle of what is called “Zechariah’s Song.”  John’s dad, filled with the Holy Spirit, writes this prophetic song, which says some amazing things about John.  In particular notice what Zechariah sings about John in verses 76-79,

“And you, my child, will be called a prophet of the Most High; for you will go on before the Lord to prepare the way for him, to give his people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our God, by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the path of peace.”

How many of you fathers prophesied over your sons like that?  My guess is that it is not too many.  But remember that Zechariah is filled with the Spirit, so God is at work in his life.  For 2000 years of church history, we Christian are accustomed to the idea of Christians being the temple of the Spirit, that somehow or another the Spirit lives with us.  But in the Jewish mindset of Zechariah’s day, that simply was not an expectation for people.  Maybe a King David would be filled with the Spirit, maybe a Prophet like Ezekiel, as you might remember that in our blog series studying through Ezekiel.  In the world of the Old Testament, though, only the rare, rare person would encounter the Spirit like that.  Not even a priest like Zechariah would expect this. 

But the Spirit showed up in Zechariah’s life, God did an amazing work, speaking a mission over the life of Zechariah’s newborn baby.  What mission?  John was to be the forerunner, the one who goes ahead and prepares the way for God who would come.  John’s prophetic ministry, in other words, was to pave the way for another person’s ministry, by speaking truth to the people and the powers, directing them to repent and place their hope in God. 

In verse 80, we read simply that John grew, became strong in spirit, and lived in the desert until he appeared publicly to Israel.  What?  He grew, became strong in spirit and lived in the desert?  There is so much missing in that verse. I have so many questions: 

  1. Considering the fact that his parents were elderly when he was born, how long did they live after he was born? Likely not 30 years.
  2. Given that Jesus was about 30 when he started his ministry, and given that Jesus was born a few months after John, that means John was also about 30 when he started his ministry.  If we make an educated guess that his parents died before John was 30, and if they died when he was still a boy, who raised him?
  3. Did he study to enter the priesthood like his father?
  4. When did he begin living in the desert?  Was he all on his own?  How long was in the desert?  What was it like living in the desert? 
  5. When did he know that he was to have this forerunner ministry?

We simply don’t know what happened in those intervening years.  All we know is that John was born under some amazing circumstances, he had quite the calling on his life, and in 30 years time he was shaped by and grew strong in Spirit. 

Also, he seems to have gone a bit wild.  Or at least it seems that way at first glance.  Frankly, much artwork depicting John the Baptist has him looking like a Fred Flintstone caveman.  Why? Check back to the next post, and we’ll learn more about John’s life story. 

The Prophet who said the darndest things – John 1:19-34, Part 1

The TV Show Kids Say the Darndest Things has been on the air for decades.  The title of the show uses the word “darndest,” and that’s a catchy title, but what is the title really getting at? Well, take a look:

The word “darndest” is getting at the fact that kids have that wonderful quality of telling it like they see it.  They speak the truth as they see it.  Certainly kids can lie too.  We parents and grandparents know about that.  But when they are not trying to avoid getting punished for doing something bad, kids will usually tell the truth, as they see it.  There is a wonderful innocence about kids, in how they just put it out there. 

Earlier this week, my son in college texted our family group chat saying that in one of his classes that day he had learned that 1 + 1 = 1.  If you ask a kid what 1 + 1 equals, they will eagerly tell you “2”.  But something happens as we age, as we gain some experience in the world, as we learn about the complexity of relationships, and the reality of pain and loss.  What once appeared so simple, so clear, can become more complex or confusing. 

Case in point; 1 + 1 can equal 1, in the world of Boolean algebra, which is what my son is learning in one of his college classes.  I’m not going to even begin to attempt to explain Boolean algebra.  (Interested readers can learn how 1 + 1 = 1 here.) My point is that we can age out of that child-like truthfulness and clarity, in our good and helpful attempt to have a more nuanced view of our complex world. But we can go so far that we can lost in the weeds. 

Have you ever known a person who is an over-analyzer?  Maybe that is you.  The person who evaluates seemingly endlessly, trying to cover all their bases, and all the what-ifs, and they can have a very hard time landing the plane, making a decision, or speaking clearly.  My wife, rightly, tells me “Joel, you’re being vague.  You don’t want to hurt people’s feelings, and so you are being so vague that they don’t know what you are talking about.  You need to be straight with people.  Certainly with gracious kindness.  But clear.  Simple.  Direct.”  Kind of like the kids who say the darndest things. 

This week we’re going to meet a rare adult who spoke boldly, clearly, and directly.  A prophet named John, and we’re going to learn that he said the darndest things.  We met him last week, briefly, but this week in our continuing study of the Gospel of John we’re going to focus on this prophet John.  Let me try to be clear right now.  I just mentioned the name John twice.  The Gospel of John and the prophet John.  Those are two different men, both who have the name John.  The Gospel of John was written by one of Jesus’ disciples, who we call the Apostle John.  But every time the Gospel of John mentions a man named John, it is talking about John the Prophet, or as you and I more familiarly call him, John the Baptist. 

Please open your Bibles to John 1:19 and read verses 19-28 all about John the Baptist.

In verse 19, we read that John was giving a testimony.  In the Gospel of John, we are going to hear numerous times about people giving testimony, and today we have the first person.  A testimony is given by a witness, by someone who saw something and now they are telling us what they saw.  John saw something amazing, and he is going to talk about it.

Before we go any further in verse 19, let’s travel down a little sidetrack to learn more about John the Baptist.  Like I mentioned, we met John last week.  If you glance back at verse 6, you read, “There came a man sent from God; his name was John.”

But that doesn’t tell us all that much about John.  Where did he come from?  If he was sent from God, it sure sounds like he was basically the same as Jesus.  Was John the Messiah?  As we heard in the reading, there were plenty of people, including the religious leaders in Jewish society who wanted to know who he was. 

Check back to the next past as we learn the backstory of John the Baptist.

Prophets who don’t know how to be prophets – John 1:19-34, Preview

Are there still prophets in the world today? 

No doubt there are people who claim to be prophets.  Do you remember Harold Camping of the Family Radio Network?  He predicted Jesus was returning in 1994.  When Jesus did not return that year, Camping went on to predict Jesus would return in May 2011.  In fact, Camping launched a $100 million ad campaign using the slogan “Judgment Day May 21: The Bible guarantees it.”  Thousands of families joined him, some to the point of selling their homes and donating their fortunes to the cause.

May 21, 2011, came and went, but Jesus didn’t return.  Do you know how Camping handled his clear mistake?  He said that Jesus did come back, but that it had been only a “spiritual coming.” He then made another prediction, that Jesus was now going to return on October 21st of that year.  But this time Camping said Jesus’ return, “won’t be spiritual…The world is going to be destroyed altogether, but it will be very quick.”

Guess what happened on October 21st, 2011?  Nothing. 

Well, actually, something did happen.  People were very angry, and some sued Camping and Family Radio for fraud.  Donations to Camping’s ministry dropped way off, and in March 2012 Religion News Service reported, “Camping, called his erroneous prediction that the world would end last May 21 an ‘incorrect and sinful statement’ and said his ministry is out of the prediction business.”  Camping passed away later that year, personally and professionally never recovering from his disgrace.

The problem with Camping’s approach to prophecy, and that of many contemporary prophets, is that they tend to focus on predicting the future.  Before, during and after the 2020 Presidential Election, for example, numerous so-called prophets made false predictions about the election’s outcome.  What they misunderstand is the actual role of the prophet.  Only rarely in Scripture does God give a person supernatural insight into the future.  Instead, prophets have a different and important role.  We’re going to meet one of those prophets in our continuing study of the Gospel of John.  That prophet’s name is also John, John the Baptist.  Jesus once called him the greatest prophet, and yet, John was not in the business of predicting the future.  Instead, John is one in a long line of godly prophets, prophets that are still around today, believe it or not.  In fact, you just might have prophets in your own church family.  And we need them.

What am I talking about?  I invite you to join me on the blog next week to find out. 

The problem and solution of God’s invisibility – John 1:1-18, Part 5

How many of you wish that God were visible?  How many of you wish that you could just have a little miracle of Jesus showing up at your doorstep to give you some reassurance that he is right there?  How many of you look back at some of the miracles recorded in the Bible and think to yourself, “What I wouldn’t give to be there and see that?”  Or even better, you read about the disciples who got to walk and talk with Jesus, see the miracles and hear him teach, and you think to yourself, “That would be awesome.  That would help me so much.”

In our private times, perhaps in the shelter of our own hearts and minds, we wonder sometimes about the existence of God.  His invisibility can cause us great concern can’t it?  If we’re all honest, we’ve would admit that we have these thoughts. 

And yet, as John will report to us in John 20:29, Jesus said to Thomas who doubted his resurrection, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believed.”  So there is a blessing to not seeing, yet we want so badly to see and touch Jesus.  John in his letter of 1st John, takes this idea of the longing for seeing God and finds an amazing solution. 

We’ve been learning in our study this week of John 1:1-18 that Jesus is God in the flesh. The concept of Jesus as God in the flesh, we learned in the previous post, is called The Incarnation. Surprisingly, Jesus taught his disciples to incarnate him to the rest of the world.  We are to be like Jesus in the skin, to the rest of the world. Because Jesus is God to us, we must become Jesus to the people in our sphere of influence: neighbors, co-workers, classmates, friends, and family, just as we studied recently in our Relationships series.

In his letter called 1st John there is a section where John explains how this works so powerfully.  Turn to 1st John 4:12.  There John says that no one has seen God.  He is invisible, but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.  Now scan over to verse 16 where he explains this even further: “And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.  God is love.  Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.” 

In this passage, two verbs are repeated numerous times.  Loves and Lives.  What John is trying to communicate here is the amazing idea that though we can’t physically walk and talk with Jesus, Jesus’ spirit, God’s Spirit, the Holy Spirit lives in us.  Remember how in John 1:14 John writes that Jesus made his dwelling among us, tabernacled with us?  Dwell on that thought for a moment.  The Holy Spirit is with you.  He isn’t pushy or forceful.  You choose to remember, to interact with Jesus, with the Spirit, with God.  You choose to allow him to fill your life and grow his fruit in your life.

We now examine how John describes this in 1st John 4:13, “We know that we live in him and he in us because he has given us of his Spirit.”  God lives in us.  And when we live in love, we live in God.  Whenever we live in love, we live in God.  The word John uses for living is about abiding, residing.  It is a fixed state of remaining together.  And when we love one another, God resides in us.  When we love one another we show that God is actually in us.  When we love one another we show that God is real.  When we love one another we are incarnating God.  We are making God appear in the flesh all over again, by showing love to one another. 

This teaching is very similar to the Fruit of the Spirit that we studied a couple months ago.  When we walk in step with the Spirit, the Spirit grows his fruit in us.  We overflow with the love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, goodness, kindness, faithfulness and self-control of the Spirit; we incarnate God to the people around us.  We are not God.  But God is at work in us.  Not in the same way as Jesus was God in the skin, of course.  But God is at work in us, and through us.

Is it possible that people long for an appearance of God or a miracle because so many Christians have not practiced this principle of loving one another?  What are we evangelical Christians are known for?  We are anti-abortion, we are anti-homosexuality, we are anti-same sex marriage, etc.  But are we known for our love?  In the early church, one historian noted that “Oh how they loved one another.”  Are we known for sacrificial life-giving care for those we interact with?

In Jesus, God shows his great love for humanity by becoming human.  What a vulnerable, humble, sacrificial, beautiful act.  That reminds us of our mandate to give that same love to all humanity.  What we call the incarnation, God in the skin, must continue through us to the people around us! 

Photo by Tolu Olarewaju on Unsplash

The identity of The Word in… – John 1:1-18, Part 4

Who was God in the skin?  In our study of John 1:1-18, we learned in the previous post that John writes in verse 14 that God, who John calls The Word, took on human skin. But John hasn’t told us yet who The Word is, so let me introduce another word. God in the skin is what theologians call The Incarnation. 

Incarnation sounds like a flower, the carnation.  Or Carnation Instant Breakfast. (Is that even still a thing?)   But The Incarnation is neither of those.  The Incarnation is a word derived from the Latin words, en carne which means “in the flesh.”  You might be familiar with the word “carnivore.”  That’s a word that means “meat eater” or “flesh eater.”  Same root word. 

When God who is the Word, John writes, takes on flesh, that is God in human skin.  Again, up to this point in verse 14, John has not yet named specifically who the Word is.  But he soon will.

Before we get to the big reveal, let’s review what we have learned about the Word so far in this week’s posts (here, here and here).  1. The Word is God, 2. The Word was with God in the beginning, creating all things. 3. The Word is God speaking to and interacting with all people in a new way.  4. The Word is the author of life and light. 

Now in verse 14 he says “The Word became flesh.”  What John doesn’t tell us is the story about how The Word was born by a human mother, through a physical birth, as a baby into a human family.  We know that story from the other Gospel writers Matthew and Luke.  John’s purpose is to point out something important about the Word.  In verse one he says “The Word was God,” and in verse 14 he says, “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.” So from verse 1 to verse 14 we have the concept of the Word as both 100% human and 100% God. 

As we continue following John’s introduction of the Word chapter 1, look again at verses 14-18.  He says that the Word came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

John emphasizes this point in verse 17, specifically for his Jewish audience.  The law came through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.  Now we know the identity of the Word! This is big reveal! This is the first time John mentions the name, Jesus. Jesus is just the Hebrew name, Yeshua, which is identical to our English name Joshua. But traditionally, we translate it as Jesus. What is even more important than his, John says, is that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, the savior of the world, not because Jesus followed the Law of Moses, but because he brings grace and truth. 

There’s that phrase again. The Word, Jesus, is full of grace and truth. The image John gives us is of a bottomless pit that is filled to the brim. In other words, Jesus’ grace and truth are so abundant, there is no end to them. And yet, like we saw above in verse 14, John doesn’t explain the depths of what that means.  He simply introduces the larger concept of grace and truth, which are found infinitely in Jesus.  We’ll talk more about Jesus’ as the source of grace and truth in the weeks and months to come as John returns to them.

For now, notice how John concludes in verse 18.  God is invisible, but God the One and Only (another way that John refers to Jesus) has made God known.  Jesus makes God visible to us.  When we read the stories of Jesus in the Gospels, we get to see what God is like. The invisible God become visible in the life of Jesus.  Amazing!    

The significance of this is that God so desires relationship with all humanity that he made a way for us to easily see his heart and love for us. But it gets more amazing still.  When Jesus leaves the disciples, he tells that he wants them to incarnate himself to the rest of the world.  Just as Jesus is God in the skin to us, disciples of Jesus are to be Jesus in the skin to the rest of the world. What does that mean? Check back to the next post, as we’ll talk about it.

Photo by Jackson David on Unsplash

The amazing news that God wants to adopt you – John 1:1-18, Part 3

So far, John hasn’t told us the identity of the Word.  He continues now in verses 6-9 by giving us some history.  Verses 1-5 have been very theological, kind of vague, maybe hard to understand.  John knows he needs to start getting more specific.  So he introduces us to a man named John.  He is not talking about himself.  In the Gospel of John, the name John is always talking about John the Baptist.  See for yourself by reading John 1, verses 6-9.

As you can see in verses 6-9, the author John only mentions the name of this other guy, who happens to also be named John. The author John does not yet tell us that the other John is also the person who was famous for baptizing people.  We’ll hear about John’s baptizing ministry in the passage we study next week.  For now, the author John writes that this other John was sent from God to testify concerning the light, so that through him all people might believe in the light.  John (the baptizer), we learn, wanted people to believe in the light.  John himself was not the light of the world.  John was simply a witness, giving testimony, and pointing people to turn to the Light. 

In these verses the author John introduces a word that we will see frequently in his gospel: believe.  Specifically, he wants people to believe in the Word, who is the light of the world. 

In verses 10-13, the author John continues this theme about believing in the Word who is the light of the world.  Read those verses to learn what John has to say about that.

Did you notice that in verse 10, John repeats what he already said about the Word in verses 1-5: The Word created the world, but the world did not recognize him.  Then in verse 11, John gets more specific. He says the Word came to his own people, but even his own people did not receive him. 

The clues about the identity of the Word are starting to bring the identity of the Word into focus.  The Word is God.  The Word came to his people, but they didn’t receive him.  Do you know who the Word is yet?

I will admit that in verses 10-11, John has become a bit negative or dire, talking about darkness and people not receiving the Word, but he quickly turns 180 degrees to a message of hope.  In verses 12-13 John shares one of the most wonderful passages in his Gospel.  He writes that any person can receive the Word, can believe in the Word, and as a result, can become children of God.  Any person can be adopted into God’s family!  This is astonishing news.  Adoption is central to the story of God’s family.  God’s heart beats to adopt children, to expand his family, to receive and welcome all.  What a message of love.  Whatever this Word is, the Word brings light into the darkness.  If we receive the Word and believe in his name, we can become adopted children of God!

In fact, as we continue, we will now see the extreme measures God takes so that people can be adopted into his family. 

Look at verse 14 “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.”  The Greek word John uses for “made his dwelling” is skeneo, and as you can see, it is where we get our English word “skin.” 

What it means is “to take up residence or to come to reside or to come to dwell IN A TENT.”  You can see why the New International Version of the Bible translates this phrase as “made his dwelling among us.”  The mental imagery here would be astounding for the Jewish mind.  The Jews are a people that started as a nomadic tribe, going back to the time of Abraham, and the idea of tent dwellings was very near and dear to them. Abraham lived in tents. But there is more.

When you think of a tent what material do you think of? Probably canvas or nylon. But in ancient times, tents were made of what?  Skins!  Animal skins.  There was one tent in particular that was made of animal skin that was incredibly important to the Jewish people.  The tabernacle. 

I invite you to open a Bible to Exodus chapter 26, and there we can read about how the tabernacle was made.  At the beginning of the chapter, God talks with Moses about the curtains that will form the interior and exterior walls of the tabernacle.  Then in verse 14 he instructs them to make a covering.  This would be a large exterior roof, and it is to be made of ram skins dyed red and over that a covering of sea cows, which were native to the area.  When you looked at the tabernacle, then, you saw animal skins.  No canvas or nylon.  It was a tent covered with animal skins. 

And where did God reside in the Old Testament?  In the tabernacle, made of skin. 

Turn back to John 1:14, and we meet this God in the skin.  John uses powerful imagery, saying that the Word became flesh, and made his dwelling among us.  He tabernacled with us.  Who was God in the skin? Who was the Word?

We’ll find out in the next post.

Photo by Austin Lowman on Unsplash

In the beginning…God had help creating? – John 1:1-18, Part 1

Do you like your skin?  Do you feel comfortable in your skin?  I mentioned in the preview post here that we are going to talk about Jesus’ skin.

I’m sure each of us has thought more than our fair share about our skin.  The ways we don’t like it, especially.  The blemishes.  The wear and tear.  The scars. 

Over the years we’ve all probably spent some time and money on our skin.  At the very least, I hope you wear sun block because skin cancer is a reality we can avoid. 

When you go to the store, there are lots of skin care products, aren’t there?  And there’s debate about skin care products.  Does the US Food and Drug Administration have good regulations for skin care products, or are they allowing us to put toxins on our skin? 

I’m not writing about skin care, but we do need to talk about skin.  Jesus’ skin.

Turn in your Bibles to the Gospel of John.  As you are turning there, let’s briefly review what we talked about last week, an introduction to the Gospel of John.  John was one of Jesus’ disciples, and John lived to be an old man, most likely that last disciple living. There were already three other books about Jesus.  We call them Matthew, Mark and Luke.  They are very similar, so John wanted to write about Jesus from a different perspective.  He wants people who never walked or talked with Jesus to believe in Jesus. 

As we’ll see, John talks about his desire for people to believe in Jesus right from outset, in the prologue to his story about Jesus.  John was probably connected to the church in the city of Ephesus, which would have likely been a group of house churches.  All was not fine and dandy in the church.  People were trying teach things about Jesus that John didn’t agree with.  As the last eyewitness of Jesus, he wants to set the record straight.  Who was Jesus?  Why did he come?  Or like we’re talking about this morning: skin.  Skin?  Yup, John talks about skin right near the beginning. 

Let’s start with John 1:1-5.  When you read those verses, there is no mention of skin.  I promise, John’s getting there. So let’s follow along with his flow of thought. Look at verse 1, “In the beginning was the Word.” Does that remind you of any other famous verse of the Bible? 

It’s nearly identical to Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth,” the famous opening verse of the Bible. Do you see how John is making a link to that verse?  But with an important change.  A twist.  “In the beginning was the Word!”  What word is John talking about? 

He gives us clues.  Whatever this word is, John tells us in verses 1-5 numerous elements of the Word’s identity.  First he writes that The Word was with God in the beginning. In the beginning? Is John referring to the same beginning as Genesis 1:1? Just so you aren’t confused about what John means, he clarifies that the Word was God.  That is the significant difference between Genesis 1:1 and John 1:1.  In Genesis 1:1, we are simply told that God created the heavens and earth.  Now in John 1:1, we have a clarification, some new information.  God and The Word were there together in the beginning, but they are not two separate entities.  The Word is God.  John’s readers who were familiar with Genesis 1:1 might have said, “Wait a minute, John, Genesis says God created.  Not God and someone else.”  So John moves on to his next point.

The Word created all things.  Look at verses 3-5, where John writes, “Through him all things were made.”  John is not saying that Genesis 1:1 is incorrect.  He is simply adding more information to the narrative.  John is saying that when we think of the idea of God creating the universe, we need to expand our understanding of God.  God also includes The Word. 

John has more to say about this Word that is God.  And we’re going to get to that.  First we need to understand at least a bit of what John is getting at when he uses this concept of The Word.  We’ll talk about John’s use of “The Word” in the next post.

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash