tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5080372433953859587.post5248648217795482612..comments2023-08-06T07:02:49.496-04:00Comments on Little Steps Home: John 6Amberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09002997517784638068noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5080372433953859587.post-38963913235093368222014-10-12T09:09:37.374-04:002014-10-12T09:09:37.374-04:00I enjoyed your comments, Amber, although I'm o...I enjoyed your comments, Amber, although I'm over a month behind on reading them. David may not have gotten notification of them, sadly. Susannehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03115294023069458287noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5080372433953859587.post-50253268225256821212014-09-07T17:43:55.400-04:002014-09-07T17:43:55.400-04:00“I think you're still reading John with 21st-c...“I think you're still reading John with 21st-century Hollywood eyes. :-) A novelist would be pouring on the adjectives here.”<br /><br />Those’re the eyes I’ve got. Though I’d say more ‘novelist’ or<br />bibliophile eyes than Hollywood. Books are my thing.<br /><br />I lament the 1st century literature style then. Because this could have been so much more gripping and dramatic.<br /><br />“The gospel writers will sometimes include the emotional details (and hang on, John 11's coming), but otherwise you have to let John be John and<br />let your imagination fill in the details.”<br /><br />You don’t know me well enough to understand that you may not want my imagination filling in the details. Throw in a sea monster here, a zombie over there…vampires. There’s always room for vampires and murders.<br /><br />Yes… I’ve heard the C.S. Lewis quote boiled down to, ‘Liar, Lunatic or Lord.’ Which is very pithy. And I do enjoy Lewis’ works, though not so much his fiction. There is, though, the fourth option. Which is that Jesus was a great moral teacher, or even a prophet, and that people after him changed or misunderstood what he was saying. Making him neither liar, lunatic nor lord.<br /><br />“// (v.65) And He said, “Therefore I have said to you that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted to him by My Father.” // I'm not into the idea of pre-destination, after all, what's the point of free will in a set up like that? But I imagine that this verse is one that is used to support that kind of theology. // Indeed it is. :-) “<br /><br />Are you of the pre-destination bent? Because if so, I’d like you to try and explain it to me. I really don’t understand the point of free will in that sort of theology. Or much of anything at all. If God has pre-destined everyone for their fate, and presumably everything leading up to that ultimate fate, we have no free will at all. And evangelizing, spreading the Gospels, etc. all becomes rather moot since if someone is destined for heaven or hell that’s where they will be no matter what anyone does or doesn’t do.<br /><br />“Our Lord's Supper at my church is a simple affair, but serious. It expresses sorrow over our sins that necessitated Christ's body to be broken, but deep gratitude for his willingness to die in our place so that we could have eternal life. It is good to be reminded of that on a regular basis. I really enjoy those times.”<br /><br />Obviously I have never been to your personal church. But I have attended a church of each denomination available in my town (and there are a LOT of them). I have never seen one that I thought treated Communion properly that wasn’t High Church. Catholic, Orthodox, Lutheran (some synods), Episcopalian (some). <br /><br />I think our standards for Communion done right may be a bit different.Amberhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09002997517784638068noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5080372433953859587.post-41104116314987298972014-06-28T00:21:19.812-04:002014-06-28T00:21:19.812-04:00// so why couldn't Jesus have been speaking al...// so why couldn't Jesus have been speaking along the lines of a soul coming down from heaven to do God's work/will but not being divine in and of himself? //<br /><br />Well, mainly because that's not what he's claiming. Again and again in John, Jesus will identify himself as coming to do the will of his Father, but he will ALSO make claims that only God himself can claim - giving eternal life to whom he pleases (ch.5), raising people up in the last day (ch.6), being the resurrection and the life (ch.11), being the one in whom you must believe in order to live (ch.6), coming from heaven and existing with the Father from all eternity (ch.16&17), having the authority to send the Holy Spirit (ch.16), claiming equality with God (both ch.5 and ch.10, for which they try to kill him both times), and claiming to be both Messiah and the Son of Man, which we known from Isaiah (for "Messiah") and Daniel (for "Son of Man") are divine titles.<br /><br />I'm sure you've heard the quote from C.S. Lewis, but it really is worth repeating:<br /><br />"I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher.<br /><br />He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to."<br /><br />// (v.65) And He said, “Therefore I have said to you that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted to him by My Father.”<br /> <br />// I'm not into the idea of pre-destination, after all, what's the point of free will in a set up like that? But I imagine that this verse is one that is used to support that kind of theology. //<br /><br />Indeed it is. :-) <br /><br />// The lack of respect for communion is one of those things that leaves a bad taste in my mouth. //<br /><br />God's not too happy about that either, as we see in 1 Cor. 11;17ff. We'll see more of the idea of communion/Lord's Supper in the Synoptic gospels (where, contra Martin Scorsese, isn't cannibalism). It is indeed one of the sacraments of Christianity. While the Bible does not give specific commands about how to conduct it or how often, Paul speaks of it as "proclaim the Lord's death until he comes." <br /><br />Our Lord's Supper at my church is a simple affair, but serious. It expresses sorrow over our sins that necessitated Christ's body to be broken, but deep gratitude for his willingness to die in our place so that we could have eternal life. It is good to be reminded of that on a regular basis. I really enjoy those times.<br /><br />Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12930012251415919303noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5080372433953859587.post-77415766971843909352014-06-28T00:20:29.262-04:002014-06-28T00:20:29.262-04:00// The other way to take it is that the miracle he...// The other way to take it is that the miracle here is not meant to be taken as a literal event but as a point of theology. // <br /><br />In this case it's meant to be taken as a literal miracle. 5 loaves of bread and two fish turn into a vast amount of food, leaving 12 baskets of extra food left over. The reaction of the crowd shows that - they were so amazed (and so eager to see more miracles) that they go hunting Jesus down for more.<br /><br />// Jesus walking on water in the middle of a fierce storm is met with a shrug once they recognize him. //<br /><br />I think you're still reading John with 21st-century Hollywood eyes. :-) A novelist would be pouring on the adjectives here. A screenwriter would be calling for incredible CGI effects and closeups of the disciples wild-eyes as they watch Jesus walking through the storm. But that's just not the way 1st century literature was written. The gospel writers will sometimes include the emotional details (and hang on, John 11's coming), but otherwise you have to let John be John and let your imagination fill in the details.<br /><br />// Now in verse 26 Jesus says that they follow him not because they've seen the signs but because they ate of the bread and were filled. But isn't the bread a sign? //<br /><br />Right, so I think the accusation could be rephrased "You're not following me because of the fulfillment of prophecy about Messiah, or the things I have done that point to me being the Messiah, but because your stomachs got filled up yesterday." The miraculous bread amazed them, but they're coming to Jesus with purely materialistic desires. <br /><br />And my verboseness and the word limit push me to the next comment...Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12930012251415919303noreply@blogger.com