Sat, 25 December 2010
Jesus says that He is the bread which has come down from Heaven, that we must physically eat His body to have eternal life, and that He will raise those who believe on the last day, and this upsets many of his followers. Jesus states these things clearly and without equivocation and makes no attempt to offer a more crowd-pleasing teaching. |
Sat, 18 December 2010
Jesus is provoking the religious with His statements; if the statements are true, we must worship Him, if they be false, His blasphemy would carry the punishment of death. Whatever His followers knew, His detractors understood this. |
Sat, 11 December 2010
Jesus heals a man who has been paralyzed for 38 years. The man takes up his mat and is accused for taking up his mat on the Sabbath, ignoring the great feat of healing that just took place. When pressed on this point, Jesus declares that He is working on the sabbath because His father is working. This stirs up some people because while there was a Jewish tradition of calling God our father, calling Him one's own father means that the speaker is either blaspheming or the begotten son of God. |
Sat, 4 December 2010
Jesus returns to Galilee after the arrest of John, but even at that time, the disciples of Jesus were baptising more people than John the Baptist. Even still, there is no evidence that any baptisms were sacramental baptisms before Pentecost. As He travels through Samaria, and runs into a woman who is drawing water at high noon, trying to avoid the others in the community. Jesus baits the woman into asking Him about the "living water" that he can give her. He explains that this water will become a spring and anyone who drinks of it will never be thirsty again. If we have truly received this living water, this should be our experience as well, though it may be that we have only allowed it to be a trickle in us. |