Tag Archives: Philip

JOHN’S GOSPEL…FOLLOW ME – 6

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“Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, was one of the two who heard what John had said and who had followed Jesus. The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, “We have found the Messiah” (that is, the Christ). And he brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, “You are Simon son of John. You will be called Cephas” (which, when translated, is Peter)…

John’s record of Jesus calling His disciples differs from the stories told by Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Why is this? Does it mean that the Bible is inaccurate or contradictory? Not at all! What if John was recording what happened before Jesus officially ratified His choice of the Twelve after a night of prayer?

“The next day Jesus decided to leave for Galilee. Finding Philip, he said to him, “Follow me.” Philip, like Andrew and Peter, was from the town of Bethsaida. Philip found Nathanael and told him, “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” When Jesus saw Nathanael approaching, he said of him, “Here truly is an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.” “How do you know me?” Nathanael asked. Jesus answered, “I saw you while you were still under the fig tree before Philip called you.” Then Nathanael declared, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the king of Israel.”

‭‭John‬ ‭1‬:‭40‬-‭45‬, ‭47‬-‭49‬ ‭NIV‬‬

 Jesus’ call to follow Him was both general and specific. 

“One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God. When morning came, he called his disciples to him and chose twelve of them, whom he also designated apostles:”

‭‭Luke‬ ‭6‬:‭12‬-‭13‬ ‭NIV‬

From a larger group, He chose twelve men who would follow Him, walk with Him, live with Him, learn from Him, trust Him, love Him and, except for one defector, Judas, eventually carry on His mission across the known world… and some would even die for Him. 

What convinced Jesus’ first followers that He was indeed their Messiah, however they understood, at that moment, what “Messiah” meant?

It happened as a chain of events.

  1. John pointed two of his disciples to Jesus. 

True to his calling, John the Baptiser turned his attention away from himself to Jesus. Two of his unnamed disciples got the message and went after Jesus to discover for themselves who He was. One of these two turned out to be Andrew. 

“When the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus. Turning around, Jesus saw them following and asked, “What do you want?” They said, “Rabbi” (which means “Teacher”), “where are you staying?” “Come,” he replied, “and you will see.” So they went and saw where he was staying, and they spent that day with him. It was about four in the afternoon.”

‭‭John‬ ‭1‬:‭37‬-‭39‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Why did they want to know where He was living? Was it a veiled request to spend time with Him?

A whole day with Jesus! What did they learn that cemented their conviction that He was indeed their Messiah? It would be impossible to spend a few hours with Jesus without coming away convinced that He was far more than just a man!

  1. Andrew went home and told Simon, his brother. 

 Of course Andrew couldn’t keep quiet! How could he when he had found the very person the whole of Israel was anticipating with eager longing. What a find!

“The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, “We have found the Messiah” (that is, the Christ). And he brought him to Jesus…”

John 1:41 NIV

If Andrew’s story didn’t convince Simon, surely Jesus’ first words to him must have blown his mind…

“Jesus looked at him and said, “You are Simon son of John. You will be called Cephas” (which, when translated, is Peter).”

‭‭John‬ ‭1‬:‭42‬ ‭NIV‬‬

  1. Jesus noticed Philip

On Jesus’ way to Galilee, Philip caught His attention. How? Where? We don’t know, but it happened. 

  1. Philip found Nathanael

Nathanael was more than convinced. He was gobsmacked, sold out. How did that happen? 

Jesus made a strange comment…

“When Jesus saw Nathanael approaching, he said of him, “Here truly is an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.” “How do you know me?” Nathanael asked. Jesus answered, “I saw you while you were still under the fig tree before Philip called you.”

‭‭John‬ ‭1‬:‭47‬-‭48‬ ‭NIV‬‬

“I know who you are! I saw you under the fig tree! I know what you were doing! I know why you came to me…because Philip told you!” What more did Nathanael need to convince him that Jesus was no ordinary man. 

Let’s unpack Jesus’ words…”an Israelite in whom is no deceit…” “I know you!”Jesus affirmed Nathanael’s character…a genuine, honest man. 

“I saw you…” Not only did Jesus see into him, He also knew where he was, “under the fig tree…”, symbolically still under the yoke of Judaism, locked into a system of slavery to the law. Was Nathanael faithfully praying the ritual prayers of Judaism “under the fig tree” both literally and symbolically since the fig tree was a symbol of Israel? Was Nathanael hoping that even in his faithfulness to his religious practices, someday Messiah would come to free him from the law to something much better?

Nathaniel’s response to Jesus’ affirmation was an explosion of excitement, anticipation, and hope! 

“Then Nathanael declared, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the king of Israel.”

‭‭John‬ ‭1‬:‭49‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Jesus concluded His revelation with words that would resonate in Nathanael’s spirit…a fulfilment of his great ancestor, Jacob’s dream. 

“Jesus said, “You believe because I told you I saw you under the fig tree. You will see greater things than that.” He then added, “Very truly I tell you, you will see ‘heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on’ the Son of Man.”

‭‭John‬ ‭1‬:‭50‬-‭51‬ ‭NIV‬

Jesus…the ladder between heaven and earth!

The chain is growing longer! Andrew, Simon, Philip, Nathanael…four men convinced that Jesus was the Messiah!

To be continued…

JOHN’S GOSPEL… SHOW US THE FATHER – 25

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John 14:8 NLT
[8] Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.”

Really, Philip, after all this time, do you still not know the Father?

John 14:9 NLT
[9] “Jesus replied, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and yet you still don’t know who I am? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father! So why are you asking me to show him to you?”

Imagine Jesus’ frustration! After years of painstakingly revealing the nature of the Father, doing and saying whatever the Father showed Him, constantly referring to the Father as His source, and witnessing to His unity with the Father, Philip still naively whined…
“Show us the Father.”

Philip, where have you been all this time?

How true of human nature! How blind to truth when hearts are born in unbelief and blocked by beliefs and traditions cemented into the soul by years of exposure to the world and its ways!

Paul commented that the person who does not have the indwelling Spirit to awaken the dead human spirit, will never understand or accept God’s truth.

1 Corinthians 2:14 NIV
[14] “The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit.”

Jesus made the same observation in his conversation with Nicodemus.

John 3:10, 12 NIV
[10] “You are Israel’s teacher,” said Jesus, “and do you not understand these things?…
[12] I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things?”

The sad reality is that God’s truth is only foolishness to those who have never been awakened by God’s Spirit to spiritual truth. It takes a miracle of grace for a person who is born dead in sin to understand and believe the gospel. It’s no wonder that worldly people are God’s enemies, hating the truth and strongly resisting the message of Jesus, however compellingly it is presented.

Paul, writing to the Ephesian church, people who were once steeped in pagan beliefs and behaviour,

Ephesians 2:1, 4-5 NIV
[1] “As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins…
[4] But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, [5] made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.”

Was Philip revealing, by his question, that he and his fellow disciples were still in the realm of darkness where the truth was veiled to them?

Only at the moment when the Holy Spirit came in power, raised them from spiritual death, tore off the veil of unbelief, and transferred them into the kingdom of God, did they recognise the truth of what Jesus had come to reveal.

When the Holy Spirit fell on them on the day of Pentecost, the world of the disciples turned right side up. All their confused misunderstanding and muddled beliefs were obliterated by the miracle of new birth. This was a profound “aha” moment for them. They started life all over again with a clean slate of spiritual understanding.

Thus Peter could proclaim with utmost confidence, linking experience with Scripture…

Acts 2:14-17, 22-24, 32-33, 36-39 NIV
[14] “Then Peter stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice and addressed the crowd: “Fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you; listen carefully to what I say. [15] These people are not drunk, as you suppose. It’s only nine in the morning! [16] No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel: [17] “ ‘In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams…
[22] “Fellow Israelites, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know. [23] This man was handed over to you by God’s deliberate plan and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross. [24] But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him…
[32] God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of it. [33] Exalted to the right hand of God, he has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear…
[36] “Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah.” [37] When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” [38] Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. [39] The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.”

In a flash, all they had heard and experienced in their years with Jesus fell into place. New birth happened, and with the new birth, they finally understood the nature of the Father.

He, the Father, and Jesus are one. Jesus is the visible image of the invisible God. Jesus is God’s glory on display. Jesus is the God-man in whom all the attributes of the invisible God are revealed to us…in whom all the fullness of God dwells in a real man who came to earth to be… Immanuel – God with us.

Jesus is still, and will always be …in heaven… our mediator,

1 Timothy 2:5-6 NIV
[5] “For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus…”

So, Philip, here is the truth. The Jesus you only knew as a man, or even perhaps God’s Messiah, is in true far more than a holy man.

Hebrews 1:1-3 NIV
[1] “In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, [2] but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe. [3] The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.”

And the Father, whom they longed to know, was as real to them at last as the Son whom they had seen, touched, and walked with on earth.

THE BOOK OF ACTS – THE GOSPEL GOES NON-JEWISH

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THE GOSPEL GOES NON-JEWISH

“And with that the apostles were on their way, continuing to witness and spread the Message of God’s salvation, preaching in every Samaritan town they passed through on their return to Jerusalem.” Acts 8:25 (The Message).

At last the apostles were getting it! Jesus’ instruction to take the message beyond the confines of Jewish geography and religion did not seem to have penetrated until the persecution unleashed by Saul forced the believers outside of Jerusalem. Even then, the apostles remained in the city while the rest of the church fled.

Philip was one of the men chosen to serve the widows, along with Stephen and five others. He certainly had no intention of suffering the same fate as Stephen so he took his family and settled in Samaria beyond the clutches of the fanatical Pharisees in Judea.

Unlike the apostles, he had no scruples about spreading the message wherever he went. When he began to preach Jesus to the Samaritan people, something amazing happened. They believed and shared in the life-changing miracle their faith in the Messiah brought.

Peter and John were commissioned to check on what was happening in Samaria. They were still hesitant about stepping outside their Jewish boundaries but what was happening in Samaria through Philip was enough to convince them that the Holy Spirit was doing the same thing in non-Jewish circles as He was doing among the Jews.

They left the city where Philip was ministering, convinced that the message of Jesus was not only for the Jews. They set off home armed with a new freedom to spread the message wherever they went, including to the half-breed Jews they had previously despised.

Like any other ordinary believer, their progress in understanding the message and the heart of God was a step-by-step journey, loosing them from their old yoke of superiority and prejudice and teaching them to walk in the yoke of their Master where the artificial divisions caused by race, colour, culture and language were superseded by the new culture of the kingdom of God.

This is part of the miracle of the Message. Jesus has broken down the dividing walls of prejudice and hatred and created a family of people from every race and language who are bound together by the power of the Holy Spirit and who are free to love one another above their differences.

It must have been quite a struggle for these men to let go of their idea that they were superior to non-Jews, a centuries-old conviction that had bred a deadly arrogance in them. The Holy Spirit had to root it out of them thought by thought, experience by experience until they could relate freely to all people with a good conscience.

The story of Acts is not only the story of the growth of the church. It is also the story of the growth of the men who were entrusted with leading the church — tracing their story and learning with them how to walk in the Spirit and to follow the Master.

It is a miracle in itself that Jesus was willing to entrust His church to fallible men and to trust them to lead His people with understanding and integrity, knowing what they were like when He was with them. As long as they acknowledged that He, not they, was the head of the church, the church was in safe hands. When church leaders began to usurp His leadership, the church began to slide the wrong way.

My cry to the church of the Lord Jesus Christ is this: “Let’s get reconnected to our Head.” His call is simple. “Follow me! Learn, imitate and obey me.”

The True Test

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THE TRUE TEST 

“Philip said, ‘Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.’ Jesus answered: ‘Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father?’ Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words that I say to you, I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing His work.

“Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves.'” John 14:8-11 NIV.

More of Jesus’ unforgettable words uttered in response to a question!

Would the disciples ever forget these last hours with Jesus in the Upper Room? The Passover meal had been eaten, the ceremonies observed that had reminded them of the first Passover meal their forefathers had eaten in Egypt. It was eaten in haste while they were poised for flight from the wrath of Pharaoh when his own firstborn son lay dead at the hands of the angel of death.

Egypt lay in ruins, systematically destroyed as God hit the land and its people with plague after destructive plague. Pharaoh had stubbornly resisted God’s command until this! It was the last straw and he ordered the Israelites out of the land before their God did anything worse to them.

Now Jesus had introduced a new ceremony infused with a new meaning for His followers to observe from then on – a ceremony deeply rooted in the events of the Passover but symbolizing a deliverance far greater than the deliverance from slavery in Egypt. In the simple symbols of bread and wine they would never forget the death of God’s Passover Lamb who would lay down His life to set His people free from slavery to sin.

In the Passover lambs killed and eaten by each family, they were to recognize that they were protected from death by faith in the blood of a lamb. No animal blood could protect them, but there was a lamb, God’s Lamb who would be put to death in a few hours, the efficacy of whose shed blood would atone for the sins of all people for all time.

Jesus savoured the precious moments with His disciples before it was time to hand Himself over for the sacrifice. What would be the subject of His final words to them? There was nothing more meaningful for Him to talk about than the Father, and to prepare them for the greatest of all gifts they were to receive — the gift of the Holy Spirit who would come in His place as His representative to live within them.

First of all, though, He had to make sure that they knew that there was unity between Father, Son and Holy Spirit so intimate that the Holy Spirit who would come to indwell them would be to them exactly as He had been, and would say and do in them exactly the same as He had said and done. Just as Jesus had perfectly represented the Father, so the Holy Spirit would perfectly represent Him.

In response to Thomas and Philip’s questions, Jesus assured them that it was His intention to show them the way and to take them to the Father. They would easily recognize the Father because Jesus was an exact replica of the Father. In every way He perfectly resembled the Father; all they had to do was to listen to His words and look at His works and they would know the Father just as they had known Him.

Jesus could not have explained it more clearly. In future days, when He was no longer with them in person, they had a standard by which to measure the words and works of those who were claiming to be representatives of God and, of course, of their own activities in His name. True sons resemble their fathers. One only has to watch and listen to the son to know what his father is like.

Not the claims but the works are the true test.

Enter Saul

Christian Life, , , ,

ENTER SAUL

“And Saul just went wild, devastating the church, entering house after house after house, dragging men and women off to jail. Forced to leave home, the believers all became missionaries. Wherever they were scattered, they preached the Message about Jesus. Going down to a Samaritan city, Philip proclaimed the Message of the Messiah. When the people heard what he had to say and saw the miracles, the clear signs of God’s action, they hung on his every word. Many who could neither stand nor walk were healed that day. The evil spirits protested loudly as they were sent on their way. And what joy in the city!” Acts 8:3-8 (The Message).

Enter Saul, a young man made of the stuff God needed but, unfortunately, fighting for the wrong side at this point. But, from God’s perspective, he was already a marked man.
God let him run with his hate campaign a little longer while He set the stage for Saul’s transfer from darkness to light.

From his perspective, Saul was fighting for God. On hindsight, he described himself as a Pharisee of the Pharisees, with an unquenchable zeal for God. He was willing to go as far as murder to protect what he considered to be the truth about God. He was the one-man audience that was applauding the crazy mob that killed Stephen. But God was right there, biding His time for the moment of His personal encounter with Saul.

In the meantime, the battle continued to rage between light and darkness. The more the agents of the dark realm of religious fanaticism struck at the children of light, the more the message spread and the church grew. Persecution had not driven the church underground — it had spread the fire beyond the confines of Jerusalem into the neighbouring half-breed nation of Samaritans.

The Jews despised the Samaritans because they were the result of intermarriage between Jews and Gentiles. When Assyria conquered Samaria in 722 BC, they carried off some of the people into captivity and repopulated the area with people displaced from other conquered nations.

But the old hatred was swallowed up by a new love. Such was the transformation of these Jewish believers that they willingly shared the Message of Jesus with the very people they had previously hated and avoided so that a whole Samaritan city was affected.

Philip, another of the men chosen to distribute food parcels to the suffering widows in Jerusalem, surfaced as a powerful witness to this new Way. Like Stephen, he was at the centre of the action, with miracles of healing and deliverance going on apace. He had to flee from Jerusalem with the other believers to escape Saul’s murderous assault on the church but, instead of disappearing, he was at the headwaters of a flood of missionary activity.

The phenomenal spread of “The Way”, as it was called, must have driven Saul into a frenzy. Far from curbing the growth of the church, he contributed to its spread. These people could not be silenced or stopped. Like a cancer, they infiltrated every corner of society and brought an unstoppable joy to the city!

What is it that has dampened the activity of God so effectively that we see little of the early power and growth of the church today? As I have moved slowly through Acts, one thing is becoming clearer. Every problem that surfaced in the church threatened their unity and every solution restored unity.

What if church leaders today recognised their responsibility to foster and protect unity? What if humility and submission became the priority of every leader and every member in the local church? What if pastors and preachers became more serious about their function than their title? What if they focussed less on being “bosses “and more on being servant-leaders?

What if “Christians” became true followers of Jesus? Would we see the power of God at work again now as it was then?