Jesus healed a blind man and the Pharisees could not accept this miracle as a gift from God.
click here for an online Bible John 9:13-34
The crowd brought the formerly blind man to the religious leaders so that they could get to the bottom of this healing controversy. First they had to verify if the man really had been healed. He said that he had been healed. Then they brought in the man’s parents. They verified that the man had been born blind. First step accomplished – the man had been healed.
But, the religious leaders had a real dilemma. Common sense says that only a man of God could perform a miraculous healing like this, yet the healing had been performed on the Sabbath. Technically, from their point of view, this was work and therefore was a violation of the Sabbath. No real man of God would violate the Sabbath. The Pharisees were divided.
The parents would not say what they knew about Jesus because they knew they would be ejected from the synagogue. The man who was formerly known as the blind man was pretty blunt with the Pharisees. He pretty much said, “For religious leaders, you guys aren’t too bright. I may have been blind my whole life except for the last hour, but it’s pretty obvious to me that this healer-dude is a man of God.”
The Pharisees blew a gasket. The formerly blind man was certainly born in sin. Why else would he have been born blind? He didn’t get any religious training since he had been blind his whole life. Now he is lecturing the Pharisees about who is godly and who is a sinner. How dare he?
We look at the Pharisees and ridicule them. But they were serious about their religion. We often say that they had let rules replace God. This is true. But it wasn’t necessarily individual Pharisees. It was their religious system. I’m sure most of them were sincere people who wanted desperately to please God. The problem was that their religious system got in the way.
We have to be careful that we are relating to God and not just to church programs. We have to remember that God is not limited to our church tradition. We have to try to operate as a church to bring people to God not just to church. This means we have to always be looking at our Bibles and weighing everything by the word of God.
Sometimes people react in extremes. They say that they are just following Christ and don’t need organized church. That’s not biblical. The Bible provides an organizational model for church.
Others hide from the world in the church and never engage a lost culture. That’s also not biblical either.
Let’s be as biblical as we can and follow Christ. Let’s be the church and be the body of Christ.
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2 comments:
Amen Pastor Cliff! I sometimes am perceived as being one of the former extremes, but I very much believe in the church. I believe that it is a body of believers in Christ. the church has a lot harder time moving as the individual does. To me the church typifies the temple of the old testament. I believe in the organizational model laid out by Paul. I WHOLE HEARTEDLY BELIEVE in the fellowship of the saints, that does wonders for the soul. I have been led in many directions in search of truth, in search of empty idols, in search of many things... I think this searching is good, if you do it earnestly, honestly and quickly :) we need to stay true to what we believe and seek out why we believe what we believe... if so led to do so. In these cases the church may be found as a useful tool used by the seeker to align Himself with God and then continue on his way. Seeking the truth or explanations of the truth that are satisfying to the seeker? In this way is the seeker staying true to both God and himself? I am not seeking whether or not to accept Christ... no, quite the contrary, I'm merely appeasing my individual curiosity, something that only the Holy Spirit can do (The Berean call Acts 17:11). Enough defending my actions.
I think these passages of scripture is like comic relief. It is most certainly the funniest part of the book of John. I read this and I am laughing at the logic of this so called hearing. The one fact that they can not accept they then use to ridicule him with. I'm not going to even try to explain the ill-logical thread in this passages. I think it is enough to see that there are two camps present: one believes; while the others do not. So, we see a typical day in the life of a believer trying to witness to the truth and we see people believing what they want -- even further believing anything and everything but the truth, to the point it becomes absurd. If you don't think they have reached the point of absurdness yet, just you wait, these people are going to crucify Him.... ahhh the stories I could tell then, **SIGH**
Love,
EJ
I see some important testimony techniques here: State what God has done for YOU in your life, state it clearly and concisely without raising your voice, even when attacked - stay level headed and restate what God has done for you. This is part of the reason, I think the Pharisees get angry with him - his arguments are purely what has happened to him and are indisputable. Their frustration comes out in their illogical and emotional retort. I have seen this last ditch technique many, many times in discussions with nonbelievers.
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