March 3, 2021 John 1: 43-51
43 The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He
found Philip and said to him, ‘Follow me.’ 44Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. 45Philip found Nathanael and said to him, ‘We have found him
about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph
from Nazareth.’ 46Nathanael said to him, ‘Can anything good come out of
Nazareth?’ Philip said to him, ‘Come and see.’ 47When Jesus saw Nathanael coming towards him, he said of him,
‘Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!’ 48Nathanael asked him, ‘Where did you come to know me?’ Jesus
answered, ‘I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.’ 49Nathanael replied, ‘Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are
the King of Israel!’ 50Jesus answered, ‘Do you believe because I told you that I saw
you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these.’ 51And he said to him, ‘Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God
ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.’
Traveling to Galilee.
Jesus is well placed to make the trek (because unless Lyft was a brand
of sandal, it was a trek). He is at
Bethany (not the one of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, but the other one on the far
side of the Jordan River from where John the baptizer was baptizing (FAR SIDE
OF THE JORDAN-see note below)). So to
get to Galilee, it was a matter of going north along the Jordan River
Valley. Most of Jesus’ Galilean ministry
was around the Sea of Galilee, from which the Jordan River originates. In fact, the Jordan River Valley was the main
travel artery between Galilee and Jerusalem (WALKING IN THE PROMISED LAND-see
note below).
I
point this out, this decision to travel, because this is one thing, I am told,
that distinguishes John from the other gospels.
Jesus does a lot of back and forth, apparently, between Galilee and Jerusalem,
where, in the other gospels, he begins at the Jordan for his baptism, goes north
to Galilee, only to return to Jerusalem when it is Holy Week.
Somewhere
in Galilee, Jesus finds Philip, and the ‘typical’ discipleship event
follows. Jesus finds them, says, Come, Follow
Me, and they do. Then John the gospel
writer adds a biographical note on Philip.
He is from Bethsaida, the home town of Peter and Andrew.
In the
“call narratives” of the disciples, how Peter and Andrew end up with Jesus in
John is different from the other accounts.
In the other accounts, Peter and Andrew own a fishing boat that they use
on the Sea of Galilee. In those
accounts, Jesus is walking down the beach, finds them by their boat, doing…boat
things…in preparation for another round of work, he calls them and they
follow. This is paralleled to the other
brother pairing, James and John, who leave their father to the business of fishing to
follow Jesus.
I am
focused on this because I think this is a basic fear to coming to the Bible
seriously. There is an apparent
contradiction between the gospels. I say
apparent, because on the doubting side, this is ‘obviously’ a contradiction,
according to ‘the plain reading of the text’ (CONFESSIONAL LANGUAGE-see note
below). But on the inerrancy side, there
is, by definition, no contradiction in Scripture (INERRANCY-see note
below). And the person who wants to take
their Bible reading seriously is caught in the middle.
The
ones who get the press when it comes to Christianity seem to be the ones who
are convinced it is a fraud and those who have an alarmingly specific idea of what
the Bible says (FUNDAMENTALISM-see note below).
So, there is a duality in regards to God’s Word. Either you doubt it (without question) or you
accept it (without question). I have
spent some time thinking about this because it is the duality of ‘no
faith/faith’ can present as our only choices.
But there is a huge gray area when it comes to people’s understanding
and acceptance (or non-acceptance) of the Bible. There is a HUGE area for questions, which is
one of the reasons I began this blog in the first place.
Jesus
going to Galilee after he has accepted Peter and Andrew as disciples
versus his going to Galilee and calling them as disciples is the clearest
example thus far of one of the things in the Bible that does not seem to logically
track, gospel to gospel. And I have questions
about it. I do not doubt the truth of
the Bible, but something is going on here that draws my attention.
From
an ‘all or nothing’ point of view, this contradiction leads to one of two conclusions. On the one hand, those who reject the Bible
can point to this as one of the pieces of evidence as to why the assumption of
the ‘truth’ of Scripture is falsified.
On the other hand, those who consider the Bible to be inerrant will have
a very elaborate explanation as to how these two apparently different accounts
of Andrew and Peter becoming disciples actually both occur (HARMONIZING THE
TEXT-see note below).
One
quick example: Andrew and Peter came to Jesus in Bethany (by the Jordan) and
talked to him, but the text does not specify they became disciples, nor does it
tell us that they traveled with him, only that Jesus went on to Galilee. John the gospel writer does tell us the
brothers are also from Galilee, so maybe they met there at a later time where
the ‘official’ call was made. There, no
contradiction. If people could put that
kind of creativity into worship…
But there are legitimate questions to be asked.
Is it valid to assume the gospels are written in chronological
order? There is evidence to support a
more ‘topical’ layout in some places. For example, the
Sermon on the Mount contains a whole list of teachings by Jesus, on a wide
variety of subjects. With modern literary
sensibilities, listing a moment in time followed by a number of things that
happened ties them together. If they are
not tied together, that is made explicit.
But is that a convention of the Gospel?
Where
we get caught, on the believing end, is presuming to know how God inspired the gospel
writers. That God inspired the gospels
to be a chronological account of Jesus.
Or organized in some other specified pattern. Human presumption imposed on God’s Will, that
is NEVER a good combination.
What
are we supposed to do when something is pointed out as a contradiction? First of all, consider what each ‘version’ of
the event are teaching us. I am working
to establish the presupposition for myself that in each ‘version’, God is
telling us something important that we can lose when we jump to comparing and
contrasting Biblical events. Second of
all, does this ‘contradiction’ somehow nullify the message of the love of Jesus
or God’s Plan for us? Like, is the
contradiction something central like whether or not Jesus actually gave up his
life for us on the cross, actually rose from the dead. Thirdly, am I defining how I read the Bible
by what people tell me I need to do or by how God speaks to me through the Holy
Spirit?
Notes:
FAR SIDE OF THE JORDAN-This entire time spent in
Bethany-on-the-Jordan took place on the far side of the River from where John
was baptizing and from where Jerusalem was located. It is where the leadership envoys met
and talked with John the baptizer. Did
he do this deliberately to put himself outside of the legal jurisdiction of
Jerusalem in case the discussions went poorly?
Why didn’t I mention that earlier (unless I did)? Because it only came to fruition in my mind
as we were closing our time in Bethany-on-the-Jordan.
WALKING IN THE PROMISED LAND-So the northern settlement
area for the Jews was Galilee, surrounding the Sea of Galilee and extending
into the Jezreel Valley, which runs east-west from the Mediterranean to the Sea
of Galilee (through a narrow pass). The
southern settlement area for the Jews was Jerusalem and its environs. Two things stood between these areas for the
consideration of easy travel. The first
was the geography. Samaria is low hills cut through
by wadis and deep gorges (flooded in the rainy season, dry otherwise). Makes for no easy transit through. Armies have missed each other marching in opposite directions on the opposite side of one of these hills. The second was the culture. This area was Samaria, home to Jews that did
not consider Jerusalem as the center of their faith. There were issues of purity and culture that
formed deep divisions between the Samaritans and the Jews-another reason not to travel there. So, there is no easy way to go straight north
from Jerusalem to Galilee. There is a
coastal route, but that is under imperial scrutiny by the Romans and runs
through narrow passes, including one at Megiddo (from which Armageddon is
derived). The other is the Jordan River
Valley.
It is
a straight walk north and south. The
northern end is on the Sea, which is the center of life in Galilee, the
southern end, on the entrance to the Dead Sea is pretty much due east from
Jerusalem, one just has to climb ‘up’ to the City of God. That was the preferred route north and
south. Pull out a map and you can trace
the route that Jesus took.
CONFESSIONAL LANGUAGE-In the PCUSA, the Book of
Confessions is the manual for understanding Scripture. Through the approved Creeds, Confessions, and
Catechisms gathered in that volume, we have historic continuity on how the
Bible is understood by the Reformed theological branch of Christianity. The expression ‘the plain language of
Scripture’ is drawn from the Confessions (the example that jumps to mind for me
is from the Heidelberg Catechism) to distinguish ‘symbolic’ or ‘allegorical’
readings of the Bible. If there is a
symbol, it is plainly expressed. It does
not require ‘secret’ or ‘higher order’ knowledge to understand what the Bible
is telling us.
INERRANCY-This is a theological term that indicates the
Bible is without error. Unfortunately,
it is a term that has become politically loaded. This is why slavery was justified from
Scripture, why misogyny is still justified from Scripture, and why gender roles and identification are still actively condemned in the name of Scripture. In terms of Biblical interpretation, this
theological presupposition is used to steamroll open and legitimate questions
people have about the Bible. It is
certainly not a postmodern phenomenon that leaders read the Bible and, on the
basis of inerrancy, presume their interpretation is the correct interpretation.
FUNDAMENTALISM-as I understand it is a way of applying
‘inerrancy’ to the Bible. I think it
comes from the Enlightenment and the Scientific Revolution that brought us into
the modern ways of considering the word and re-defining how we interpret the
Bible. In essence, truth is defined as
fact. The fact is the building block of
how we interpret the world around us. Thus,
the truth of the Bible is defined as fact.
Therefore, seven days of creation is fact and evolution is the work of
the devil. Thus, in the Creation Museum,
there is a diorama of dinosaurs existing with Adam and Eve. To me, it is dumbing down truth to a lowest
common denominator. It denies the truth
of literary form, poetry, of expression, of the vast diversity of how truth is
expressed in the Bible.
HARMONIZING THE TEXT-a method of looking at two
apparently contradictory elements in the Bible and explaining the contraction
away by a consideration and application of what the text is NOT telling us to
find a bridge. Interestingly enough,
this harmonizing explanation is not imposed upon the text. It seems to be enough to say, ‘this is the
way it could have happened that explains away the contradiction, therefore no
contradiction’.
You
can probably tell what portions of these notes I take more seriously than
others. I have my own opinions and do
not always edit for political correctness.
I do, however, apology if I have caused offense.
Pastor Pete
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