Two Year Gospel Study Week 85

Awake Us Now

The Gospel of John Week 7 Scripture: John 4:31-5:29.

Our study this week begins with a look at people beginning to realize that the Jewish Messiah has come, but He has come to be the Savior of all - not just the Jewish people, but ALL people!

Jesus has been in Samaria and now returns to Cana where a high official in the government seeks Jesus out to heal his son who is dying. Jesus heals the man’s son and the official and his whole family came to faith in Jesus. Pastor talks about the feasts mentioned in the Gospel of John and how each finds its fulfillment in Jesus. The feast mentioned in John 5:1-3 doesn’t specifically mention which feast event is going on at this particular time, but Pastor speculates that it could be the Feast of Trumpets - Rosh Hashanah - the Jewish New Year - a time when the Jewish people are focused on this feast’s call to repentance.

As we continue we see Jesus is at the Pool of Bethesda that had 5 colonnades. Pastor talks about the discovery of this pool in 1890 and shares some photos of his from a visit there in recent years. He also shares additional discoveries and info that are quite interesting regarding deeper insights into the use of this pool and by whom.

As Jesus approached the pool, hundreds of people may well have been at the pool. Jesus says to an invalid of 38 years “Do you want to get well?” There were many there but Jesus chooses to speak to just one person. Jesus, on this Sabbath Day, tells the man to get up and walk and the man walks away carrying his mat.

The religious leaders had added many additional specific regulations to God’s Sabbath Day - rest day. They had added 39 additional man made rules and the 39th rule was that carrying a piece of property from 1 location to another location was not allowed and what this man just did in carrying his mat broke their Sabbath regulations.

Jesus had deliberately provoked the religious establishment’s petty laws saying in effect “How dare you substitute the goodness of God with your own petty regulations and rules.” And the religious leaders become incensed when they hear it was Jesus that healed him and so now they are after Jesus and they begin to persecute Him and desire to kill Him. Not only had Jesus broken their religious man-made rules by doing the work of healing this man on a Sabbath, but also because Jesus called God His own Father making Himself equal with God. Jesus claimed deity - Jesus is the Living God come to earth!! Yet they desired to reject this truth!

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⁃ The Gospel of John study is part five of five of our Two Year Study of the Gospels. ⁃ The Gospel of John may be one of the most powerful books ever written. Many people have come to faith after reading only this book of the Bible. Scholarly and archeological discoveries in recent decades give us new insight on details in the Gospel of John. We can now understand it as the most Jewish rather than the most “Gentile/Greek” of the Gospels, and when we do that we see many things that we missed before.

Our 2 year study of the gospels is great for large group, small group or home group study and can be started at any time!