John 9:18-34 (Nov 8th)
I love the response of the man who is he healed when he is called up in front of the Pharisees for a second time. Simply but directly he speaks with honesty and he speaks from his heart. So convicted and convinced is he of who Jesus and where He has come from that he does not pull any punches with this group of previously well respected leaders. I wish I too could have that level of conviction that it would lead me to speak out so boldly!
November 8th, 2009 at 10:28 am
It reads to me that this once-blind man was really ridiculing those Jews. He was trying to embarass them and turn their logic back on them. He must’ve known he was going to get kicked out of the synagogue there for good.
At first, I was pretty confused with verses 31 and 32 and how they fit in with verses 30 and 33. But then I understood the man was talking about Jesus. Since God doesn’t listen to sinners, and since Jesus healed his sight, Jesus must not have been a sinner, despite what the Jews said in verse 24.
I guess these Jews felt Jesus was a sinner because He did things like heal on the Sabbath. But, if He was God, He could do that without sinning. (”Man was not made for the Sabbath…”)
November 8th, 2009 at 8:13 pm
One thing standing out to me in this reading is the “believing (or not) in miracles” angle.
We might feel that there are not as many miracles these days (at least not that we are aware of), but with all that Jesus was doing back then, it seems that his miracles could not have been ignored.
In this case, once it is clear that this man was blind, and later could see - the options (that I can think of right now) are:
1) Deception of some kind - that the man really wasn’t blind before or that he wasn’t the actual man who was blind; or
2) Unexplained healing
The leaders first went after the deception option, but once the blind man’s parents corroborated his story, that he was blind and now can see, the leaders are left with the unexplained healing option.
You would think at this point that they might realize there is some supernatural activity going on and be cautious of how they dealt with it. But instead, they are more frightened of what Jesus’ life could mean to them in the political arena, than in the larger context.