Week 11
Numbers 31-36 and John 1-15
First of all let’s finish Numbers, before jumping back to the New Testament and starting into John. I love that we are finishing this Old Testament passage with a summary of the events we’ve been reading about- is that not the same way a teacher may chose to structure a lesson? “Ok class the past couple weeks we’ve been learning the details about whatever historical event, so who can give me a synopsis of what we’ve been talking about?” maybe it’s for the benefit of those people in the back with their ears not “turned on” or maybe it’s the whole, if you want someone to hear you, you have to say something 3 times theory- doesn’t matter, what matters for me is that this is enough to tell me that these accounts were important enough and real enough to be documented in multiple places within the Bible; these accounts are documented by different authors from different perspectives, and yet all go hand in hand and help us to better understand and wrap our brains around these miraculous, history altering events. How cool is that?!
Now, over to John-
“You can’t go wrong if you’re being honest” is my go-to motto. At work, at home, whatever- if I’m not over exaggerating or down playing, just tell the truth, even if it stinks and isn’t what someone wants to hear. So for the sake of transparency and honesty- John wasn’t my favorite book. The content, sure of course it was great! I felt like it kind of connected some of the dots in the other Gospels. Like turning the water to wine, it elaborates a little more and helps fill in some of the missing pieces Matthew, Mark, and Luke left out. But the writing style felt so abstract and almost poetic- just wasn’t my favorite to read.
My take away here is the same that we’ve talked about in the other 3 Gospels. We are reading basically the same account of the life of Jesus with a few new details or extra information, just written from a different perspective. So again- is this God shaking us and saying “WAKE UP!! Pay attention!! I’m telling you something really important!!” But also it’s saying that so many people witnessed and heard about these miraculous events that multiple people wrote it down. This was a big enough deal that multiple people are saying- “wow, this is big! This needs to be documented so everyone, everywhere, has proof of these amazing events!” But yet- there are still people that either don’t know the truth or don’t care to believe it!! Blows my mind.