John Chapter 2
Open your Bible!
2:2 - Jesus takes his disciples with him wherever he goes -- he allows them to see/be part of every aspect of His life. Although Jesus often went away in solitude to be with the Father, his disciples were connected enough to His life to observe all of these instances and take them as an example.
2:8 - Jesus models leadership in and through our problems... not our perfection.
2:9 - Let's be honest -- Jesus does cool things, like turning water to wine, to show his disciples the joy of the Kingdom (Zech. 9:17).
2:12 - Jesus simply “did life” with His disciples by traveling with them to Capernaum.
2:13-17 - He modeled zeal and righteous anger to his disciples, showing them that you don’t need to be a passive, feminine pansy to be a disciple of Jesus. Quite the opposite, in fact. The disciples apparently got the message (verse 17).
2:18-22 - Through the illustration of the temple, Jesus kept before his disciples the centrality of the cross and resurrection, which was forthcoming. After the events of the cross the disciples remembered this (verse 22).
Keep reading, keep thinking, keep following, keep commenting. Peace.
1 comment:
Quoted from Ray Vanderlaan on discipleship....
Vanderlaan says, "When Jesus calls disciples, He's not calling people to know. He is not calling people to undergo some type of training. Jesus says, I want a group of people who want to be what I am, in My human nature."18 VanderLaan states that a talmid of Jesus' day was so consumed with being like a rabbi that they spent every waking moment with the rabbi. Since they wanted to be what the rabbi was, they had to spend every moment with him so they would know exactly how he would act in any given situation, from sleeping to eating to dressing, etc. Vanderlaan proves his point by alluding to Mark 3:14. He says, "Jesus chose the twelve to be with Him. Why did He want them to be with Him? Because to become like Him, they needed to be with Him twenty-fow hours a day." Trying to be like the rabbi was the primary focus of everything the talmid did and every thought he had. We, as disciples of Jesus today, should try to imitate this goal in ourlives. "How many of you tonight honestly can say that you are consumed with a fire inside of you that wants to be like Jesus more than anything else in the world? And if the answer is, No, then I'll be real frank. You can't be a disciple." Vanderlaan defines a "disciple" as "not someone who wants to know what the teacher knows ... or even what God knows. That is a student. It is someone who wants, more than anything else in the whole world, to be what the teacher is."This may be a definition that rabbinic Judaism has created, but as Christians, I beiieve we should take our definitions from the Bible.
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