John 5. ‘I have my own opinions, so don’t bother me . . .’
Dog walks are a great way to meet people, particularly if you have an evangelistic dog who loves to introduce herself to people.
This week my dog introduced me to someone out for a stroll, After general chat for five minutes I asked him off he would like to read an article based on a talk I had written and handed it to him. He briefly looked at it and said defensively:
“I’m a Catholic.”
How should I react,
“Oh that’s good, then you will enjoy what is written here as it is based on what Jesus taught.”
“No thank you”, and handed the article back!
I should add that this is a most unusual reaction. The vast majority of people accept them willingly and I have never seen them thrown on the ground round the corner. Such articles do seem to be a very good way to help people understand what Jesus and his apostles taught.
It is noticeable that people with strong religious affiliations find it difficult to to rethink what they believe in. It doesn’t matter what that religion is.
Jesus faced a similar problem with religious people in his day. They’re fixed in their understanding. Jesus had visited the pool of Bethesda, where there were many chronically infirm people. There was one man who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. John records:
“Jesus said to him, ‘Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.’At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.” The day on which this took place was a Sabbath,and so the Jewish leaders said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat.”But he replied, “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’ ” John 5:8-10
The Jewish authorities were only concerned that their understanding of the Jewish law had been broken. The fact that a man had been supernaturally cured became insignificant in their eyes when the great crime of religious or political rules were broken. Their thinking was blinkered by their religion:
“So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jewish leaders began to persecute him.” John 5:16
The persecution of Alexei Navalny in Russia also shows what people in authority will do when their behaviour is criticised He was an outspoken lawyer who repeated spoke about and organised public demonstrations about the corruption going on in Russia and was getting a significant following. What he was saying was true but the authorities hated the influence he was having so they repeatedly imprisoned him and finally killed him.
Jesus’ claim
Jesus’ response to this attack was to state the truth. The religious people had interpreted God’s law incorrectly. God still sustains his universe everyday of the week so why shouldn’t his Son:
“In his defence Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.” For this reason they tried all the more to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.” John 5:17-18
When I was at school a teacher told us that Jesus never claimed to be God. That is untrue. I doubt that teacher had ever studied the gospels. Why don’t people want to investigate Jesus claims?
In this situation the authorities did understand what Jesus was claiming - he was making himself equal to God but simply rejected his claim to be the Messiah, God’s chosen king, the Son of God. The evidence of the miracles, the evidence of the Old Testament Scriptures giving details about the Messiah were all there. The religious people in Jesus day did not want to investigate, just as many today hold strongly to their own beliefs and refuse to investigate Jesus claims. It doesn’t seem to matter what their faith is, whether ‘Atheism’, ‘Islam’, ‘Christianity’ or whatever religion, people can have closed minds to truth. Paul came to the same conclusion in his attempts to persuade people about the truth concerning Jesus by presenting the evidence:
“The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers so that they cannot see the light of the gospel in the glory of Christ.” 2 Corinthians 4:4
Jesus does not back down. He emphatically repeats his claim to be the Son of God:
“Jesus gave them this answer: “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does.” John 5:19-20
The evidence for Jesus being God’s Messiah
Jesus then outlines the sort of evidence there is to support his claim.
1. His Miracles
The miracles that Jesus was performing, such as the healing of the paralysed man, were extraordinary evidence supporting his claim:
“Yes, and he will show him even greater works than these, so that you will be amazed.For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it.” John 5:20-21
Jesus raised three specific people from the dead according to the canonical Gospels: the daughter of Jairus, the son of the widow of Nain, and his friend Lazarus; additionally, many unnamed saints were resurrected at the time of Jesus' crucifixion, as described in Matthew 27:50–53. He also gives eternal life to those he choses.
2. His resurrection
However the absolute proof that Jesus is the Son of God was to be his own resurrection, three days after he had been crucified.
The following sceptics all set out to finally disprove the claims of Christianity and the physical resurrection of Jesus Christ. They all felt these claims to be untrue and that the public were gullible.
Simon Greenleaf (1783 – 1853) became a very successful lawyer in the United States. He was one of the active principal founders of Harvard Law School and in 1833 he acceded to the Royall Professorship at Harvard University. When it came to the law of evidence, Simon Greenleaf was an expert. He wrote, ‘A Treatise of the Law of Evidence’ which was published in 1842. His sceptical views of the Christian religion were shared with his students. He claimed the resurrection of Jesus Christ was a hoax or myth.
One day some Christian students challenged Professor Greenleaf. These students asked him to use the laws of legal evidence to investigate the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus Christ. After some coaxing, he finally agreed to their challenge. He decided that he would study the evidence offered by various witnesses in the gospels to finally disprove Christianity. He studied the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John applying everything he knew about the rules of evidence. He looked for consistency and anything that could be contradictory. He compared the Gospels with first and second century writers who wrote about Jesus outside of the Bible. Some of the writings he studied were Tacitus, Josephus, and Seutonius.
To his surprise, Simon Greenleaf concluded that the evidence supplied in the Gospels was sufficient to prove in any court of law that the physical resurrection of Jesus Christ was fact and not fiction. Jesus lived on this earth, died, and rose from the dead. Greenleaf further stated,
“Why would twelve disciples give up everything they had or could possibly ever have on this earth to face an executioner’s death?”
He said, no man would die for a lie. Considering the results of his investigation, Simon Greenleaf became a Christian and wrote the book, ‘The Testimony of Evangelists: The Gospels Examined by the Rules of Evidence.’
Frank Morrison (1881 – 1950) is a pseudonym pen name for Albert Henry Ross. He worked for an advertising agency and freelanced as a writer. He enjoyed science.and was an amateur astronomer. One of his heroes was Thomas Huxley a biologist also known as “Darwin’s Bulldog.” Huxley was an atheist who believed miracles like those in the Bible do not happen. Another influence in Morison’s life were the German critics who claimed that many of the stories about Jesus found in the Bible were unreliable. However, Morison had a deep respect for Jesus, although to him Jesus seemed more like a legendary figure.
Morison states that, just for his peace of mind, he wanted to discover the true Jesus. He decided to write a short monograph on the life of what he felt was the true Jesus, focusing on the last seven days of His life. Morison would use his scientific mind to strip the Christian Gospel of its primitive beliefs and dogmatic suppositions. The title of his work would be ‘Jesus, the Last Phase’.
He wanted to be as accurate as possible so he studied the Gospels and other writings like Josephus. But the more he studied, the more he was confused and convinced that the Gospels were true, and Jesus really did rise physically from the dead. Frank Morison became a convinced Christian. He could no longer write the book he had started out to write. He knew he had to write a different book. Now the book he did write about his research was titled, ‘Who Moved the Stone?’ It was first published in 1930. The evidence had convinced him that the physical resurrection of Jesus Christ had really happened.
Josh McDowell (born 1939) was born in the United States. As a teenager he had a lot of questions about life. He turned to education as the answer - and he determined to be a lawyer. At the college he attended, he made friends with some Christians but sometimes he felt out of place. One day he asked a young lady in the group,
“What changed your life?”
She told Josh it was Jesus Christ. Josh then told her he was fed up with church, the Bible, and religion. Finally, this small group of Christians decided to give Josh, who was a law student, a challenge.
“Why don't you examine with intellectual rigour the claim that Jesus Christ is the Son of God?”
Eventually, he decided to take up their challenge and would write a book to show how much of a joke Christianity was. For his research, he traveled all over the United States and Europe to gather as much evidence he could, evidence that would prove Christianity is a sham. He search was extensive. To his surprise, he kept finding evidence that suggested that Christianity must be based on truth. At first he started to ignore this evidence that was contrary to how he thought. He became very restless and could not sleep at night. He claims he was being pulled in two different directions. His intellectual mind told him the claims of Christ were true, but his will was being pulled in the opposite direction. Josh didn’t want to accept what he was discovering. He thought that becoming a Christian would ruin his life and the good times he was having. Josh said he finally was convinced about the truth of Jesus and his resurrection, gave up and gave Christ complete control over his life. He noticed changes in his life almost immediately. Josh recalls that he often struggled with a bad temper. He was now a new man. His career path changed. Instead of majoring in law he studied theology and then joined Campus Crusade for Christ International. In 1972 he published a book, ‘Evidence that Demands a Verdict‘ which has become a best selling overview of the evidence that the Christian faith is really true.
Lee Strobel was born in 1952 in the United States. He loved writing, research, and publishing and his lifelong dream was to be a journalist. He graduated from the University of Missouri and later attended Yale University Law School where he received a Master of Studies in Law degree. He worked for the Chicago Tribune as a Legal Editor and had won awards from the United Press International (API).
Lee had lived much of his life as an atheist. He lived an angry, narcissistic, immoral, drunken, profane life that was very destructive. His goal was to have maximum pleasure in life. He would often come home from work angry and drunk. He remembers one evening he was so angry he kicked a hole in the wall of his living room right in front of his young daughter and his wife. Many times, when he came home from work his young daughter would pick up her toys, run into her room and shut the door.
His wife, Leslie, became friendly with a Christian woman and she invited her to church. Soon Leslie became a Christian. When Leslie told Lee about her newfound faith he became really angry. However, he then observed that his wife was behaving very differently, she was a better person and he liked that. One day Leslie invited Lee to go to church with her. Listening to the sermon, which was titled, ‘Basic Christianity’, made him want to investigate further the claims the pastor had made. Lee then decided to investigate this religious cult she was involved with. He vowed that he was going to use his journalistic and legal training to investigate if there was any credibility to Christianity. This led Lee into a two-year quest to search for the truth as to whether Christianity was fact or fiction.
Lee interviewed thirteen leading Biblical scholars all over the country of the United States. All through this quest he was frustrated. Leslie said some days it seemed as if he was getting some understanding, but some days he seemed sceptical. Leslie said she would leave open highlighted Bibles out and other books lying around the house, but it didn’t seem to help. After two years of laborious investigation, Lee concluded that to believe in his atheism required more faith than to believe in Christianity. Then in 1981, Lee Strobel accepted Jesus as his Lord and Saviour. Out of his two-year research came the book, ‘The Case for Christ’ which has become a best seller. Not long after his little daughter, Alison told her Sunday school teacher that she wanted to know Jesus, because it had changed her daddy’s life - daddy was happy now and not angry.
There are countless such stories. Nabeel Qureshi was a passionate Muslim, raised in a devout Muslim family. When a student he loved arguing with Christians, trying to dissuade them from he thought was their naive and often superficial faith. His excellent book, ‘Seeking Allah, finding Jesus’ is very helpful for anyone looking for answers to the big questions of life. After many years of searching he became a convinced Christian and concluded,
“When you apply the same level of scepticism to any other world religion, Christianity comes out top every time.”
3. Our need for forgiveness
This is a powerful argument. Jesus is asking us to look at ourselves and decide whether we have been living as God requires. We must not be ostriches and pretend that how we live doesn’t matter. Jesus says that we will all be judged:
“Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son,that all may honour the Son just as they honour the Father. Whoever does not honour the Son does not honour the Father, who sent him.” John 5:22-23
The basis of this judgment will be ‘Have I honoured God and have I honoured his Son?’ If Jesus is not the Lord of my life then I am facing the wrath of God when this judgment comes. God will give us many wake-up calls during this life that help us think about our priorities in life. We know what our priorities really are, as does God himself - any hypocrisy will become obvious at our judgment.
Jesus does not leave this threat hanging over us. There is hope. Notice how these two statements are prefaced that the promise of God is the basis of our confidence - ‘Very truly I tell you’ means ‘I, the Son of God, guarantee that this is true’. The first ‘very truly I tell you’ assures us that if we belong to Jesus, if we ‘believe in him’ we are safe or ‘saved’
“Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life.” John 5:24
The second ‘very truly I tell you’ reminds us that when the judgment comes we will be secure:
“Very truly I tell you, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself. And he has given him authority to judge because he is the Son of Man.” John 5:25-27
What a relief to know that our judge is our Saviour who died for us and who has given us these promises so the verdict is not in doubt.
God’s judgment is not a subject that is often discussed but Jesus keeps reminding us that judgment is coming both for those who have died and those who are still living:
““Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out - those who have done what is good will rise to live, and those who have done what is evil will rise to be condemned. By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me.” John 5:28-30
What does ‘those who have done what is good’ mean? The whole Bible makes it clear that we cannot save ourselves by the moral way we live. Thus we read:
“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God - not by works, so that no one can boast.” Ephesians 2:8-9
“. . . he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit.” Titus 3:5
So ‘to do good’ must mean those good works that flow from belief in Jesus. How we live differentiates genuine faith from mere outward morality or works done for our benefit. These good works Jesus is talking about are those that occur after we have a saving faith. To be saved, one needs the grace of God but authentic faith always expresses itself in good works. The Apostle Paul, in the Book of Romans, says something very similar: There Paul says that God
“. . . will repay each person according to what they have done. To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honour and immortality, he will give eternal life. But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger.” Romans 2:6-8
What I think of God is insignificant compared to the one vital question:
“What do God and His son think of me?”
John 5:31-45. Jesus gives us more supporting evidence
Its is not the lack of evidence that prevents people believing in Jesus, it is the problem of our hearts. We don’t want God to be our God as his priorities are not ours.
Dr. E.V. Rieu translated Homer for the Penguin Classics series. He had been an agnostic all his life. He was subsequently asked to translate the four gospels for the same series. When his son heard of this he commented,
“Its going to be interesting to see what father will do with the four gospels, and its going to be more interesting to see what the four gospels will do to father.”
He did not have to wait very long. Within one year E.V. Rieu responded to the evidence he saw in the gospels; he became a committed Christian and joined a church. He subsequently sat on the committee that produced the New English Bible.
John wrote his gospel in order to convince people about Jesus. He recorded key evidence, much as a barrister selects what evidence to present to a court to convince a judge and jury. It is worth remembering the key verses he puts towards the end of his gospel.
“Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” John 20:30-31
In John chapter 5, Jesus selects some key witnesses to support his claims made earlier in the chapter to be one with God his Father. Jesus has already had his say about who he is, but he acknowledges that his testimony alone is not enough. As Mark Twain wrote in another context,
“His saying so don’t make it so.”
So Jesus calls up other witnesses,
The Evidence of John the Baptist
John appeared, unannounced, and started to preach in the inhospitable desert that God sees people’s hearts. Outward religion was not enough for God, a public repentance and turning back to the Lord is essential and this change can be sealed by public baptism. People recognised that his was the voice of God and vast numbers responded to his shining light – temporarily.
“John was a lamp that burned and gave light, and you chose, for a time to enjoy his light” John 5:35
However the main message of John was to prepare the way for God’s Messiah.
“ . . . but the reason I came baptising with water was that he might be revealed to Israel. . . . I have seen and testify that this is the Son of God.” John 1:31
But as so often happens John and his message were rejected. In fact it was Herod Antipas who was so opposed to John the Baptist, because John had publicly opposed the affair that Herod was having with his brother’s wife. This resulted in John being imprisoned and then beheaded. When leaders reject the truth other people usually follow.
In the eighteenth century, London and all England were stirred by the preaching of the Wesley brothers and George Whitfield, much as John the Baptist’s preaching had affected first century Israel. When he was young John Wesley, being an ordained Anglican minister, was invited to preach in London churches. However after preaching in St. Helen’s Bishopsgate, he was told in no uncertain way by the Church Wardens,
“Sir, you must preach here no more.”
If you read the history of London in the 18th century, it is striking that the revival ministry of the Wesleys and Whitefield are hardly mentioned. Historians were selective according to their own prejudices.
For a time people rejoiced in the light of John the Baptist but then they turned back to their old ways. They realised the implications of this teaching, and found this hard. The evidence was there but they rejected it.
The Evidence of the Miracles
“I have a testimony that is weightier than that of John. For the very work that my father has given me to finish, and that which I am doing, testifies that the Father has sent me.” John 5:36
Already in John’s gospel several of these miracles have been alluded to. When Nicodemus, a ruler of Israel who sat on the Sanhedrin Council, came to meet Jesus his opening line was,
“Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who comes from God. For no-one could do the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him.” John 3:2
There are thirty-three separate miracles that Jesus performed that are recorded in the gospels but John tells us that he did many more. A miracle occurs when the laws of nature are broken. God also causes coincidences to happen but strictly these are not miracles. In the Old Testament one of the features of God’s coming Messiah would be his ability to perform astounding miracles. Isaiah talks about what will happen when God himself will come to his earth,
“Then the eyes of the blind will be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then will the lame leap like a deer, and the mute tongue shout for joy.” Isaiah 35:5
Jesus did fulfil all these prophecies, both physically but also figuratively; the spiritually blind and spiritually deaf came to see and hear what God had come to do.
Earlier in this chapter Jesus had mentioned his ability to ‘give life’ to people. Life was considered then as well as today, as a gift that only God can give to inanimate matter. When Jesus was on the earth, he raised four people from the dead. He raised the widow’s son in the village of Nain (Luke 7:15), the 12-year-old daughter of Jairus, a ruler of the synagogue (Mark 5:42), and Lazarus, the brother of Mary and Martha in Bethany after he had been dead four days (John 11:44). Finally he raised himself from the dead after he had been crucified. He had repeatedly told his disciples that three days after his death he would rise again.
The miracles Jesus enacted are important evidence and to reject this evidence will be counted against us on the day of judgment. Jesus said later to his disciples that unbelief was irrational,
“He who hates me hates my Father as well. If I had not done among them what no-one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. But now they have seen these miracles, and yet they have hated both me and my Father. But this was to fulfil what is written in their Law; ‘They hated me without reason.’” John 15:25
The Evidence of God himself‘
There is some debate about the meaning of the next argument Jesus uses:
“And the Father who sent me has himself testified concerning me. You have never heard his voice . . .” John 5:37
Does this refer to the proclamation the Father made when Jesus began his public ministry, when he was baptised by John the Baptist:
“And a voice came from heaven: ‘You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.” Mark 1:11
This declaration was to be repeated when Jesus was transfigured into a dazzling being in the presence of Moses and Elijah on top of a high mountain. Peter, James and John witnessed this and heard a voice from the cloud clearly saying,
“This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him.” Mark 9:7
An alternative view is that they have heard God speak through the Scriptures as Jesus continues,
“ . . . nor does his word dwell in you, for you do not believe the one he sent.” John 5:38
The Evidence of Scripture
In Jesus’ time there were many religious Jews who scrupulously studied the Scriptures but somehow they had missed what they were talking about. The Scriptures are all about God’s Chosen Servant King who was to come into his world – His Messiah.
The Jewish Rabbis were meticulous in their copying and studying the Scriptures, which are now our Old Testament. Copyists would only copy one letter at a time before going back to the original, just to be sure no mistakes were made. They would check the central letter of each line and each book. They would collect those sentences that contained all of the 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet. Each letter had a numeric equivalent and they loved to discover significances in such discoveries.
The highly esteemed Rabbi Hillel made the interesting observations,
“More flesh – more worms
More wealth – more carefully
More maidservants – more lewdness
More menservants – more thieving
More women – more witchcraft
There was one thing he did value,
“More Torah – more life”.
Hillel went on,
“Whosoever has gained a good name has gained it for himself, Whosever has gained the words of the Torah has gained for himself life in the world to come.”
A similar thinking is seen amongst some Muslims who consider that learning the Qur'an by heart will put them in good stead with God. Such people associate knowledge of the Scriptures with salvation.
A group of school children were taken to the Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum in Rotterdam . They trooped into a room with paintings by Rubens. The children started to criticise the pictures and discussed all that they considered to be wrong, ‘The hands are two big,’ ‘No-one smiles like that,’ The colours aren’t real,’ and so on. After a while the curator could stand this no more and he went up to the teacher in charge and said,
“Please could you explain to the children that it is not the Rubens pictures that are being judged here, it is the visitors.”
There is great power in the Bible to change people – but only if we see our need, are willing to be changed, and submit to the Saviour the Bible talks about. If we, like those children in the art museum, think we are superior, then we can gain nothing from God’s word. This is what Moses said to God’s chosen people of old,
“Take this book of the Law and place it besides the ark of the covenant of the LORD your God. There it will remain as a witness against you. For I know how rebellious and stiff necked you are. If you have been rebellious against the LORD while I am still alive and with you, how much more will you rebel after I die.” Deuteronomy 31:26-27
Many homes have a Bible somewhere on their bookshelves. In Victorian times most families would have a large Family Bible but this was usually just used to record births, deaths, and to press flowers. Yet the Bible tells us how our relationship with God can be restored by Jesus, God’s Messiah.
All of God’s people should be Bible students, should work to understand it, and learn sections by heart. Without such dedication we cannot progress as Christians. Dr. Harry Ironside became Minister of Moody Church in Chicago. He had no college education yet became the foremost Bible teacher in his generation. From his biography we learn,
“Under his mother’s guidance, Harry began to memorise Scripture from the age of 3. By the age of 14 he had read through the Bible 14 times, once for each year of his life. During the rest of his life he read the Bible through at least once each year.”
On one occasion he was speaking at a conference and he and a fellow speaker began to discuss their own devotional life. The other speaker said what he had been reading from the Bible that morning and he then asked Harry Ironside when he had read. At first he was hesitant, but then he said,
“I read the book of Isaiah!”
He was saturated with the word of God. This is true for most of the great Bible teachers. John Bunyan, who wrote Pilgrim’s Progress spent 12 years in Bedford prison for refusing not to preach the word of God. He had little formal education but it was said of him,
“Cut him and you will find his blood is Bibline.”
Everything John Bunyan did was steeped in the Bible. The point of Scripture is to show us our deep needs and to point us to the only Saviour our creator has provided.
The agnostic who became a Christian, E.V. Rieu, concluded about the Bible,
“These words bear the seal of the Son of Man and of God, and they are the Magna Carta of the human spirit.”
The Evidence of Jesus’ Character
A leader needs to be clear and resolute and that is precisely what Jesus is. He is above being concerned with what others think of him, he is determined to do what is right:
“I do not accept praise from men.”
There are many great people in history who have persistently stood up for what they are certain is right. John Bunyan (1661-1672), the writer of ‘Pilgrims Progress spent twelve years in Bedford prison for preaching the gospel without a license after the Restoration of the monarchy. He felt his duty to obey god trumped the law and so he refused to stop preaching about Jesus even though this meant he forfeited his freedom. Alexei Navalny was a public critic of corruption in Putin’s Russia. He was repeatedly arrested and imprisoned on charges that groups such as Amnesty international consider to be trumped up charges to silence him. He was poisoned by the Russian authorities with Novichok and nearly died. When he voluntarily returned to Russia he was arrested at the airport and sent to a harsh prison where he was probably killed. These were men of principle who cared for truth more than what those in authority think. There is something admirable about such leaders and Jesus set us an example of such altruism.
The Evidence of Our Hearts
God knows what is really important for each of us. He is not interested in the volume of our verbal praise of him. The only worship he accepts is hearts devoted to him.
“I do not accept praise from men, but I know you. I know that you do not have the love of God in your hearts.” John 5:41-42
The Bible students of Jesus’ day were much more concerned to be recognised by fellow scholars that to be recognised by God. The way they dressed, talked and performed their outward religion was all to impress people – they weren’t so concerned about pleasing God. Yet their Scriptures emphasised that true worship should always be the purpose of life.
A headteacher was addressing the pupils in his school on their speech day. He said,
“The purpose of life is to discover the purpose of life and then to make that the purpose of your life.”
The Jewish Confession of faith, the Shema, taken from what God told Moses, explains the priority of life,
“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD you God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” Deuteronomy 6:4-5
What God wants is nothing less than our hearts. A missionary to some tribes people in the Amazon attended a tribal meeting. The chief stood up and said,
“I am impressed with Jesus. I want to give him a gift of some money.”
The missionary then told the group that God does not need our gifts. The Chief thought again and said,
“I am so impressed with Jesus that I want to give him my youngest wife!”
Again the missionary explained that this was not what God required. The light then dawned on the Chief,
“I now understand. God wants my heart, then I give myself to Jesus because he is God.”
How can people not be interested in the truth? We cannot hide behind preconceived notions. The truth does and will matter.
BVP
