Curt Harlow [00:00:00]:
Hello, my friend, and welcome back to the Bible Study Podcast with me, your host, Curt Harlow, Bayside Pastor. I'm up in Auburn. And then we've got the frontal lobe of Thrive College. I always love saying Thrive College. Get that plug in. Thrive College, Mrs. Dena Davidson. How you doing, Dena?
Dena Davidson [00:00:16]:
I'm good. I'm excellent.
Curt Harlow [00:00:18]:
Good. We had Wesley on last week. Yeah, I heard he was post vacation in a role.
Dena Davidson [00:00:24]:
Yeah, Wesley is normally, like, scholarly, bookish, but he was just. He was vibing. He was very chill. It was awesome.
Curt Harlow [00:00:31]:
Well, if you missed that episode, see it. We're in John chapter five. So we've just got done with the woman at the. Well, the encounter, and then she goes down to the town and we're going right back into Jerusalem. So we're on our way to Galilee, and then John pulls us back into Jerusalem with. Here's the context. The healing at the pool of Bethesda. Now, Bethesda means healing.
Curt Harlow [00:00:55]:
So you have Bethesda Hospital. I think that's. That's Washington, D.C. right. And what this really is not. It's really actually not about the healing specifically. The healing is important. The man is important.
Curt Harlow [00:01:08]:
This Jesus interaction we're going to see is very important with him, but it's really about the problem of Jesus doing good, doing miracles on the Sabbath. What does the Sabbath mean? Why does this upset the religious leaders so profoundly? And by the way, from here to the feeding of the multitudes in chapter six, this is going to be the theme. This is the problem that starts right at this pool. Dena, what would you add to that context?
Dena Davidson [00:01:36]:
I think, just so we know, like, at this point, Jesus is controversial because he's doing these signs and these teachings. And why, you know, why do you have this authority? And why are you questioning what we say as the Pharisees and the Sadducees? But this is going to. This is where, like, the real controversy is going to kick off. Because it's not just Jesus's claims, but he's also really challenging the authority of God's word because he is living it in a different way than what the Pharisees thought was correct. So important context.
Curt Harlow [00:02:07]:
Very, very important. Jesus. This is where Jesus really gets him mad.
Dena Davidson [00:02:10]:
Yeah.
Curt Harlow [00:02:10]:
All right, cool beans. Why don't you go ahead and read the passage through, and then we will put on our hermeneutical and exegetical hats and see if we can rightly divide this and get the original content that John and the Holy Spirit intended for. So go ahead.
Dena Davidson [00:02:27]:
Sometime later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for One of the Jewish festivals. Now there is in Jerusalem, near the sheep Gate, a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda, and which is surrounded by five colored colonnades. Here a great number of disabled people used to lie. The blame, the blind, the lame, the paralyzed one who was there had been an invalid for 38 years. When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, do you want to get well, sir? The invalid replied, I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me. Then Jesus said to him, get up. Pick up your mat and walk at once.
Dena Davidson [00:03:13]:
The man was cured, and he picked up his mat and walked. The day on which this took place was a Sabbath. And so the Jewish leader 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. So they asked him, who is this fellow who told you to pick it up and walk? The man who was healed had no idea who it was for. Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there. Later, Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, see you are well again.
Dena Davidson [00:03:46]:
Stop sinning, or something worse may happen to you. The man went away and told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who had made him well. So because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jewish leaders began to persecute him. In his defense, 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.
Curt Harlow [00:04:17]:
All right, the heart of the passage, I believe, is that very end conclusion there. And we'll get to that. But let's. Let's start off with some context here. Dena, please explain to me why in the world does the. The layman give this. Hey, I. I can't.
Curt Harlow [00:04:34]:
I want to be well, but no one will carry me to the pool. Explain what's going on there.
Dena Davidson [00:04:39]:
Oh, I love it. I was listening to this passage, prepping it, and I think sometimes we think Jesus, like, looked out on this crowd and was like, I see the man who has the faith, you know, and that I want to heal. And we assume, like, he's. He's the good guy. He's the one who just hasn't had the chance to get into the pool, hardest knocks. Right. Exactly. Like we have compassion on this man.
Dena Davidson [00:04:59]:
But as you read the story, I think Jesus is doing what Jesus does. He sees. He sees the heart of man. And we know from what he says later to him, this man is a sinner. Right. Like we are all sinners. But I think Jesus chose the sinnerest of sinners at the pool. And he goes to him and he launches into a conversation that is so much more about physical healing than the man was expecting.
Dena Davidson [00:05:22]:
Right. So he starts by addressing his physical condition. Do you want to be well? And I think, like, how much? So the rest of his life was that question probably ringing in that man's mind, do I want to be well? Right. And so the man actually doesn't answer the question. He gives an excuse. Right. Like, first of all, Jesus, of course I want to be well. Like, why am I laying here? I just.
Dena Davidson [00:05:45]:
There's no possible way for me to get well. You can hear the despair in his voice. So my suspicion, it's not exactly in the text, but if you read the whole text, I think it's a good assumption is that Jesus chose a sinner of sinners and asked him a physical question, but underlying it was the spiritual question, do you want to get well?
Curt Harlow [00:06:07]:
This is the pattern of Jesus. This is the woman at the well. Can I have a drink of your water? Hey, go get your husband.
Dena Davidson [00:06:12]:
Yeah, yeah.
Curt Harlow [00:06:12]:
So it starts with the question, opening foray. And then Jesus always presses into the real situation. Here we get Jesus addressing the man's true problem, and he addresses it after he's done the miracle.
Dena Davidson [00:06:30]:
Yes.
Curt Harlow [00:06:31]:
After he's given the grace, then he says, now stop sinning.
Dena Davidson [00:06:35]:
Yep.
Curt Harlow [00:06:35]:
And I think sometimes your first reaction to that is the. The stop sinning was, oh, he sinned. And then that made him unwell. But. But I think you're more on it. I think that in his brokenness, he was sinning. What is that sin? We don't. We don't know what that sin is, but maybe it's a lack of faith.
Curt Harlow [00:06:56]:
Maybe it was cynicism against God. Maybe it was manipulating people to give donations. Maybe it was, you know, how he treated the people that carried him to the edge of the pool. To. To be there. He was probably there to beg. But the grace gets poured out before the difficult question.
Dena Davidson [00:07:15]:
Yeah.
Curt Harlow [00:07:16]:
Or before the difficult exhortation by Jesus, which is absolutely the pattern. You know, there's. I've always thought about this passage. There's several ways to read through this passage. The way we're tempted to do it is from the personal healing narrative, which is a great way to look at it. And we should look at it. Personal healing narrative is who did Jesus pick? What question did he ask him? Everything. We're just talking about why does he say quit sinning? What does that mean? What does that mean to me? Then there's the second way, which I think is the most important in core of the passage, which is why does Jesus go to Jerusalem to heal? I've been to this gate.
Curt Harlow [00:07:58]:
This is a very public. This is a very public place. This is as public a miracle as you could do. It's so public that Jesus can hide in the crowd after doing it. Right. So Jesus is being. He's waving the flag of. Me and the Father are at work on the Sabbath.
Dena Davidson [00:08:17]:
Yeah.
Curt Harlow [00:08:17]:
So that's probably the most exegetical right way to look at the narrative. Let's ask the question, why is Jesus doing a very public miracle to a 38 years old? Did it say 38 year old? 38 years being here at the pool. Why is he shocked? Shaking the hornets? But there's a third way to look at it.
Dena Davidson [00:08:39]:
Let's hear it.
Curt Harlow [00:08:41]:
The third way is what is he teaching the disciples? So one of the mistakes you can make hermeneutically with John is once you get to Philip and Andrew and Simon Peter being called and they start following Jesus around you, you can forget that they're still there.
Dena Davidson [00:09:03]:
Right.
Curt Harlow [00:09:05]:
Because Jesus is talking a lot about himself. He's talking a lot to other people and they're showing up doing just minor things like we got the lunch.
Dena Davidson [00:09:14]:
Right.
Curt Harlow [00:09:15]:
But once you put that lens on that this is really about him teaching them something. He knows he's not going to convince the, the religious leaders.
Dena Davidson [00:09:26]:
Yeah.
Curt Harlow [00:09:26]:
And so now you got to skip to like chapter 12 of John where it says they're talking about the resurrected Christ at the end of John that last three days. And they said, we remember what he said, we remember what he did. And what they're remembering here is me and the Father are working. I and the Father are one. Very similar sentiment here. So when you're reading this, I would just. Everyone that's listening, I would challenge you, read it first through that inner person. Like put yourself in the place of the lion, the lame man.
Curt Harlow [00:10:02]:
Then put yourself in the place of the religious leaders, the best, probably one. And then be a bystander next to Peter and Andrew and go, what is Jesus wanting to teach me about this? And it's very true. For every thing that happens in this first 2/3 of the Gospel of John.
Dena Davidson [00:10:22]:
Yeah, I think also we should probably give some background on Sabbath because of the Ten Commandments. It's probably the least, it's, it's the least understood one in our modern day context.
Curt Harlow [00:10:33]:
Like Friday night to Saturday night Sabbath.
Dena Davidson [00:10:35]:
I am not personally you law breaker. I know, I know, it's fun. I have some Seventh Day Adventist students that come out of that background in our in thrive college. So when we talk about the Sabbath, because we have a whole section of ethics where we talk about the Ten Commandments and study Sabbath and so interesting to hear their perspective. But for most people that don't grow up in a background of, of practicing the Sabbath, I think we like instantly join Jesus and we're like, yeah, Pharisees, get over it. Like, why, why do you even care about this a lot? A lame man was made. Well, why are you pausing over the fact that it happened on the Sabbath? So giving the ancient context for this. So when, when Moses gave the Ten Commandments, the clearest expression of what God's will for humanity is.
Dena Davidson [00:11:24]:
Right, um, the fourth commandment is the Sabbath commandment. What I love about the fourth commandment is it has the most words, right? So it's like love, like, don't have idols, do not murder, do not bear false testimony. It's like very pithy until you get to the Sabbath. And in the Sabbath command, it's long, it's lengthy and it gives a theological explanation. So we have two recordings of the Ten Commandments. The first one, um, the reasoning is because God himself rested on the Sabbath. So in the Genesis narrative, we have six days God works and then the seventh day God Sabbaths. So in the first giving of the Ten Commandments, when we read it in Exodus, that's the rationale behind it.
Dena Davidson [00:12:06]:
But then you fast forward to Deuteronomy where the Ten Commandments are given again and recorded again and the rationale has changed. So it's the only difference between the two recordings of the Ten Commandments. And the rationale here is, remember that I, the Lord your God brought you out of slavery. So to these people who their whole life they had, they had worked, they had worked, they had worked. And their worth was based on their work. To these people, the Israelite nation, God said, six days you shall work and then one day you shall rest. And there are so many, like read Deuteronomy, there are so many laws about how to observe Sabbath. Sabbath was a big deal to God from Genesis all the way through the end of the Old Testament.
Dena Davidson [00:12:51]:
And I would make a case for the New Testament as well. Because he wanted his people to know that your word, your worth is not based on your works, right? So, like, God is teaching salvation all through the Old Testament and then into the New Testament. We're going to hear, like, the ultimate purpose of Sabbath, right? In Hebrews. But to these people, Sabbath was one of the 10, right, right. So it's like, it is right up there with do not murder, right? So when, yes, Jesus is, in their minds, breaking the Sabbath, right? He is elevating himself in authority over the Ten Commandments, which I would say Jesus is very intentional and he's doing on purpose, Right? Right. Because he was there every day 38 years. Right? 38 years he'd been an invalid. What's one day more, right? Like, if you're the disciples, you're like, hey, Jesus, we could have had a lot more freedom, a lot less people trying to kill you if we had just done this tomorrow or the day before, like, really any other day, Jesus, we could have healed this man.
Dena Davidson [00:13:51]:
But Jesus is intentional, and he chose this battle on purpose.
Curt Harlow [00:13:56]:
I have a good friend who's an observant Jew, and he would certainly say, you can heal on the Sabbath. And, you know, he would certainly be much more reasonable, these religious leaders. So I want to make that really, really clear. But this is a problem for him, that we are Sabbath breakers. It is a problem for him, and he makes a strong and really rational argument. Much of what you just said, you know, and basically, if you say to him that Sabbath is a pattern, not a particular day, he'll take you right to the Scripture and show you exactly where you're wrong. If you say that Jesus has fulfilled the Sabbath, this is a problem too, because he understands there's three types of law in the Old Testament. There's civil, there's ritual, and there's moral.
Curt Harlow [00:14:43]:
Civil is how we treat each other within the time and encampment of the nation of Israel. Ritual is what we do at the temple. This is what the Sadducees love the most. And then finally, moral is the Ten Commandments, like you said, Exodus 20, Deuteronomy 5. And, you know, if you say the fulfillment, then he'll say, well, how is Jesus coming? And the death and resurrection, the fulfillment in such a way that you no longer have to do this because Jesus has fulfilled forgiveness of, for instance, forgiveness of murder by providing eternal life. He's got authority over death. Jesus is the truth. That's the fulfillment of do not lie, do not Give false testimony.
Curt Harlow [00:15:32]:
And I want to tell you, it's been a struggle for me.
Dena Davidson [00:15:36]:
Yeah.
Curt Harlow [00:15:36]:
Talking with this guy. The, the one answer I have is this God, does God want us to rest from work as a reflection of who he is? That's Genesis. Yes. Does God want us to rest from work as a reflection of the liberation that he provides? Yes. How much does he want us to rest from work now in the fulfillment of Christ, it is every day we are to rest from the true work of earning our way to God. Every way. So when is the Sabbath? To the Christian who believes that Christ came not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it, The Sabbath is right now.
Dena Davidson [00:16:19]:
Right. And tomorrow, Every minute, every hour.
Curt Harlow [00:16:22]:
Yes. Now I think there's a cultural wisdom to working six days and resting one. And I don't mind people that take it more literally and say, I'm going to go Friday night to Saturday night.
Dena Davidson [00:16:37]:
Yeah. Some would say. And I think it's like it's a modern day Christian debate actually. Like 50 years ago there were, what are they called? Blue, Blue Book laws. Whatever it was, you couldn't work on the Sabbath. Like so this recently, up until relatively recently, this was actually the case in America that people believed Sunday was a day of rest. And the reason it changed from Saturday to Sunday was because Jesus rose from the dead on Sunday. So that's why Christians began to celebrate Sabbath on Sunday instead of Saturday.
Dena Davidson [00:17:07]:
But modern day Christians, I think there's still some pretty heavy debate over whether we're required to keep a 24 hour period of rest to totally sidestep that debate. I think it's sewn into the rhythm of creation from Genesis all the way to Revelation. Rest is part of God's intention for humanity. There's the spiritual rest of not trying to earn our salvation and then there's also the practical physical rest of having to sleep every day. And in between those is God's desire that we wouldn't see ourselves as slaves and who are always having to earn the good things, but we are trusting in our Father to provide the good things, doing the work six days, but also trusting in him to provide for those needs.
Curt Harlow [00:17:53]:
So much we could talk about here. And we will, because this idea of Sabbath comes up in the next episode. So keep in mind here one more note on this and very good for drawing our attention to this. Dana. If you want to understand these next couple chapters, you have to understand how high they regarded Moses. So Jesus is essentially saying here he's going to say this literally, but he's essentially saying to them, by doing a very public miracle on the Sabbath, he is saying, moses is on my side. And you have misunderstood who Moses is.
Dena Davidson [00:18:32]:
Yes.
Curt Harlow [00:18:32]:
This is very similar to if someone came to me and said, you know, your children or your mother, probably your mother would be more, your mother is not who you think she is. And I'm like, I grew up with her. I was there. I, I memorized every word she said. And so Jesus. This is really a personal affront to the great amount of memorization and study and the high, high archy in their culture of who could dis. Discuss and, and, and carry on discourse and memorize the rabbis. Who taught the rabbis about who Moses is, what he did, and how important he is.
Curt Harlow [00:19:13]:
You cannot emphasize the centrality of Moses enough in the minds of these guys. Did they love King David? Yes. Did they like Isaiah? Yes. Did they hold Moses? He was the, he was the target. Moses was the target. And so for Jesus to say, I have authority over Moses and Moses likes that.
Dena Davidson [00:19:35]:
Yeah. And Moses would agree with me.
Curt Harlow [00:19:37]:
Moses would agree with me. Everything Moses did, I was one of the guys who told him to do it.
Dena Davidson [00:19:43]:
Yes.
Curt Harlow [00:19:44]:
This is so offensive to them that in your, in our reading of this passage, we go, oh, here's a conflict. They don't like it that this guy got healed. They like it less that he's carrying his mat. So they know they can't come against the actual healing, but they get that mat down.
Dena Davidson [00:20:00]:
Yeah.
Curt Harlow [00:20:00]:
And then they go from that to then they try to kill Jesus.
Dena Davidson [00:20:04]:
Yeah. Yep.
Curt Harlow [00:20:05]:
And that seems a very shortcut to us, but to them it wasn't. This is, you know, the most profound. This is, you know, talking, dismantling an idea in them that is so profoundly held and so dangerous to them. They're thinking, if we, if this gets dismantled, we'll be absorbed into Rome and Greece in two seconds.
Dena Davidson [00:20:27]:
Yes.
Curt Harlow [00:20:28]:
We will lose us.
Dena Davidson [00:20:29]:
Yes. And in the period of silence between the Malachi and Jesus where they weren't hearing directly from God, there was no prophet speaking on behalf. What they had been doing is. It's like, I have a pool in my backyard. So they're like, the pool is the danger. Right. For my kids falling into that pool, that's the danger. Right.
Dena Davidson [00:20:48]:
So violating the Ten Commandments, that's the danger for them. What they've been doing for 500 years is putting gates around the pool. Right. So, like, if the danger is violating one of the Ten Commandments, they've been putting all these gates and. Oh, yeah, but that gate is not Enough. And so all these very detailed laws had cropped up where the simplicity of six days work, one day rest. Now, they were like, you can walk this many miles or this many feet, but you can't walk one foot over or you're violating the Sabbath.
Curt Harlow [00:21:18]:
Right.
Dena Davidson [00:21:19]:
You. You can roll up your mat, but you can't pick up your mat. Right. It's like, so did Jesus actually break the Sabbath? I. I would say no, he absolutely did not. It's not a violation of the Sabbath to, you know, do good. But telling the man to roll up his mat, he's not telling him to break God's law. He's telling him to break man's law.
Dena Davidson [00:21:39]:
Right. He's saying, hey, you can go past that gate that those religious leaders put between what they think is right, rightful action and what God says is wrongful action.
Curt Harlow [00:21:50]:
Such great word picture. Yeah. He went by it very quickly. So Jesus puts the gates all around the pool. The whole backyard is filled with gates. You cannot get into the backyard anymore because the amount of gates.
Dena Davidson [00:22:01]:
Yeah.
Curt Harlow [00:22:01]:
And Jesus goes up to the second story, goes out the master bedroom balcony and cannonballs.
Dena Davidson [00:22:06]:
Yes.
Curt Harlow [00:22:07]:
Into the pool.
Dena Davidson [00:22:08]:
Yeah.
Curt Harlow [00:22:08]:
This is sort of sophisticated Bible analogies you get here on the podcast.
Dena Davidson [00:22:13]:
I love it.
Curt Harlow [00:22:14]:
Yeah. Later on, Jesus says this, and the Sabbath was created for man, not. Not man for the Sabbath.
Dena Davidson [00:22:22]:
Yeah.
Curt Harlow [00:22:23]:
So the Sabbath serves us.
Dena Davidson [00:22:24]:
He said the Son of Man has authority over the Sabbath.
Curt Harlow [00:22:27]:
Yes.
Dena Davidson [00:22:27]:
Who's the Son of Man?
Curt Harlow [00:22:28]:
Yes.
Dena Davidson [00:22:29]:
Jesus.
Curt Harlow [00:22:30]:
So. So it's. Jesus doesn't have a problem with the Sabbath. He doesn't have a problem with the redemptive creative part of imitating God. And he doesn't have a part with the redemptive release of slavery part. He has a problem with the rules that we put to the rules that we put. And here's what I think his real problem with all those rules is it keeps us from the purpose of the Ten Commandments, which is to teach us that we're commandment breakers. So if we can dress right, act right, go to bed at the right time, wake up at the right time, not do this on this day, instead do it on that day, we can fool ourselves into thinking we're commandment keepers.
Dena Davidson [00:23:13]:
Yes.
Curt Harlow [00:23:13]:
And, and, and so it. It mutes the purpose of the articulation of the moral law, which is to teach us we need a redeemer.
Dena Davidson [00:23:21]:
Amen.
Curt Harlow [00:23:21]:
Because we're.
Dena Davidson [00:23:22]:
And that's, I think, why Jesus chose this moment, because he said the very thing that you think. You think you are successfully keeping the Sabbath.
Curt Harlow [00:23:30]:
Yes.
Dena Davidson [00:23:31]:
You are so far off Pharisees, you are so far off Israelites, you need someone to come redeem you because you're in the same exact position as this lame man who can't get well. You can't get well.
Curt Harlow [00:23:43]:
Okay. Think of the amount of work they're doing to keep a man from lifting his mat up. Yes. The meetings that they had to have, the strategy sessions there. They got a whiteboard, they're diagramming the crowd. Where did he go? Yes, we think it's Jesus, but we don't know for sure. It's is that we like the John the Baptist guy, but this Jesus, it's. Got it.
Curt Harlow [00:24:05]:
This is him again. They're working so hard to be offended about the work.
Dena Davidson [00:24:10]:
Yeah.
Curt Harlow [00:24:10]:
Which is not a problem they have. It's a problem we have. This is. And again, this is Jesus teaching the disciples.
Dena Davidson [00:24:20]:
Yeah.
Curt Harlow [00:24:20]:
What he's teaching the disciples here is who he is, what he has authority over, and what the problem of our heart is. Okay, let's go to the very end of the passage. I'll read it again really quick. So because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, there's the. The McGuffin movie fans would call it that. There's the thing that's moving the story along is Jesus confronting their interpretation of the Sabbath. The Jewish leaders began to persecute him. In his defense, Jesus said to them, my father is always at work to this very day, and I too, am working for this reason.
Curt Harlow [00:24:55]:
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. So there's two offenses here. The first is he clearly comes against their belief, their construction of how to keep the Sabbath. And then on top of it, he claims to be equal with God. Here's my question to you about this, Dena. This seems so obvious to me from John 1:1. Every single chapter, there is a defense of the deity of Christ.
Curt Harlow [00:25:39]:
How do people read this gospel and create a theology where Jesus is not free fully God? How does. I won't say his name because I don't like to call it names, but we both know a really, really famous theologian who has written a whole book on this. How Christians Invented the Deity of Christ. Yeah, how in the world? Why? Why does that happen? Why is it so hard for us?
Dena Davidson [00:26:05]:
Yeah, there's. It comes, I think, from two good motivations, I would say, usually one very Dena gracious answer, like they're just dirty sinners. The first reason is usually an overemphasis on reason. So when you lay out the doctrine of the Trinity and the three things that it teaches, it says that there is one God, the Father, the Son and the Spirit are separate persons and that all three are equally God, you know, so like they're separate, but there's one God and each person is God. When you put those on paper and then you try to rationally understand how those three things can be true, while there is no logical contradiction, there is no easy way to understand it. Like even try to come up with an analogy to understand the Trinity, you will fail, you will be a heretic. Because, well, ultimately there's no analogy to something that is singular, right? So there's no. That's a defense of the Trinity.
Dena Davidson [00:27:04]:
But it's hard to understand is what I'll just say.
Curt Harlow [00:27:06]:
Wait, wait, back up and say that again. Because it is brilliant thought and a little complex. There is no analogy to something that is the singular, right?
Dena Davidson [00:27:14]:
An analogy depends on a similar relationship between two separate things. And so you can't have a proper analogy to God himself because there is none like God. So everything is dissimilar to God. Which is why every analogy for the Trinity ultimately is heresy. And that should comfort us, right? It should also comfort us that as we think about the vastness, the immensity of God, we can't fully understand God like properly understood. The doctrine of the Trinity solves many philosophical problems, which I won't go into. So if you really study it, it solves as many problems as it creates. But initially, like the buy in to understand that it seems to go against reason.
Dena Davidson [00:27:54]:
And to people that believe in the value of reason and understanding, the Trinity is an affront to that and it's an obstacle. So I think first it's an obstacle to understanding and people want to remove that obstacle. So that's a good motivation. But it errs also, I think there, there's an even better reason people dismiss the Trinity and that is because they're monotheists. They believe that there is one God. And they do not think that it is proper to worship Jesus or the Spirit because they think that that's violating the command to only worship the one true God. And they don't understand, not with their heart, not with their mind, how they can worship the Son and the Spirit and have that not be violating their worship of the one true God. So two good motivations.
Dena Davidson [00:28:41]:
The whole Gospel of John is, is written to answer those two things, right? To help us to understand that this is revelation. This is God himself coming down and saying, I know you're going to have a hard time understanding. I know I said something previously that's going to make it hard for you to believe this, but this too is revelation. God himself saying, this is who I am. I had a professor in college that was a Christian but denied the Trinity. And I remember asking him, he's like, don't you think that God the Father would be so offended if I'm right and Jesus is not God, that God the Father would have been so offended that you worshiped Jesus? And I looked at him and I said, don't you think that if I'm right, that Jesus as God would be so offended that he gave such careful revelation of who he was that you didn't worship him? So, like, we're in the same spot, right? Both of us is running the risk of offending and sinning against God by not rightly worshiping him. And the whole point of John is that it is right to worship Jesus because Jesus was with God and he was God.
Curt Harlow [00:29:54]:
And in fact, they do worship him at the end, and they do worship him at the Ascension. They worship him.
Dena Davidson [00:29:59]:
And the blind man is the first
Curt Harlow [00:30:00]:
professor because he's the poster child of this point. I'm trying to get you to make one of the greatest professors Jew, or was he. Did he call himself a Christian?
Dena Davidson [00:30:08]:
No, he's a Christian, Yeah. Not, not a Jew. He's a Christian. He just believed. He believed that the early church invented the doctrine of the Trinity. But why? He was. He was a philosophy professor, and he just didn't think it made intellectual sense to believe in the Trinity. And that's why he rejected it, because
Curt Harlow [00:30:24]:
God doesn't make intellectual sense.
Dena Davidson [00:30:26]:
I would have to say it's not. It's not a bad knock. You don't want God to make intellectual sense.
Curt Harlow [00:30:31]:
I told students on campus, I said, if you get into a religious organization who can explain the nature of God exactly in a paragraph or less, you are in a cult.
Dena Davidson [00:30:42]:
Yes.
Curt Harlow [00:30:43]:
You are in a culture. And this is the desire of man. We want to define God and we want to be at peace with who God is in our ultimate definition.
Dena Davidson [00:30:54]:
I would say, though, just one more note, because the person who's like, I can't accept a God that's against reason. God is not against reason. He's beyond reason. You will not be able to fully understand him. But even the doctrine of the Trinity solves certain philosophical problems, such as how diversity ever came from unity. Like, you can go study that, how community existed from all time. So it solves certain philosophical problems and it's, I would say, a pretty awesome doctrine. It's beyond reason, but it's not against reason.
Curt Harlow [00:31:25]:
Yes, 100%. I say in a much less eloquent way, I say, no one wants a God that has my SAT scores, so that's good. I would like the God to be harder to understand than my ability to understand. All right, how do we apply this, Dena? A lot going on here. And in the words of the great American philosopher Karen Carpenter, we've only just begun. This is the next, like six episodes are going to be around these issues. What is the application of the healing of the lame man who is told to pick up his mat and stop sinning?
Dena Davidson [00:31:58]:
Yeah, well, obviously the authority of the Son is. Is the main thing here. But. But I think application wise, the most powerful point is, do you want to be well? If you can let Jesus ask you that question over and over again, do you want to be well? Do you, Dena? Do you want to be well? Do you want to leave your old ways, your old patterns of thinking and action behind and chase what the Son has to offer and receive what the Son can give you? Do you want to be well? Let Jesus ask you that question.
Curt Harlow [00:32:30]:
Timothy Keller has a brilliant discourse, and I think it's in the reason for God on the assurance and the credibility that comes from the fact that Jesus says things that offend him. Like a God of his own making would not say anything that would offend him or offend him for very long.
Dena Davidson [00:32:50]:
Offend Tim.
Curt Harlow [00:32:51]:
Offend Tim the person. But the fact that there are places in the Gospel that offend him and that he doesn't want to accept that you don't want to hear that question is. Is adds credibility. And then he goes, it's interesting for other cultures and other places and other individuals. What offends them is a different thing than what offends me, which adds some credibility. So that idea. What is the offensive question that Jesus wants to ask you? It seems pretty obvious layman would want to get well, but it's. We all know psychologically it's a brilliant question.
Dena Davidson [00:33:22]:
Yeah.
Curt Harlow [00:33:22]:
Okay, here's my application and mine's going to be more practical than yours. Know the Old Testament and know. Start studying and learning and listening to the history of the Jewish people before Jesus came. Amen. Because so much of this in the Gospel is two dimensional or even sometimes one dimensional. If you do not understand how deeply held the idea of the Sabbath is, how profoundly important Moses is, you know, when you make them into one dimensional villains. The religious leaders are one dimensional villains and I would never be that way. You misread the scripture.
Curt Harlow [00:34:06]:
But when you understand that how entrenched these things were and start to empathize. So like this idea that God has shown up through a Galilean. Yeah, God has shown up fully. God, he and the Father one just doing equals. I mean, in defense of the religious leaders, not many got it. Not many had the ability to see it. And. And we are the same.
Curt Harlow [00:34:39]:
We are in that seat. So just getting, trying to get more of a three dimensional view of what led to these moments by understanding your Old Testament, understanding the themes and the important point that you brought up today was understanding even the history. Inner Testament history helps us understand these passages and makes them really come off the page the way they were intended to.
Dena Davidson [00:35:02]:
Amen.
Curt Harlow [00:35:03]:
All right, well, let's go on. We're going to get into what the repercussions of this healing. And boy, is it exciting and good. Do not miss the the next episode of the Bible Study podcast. And I just want to tell you, don't. Don't share or like this and make no comments.
Dena Davidson [00:35:20]:
Bree's like what that.
Curt Harlow [00:35:22]:
Is that their reverse psychology? My Uncle Lyn used to say. Yeah. Don't do it. I dare you to share biblical truth in the Bible Study podcast on the Thrive Network from Bayside Church. I dare you to do it. Don't do it. Don't. Just keep driving.
Curt Harlow [00:35:41]:
Just go get an espresso right now and forget about this. All right, we'll see you next week.