WELCOME! We
are in the Book of John, Chapter 4. For those of you who need to review earlier
teachings, they are posted for you on both Google+ (https://plus.google.com/u/0/+DrMargaretAranda/collections
) and my Author blog, www.drmargaretaranda.blogspot.com.
I recommend the Google+ site, as they are all organized there.
There are also two You Tube
videos to watch on Holy Communion:
1) general comments: https://youtu.be/cGExxw8gzdk and
2)
specific instructions Christ gives us from the Bible: https://youtu.be/RIW44PDgM6w .
I hope these edify you, and
encourage you to read them if you miss a Service, so that you can put the
Services and Bible Studies in continuity of context. We all need continuity. Try to watch these before the Thursday Service;
otherwise, come back and watch them afterwards. Now go get a plate for some
bread, and a glass of a little wine, and save it for Holy Communion.
PRAISE & WORSHIP SONGS:
1. “El Shaddai;”
Lion of Judah
By Amy Grant
2. “10,000
Reasons”
By Matt Redman
3. “Because He
Lives”
By Matt Maher
John
4:27-54 – BIBLE STUDY
“JUST SAY THE WORD”
JUNE 18, 2015
27 At this point His disciples came, and
they were amazed that He had been speaking with a woman, yet no one said,
“What do You seek?” or, “Why do You speak with
her?”
28 So the woman left her water pot, and went
into the city and said to the men,
29 “Come, see a man who told me all the
things that I have done; this is not the Christ, is
it?
30 They went out of the city, and were coming
to Him.
31 Meanwhile the disciples were urging Him,
saying, “Rabbi, eat.”
32 But He said to them, “I have food to
eat that you do not know about.”
33 So the disciples were saying to one
another, “No one brought Him anything to eat, did he?”
34 Jesus said to them, “My food is
to do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work.
35 Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months,
and then comes the harvest’?
Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look on the fields, that they are
white for harvest.
36 Already he who reaps is
receiving wages and is gathering fruit for life eternal; so that
he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together.
37 For in this case the
saying is true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’
38 I sent you to reap that for which you have
not labored; others have labored and you have entered into their labor.”
39 From that city many of the Samaritans
believed in Him because of the word of the woman who testified, “He told me all
the things that I have done.”
40 So when the Samaritans came to Jesus, they
were asking Him to stay with them; and He stayed there two days.
41 Many more believed because of His
word;
42 and they were saying to the woman, “It
is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for
ourselves and know that this One is indeed the Savior of the world.”
43 After the two days He went forth from
there into Galilee.
44 For Jesus Himself testified that a
prophet has no honor in his own country.
45 So when He came to Galilee, the Galileans
received Him, having seen all the things that He did in Jerusalem at the feast;
for they themselves also went to the feast.
46 Therefore He came again to Cana of
Galilee where He had made the water wine. And there was a royal official
whose son was sick at Capernaum.
47 When he heard that Jesus had come out
of Judea into Galilee, he went to Him and was imploring Him to
come down and heal his son; for he was at the point of death.
48 So Jesus said to him, “Unless
you people see signs and wonders, you simply will
not believe.”
49 The royal official said to Him, “Sir, come
down before my child dies.”
50 Jesus said to him, “Go; your son
lives.” The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and started off.
51 As he was now going down, his slaves
met him, saying that his son was living.
52 So he inquired of them the hour when he
began to get better. Then they said to him, “Yesterday at the seventh hour
the fever left him.”
53 So the father knew that it was at
that hour in which Jesus said to him, “Your son lives”; and he himself
believed and his whole household.
54 This is again a second sign that
Jesus performed when He had come out of Judea into Galilee.
DISCUSSION:
Thank you Lord,
that we can study your Word together. Let’s turn our Bibles back to Verse 27,
where the Disciples come back from shopping in town.
They find Jesus
talking to “a woman.” It does not say “a Samaritan woman.” They did not ask
“why” or “what did He seek” from her.
They were
“amazed,” but they knew our Lord was “different,” so they did not inquire of
Him.
(Is it “amazing”
to see a man talking to a woman today? Even if she was of another culture,
religion, or country, would a man be stunned to see a “religious man” talk to
her?)
In verses 28-30,
the woman runs back into the city and tells everyone that Christ knew of her
life, and she led a group back to where Christ was sitting.
In verses 31-38,
Christ is asked whether He is hungry, and begins to talk about sowing and
reaping. He tells the Disciples that they are there for the reaping, when they
have not participated in the sowing.
It is as if the
Disciples are being told that they are lucky to be at the right place at the
right time, and they need to take heed and listen to the Lord.
In verses 39-44,
we see how the Samaritans came to believe Christ as the Lord not at all because
of what the woman said, but because of what He told them about themselves. He
stayed there two nights, and then left, because even Christ said that a prophet
has “no honor in his own country.”
In verses 45-54,
Christ and his Disciples went to Galilee, and all the Galileans remembered Him
from the wedding in Jerusalem, in the city Cana of Galilee. And “they received
Him.” In verse 46, we see that they specifically remember that He changed water
into wine, His first miracle.
A royal official
heard that Jesus was now in Galilee, and in verse 47, we see how a “royal
official” was “imploring” Christ to go see the official’s son in Capernaum.
In verse 48, Christ expresses His frustration
with mankind, chastising them out loud by saying that unless they see signs,
they do not believe.
I think that
Christ must have felt like a drive-by doctor, or an In & Out Hamburger
stand, to be “used” for His healing, and then left behind. I can imagine people
running away healed, only to go gather more people for bigger crowds over and
over again, until at last, “multitudes” were gathered to listen to him.
In verses 49-50,
the official tells Christ to go see his son, as he is “close to death.” Jesus
just told him to “Go” because his son was healed. Why did the official take him
at his word, and why didn’t it turn into an argument, where the official
argued, “No, you come to my house and you see my son!”
It was because
both Christ and the official understood “Orders.” If the official “ordered” his
men to do this, it was done. If the official then ordered his men to do that,
it was done. No thinking. No questioning. Only “following orders.”
In verses 50-53,
the official “believed Him...and started to walk away...” while Christ marveled
at his faith. The official’s crew met up with him, and after exchanging stories
and the timing thereof, the official determined that his son was healed when
Christ’s healing words were said. Not only did the official believe in Christ,
but so did “his whole household.”
Just in case we
missed it, verse 54 confirms that this was Christ’s second miracle. Did anyone
miss that one? Sometimes, I t is good to have things spelled out for us.
What does this
tell us of our faith?
We show more trust
in Christ if we are blind, like innocent children, and just take Him at His
simple Word. No grand inquisitions, no pontifications, no ‘deals,’ no ‘what
if’s’ ... only simple, pure, blind faith.
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