JOHN – Chapter 20
What/who was important to Jesus?
Belief and resurrection
What needs did Jesus meet?
He brought belief to the forefront after He appeared in His “Risen” state---after the empty tomb had been discovered; He also conquered the power of sin, Satan and death by His resurrection or as I Corinthians 15:55 says: “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” (Webster's Bible Translation)
What did Jesus ask or require of his followers?
To believe in Him through our faith or as Father Alfred McBride, O. Praem puts it in his The Divine Presence Of Jesus: Meditation And Commentary On The Gospel Of John: “…love is the real explanation of…faith. Love is the best road to faith.”---I agree, for if we love Jesus, we’ll have faith and belief in Him, because He first loved us
What issues did Jesus address (relationships, work, money, character, religious practice, etc.)?
Faith and doubt, belief and resurrection (As an aside: doubt was playfully alluded to in sexually charged language by the Metaphysical School of the arts: (http://webdoc.sub.gwdg.de/edoc/ia/eese/artic21/less3/html/a028.html and http://www.uni-erfurt.de/eestudies/eese/artic21/less3/14_2001.html)
What is compelling to you about Jesus in this section?
That He transcended the boundaries of time and space and conquered Death so that we may live free from the fear of it
How do followers respond to Jesus?
With faith and belief
What in this section challenges us to respond/ imitate/obey?
Belief, which is not a mental assent to the changing winds of manmade propositional doctrines such as: the Church is the only way to salvation and the Pope is the infallible representative of Christ on earth (Roman Catholic Church’s thoughts), individual predestination (Calvinists’ thoughts), the bible is inerrant/without error [despite all the evidence of all the contradictions and conflicting manuscripts, which are all errant copies ad infinitum of the lost and never seen Original Autographs---so even to claim that the Original Autographs are inerrant is absurd, meaningless and impractical] (Fundamentalists’ thoughts), the Rapture is true, the Church was an accident, because Israel rejected God’s Kingdom, but God will hand the Kingdom back to them and reinstate the temple sacrifices in the “End Times” and Paul instead of Christ is the apostle to the so called “Church Age” so that the Sermon On The Mount and Christ’s other teachings are not timeless but time-bound to some relative and arbitrary time---past or future (Pre-millennial Dispensationalists’ thoughts), God wants you to be rich, healthy and prosperous (Prosperity Gospel Teachers’ thoughts) or the King James version is the only real bible on earth and corrects all Hebrew and Greek texts and English is God’s True language for all humanity [http://finalauthority48270.yuku.com/topic/1794/t/The-perfect-Word-in-English.html] (King James Onlyists’ thoughts)---but faith/trust in the person and work of Christ as Christianity again is about following Christ not subscribing to a set of doctrines about Jesus, which are all manmade whether orthodox or heterodox---doctrines come later as a byproduct of following Jesus and faith (and are only imperfect, incomplete and limited pointers and guides to Jesus)---so that Christian Apologetics are meaningless as John 20:29 clearly states: “Then Jesus told him, ‘Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.’" (NIV) Or as Paul says: “We live by faith, not by sight.” (II Corinthians 5:7---NIV) or Hebrews 11:1---“[ By Faith ] Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” (NIV)---so that apologetics are fruitless, because we are called to defend our beliefs by putting our faith and love in action not by bashing people over the head and indoctrinate them with our doctrinal idols (doxolatry) or bibliolatry which turns faith into a faith in manmade physical objects/idols instead of the unseen Risen and Living Christ, who is Lord of all
How did Jesus change the world (for an individual or for a community)? The first ending of John states: “[30] Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book.
[31] But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.” (John 20:30-31---NRSV)
What vision of being missional do you glimpse for yourself? For the church? The church and individuals have been called to defend their belief in Christ by putting our faith and love of Christ in action not by bashing people over the head and indoctrinating them with our different theories of denominational doctrines--- those doctrinal idols (doxolatry) that we build to wall people out {we can argue over which denomination’s doctrines are correct for an eternity---but unlived doctrines are meaningless} or with our various understandings and interpretations of the bible (bibliolatry) {we can quote scriptures [out of context] till we are blue in the face---but if we aren’t challenged by them, it’s all for naught} which turns faith into a faith in manmade physical objects/idols (Fundamentalist checklists to be checked off) instead of the unseen Risen and Living Christ, who is Lord of all---for faith is most authentic when it’s lived out---for as mentioned before Christianity is about following Christ not subscribing to a set of doctrines about Jesus, which are all manmade whether orthodox or heterodox---doctrines come later as a byproduct of following Jesus and faith (and are only imperfect, incomplete and limited pointers and guides to Jesus)---it could also be argued that orthopraxis leads to a type of orthodoxy
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