2010 April | Paula Wiseman

Q: Did I Not Choose?

Did I not choose twelve of you and one of you is a devil? John 6:70

Jesus asked this rhetorical question to His disciples. In those few words, it shows us several things about Christ, and about us as human beings.

1. He is sovereign. He chose. Judas didn't volunteer, or manage to get an appointment to the group. Jesus engineered this from the beginning.
2. He is omniscient. Judas' true intentions were never hidden. Jesus was not caught off guard by his betrayal.
3. He does things we don't understand. It makes no sense to us to allow an enemy into the inner circle, but Jesus did exactly that.
4. He is not threatened by the presence of evil. He is not even distracted by it.
5. It is possible for a man to sit in the very presence of Jesus, hear His word preached directly from His mouth, and remain unchanged. Such is the depth of man's depravity.

As His followers, we must stay focused on what Jesus has given us to do. Even when we don't understand His plan, remember that He has one. And His purposes will be accomplished. Even evil in our midst cannot derail us … unless we let it.

Filed Under: Questions Tagged With: Gospel of John

Q:Does This Offend You?

By Paula

Does this offend you? John 6:61

Jesus had just finished teaching a large group of followers that He was the bread of life. He wanted them to understand that everlasting life comes from accepting His upcoming sacrificial death. This troubled most of the multitude. A humiliated, suffering Messiah didn't fit their understanding of God, and they began to murmur. Eventually they walked away.

At some point in our walk, we will come up against words Jesus spoke that are a little jarring. Or maybe something God said in the Old Testament will cause us to stop and wonder. God wants to reveal Himself to us. As He does show more of Himself to us, we will begin to see He cannot, will not, be confined to the safe boundaries we like to put Him in.

Jesus goes on to tell this crowd, What then if you should see the Son of Man ascend where He was before? John 6:62

To paraphrase, "If you can't handle this, there's no way you're ready for the big stuff."

God is not going to change to accommodate our notions of who He is or who He should be. So what do you do when you hit one of these things that rocks your theology? First, make sure it is a correctly interpreted Biblical truth and not just someone else's opinion. Check cross-references. Scripture NEVER contradicts itself, although our interpretations can't sometimes be off. Ask mature people you trust.

Then once you're sure you have understood what God said, you have a choice to make. Accept that you need to change your ideas and acknowledge who He is, or walk away.

After the crowds trickled away, Jesus asked the 12 if they were leaving too. Peter, without hesitation, replied, "Where else can we go? YOU have the words of eternal life."

They were glad they stayed around. You will be too.

Filed Under: Questions Tagged With: Gospel of John, Peter

Q:Where Can They Find Bread?

By Paula

Where shall we buy bread that these may eat? John 6:5

Jesus asked Philip as they surveyed the multitude of 5000+. In some of the other gospel accounts, Jesus went on to say, "You feed them." Philip quickly did the math and began to offer concrete reasons (excuses) why he couldn't. And he missed an opportunity. Now Jesus took advantage of the situation and performed a tremendous miracle- the only one mentioned in all four gospels- but Philip traded a chance to feed for handing out bread and fish. Sure Philip got to be part of wondrous event, but it could have been more.

So many times, we see "food" used as a metaphor for God's word. No doubt, people need it as desperately as they need their daily food. We can see people in all sorts of difficult life situations. We pray and we ask God what we can do, how can we help when there are so many…

The answer is "you feed them". You may not be a scholar, a theologian, or even a teacher, but if Jesus Christ has ever done anything for you, you have food to share. You can bring a miracle into someone else's life.

I blog because I want people to know the things I know about Jesus, to understand how great, how deep His love is, to see how wonderful His word is… I want to share what I've been fed with. You do them same.

Keep reading and keep feeding.

Filed Under: Questions Tagged With: Bible study, Feeding 5000, Gospel of John

Q:Do You Believe It All?

By Paula

But if you do not believe his [Moses'] writings, how will you believe My words? John 5:47

Jesus called the religious leaders out when they fell back to their favorite defense – Moses. They were Moses' disciples. Followed Moses' law and Moses' traditions to the letter. They missed an important detail, though. Moses wasn't God. They followed Moses at the expense of following God.

Moses never intended to make disciples for himself, and if you read Deuteronomy, you get an idea how well Moses understood these people. The summary/paraphrase is "I'm gonna tell you all this stuff but you won't listen and God's gonna judge you. Then there will be a Prophet, but you won't listen to Him either."

If the religious leaders had been the great students and followers of Moses that they claimed to be, they would have realized who Jesus was immediately. They wanted to pick and choose which of God's messages they would believe, and then forget all the rest. We can't cherry-pick Scripture either. God's word is a unified whole, a revelation of one continuous story of God's redemption of His people.

If we discount some of it, then how can we can rely on any of it?

Filed Under: Questions Tagged With: Deuteronomy, Gospel of John, Moses, Questions

Update:Behind the Scenes

By Paula

So can you tell what big changes I’ve made here? You shouldn’t notice any changes, but it’s a lot more manageable for me. I did a lot of “virtual” spring-cleaning.

I don’t have any news on Contingency. Right now, I’m editing the follow-up to it called Indemnity. (One of these days maybe I’ll post a chapter or two from that one. What do you think? Any interest?)

Finally, I did some advance work on Contingency, so when a publishing contract DOES come my way, I’ll be able to hit the ground running.

Again- you can now get the posts by email with a simple sign-up. I always welcome your comments, and appreciate you so much!

Filed Under: Friday Update Tagged With: Contingency, Indemnity