Life Project Blog

John 7:1-24

This chapter begins with discussions about whether or not Jesus would travel to Jerusalem to attend the Feast of Tabernacles.  This feast, also known as “Festival of Booths” was a week-long celebration of God’s provision of the nation during the 40 years in the Wilderness as well as for the late summer harvest  (see Lev. 23:34-43; Deut. 16:13-15). It was one of the three pilgrimage festivals to which Jewish men were expected to travel (Deut. 16:16). While at the festival, the attendees would live in temporary huts in remembrance of the way their ancestors lived during their trek through the Wilderness.

Jesus’ brothers (James, Joseph, Judas and Simon according to Mark 6:3) are encouraging Jesus to attend the Feast, and they have good worldly logic: You can’t be a public figure if you don’t show yourself to the people, and everybody will be there.  They do not seem to believe in their brother at this point, and this seems a little bit like a nice brotherly taunt.  We know that after Jesus’ resurrection they came to belief and were important leaders in the Jerusalem church. (Gal. 2:9)

Jesus tells His brothers that He won’t go because His time has not yet come.  Notice the reference in v. 1 that there were some who were awaiting His arrival to kill Him.  This statement on His part is meaning that the time for His death on the cross was still in the future for His earthly ministry was not yet completed.  He also makes another interesting observation in v. 7:  The world hates Him because He testifies that they do evil. Of course, that isn’t what people usually enjoy hearing and His brothers are not involved in this, since they don’t believe Him anyway.  They can pack up and go any time… Verses 10-13 tell of Jesus’ going later to the Feast and of the whisperings of the Jews at Jerusalem.

Jesus arrives secretly and suddenly appears at the Temple and begins teaching.  Those who hear Him are amazed at the power of His teaching, and in typical worldly fashion wonder how He could teach like this without being formally trained.  A similar situation today might occur if we heard great teaching from someone who hadn’t been to College; it wouldn’t occur to anyone that the Holy Spirit might be involved.

In vv. 16-19 Jesus is responding to their wonder.  In vv. 16-17 He tells them that His teaching is from the Father and not from Himself.  He makes an interesting comment here when He says that anyone who chooses to do God’s will can tell where His teaching came from.  The word “chooses” is the one to focus on, for it says so much!  Do we “choose” to do God’s will, or do we “choose” to do our own?  If doing God’s will is a choice, then when we do not do His will that must also be a choice, and if we are not doing God’s will we cannot blame anyone or anything except ourselves, for we have chosen our path.  We have made a choice even when we decide not to decide.  In other words, if we choose to consider doing God’s will later… we have just chosen not to do His will now.  I don’t know about you, but for me that’s a little bit convicting!

In 18-19, Jesus moves in another direction; one that has an interesting logic.  If a man speaks for Himself, he does so to gain honor for himself, that is to say he does it so that his audience will applaud.  Keep in mind that many want Him dead…  He is using this obvious observation as demonstration that His teaching came from God; He certainly isn’t gaining honor if everybody wants Him dead.  Then He mentions the Law of Moses, saying that none of His hearers have kept the Law. (Breaking the Law carries a death sentence).  This is to say that those who condemn Him are the ones who deserve to die.

If Jesus was trying to win the praise and honor of men, what He says in verses 20-24 is a poor way to go about it.  The reaction to His last comment above is strong: You’re nuts!  Who (as if they didn’t know) is trying to kill you?  In 21-23 He refers to the incident that got the leaders all riled up which was His healing of the crippled man at the pool in chapter 5 on the Sabbath.  He uses the example of circumcision, which must be done on the eighth day Sabbath or no as a justification of His miracle being done on that day, accusing people of making their judgments on mere appearances and not being willing to think through the actual truth of a situation.  He finishes by calling on them to start making better judgments.  In this, He speaks the truth plainly, so much so that He isn’t likely to gain any love from those to whom it applies.  This is an interesting example for us because you will notice that in this case, Jesus wasn’t exactly being overly concerned about their delicate feelings…

John 6:1-42

This chapter is divided into four sections which, when considered together paint us a twofold picture of the human condition and God’s response to it.  We see the human tendency to put spiritual concepts into physical categories, and we see God’s response to human need as spiritual reality.  We also can see the result of the clash between the two: most people will fall away from God.

Section One: John 6:1-15

This is the story of Jesus feeding the five thousand.  This great miracle of Jesus really gets the attention of the people because not only was it amazing to behold, but it also included a free meal.  To some in the crowd, Jesus leapt out as a man they should listen to, for He had performed a miracle; He must be in good with God!  To others, Jesus brought them hope that they could support their families for free; surely God was at work!

Section 2: John 6:16-24

This section includes another sign that the crowd did not get to see: Jesus walking on the water.  He left the place where He fed the crowd and the disciples followed Him by boat.  A storm blew up on the Sea and suddenly they saw Jesus walking on the water toward them.  When He got into the boat, they reached shore.  Not bad for a night’s work; two miracles in one. The next day, the crowd realized that Jesus was gone, and they went out to look for Him.  Eventually, they got into boats and sailed for Capernaum where He had gone, and we move into the central part of the chapter…

Section 3: John 6:25-59

In the third section, Jesus disappoints the crowd by telling them that He isn’t giving them another free lunch, but that the true bread of life is Jesus Himself.  Before getting into the particulars, we must understand that to these people, “bread” symbolizes life.  If a person has bread, he will not starve this day.  If he has the supplies and the ability to make bread tomorrow, he will not starve then either: where there is bread there is continuation of life. Bread remains the staple aspect of Western cuisine to this day, much in the same way that rice is in the Far East.

25-27:  Jesus confronts the notion of free meals right away, pointing the people instead toward the spiritual truth behind the feeding of the five thousand.  The people could only see the physical, practical aspect of receiving food from Jesus.  Jesus on the other hand was more concerned with the truth behind the miracle: life depends on a life-source that transcends mere biology for the true nature of life is spiritual not physical.

28-29:  OK, they seem to say, what must we do?  They are looking for a new rule or an activity by which they could obtain a loaf of bread that will be able to automatically replenish itself: they were making a serious category error.

29-31:  The answer Jesus gave was classic: The work for you to do is to believe in Jesus. Great, say the people: give us a sign.

It’s hard not to laugh at this…

Wasn’t feeding the five thousand enough of a sign? What will Jesus need to do to convince the people, rise from the dead or something?  I’d bet people wouldn’t even believe Him if He did that! I know, why don’t you start the manna flowing again…

32-33:  Here Jesus tells them that if they want manna from God, it isn’t the kind that Moses had, but rather it will be true bread (as opposed to literal bread) This true bread is Jesus Himself.  Jesus gives life; it doesn’t come from the grocery store, for life is a much more profound force than the continuation of a biological process in the body.

35-42:  Ok fine, give us some of this bread… Jesus tells them that He is the bread of life; all life forces come from Him.  If you take within the bread that is Jesus, you will have eternal life, not just your little lifetime here on earth.  This starts not with just eating some whole wheat or rye, but rather when you decide to believe.  If you don’t decide to believe then you can go no further down the road of eternal life, but when you make this huge choice, eternal life is within your grasp, through Christ Himself.  Quite naturally, the people didn’t want that, for they were only looking for physical things, and they grumbled and complained as people like to do.

John 5:16-47

Picking up from our last  text about Jesus healing the man on the Sabbath, the Jewish leaders are not pleased.  They aren’t interested in the miracle, they could care less what has happened for the man who was crippled for over thirty years, they only care that he carried his mat on the Sabbath.  In this text, we will see that Jesus makes a defense that contains within it not only His message about the gift of God, but the message of who Jesus is.  It will be followed by a proof of His claims, and is clearly the sort of thing that the leaders of the day would not put up with.

Jesus explains that God works on the Sabbath and so does He, for He does what the Father does.  The Jewish leaders are quick to understand what He is telling them: He is on an equal footing with God.  Quite naturally, their reaction is not one of rejoicing as it should have been; instead they are anxious to kill Him!

Jesus ups the ante so to speak, by going a step further. Not only is He on an equal footing with the Father, but He will also raise from the dead those whom it pleases Him to raise.  This is the “gift of God” that we came across when He was talking with the woman at the well in the previous chapter.

In 22-30, Jesus goes further still telling the leaders that He will be the One to judge all men and that those who dishonor the Son also dishonor God.  In short, He was telling them that He and the Father were One. We must pause here to consider the fact that by making these statements, Jesus was in violation of the Law… that is of course unless He was God Himself.  He goes on to further discuss God’s gift of eternal life for those who believe His Word, and with every sentence He digs His hole a little deeper in the eyes of those Jewish leaders who do not wish to hear such things.  His boldness in speaking of the resurrection, a controversial topic among those very leaders, and its connection with Him personally must have driven them wild with fury and the lust for blood.

Continuing in 31-35, He begins to prove the things that He has just said, beginning with the testimony of John the Baptist.  Reminding His hearers that they have heard John’s testimony about who He is, He also reminds them that they were, if not supporters of John, giving credence to him for a time. In fact, they had even asked John for his views on Jesus.  Jesus tells them that He is pointing this out to them so that they might be saved, that is to say so that they might believe Him.

Jesus moves on to cite further testimony to His veracity: the Scriptures themselves.  Notice that He points out to them that God’s Word does not reside within them, for they refuse to believe the One that God has sent.  It is His contention that the Scriptures themselves testify about Him, and that they of all people should know that fact.

As He continues along this line of reasoning, Jesus  adds that they would accept almost anybody who came speaking for themselves, and yet when He came speaking in God’s name as the One who had been foretold in the Scriptures, and whom they were expecting to come, they reject Him.  His implication is that their rejection of Him comes from their own desire to receive praise from others, and yet they do so at the cost of receiving the only praise that is worth receiving; that praise being from God Himself.

Jesus wraps up His defense with an accusation of His own: They do not believe the Scriptures.  He told them that Moses condemns them, not Jesus because it is the very Law of Moses that they make a mockery of when they go to such ridiculous lengths to appear to love, while at the same time, they carry with them only accusations and disdain for their people.  They do not believe what Moses wrote, so they reject the One He wrote about:  Ouch!

John 5:1-15

This passage lies at the beginning of a unit within the Gospel that continues through 12:50 covering the major Jewish festivals.  The specific festival in question here in chapter 5 is not identified by the text, so for our purposes we will not worry about trying to speculate on this point, although there are various theories put forth by commentators; the application here is not affected by which festival is involved.

The pool at Bethesda was stirred periodically, we don’t know how often, and the first lame person into the pool when it was stirred would be healed.  The man who is the subject of our text was so disabled that he was not able to move quickly enough to be first, and had suffered his disability for 38 years. In our text, Jesus will heal him, command him to pick up his mat and walk, and then slip back into the crowd.  The aspect of this event that we will concentrate on today is the reaction of the Jews, while next time we will concentrate on Jesus’ response to them in vv. 16-47.

The first three verses are discussed in the introduction however, you might notice that the NIV does not have a verse four.  It is contained in the footnote and omitted from the text.  The King James renders verse four thusly: “For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water: whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had.” This verse does not appear in the early manuscripts, yet in the latest ones it suddenly appears.  This is considered to be the result of an early margin note giving the local explanation (myth?) that had later been incorporated into the text.

Jesus walks up to the man and asks him a simple question: “Do you want to get well?”  The man’s reply demonstrates that he had little hope.  Not only had he been in this condition for 38 years, but the pool rules required that he be first into the pool, and only people better off than he had any chance of making it; he appears to have been demoralized.  Jesus did not argue, lecture or pity, He simply gave a command without further comment: The man complied without hesitation.  I wonder if we would be so bold in this man’s condition!  The man believed Jesus; he took Jesus at His word.  There were no questions, arguments or hesitations: He followed Jesus’ command.  All appears to be well until verse 9… it was the Sabbath.

In verses 10-13, we cannot help but be amazed at the ridiculous reaction to this miracle: It was the Sabbath and you aren’t allowed to carry your mat.  Nobody said, “Wow, aren’t you the guy who was crippled for 38 years… and now you are healed:  Praise God!”  No, there will be no rejoicing for what God has done, only condemnation because the guy picked up his stupid mat. The man told them that he had the mat because the guy who healed him had told him to pick it up, and of course they demand to know who had done that. (Conspiracy to break the Sabbath!) The man had no idea…

A curious thing happened: Jesus ran into the man later and warned him to stop sinning lest something worse happen to him and the man ran to the Jews to report who his co-conspirator was.  There are several possible reasons for Jesus’ words to the man although it seems to me that the most likely meaning is to warn the man not to sin lest he receive condemnation at the final judgment.  It seems unlikely that Jesus was talking about carrying the mat on the Sabbath.  Notice also the lack of the man thanking Jesus for his healing, could that be the answer?  In any case, the man ratted on Jesus to the Jews.  Curious, don’t you think? This act, of course sets up the next part in this story which we will consider next time.

For now, it is interesting to consider where all of these Sabbath rules came from.  Rest assured that it was not from the Law, but rather they came from the Jews’ interpretation of the Law, a very strict interpretation that converted a day of rest and relaxation into more of a heavy yoke of obligation that Jesus dealt with over and over again.

Do we Christians make up rules of conduct that Jesus didn’t give us and turn our faith into a heavy burden instead of its being a joy?

John 4:27-42

Last time, we saw Jesus and His conversation with the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well.  As their conversation was just about to wrap up, His disciples who had gone into town to buy food, come upon the pair; this is what followed…

Upon their return the disciples were a bit shocked to see Jesus speaking with this woman for the reasons recounted last time, but they did not insert themselves into the situation.  It seems unlikely that they would question Jesus’ morality, and by now they would certainly have noticed that He didn’t observe all of the usual customs of the day; they waited for her to leave.  She leaves her water jugs behind and rushes into town to tell the people to come and see this man who has told her everything about her life.  These townsfolk would most likely be aware that there was much to tell, and her testimony has power in their eyes. Her conclusion that He was a prophet she freely gave, but notice that His statement that He is the Christ she is cautious about; “Could this be the Christ?”  The people came to find out…

The disciples want Jesus to eat something and Jesus tells them that He has food they know nothing about.  As always seems to be the case, they take Him literally, wondering if somebody else has given Him food; maybe that woman?

Jesus explains His meaning: His food (nourishment) is to do His Father’s work. Then He proceeds to change the subject to the harvest of souls.  His main device in explaining this to them is to point out that it isn’t always the same person who sows the seed and also reaps the harvest.  In their case, they have gone into town to buy the food that someone else planted, worked and harvested.  They did no work, they just paid for it; someone else did the actual work.  The harvest of souls is near; Jesus wants His disciples to see that the time has come to reap this harvest.  Of course all of this sowing and reaping is analogous to the Gospel: First the Word of God will be planted in the people, in fact it has already been done;  the people expect the Messiah to appear.  It is for Jesus and especially for His disciples to bring in the harvest of those who will believe that they might turn to God and receive eternal life.

Because of the woman’s testimony about Jesus, many of the townsfolk believed in Him.  As a result, they asked Him to stay in their midst and He did so for two days.  During this time, even more believed because of His teachings.  Now, not only did they believe because of the woman’s testimony, they also had the opportunity to see and hear Jesus for themselves:  The harvest in that small town had been reaped. The people there understood that Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world.

Isn’t it interesting that when we share our testimony about Jesus, some people respond right away in faith while others resist and refuse to accept it?  Could it be that those who respond easily have had the seed of faith planted by someone else, maybe years before?  Could it be that those who refuse our plea may respond easily to someone else weeks or years later?

Certainly, Jesus wanted His disciples to understand that they were to bring in the harvest of the crop that was ready for harvest, and to plant the seed for the harvest that would follow later: I think we can learn from this.

John 4:1-26

The first four verses of this passage set the background for the story; John the Baptist has been arrested (3:24; Matt. 4:12; Mark 1:14; Luke 3:20). Opposition was brewing amongst the Pharisees in Jerusalem because Jesus’ reputation was growing and He was gaining followers and Jesus decided that this was the time to move back to Galilee. It seems that the arrest of John had the affect of freeing Jesus from John’s ministry; John was decreasing, Jesus was increasing.  Jesus takes the mountain road that goes through Samaria that He would later send His disciples on (Acts 1:8).  When Jesus arrives in Samaria our story begins.

The plot of ground referred to here is referred to in Gen. 48:22 and is roughly a half mile from Jacob’s well (see also Josh. 24:32).  Jacob’s well was certainly a well-known location, famous for the spring of bubbling water that it created access to.  Jesus arrived there that day at about noon, tired and thirsty.

Approaching a woman at the well He asked for a drink, and the woman’s response is interesting in that she seems to have assumed a superior tone; you are a Jew and yet you ask me for a drink?  Jews did not associate with Samaritans; in fact, the Jewish teaching of the time said that associating with Samaritans would cause a Jew to be defiled.  If that were not enough, Jewish men did not speak to women in public; not even their own wives, and here is Jesus boldly walking up to a Samaritan woman and asking for water.

As was His custom, Jesus went directly to the lesson He was going to teach, ignoring the customs and traditions of men.  The ‘gift of God’ and His identity are the real topics they would discuss: Jesus could provide ‘living water’ and if she understood this, she would be asking Him for a drink.  Taking Him literally, she notes that Jesus has no means by which to draw water and asks Him if He is greater than Jacob whose water isn’t so effective.  Of course, when Jesus mentions water that would quench a thirst for a lifetime, the woman is interested so that she wouldn’t have to draw water anymore which was very hard work.  Notice that in v. 14 Jesus refers to a “spring of water welling up” which is a direct reference to the reputation of Jacob’s well. The water that Jesus was talking about here is a metaphor for eternal life that was the ultimate gift of God; accomplished by the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Himself.

In verses 16-19, an interesting thing happens: In response to Jesus directive to go and get her husband, the woman tells a falsehood with a half-truth.  Jesus knows the whole story, to her amazement, and this insight on His part is the probable reason for why she is drawing water at high noon instead of in the cool of the morning with all of the other women.  Apparently shocked, she perceives that Jesus is a prophet.

Changing the subject, the woman goes on to religious matters… after all Jesus must be a prophet.  Jesus tells her that God isn’t really interested in where a person worships; God cares how a person worships.  In God’s sight what is important is that a person worships in ‘spirit and in truth’:  The time has come for this epochal change.  From the coming of Christ forward the old regulations and traditions are set aside and replaced with reality.  In modern vernacular you can almost hear the woman say “whatever”.  She says that when the Messiah comes, He will tell us all about this (not you, a mere prophet).  Jesus’ reply reveals to her who He really is, for He is the Messiah. (v. 26)

Isn’t it interesting how much like this woman we can be!

John 2:13-22

Since people would have travelled to Jerusalem from all over, they would not have been able to bring animals for sacrifices with them and still be able to meet the ceremonial requirements for perfection.  Having a marketplace right within the Temple (Court of the Gentiles) would have been quite convenient.  At the same time, it would have been quite convenient for the priests who received a percentage from the sales.  In addition, Temple taxes were required to be paid by the Jews in the coin of Tyre.  Money changers were on hand to exchange other coins for the ones required for Temple taxes, sometimes at high fees:  Clearly, Passover was a time for commerce in the middle of the National House of Worship.

Jesus was filled with righteous indignation and drove the traders out, overturning their tables and ordering all of the goods to be removed.  Note that He did not harm the animals or confiscate the money; He was not doing this to cause harm, but rather to stop the desecration of the Temple.  His whip was made of rope, not leather.  It would have gotten a man’s attention, but it would not have caused anyone serious harm.  The issue that Jesus reacted to here was not that running a market and engaging in commerce was a bad or sinful thing in and of itself, but that the Temple was not the place for such things.  Remember, the Temple in Jerusalem during the Old Covenant was the dwelling place of God (in the Holy of holies).  The dwelling place of God, the place of His worship, was not to be taken callously and turned into a marketplace for personal enrichment; it was reserved for reverence.

In verse 17, John is quoting from Psalm 69:9.  The Psalmist is consumed with love for God’s house, and so is Jesus.  Jesus’ zeal for God’s house as a house of prayer has interesting possibilities for us to consider.  First, He certainly had a zeal for the Temple as a place of prayer, but a careful look at the Gospels will reveal that He is never portrayed as praying there.  He is mentioned to be praying in the desert, mountains and Sea, but not particularly at the Temple.  Of course, creative students will recall that the Temple in the OT is symbolic of a NT reality as mentioned several times in Hebrews.  In the NT, many will say that the Temple represents the church, not a building, but the Body of Christ wherein He dwells through the Holy Spirit.  It may be said that this approach is a bit of a stretch to apply to this passage, but it is interesting to ponder.  What is clear however, is that His consummation took place at the time of His crucifixion, which was done for the forgiveness of sins that His people could be redeemed… and so that all peoples could be redeemed into the Body of Christ.

Naturally, the authorities demanded a sign of His authority.  What Jesus gave in reply seemed ridiculous to those who can only think of the physical, but after the resurrection, His disciples understood that the Temple He referred to was that of His own Body.

Hmm… so what do you think?

John 2:1-12

This is the story of the first miracle of Jesus.  It has no parallel in the synoptics, and it stands quite alone giving insight into the way Jesus and His disciples lived that many Christians love to ignore: Jesus drank wine.  (Horror!) Just for fun, compare this passage with Colossians 2:20 ff.

If this blows your mind, then let me quickly sum up this passage for you: Jesus performed His first miracle at Cana, where for the first time His glory and authority was revealed, and His disciples came to believe in Him; let’s have a closer look…

The scene is set: Jesus, His mother (John never says “Mary”) and the disciples were there.  This seems to have been three days after the calling of Phillip.  No reason is given for the reason the wine ran out.  Some have postulated that the attendance of Jesus and the disciples was the cause, but since John says that they had been invited, this seems unlikely.  It would also seem that Mary was well known to the family involved here, since she so quickly took charge of the disaster. When she brings this social catastrophe to Jesus’ attention, His reaction is interesting: literally, “What’s it to me?”  Notice that Mary seems to be aware that Jesus can remedy the situation easily; why else would she pass right over His question and tell the servants to do whatever He says? Jesus statement that His time has not yet come has troubled some commentators who haven’t noticed that In John’s Gospel, John uses this wording to refer to the time of Jesus’ being glorified (by the cross) and not to His performance of miracles, in this case a rather mundane one, if indeed a miracle can ever be called that.

The total capacity of these jars would have been in the range of 120 to 180 gallons. It is worthy of note that Jesus used all of the jars and had them filled up completely; nobody could say that Jesus’ power was limited, nor could they claim that He just slipped some kind of magic fairy dust into them: they were full.

When the servants drew the “water” from the jars and served it to the master of the banquet, the master confirmed that not only was this wine, but it was the “good stuff”.  It can be hilarious reading commentaries about these verses when the commentator goes on and on about how this was “obviously” not really wine but unfermented grape juice.

One of the cardinal rules of interpretation of the Bible is that you must set aside your pre-suppositions, opinions and traditions and let the text speak for itself.  When you are confused or feel that you have come upon a contradiction, there are various things you can do to figure out what the meaning is. Here are two easy ideas: You can usually do a word study and find out what is going on.  In addition, a close examination of the complete context will also aid in determining what the text is teaching.  After this has been done, if the Bible turns out to support your pre-suppositions, opinions and traditions: Marvelous.  But where it doesn’t, your presuppositions, opinions or traditions are wrong. In this case, if you are bound and determined to say that Jesus would never allow the serving of wine, you have two problems to deal with:  First, the Greek word used here is oinos which happens to mean “wine”.  The Greek word for grape juice is tnyx.  Why would John, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, make such a writing error? Second, note what the master of the banquet said in verse 10.  Does that even remotely indicate that they were dealing with grape juice?  Does it sound to you like what he would say if the wine was watered down to less than 50% wine?  A better question would be, “Was Jesus trying to get everyone drunk?”  The text does not tell us that Jesus had everyone’s glass refilled, it tells us that the master of the banquet, the only one we know for sure that was aware of the problem got a sample.  We don’t know what the other attendees did after that, or if they even became aware that the wine was gone.  We do know why Jesus performed the miracle, however.

The brand new disciples, who had responded to the testimony of John the Baptist, and then to each other’s saw for the first time that Jesus was more than a man who had been blessed by God: He had a power that no mere mortal possessed, and they put their faith in Him. This would also be the reason for His future miracles; to confirm His true identity and the authority by which He taught.

Yes dear reader, this is the point, and all of the silly business of trying to explain away the wine only draws our attention away from the majesty of our Lord.

John 1:36-51

This section deals with the call of disciples of Jesus.  It is interesting to note that this concept has its beginning as a reaction to the testimony of John, as opposed to any sort of dramatic event.  None of them had angelic messages or voices from on high; they simply reacted to the person of Jesus Christ.  Why is that noteworthy?  Because that is exactly how you and I are “called”.  I’ve never met a man who claimed that he was a follower of Christ because he had experienced a personal audience with an angel, prophet or indeed God Himself.  He simply reacted to who Jesus is.

John’s story of the calling of disciples begins in verses 35-42; taking it as a whole, we see two main components, the first being John’s testimony that Jesus was the “Lamb of God.”  This is the confession that marks the difference between a world that is lost and a follower of Christ.  The second aspect is the response of the two disciples of John who heard it: they followed Jesus.  Notice however that their initial following of Jesus was literal in the sense that they were going to go where He went as opposed to give Him their lives.  When Jesus saw them he simply asked them what they wanted, a question that He would ask many over time.  The two did not give a great theological reply; they just wanted to see where He was staying, maybe to have a chance to talk with Him later.  Jesus gave them a classic reply, “Come and you will see.”

In truth, this is the matrix for all personal evangelism:  Someone hears about Jesus and they want to check it out.  Our approach is “Come and see”. In the case of our text, they arrived at Jesus’ lodgings at around 4 in the afternoon.  Time in the Gospels is reckoned more or less as a twelve hour day from roughly 6 am to 6 pm.  The tenth hour would be about 4 pm. During their visit, Andrew goes off to get his brother Simon, who comes along to see Jesus.  Andrew was now certain about the identity of Jesus.  Jesus, in verse 42 tells Simon that he will be called Cephas.  Note that the synoptics record this name change roughly in the middle of Jesus’ ministry; is this a conflict?  It is not a conflict because Jesus did not change Simon’s name to Cephas; He only said that he will be called by that name: future tense, it will happen someday.

The next section, vv. 43 ff takes place on the next day as Jesus moved on, and in the process, came upon Phillip.  He simply said to him, “Follow me.”  Phillip’s response was immediate: He followed Jesus.  When Phillip came upon Nathaniel, Nathaniel was more of a skeptic.  Nazareth was a nowhere town.  It isn’t mentioned in the Old Testament, nor in any surviving pagan writings.  It’s kind of like Fallon, Nevada: Noplaceville!  Funny, it is interesting that the Son of God should be from “Nowhereville”, and He was born in a stable on a road trip, and He died on a cross, naked and penniless.  There is no worldly appeal to Him; there is only who He is to draw a person closer.  Phillip’s reaction is a classic: “Come and see”.

When the skeptical Nathaniel first meets Jesus, he is surprised by what Jesus knew about him.  His reaction was to believe what Phillip had told him, and he responded in faith.  Jesus has an interesting reply to Nathaniel’s expression of faith: You ain’t seen nothin’ yet!  Jesus begins His final comment in this chapter with “Truly, truly I say to you” the first of 25 times in this Gospel to introduce an important statement, and then proceeded to make a statement that reminds us of Genesis 28:12, Jacob’s ladder.  “…you will see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”  This statement gives the commentators some trouble, but my take is that His disciples would see that Jesus was directly connected with heaven, speaking for heaven and being of heaven.  Jesus and the Word cannot be separated.  This is also His first use of the title “Son of Man”.  It seems to be a favorite of His; it can refer to no one else.