No Grounds For Anything
When you consider what Jesus, the Good Shepherd, has done and promises to do for His sheep, it begs the question, why would people refuse to believe?
Entries by David Cook
Safe And Secure
How secure are you? Does the Bible teach that we have a place in God’s family through faith in Jesus, but only keep it as long as we are good? Or is it ″Once a Christian, always a Christian″? Many of our fellow disciples seem to have fallen by the wayside. Is the believer truly secure in their faith?
The Good Shepherd
The context of today’s reading is the blindness of the Pharisees (John 9:39). In this chapter, Jesus speaks of himself as both the gate to the sheepfold (v. 9) and the good shepherd (v. 11).
Who Is Really Blind?
John links this section with the previous one in which Jesus claims to be the light of the world (John 9:5; see 8:12). Restoring sight to the blind is uniquely God’s activity.
The Light Of The World
Psalm 27:1 says, ″The Lord is my light and my salvation.″ The law of the Lord is both a lamp and a light (Psalm 119:105) and God’s Servant is to be a light to the nations (Isaiah 49:6). John opens his gospel by telling us that Jesus is the true light come into the world (John 1:4, 5, 9).
Passing Judgement On Others
We do not have the original (the autograph) of John’s gospel, the one written personally by John. We have no autographs of any ancient documents. However, we get closer to John’s autograph than to any other piece of ancient literature.
Why Come To Jesus?
The Feast of Tabernacles marked the end of the annual harvest (see Deuteronomy 16:13). Each morning of the seven-day feast, an offering of water was made, probably as an act of faith that God would now water the land, ensuring an effective sowing of seed to usher in the new agricultural year.
How To Receive The Spirit
The setting is the Feast of Booths, or Tabernacles- a harvest thanksgiving festival, but also a time when the Israelites lived for seven days in tents, reminding themselves of their nomadic wanderings and God redeeming them from Egypt.
Are We True Disciples?
We were told in John 2:23 that many believe in Jesus because of the signs He performed, but Jesus does not entrust himself to them (v. 24). Among the disciples are those who are truly born from above, and those who merely follow Him without being true disciples.