A LEVEL BIBLICAL STUDIES NOTES

TOPIC 1 THE PERSON OF JESUS

Objectives

By the end of the chapter you should be able to:

 Examine the birth narratives in the gospels

 Investigate challenges associated with the birth of Jesus

INTRODUCTION TO JESUS’ LIFE IN THE GOSPELS

Introduction

This unit we are going to deal with the life and Palestinian ministry of Jesus. The main focus
is going to be on his person. The life and ministry of Jesus is contained in the Gospels. The
unit is going to deal with the nativity stories in the gospel according to Mathew and Luke.

Nativity Stories in the Gospels

The gospels writers especially Luke and Mathew recorded the circumstances that were
surrounding the birth of Jesus. When they recorded these stories they had objectives that they
wanted to achieve. The thrust of this unit is to unravel the aims of the authors when they
wrote these stories. We are also going to look at the similarities and differences that are
found in these stories.

Introduction to the Gospel according to Luke

Luke was an educated gentile and this is supported by the best Greek that we encounter in his
books. He was also a medical doctor as well as a historian. This is supported by Colossians
4:4. We must note from the onset that when Luke wrote his gospel according to him he had
aims that he wanted to achieve. The aims of Luke are different from those of Mathew. Luke
wrote the book to Theophilus who is unknown to us. He was most probably a high ranking
Roman official because of the title “most excellent” used of him. He wanted to show
Theophilus and his gentile readers that Jesus came for all. He was a universal messiah who
had come to save humanity from the Adamic sin. The book shows that in Jesus, the barriers
are broken down and Jesus is for Jew and gentile, saint and sinner alike.

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The book of Luke was written for gentiles because he dedicated his book to a gentile,
Theophilus. Theophilus was a gentile, as was Luke himself, and there is nothing in the gospel
that a gentile could not grasp and understand. Luke begins his dating from the reigning
Roman emperor and the current Roman governor. The Roman date comes first. If you read
the gospel of Luke you will find out that Unlike Matthew, he is not greatly interested in the
life of Jesus as the fulfillment of Jewish prophecy. Luke seldom quotes the Old Testament at
all. A cursory reading of the book will show you that have a habit of giving Hebrew words in
their Greek equivalent so that a Greek would understand. Simon the Cananaean becomes
Simon the Zealot. (compare Lk.6:15 and Matt.10:4). Calvary is called not by its Hebrew
name, Golgotha. Both mean the place of a skull. He never uses the Jewish term Rabbi of
Jesus but always a Greek word meaning Master. On the genealogy of Jesus he traces it not to
Abraham, the founder of the Jewish race, as Matthew does, but to Adam, the founder of the
human race. (Compare Matt.1:2 and Lk.3:38).

The Gospel is also characterized by its interest in prayer. The gospel shows us that Jesus
would pray at most of the important occasions in his life. He prayed at his baptism (Lk.3:21);
before his first collision with the Pharisees (Lk.5:16); before he chose the Twelve (Lk.6:12);
before he questioned his disciples as to who they thought he was; before his first prediction of
his own death (Lk.9:18); at the Transfiguration (Lk.9:29); and upon the Cross (Lk.23:46).

Luke was also interested in emancipating women. The place of women in Palestine during
the time of Jesus was very low. Women were found at the bottom of the social pyramid. This
is evidenced by the fact that Jewish men during their morning prayers would thank God that
he has not made him "a gentile, a slave or a woman." Women in the gospel according to Luke
hold a very special position. The birth narrative, for example is told from Mary's point of
view. It is in Luke that we read of Elizabeth, of Anna, of the widow at Nain, of the woman
who anointed Jesus' feet in the house of Simon the Pharisee. According to Barclay it is very
likely that Luke was a native of Macedonia where women held a more emancipated position
than anywhere else; and that may have something to do with it.

The gospel is also characterised by praise. There are a lot of allusions of joy in the book. In
the gospel according Luke the phrase "praising God” is repeated several times than in all the
rest of the New Testament put together. Lastly the gospel is interested in the universalism of
God. Luke is careful to show that Jesus was a universal messiah who had come for all. The
gospel of Jesus is also for the Samaritans who were regarded as racially impure by the Jews.
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He told his apostles on 9:51-56 to go to a Samaritan village. Luke alone records the parable
of the Good Samaritan on Lk.10:30-37. On the healing of the ten lepers the one grateful leper
is a Samaritan (Lk.17:11-19). John can record a saying that the Jews have no dealings with
the Samaritans (Jn.4:9). But Luke refuses to shut the door on any man.

One cannot be wrong that Luke was interested in the social outcast. He shows Jesus speaking
with approval of gentiles whom the orthodox Jew would have considered unclean. He shows
us Jesus citing the widow of Zarephath and Naaman the Syrian as shining examples (Lk.4:25-
27). The Roman centurion is praised for the greatness of his faith (Lk.7:9). Luke tells us of
that great word of Jesus, "Men will come from east and west, and from north and south, and
sit at the table in the kingdom of God" (Lk.13:29).
Luke is insanely interested in the poor. When Mary brings the offering for her purification it
is the offering of the poor (Lk.2:24). When Jesus is, as it were, setting out his credentials to
the emissaries of John, the climax is, "The poor have good news preached to them" (Lk.7:22).
He alone tells the parable of the Rich Man and the Poor Man (Lk.16:19-31). In Luke's
account of the Beatitudes the saying of Jesus runs, not, as in Matthew (Matt.5:3), "Blessed
are the poor in spirit," but simply, "Blessed are you poor" (Lk.6:20). Luke's gospel has been
called "the gospel of the underdog." His heart runs out to everyone for whom life is an
unequal struggle.
Above all Luke shows Jesus as the friend of outcasts and sinners. He alone tells of the woman
who anointed Jesus' feet and bathed them with her tears and wiped them with her hair in the
house of Simon the Pharisee (Lk.7:36-50); of Zacchaeus, the quisling tax-gatherer (Lk.19:1-
10); of the Penitent Thief (Lk.23:43); and he alone has the immortal story of the prodigal son
and the loving father (Lk.15:11-32). When Matthew tells how Jesus sent his disciples out to
preach, he says that Jesus told them not to go to the Samaritans or the gentiles (Matt.10:5);
but Luke omits that altogether. All four gospel writers quote from Isa.40 when they give the
message of John the Baptist, "Prepare the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a
highway for our God"; but only Luke continues the quotation to its triumphant conclusion,
"And all flesh shall see the salvation of God" (Isa.40:3-5; Matt.3:3; Mk.1:3; Jn.1:23;
Lk.3:4,6). Luke of all the gospel writers sees no limits to the love of God.

Birth and Infancy Stories in the Gospel of Luke

Luke started his story of Jesus by recording the annunciation of the birth of John in the
temple. Luke places the annunciation of the birth of John during the days of Herod the Great
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who was the king of Samaria, Galilee, Perea and Judea. He died in 4BC. Zachariah the father
of John was a priest of the division of Abijah. This was the eight divisions of the twenty four
divisions that served in the temple twice a year for two separate weeks. The lots had fallen on
him for him to serve in the temple. Zachariah was married to Elizabeth. Zachariah saw an
angel while he was serving in the temple after the lots fell on him. The angel told him that his
wife Elizabeth was going to have a child. This was quite a relief to him since childlessness
was seen as a curse. According to Barclay the Jewish rabbis said that seven people were
excommunicated from God and the list began a Jew who has no wife, or a Jew who has a
wife and has no child. Childlessness was a valid ground for divorce. This was most probably
the reason why Zacchariah could not believe the words of the angel. Because of his unbelief
Zacchariah was unable to speak. The story therefore reveals Luke’s interest in the socially
despised members of the community. There are some points of interests in the story. We
actually are surprised by the fact that Zacchariah was afraid when he saw the angel in the
temple. It was most probably his first time in his career as a priest to see an angel of the Lord.
The birth of John is also difficult to believe since his mother was well advanced inn years.
This explains why his mother had to hide herself from the rest of the community.

The Annunciation of the Birth of Jesus to Mary

Sixth months after the angel appeared to Zachariah, the angel appeared to Marry, a virgin
who was betrothed to Joseph. Betrothal was a Jewish marriage ritual that took place a year
before the actual marriage. It was as binding as marriage. Marry was perplexed by the
greeting because customarily the greeting was not meant for a girl like marry. It was most
probably for the royal house. Joseph according to the narrative of Luke was a descendant of
David. Luke is careful to give a connection of Jesus and the royal house of David. Luke is
also clear that the child was going to be born without the sexual encounter of Marry and
Joseph. The story shows Luke’s interest in women who were marginalized during this period.
The angel Gabriel appeared to Mary and not Joseph showing Luke’s interest inn
emancipating women. We are going to look closely at this issue of the virgin conception later
in the unit.

Mary’s visit to Elizabeth

Mary went with haste to Elizabeth who was dwelling in the hill country of Judah. According
to Campbell the city was possibly Jutha, a city of priests not far from Hebron. The distance

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was about 75 miles from Nazareth. Mary probably visited Elizabeth because she wanted to
confirm if the words of the angel were really true that her aunt was pregnant. She most
probably also wanted to get some tips about pregnancy from her aunt and also to tell her what
the angel had said. Mary was related to Elizabeth who as mentioned earlier on was of
Aaronic descent so that the royal and priestly character of Jesus as the messiah is adumbrated.
The story reveals Luke’s interest in women as it talks about marry and Elizabeth. It also
shows Luke’s interest in the Holy Spirit because when they greeted each other the babes in
their wombs leaped with joy. Marry stayed with them for about three months until the time
for delivery came.

The Birth of John

Child birth in Judaism was very important especially if the baby was a boy. According to
Barclay when the time for birth came at hand, friends and local musicians gathered near the
house. When the birth was announced and it was a boy, the musicians broke into music and
song, and there was universal congratulation and rejoicing. If it was a girl the musicians went
silently and regretfully away. The birth of John brought double joy to the family of
Zachariah. The family friends wanted him to be called after his father but his mother and
father (still dumb) insisted that he should be called John the short for Jehohanan which
means God has been gracious. By naming him John, Elizabeth and Zachariah were deviating
from tradition. Immediately Zachariah gained his speech. The story reveals Luke’s interest in
joy and this theme runs throughout the Gospel according to Luke.

The Birth of Jesus

Luke narrates that when Jesus was born there was a census that was declared by Caesar
Augustus who was the first Roman emperor and a very able administrator. According to
Campbell it was a Roman practice to hold a census or enrolment every eighteen years. These
censuses according to Campbell were done in order to tax people and call up soldiers for
military service. The Jews however were usually exempted from serving in the army partly
because they objected in fighting on the Sabbath.

Luke further says that the birth took place when Quirinius was governor of Syria. According
to Campbell Quirinius, as far as can be ascertained , was twice governor of Syria, of which
Roman province Judea was part, and each time that he was in office a census was held. Luke
tells us that this was the first enrolment. Campbell further alludes that it is known that the
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second was in AD 6, so the first must have been begun about 8 B.C. it must be emphasized
that it is not easy to come up with the exact date of the birth of Jesus. According to Campbell
It took somewhere between the possible beginning of the census in 8 B.C. and the death of
Herod the Great in 4BC. She goes on further to say that Mathew’s stories about Jesus’
childhood indicate that Jesus was about two years old when Herod died. So the year 6 B.C. is
thought to be likely. The author agrees with her position.

The Ancient City of Bethlehem where Jesus was born

Joseph had to go to Bethlehem to be enrolled since he came from the lineage of David. He
had to go with Mary because they were engaged to each other. According to Ewbank under
Jewish custom a man and a woman were engaged usually for a year, before being formally
married and living together. During the year of betrothal the woman was legally under the
control of her husband and if she committed adultery she was liable to death by stoning just
like any other married woman.

When they arrived in Bethlehem they could not find a place in the Inn. According to
Campbell an Eastern Inn or Khan did not separate rooms for guests, only open recesses
around an enclosed space.

Since the sleeping rooms were well occupied Mary and Joseph had to give birth in the
animal’s feeding box, the manger. Luke records this to show the poor circumstances that
were surrounding the birth of Jesus. He had come for the poor members of the community
through poor circumstances.

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A picture of an Ancient Manger where animals fed from

Annunciation of the Birth of Jesus to the Shepherds.

Luke narrates that the first people to receive the news about the birth of Jesus were
shepherds. Shepherds were social out casts since they could not afford to go to the temple or
synagogue the whole year. Their work did not allow them to do that since they were
supposed to look after their flock in the wilderness. Luke is careful to give a clear picture that
Jesus began his life as a social outcast and that he had come for such people, the shepherds.
The story also reveals Luke’s interest in joy. The shepherds did not waste time to pay homage
to Jesus after the angel appeared to them. The story might show that Jesus was a shepherd
since his birth was fist announce to men of his occupation. This is different from the gospel
according to Mathew where we see the Wisemen paying homage first to Jesus.

The Presentation of Jesus in the Temple

The story of the presentation of Jesus in the temple is reminiscent of the dedication of Samuel
in the temple. After child birth there were certain rituals that were supposed to be done to the
child as well as by the parents. Luke is careful to record that Jesus as a normal Jewish boy
had also to do those rituals. The first ritual to be done on the eighth day was circumcision.
Circumcision for the Jews was a sign of the promise that God had made to their forefather
Abraham that he would be the father of many nations. After circumcision the baby would be
given a name and in this case the babe was named Jesus which in Hebrew is Joshua and
means God saves.

The other ceremony that was done was the purification of the mother. Mary just like any
other Jewess had to go to the temple to purify her as per the Mosaic Law. The law required
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that the mother purify her after child birth as she was considered unclean for eighty days if
the baby was a boy and for forty days if the baby was a girl. According to Luke Mary gave a
sacrifice for the poor, that is, a pair of turtle doves. Marry and Joseph could not afford a lamb
as it was too expensive for them. This resonates with the theme of Luke that Jesus came for
the poor. The last ritual that the couple performed was the buying back ceremony. Everything
that open the womb was considered as God’s if it was a male and the parents had to give a
priest five shekels of silver to buy back the child. Mary and Joseph had to do that since Jesus
was their first born. This is however paradoxical in the sense that if Jesus was really the son
of God then buying back was not necessary. While in the temple they met two elderly people
who did not depart from the temple praying. They met Simeon, a pious Jew, who was looking
forward for the consolation of Israel. Anna, whose name is that of Samuel’s mother was a
prophetess and did not depart from the temple worshipping. The story of these two elders
brings out the universalism of God and the theme of the Holy Spirit that Luke develops in the
book. It shows Luke’s interest in woman.

The Birth of Jesus in Mathew

A brief Background of Mathew

The Apostle Matthew, also known as Saint Matthew and Levi, was one of the twelve
disciples of Jesus Christ. He is traditionally regarded as the author of the Gospel of Matthew.
When Jesus called Matthew to follow him, he was a tax collector (or “publican”)—one of the
most reviled professions in ancient Judaism. When Jesus called Matthew, as he sat at the
receipt of custom, Matthew rose up and followed him and left everything behind him except
one thing--his pen. After having looked at the background let us look at the characteristics of
the gospel according to Mathew. The first characteristic of the gospel is that it is the gospel
which was written for the Jews. It was written by a Jew in order to convince Jews. One of the
objectives of Matthew is to demonstrate that all the prophecies of the Old Testament are
fulfilled in Jesus, and that, therefore, he must be the Messiah. The phrase "this was to fulfill
what the Lord had spoken by the prophet." That phrase occurs in the gospel as often as 16
times. Jesus' birth and Jesus' name are the fulfillment of prophecy (Matt. 1:21-23); so are the
flight to Egypt (Matt. 2:14-15); the slaughter of the children (Matt. 2:16-18); Joseph's
settlement in Nazareth and Jesus' upbringing there (Matt. 2:23); Jesus' use of parables (Matt.
13:34-35); the triumphal entry (Matt. 21:3-5); the betrayal for thirty pieces of silver (Matt.
27:9); the casting of lots for Jesus' garments as he hung on the Cross (Matt. 27:35). It is
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Matthew's primary and deliberate purpose to show how the Old Testament prophecies
received their fulfillment in Jesus; how every detail of Jesus' life was foreshadowed in the
prophets; and thus to compel the Jews to admit that Jesus was the Messiah.

The birth narratives in Mathew

The gospel according to Mathew starts the story of Jesus by the genealogy. The Jews were
exceedingly interested in genealogies. The reason for this interest in pedigrees was that the
Jews set the greatest possible store on purity of lineage. If in any man there was the slightest
admixture of foreign blood, he lost his right to be called a Jew, and a member of the people of
God. This may seem to us an uninteresting passage, but to the Jew it would be a most
impressive matter that the pedigree of Jesus could be traced back to Abraham. In the stories
of the genealogy however there are names of women. Given the low status of women in
Palestine during this time we wonder why these women were included in the genealogy
stories. The two women are Rahab and Ruth. Rachab, or as the Old Testament calls her,
Rahab, was a harlot of Jericho (Josh.2:1-7). Ruth was not even a Jewess; she was a
Moabitess. (Ru.1:4) the inclusion of these two women was a pointer that the ethnic barrier
between Jew and Gentile is down. Rahab, the woman of Jericho, and Ruth, the woman of
Moab, find their place within the pedigree of Jesus Christ. Already the great truth is there that
in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek. Here, at the very beginning, there is the universalism
of the gospel and of the love of God. Furthermore the story shows that gender barriers
between male and female are down. In no ordinary pedigree would the name of any woman
be found; but such names are found in Jesus' pedigree. The old contempt is gone; and men
and women stand equally dear to God, and equally important to his purposes.

The narrative about the birth of Jesus found in Mathew is quite different from that found in
the Gospel according to Luke. It must be noted however that there are some similarities that
can be noted between these two gospels. Both Gospels agree that Joseph and Mary were
betrothed to each other. Joseph being a righteous man wanted to divorce Mary secretly
because he knew the consequences of having a baby out of wed lock; death through stoning.
The annunciation of the birth of Jesus in Mathew was done to Joseph while in Luke it
happened to Marry. In Mathew again we see that the angel told the parents the name of child
just like in Luke. It was in Bethlehem that Jesus was born. Bethlehem was quite a little town
six miles to the south of Jerusalem. In the olden days it had been called Ephrath or Ephratah.
The name Bethlehem means The House of Bread. It was in Bethlehem, David's city, which
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the Jews expected great David's greater Son to be born; it was there that they expected God's
Anointed One to come into the world. And it was so.

The Wise men from the East

The other difference between the gospels is the mentioning of the wise men from the east.
Mathew narrates that the first people to pay homage to Jesus when he was born were the
three wise men from the East. According to Barclay the name given to these men is Magi,
and that is a word which is difficult to translate. He goes on further to say that “Herodotus (1:
101,132) has certain information about the Magi. He says that they were originally a Median
tribe. The Medes were part of the Empire of the Persians. They tried to overthrow the
Persians and substitute the power of the Medes. The attempt failed. From that time the Magi
ceased to have any ambitions for power or prestige, and became a tribe of priests. They
became in Persia almost exactly what the Levites were in Israel. They became the teachers
and instructors of the Persian kings. In Persia no sacrifice could be offered unless one of the
Magi was present. They became men of holiness and wisdom”. These Magi were men who
were skilled in philosophy, medicine and natural science. They were soothsayers and
interpreters of dreams. These wise men saw a star and according to these magi the appearance
of such a star suggested the birth of a very important person. According to Campbell a star
was connected to the birth of Alexander the Great and of Augustus, the emperor during the
time of Jesus.

The magi followed the star until they came to the palace of Herod the Great and told him that
that there were expecting to see a king who was born. Herod was disturbed by the news so he
had to summon the scribes and chief priests and asked them about the issue. They told him
that the king was to be born in Jerusalem. Herod told the magi to go and find the baby after
they found the baby they were to appraise him of the exact details. They followed the star
until the found the baby and offered him the gifts that they had brought. According to
Campbell the gold was symbolic of the kingship of Jesus. This present acknowledges that
Jesus was the king and this would account for the use of the title king to Jesus. Frankincense
(associated with worship) acknowledges him as divine. Frankincense according to Barclay is
the gift for a priest. It was in the Temple worship and at the Temple sacrifices that the sweet
perfume of frankincense was used. The function of a priest is to open the way to God for
men. The gift was a sign and acknowledgement that Jesus was a priest who would act as a
bridge between men and God. That is what Jesus did. The third gift is myrrh which was
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used both as a healing ointment and for anointing or embalming the dead. This indicated his
suffering and death.
When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men he ordered the slaughter of all
babies below the age of two years. Barclay clearly says that Herod had one terrible flaw in his
character. He was almost insanely suspicious. He had always been suspicious, and the older
he became the more suspicious he grew, until, in his old age, he was, as someone said, "a
murderous old man." If he suspected anyone as a rival to his power, that person was promptly
eliminated. He murdered his wife Mariamne and her mother Alexandra. His eldest son,
Antipater, and two other sons, Alexander and Aristobulus, were all assassinated by him.
Augustus, the Roman Emperor, had said, bitterly, that it was safer to be Herod's pig than
Herod's son. This story according to Mathew was the fulfillment of the prophet Jeremiah
31:15 when Jeremiah was describing the story sight of Rachel who was crying for her babies
who were captured by the Babylonians.

The Flight to Egypt

When the Maggi told Herod that they were looking for a king who was born in Bethlehem the
king was troubled. Herod summoned the chief priests and the scribes. The scribes were the
experts in scripture and in the law. The religious scholars quoted the text in Mic.5:2 to him.
Herod sent for the wise men, and dispatched them to make diligent search for the little child
who had been born. He said that he, too, wished to come and worship the child; but his one
desire was to murder the child born to be king. Joseph and Mary were notified in a dream to
flee to Egypt until the death of Herod. The Jews believed that God can speak with humanity
through dreams. This again to Mathew was the fulfillment of Hosea 11:1 when God called his
sons out of Egyptian bondage. Egypt throughout the history of the Jews had become a
country of refugee in times of trouble. In actual fact every city in Egypt had its colony of
Jews; and in the city of Alexandria there were actually more than a million Jews, and certain
districts of the city were entirely handed over to them. This material is peculiar to Mathew.
As noted earlier elsewhere in this unit Herod was capable of what is reported of him in this
passage. It must be noted however there are some scholars who are of the opinion that this
incident did not happen. The argument is that the incident is not mentioned elsewhere in the
New Testament even by Josephus the great Jewish historian however the fact that a thing is
not mentioned, even in the places where one might expect it to be mentioned, is no proof at
all that it did not happen.

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The return from Egypt

After the death of Herod in 4C his kingdom was divided to his three son who were fortunate
to survive; Archelaus, Antipas and Philip. Joseph’s intention was to go to his town
Bethlehem but when he realized that Judea was being ruled by Archelaus, the decided to go
to Nazareth where Mary hailed from. They thought that Antipas was better than Archelaus
who could be cruel just like his father. This according to Mathew was to fulfill the word of
the prophet that Jesus was to be called a Nazarene.

A Critical view of the Virgin Birth

The virgin birth has been debatable to many scholars of theology. The concept has been
difficult to accept especially in light of scientific evidence that for a bay to be born there must
be encounter between a male and female gamete to form a zygote. Some scholars think that
the birth of Jesus is not historical but full of legendary stories that were pasted on a true story.
The fact that the birth of Jesus was announced by an angel makes it more legendary that
historical. Secondly the appearance of a star at the birth of Jesus makes the story look like a
legend than a real story. According to Campbell in AD 66 some Parthians came to pay
homage to the Emperor Nero, believing him to be the god Mithras in human form.
Furthermore that Mary was to give birth as a result of the influence of the Holy Spirit
resonates well with Greek mythologies where gods like Zeus had intercourse with human
beings and produced babies.

Furthermore if one looks closely at the gospels he can get the impression that the virgin birth
did not happen. In the Gospel Jesus is often referred to as the son of Joseph and Mary. John
1:45, Luke 2:41,43 supports this assertion. If Jesus was really the son of the Holy Spirit the
gospel writer could have clearly stated that. On that note Joseph named the son Jesus and if
Jesus was not his son he could have rejected that honour. Furthermore Campbell has it that
the virgin birth is only found in the gospels and is not mentioned anywhere else in the New
Testament. If the virgin birth happened historically it was supposed to be found somewhere
else in the New Testament.

The supporters of the virgin birth say that that the stories about Jesus are surrounded by
legendary material does not disqualify the story from being true. Even myths and legends are
based upon an element of truth so most probably the stories are true. Furthermore there are
some truths that are found in these narratives. According to Campbell there was probably a
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Roman census at the time of the birth of Jesus. Augustus was the emperor during the time of
Jesus. Quirinius was also the governor of Syria. It is also true that Herod the Great was the
Jewish king during this time. It is also true that people in the East were expecting a deliverer
from the West. Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh were products from the east. These truths
make the virgin more likely a reality than a lie. Furthermore that Jesus is referred to as
Joseph’s son does not actually disqualify the virgin birth. Legally Joseph was the husband of
Mary because they were betrothed to each other. The general public was bound to call Jesus
that way.

In conclusion

In conclusion one can say that the virgin birth is Christian concept that lies more in the realm
of theology than scripture. It is a matter of faith. Christian are full convinced in the concept of
reincarnation. That Jesus came in human form so that he could save the world.

Revision Questions

1. Examine the birth narratives in the gospels

2. Analyse the challenges associated with the birth of Jesus
3. Contrast the birth narratives in the gospels. Outline how the infancy stories shows the
authors’ interest to emancipate women
4. What insight on the interests of Luke do we get in his nativity stories?
5. To what extent was the virgin birth a historical event?

© 2022

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The prologue of the Gospel of John

The first chapter of the Fourth Gospel is one of the greatest adventures of religious thought
ever achieved by the mind of man. The first verses of the Gospel of John talks of the word
becoming flesh. The term word used there in Greek means logos. We should note however
that logos does not only mean word; it also means reason. To John When the world had its
beginning, the word was already there; and the word was with God; and the word was God.
This word was in the beginning with God. It was John’s great conviction that Jesus is none
other than God's creative and life-giving and light-giving word, that Jesus is the power of
God which created the world and the reason of God which sustains the world come to earth in
human and bodily form. What John is saying is this, the word is not one of the created things;
the word was there before creation. The word is not part of the world which came into being
in time; the word is part of eternity and was there with God before time and the world began.
John was thinking of what is known as the preexistence of Christ. John goes on to say that the
word was with God. What does he mean by that? He means that always there has been the
closest connection between the word and God. He is saying that Jesus has always been with
God. To put it in simple terms John is saying that Jesus is so intimate with God that God has
no secrets from him; and that, therefore, Jesus is the one person in all the universe who can
reveal to us what God is like and how God feels towards us.
When John wrote this prologue he wanted to counter against heretical teaching which were
rampant during those days. Such heresy included Gnosticism. Gnostics believed that in the
beginning two things existed the one was God and the other was matter. Matter was always
there and was the raw material out of which the world was made. The Gnostics held that this
original matter was flawed and imperfect. God, they said, is pure spirit, and pure spirit can
never touch matter at an, still less matter which is imperfect. Therefore it was not possible for
God to carry out the work of creation himself. Men believed that the world was evil and that
an evil God had created it. It is to combat this teaching that John here lays down two basic
Christian truths. The first truth being that God created the world out of nothing (ex nihilo)
and not from any matter and secondly evil which is the world is as a result of men’s sin and
not the evil creator God.
The prologue of John also shows us what the author intends his readers to know. He wanted
his readers to "believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may
have life in his name" (Jn. 20:31). The word is continually on the lips of Jesus in his gospel.
It is his wistful regret that men will not come to him that they might have life (Jn. 5:40). It is
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his claim that he came that men might have life and that they might have it abundantly (Jn.
10:10). He claims that he gives men life and that they will never perish because no one will
snatch them out of his hand (Jn. 10:28). He claims that he is the way, the truth and the life
(Jn. 14:6). In the gospel the word "life" (zoe) occurs more than thirty-five times and the verb
"to live" or "to have life" more than fifteen times. What then does the second of the great
Johannine key-words which we meet here in the prologue which we see later in the Gospel is
the word light. This word occurs in the Fourth Gospel no fewer than twenty-one times. Jesus
is the light of men. The function of John the Baptist was to point men to that light which was
in Christ. Twice Jesus calls himself the light of the world (Jn. 8:12; Jn. 9:5). This light can be
in men (Jn. 11:10), so that they can become children of the light (Jn. 12:36), "I have come,"
said Jesus, "as light into the world" (Jn. 12:46). Let us see if we can understand something of
this idea of the light which Jesus brings into the world. Three things stand out.ohn mean by
"life"?

KEY EVENTS IN JESUS’S LIFE AND MINISTRY

The Ministry of John the Baptist. (Mark 1:2-8)

The gospel of mark begins with the ministry of John. As seen earlier own in the birth
narrative John was the son of Zachariah and Elizabeth whom they sired in their old age.
There was popular belief among the Jews that before the coming of the Messiah there was a
prophet who would come as a precursor. Elijah was thought to be this prophet. But this
turned be not true. John came preaching a baptism of repentance. The baptism which John
carried out was not a new thing among the Jews. The Jews were accustomed to their daily
ritual washings. Also when a gentile became a proselyte (a convert to Judaism) he was to
undergo proselyte baptism. After that circumcision would be done and lastly a sacrifice was
also offered.

What is interesting to note that John was a Jew who was now calling for another baptism
which was different from what his fellow countrymen had received. His baptism was
different from that of Judaism in that it led to total repentance and remission of sin while that
of his counterparts was just a ritual which did not changer the inner person. According to
Barclay John had made the tremendous discovery that to be a Jew in the racial sense was not
to be a member of God's chosen people; a Jew might be in exactly the same position as a

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Gentile; not the Jewish life, but the cleansed life belonged to God. His baptism of repentance
was also accompanied by confession of sin.

A large following came to the Jordan to hear what John was preaching. It seems this was a
pointer that the preaching of John was effective as well as authoritative. There have been
suggestions to this effectiveness. One can say that people came to hear John in large numbers
because they saw that he was a man who lived his message. He rebuked and protested against
the adulterous relationship between Herod Antipas and Herodias, his brother’s wife. He was a
revolutionary who could not keep quiet when he saw wrong being committed. John was
committed to his ministry as evidenced by the fact that he lived in a desert and not in the city.
He led a very simply life, eating wild honey and locusts. We actually don’t know what kind
of locusts John consumed because the locusts may be the animals for the law allowed them to
be eaten (Lev.11:22-23); but they may also be a kind of bean or nut, the carob, which was the
food of the poorest of the poor. He also wore very simple clothing that is a garment woven of
camel's hair and a leather belt about his waist. This dressing and life of austerity resembled
that of Old Testament prophets like Elijah. This could have had a tremendous effect on the
minds of his listeners who saw Old Testament prophets in Him. His message was simple”
after me comes he who is mightier than I, whose thongs of thy thongs iam not worthy to
untie”. The Jews were quite aware of this message. John just came and amplified it. John had
to make it clear that he was not the messiah that they were expecting. He was quite sure that
he himself was only the forerunner. He was just a precursor, a pathfinder of the Messiah who
would immerse people with the Holy Spirit. To John baptism with water was not enough
because while water could cleanse a man's body, the Holy Spirit could cleanse his life and
self and heart.

The Baptism of Jesus

One of the most important events in the life and ministry of Jesus is the baptism. The word
baptism comes from the Greek word baptizo which means to fully immerse in water.
According to Ewbank (1998:60) the evangelists were not interested in the baptism of Jesus
for his own sake. The gospels writers were concerned to show that Jesus was the messiah
who was promised by the prophets. The baptism of Jesus was done by John in the river
Jordan. According to Barclay when Jesus came to John to be baptized, John was startled and
unwilling to baptize him. It was John's conviction that it was he who needed what Jesus could
give, not Jesus who needed what he could give. This narrative in the gospel according to

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Mathew has sparked a debate among New Testament scholars. According to Lam the
submission of Jesus to the baptism of John seemed paradoxical as He who is presented as
sinless throughout the New Testament made a seemingly voluntary submission to a baptism
of repentance for the remission of sins. If Jesus was really the son of God and holy, why did
he carry out this ritual that was done by people laden with sin? This is also aptly argued by
Barclay when he posits that to any thinking person the baptism of Jesus presents a problem.
John's baptism was a baptism of repentance, meant for those who were sorry for their sins
and who wished to express their determination to have done with them. What had such a
baptism to do with Jesus? Was He not the sinless one, and was not such a baptism
unnecessary and quite irrelevant as far as he was concerned? Various explanations have been
put to explain this phenomenon. For Campbell (1966:28) Jesus’ baptism was an act of
dedication of his future work, of identification with humanity and of personal humility, and
of approval of John’s work.
Erickson posits that Jesus’ baptism indicates his acceptance of his life as a mission of
continuous self-giving. Furthermore Jesus was baptized as an anticipation of his future death
and resurrection. Cullman says that one of the most commonly held view, essentially states
that Jesus submitted himself to John’s baptism in anticipation of his baptism of death as the
Servant of God who must suffer vicariously for his people as mentioned in Isaiah. The
emergence from the waters of baptism is deemed as Jesus’ intended figure of his death.
Johnson likewise supports this view and says that John’s baptism of Christ foreshadows His
death, and Calvary is His baptism in death. Gaebelein as quoted by Lam also support this
position and states: “baptism means death and resurrection. He had no sin, but came to be the
substitute for sinners, and so he takes in the very beginning their place, the sinner’s place in
death.”
The other reason why Jesus was baptized was that so that he authenticates the ministry of
John. He was actually telling the people that what John has been doing all along was the
correct. He was rubber stamping his baptism of repentance. Lam posits that Jesus said to
John, “Permit it at this time; for in this way it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” By
so doing, He authenticates John’s ministry and message. Recognizing John’s baptism has as
its source from heaven (Jn. 1:6), Jesus’ submission to John’s baptism is His recognition of
John’s mission. Blomberg (1992:81) seemed to concur with the above position when he
notes, “in so doing, Jesus identifies with and endorses John’s ministry as divinely ordained
and his message as one to be heeded”. Thus, Christ put His seal of approval on the ministry

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on John, showing the people that what John has been doing all along was correct and God
ordained.
Furthermore the voice which Jesus heard at the baptism is of supreme importance. “This is
my beloved Son," it said, "with whom I am well pleased." This voice was the same voice
which was heard on the transfiguration. This voice was important to Jesus because it made
him conscious of his own identity. For Barclay baptism was the moment of identification. He
further says that in the baptism there came to Jesus two certainties-the certainty that he was
indeed the chosen One of God, and the certainty that the way in front of him was the way of
the Cross. In other words the moment of baptism was in important to Jesus because that’s
when he got confirmation that he was really the son of God and not Joseph, the carpenter and
also that his mission was to die on the cross. The passage shows that Jesus did not become
the Son only when he was baptized. Rather, his baptism is an affirmation of his son ship to
the Father. On that note Barclay has it that baptism was the moment of approval of his action.
He further posits that no man lightly leaves his home and sets out on an unknown way. He
must be very sure that he is right. Jesus had decided on his course of action, and now he was
looking for the seal of the approval of God. It is therefore in this light that one can say that in
baptism Jesus got a confirmation from his father that the course of action he was about to
undertake was correct.
The other reason for Jesus’ baptism according to Barclay is that baptism was the moment of
equipment. At that time the Holy Spirit descended upon him. There is a certain symbolism
here. The Spirit according to gospel writers descended as a dove might descend. The simile is
not chosen by accident. The dove is the symbol of gentleness. So the Holy Spirit came
peacefully and may also symbolize the kind of messiah Jesus was going to be. What need to
be emphasized is that at baptism Jesus was equipped with the Holy Spirit for the great task
ahead of him.
The Temptations of Jesus
It is important for us to define the term temptations before we look at the temptations of
Jesus. The Greek word for temptation is peirazein. In English the word "tempt" has a
uniformly and consistently bad meaning. It always means to entice a man to do wrong, to
seek to seduce him into sin, to try to persuade him to take the wrong way. But peirazein has a
quite different element in its meaning. It means to test far more than it means to tempt in our
sense of the word. It is the test which comes to a man whom God wishes to use. What is
baffling to us is why the Holy Spirit led Jesus in the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.

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The word Satan in Hebrew simply means an adversary; and in the Old Testament it is so used
of ordinary human adversaries and opponents again and again. The word devil comes from
the Greek diabolos which literally means a slanderer. We actually dokow if the devil
appeared in spiritual or bodily form. Forty days is a phrase which is not to be taken literally.
It is the regular Hebrew phrase for a considerable time. Moses was said to be on the mountain
with God for forty days (Exo.24:18); it was for forty days that Elijah went in the strength of
the meal the angel gave him (1Kgs.19:8. The Hebrews used the phrase forty days, not
literally but simply to mean a fair length of time. The temptations took place in the
wilderness. Between Jerusalem, on the central plateau which is the backbone of Palestine and
the Dead Sea there stretches the wilderness. The place was ideal because there was no one
there. Jesus could have succumbed to the temptations without anyone seeing him. The
temptations were threefold. The beasts were his companions. In the desert there roamed the
leopard, the bear, the wild boar and the jackal.
(i) changing stones into bread
The first temptation was for Jesus to turn the stones into bread. This temptation is hard to
believe for us because some may say that Jesus was hallucinating since he had spent a long
period of time without eating. The desert was littered with little round pieces of limestone
rock which were exactly like little loaves; even they would suggest this temptation to Jesus.
But how was this temptation to Jesus. This was a double temptation. It was a temptation to
Jesus to use his powers selfishly and for his own use, and that is precisely what Jesus always
refused to do. But there was another side to this temptation. Jesus was God's Messiah, and he
knew it. In the wilderness he was facing the choice of a method whereby he could win men to
God. One sure way to persuade men to follow him was to give them bread, to give them
material things. But to give men bread would have been mistake. First, it would have been to
bribe men to follow him. To bribe men with material things would have been the denial of all
he came to say and would have been ultimately to defeat his own ends. So Jesus answered the
tempter in the very words which express the lesson which God had sought to teach his people
in the wilderness: "Man does not live by bread alone, but that man lives by everything that
proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord" (Deut.8:3).
(ii) Jesus on the pinnacle of the temple
So the tempter renewed his attack from mother angle. In a vision he took Jesus to the
pinnacle of the Temple. That may mean one of two things. Either he was on top of the
mountain or the temple. The Temple was built on the top of Mount Zion. The top of the

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mountain was levelled out into a plateau, and on that plateau the whole area of the Temple
buildings stood. There was one corner at which Solomon's porch and the Royal porch met,
and at that corner there was a sheer drop of four hundred and fifty feet into the valley of the
Kedron below. Why should not Jesus stand on that pinnacle, and leap down, and land
unharmed in the valley beneath? Men would be startled into following a man who could do a
thing like that. The priest would go on top of the temple every morning to tell men that the
hour of morning sacrifice had come. Jews believed that the messiah would come through the
temple. The Malachi had said, "The Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his Temple"
(Mal.3:1). There was also a promise in the Psalms that the angels would bear God's man upon
their hands lest any harm should come to him (Ps.91:11-12). We must also note that this was
the very method that the false Messiahs who were continually arising promised. Theudas (one
of such prophets) had led the people out, and had promised with a word to split the waters of
Jordan in two. The famous Egyptian pretender (Acts 21:38) had promised that with a word he
would lay flat the walls of Jerusalem. Simon Magus, so it is said, had promised to fly through
the air, and had perished in the attempt. These pretenders had offered sensations or
spectacular events which they could not perform. Jesus could perform anything he promised.
Why should he not do it? Jesus refused to start his ministry in a spectacular way. There were
two good reasons why Jesus should not adopt that course. Second, that is not the way to use
the power of God. "You shall not put the Lord your God to the test," said Jesus (Deut.6:16).
He meant this; there is no good seeing how far you can go with God; there is no good in
putting yourself deliberately into a threatening situation, and doing it quite recklessly and
needlessly, and then expecting God to rescue you from it.
(iii) Worshipping the devil
So the tempter tried his third avenue of attack. It was the world that Jesus came to save, and
into his mind there came a picture of the world. The tempting voice said: "Fall down and
worship me, and I will give you all the kingdoms of this world." Had not God himself said to
his chosen one, "Ask of me and i will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the
earth your possession"? (Ps.2:8). The devil here was trying to entice Jesus to gain the whole
world through taking short cuts. Jesus knew that his mission was to gain the world u tot
through the ways which the devil proposed but through the cross. His method involved
suffering.
Conflict with religious leaders (Mark 2:23-28)

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Jesus had his disciples were moving around most probably on a missionary journey. His
disciples plucked ears of corn and to eat them. The religious leaders reprimanded Jesus
because it seems he had condoned the breaking of the Sabbath law. On any ordinary day the
disciples were doing what was freely permitted by the law (Deut. 23:25). So long as the
traveller did not put a sickle into the field he was free to pluck the corn. But this was done on
the Sabbath and the Sabbath was hedged around with literally thousands of petty rules and
regulations. Work had been classified under thirty-nine different heads and four of these
heads were reaping, winnowing, threshing and preparing a meal. By their action the disciples
had technically broken all these four rules and were to be classified as law-breakers. The
Pharisees immediately launched their accusation and pointed out that Jesus' disciples were
breaking the law. They obviously expected him to stop them on the spot. Jesus instead of
stopping them appealed to the story which is told in 1Sam.21:1-6. This is a story about David
when he was fleeing for his life; he came to the tabernacle in Nob; he demanded food and
there was none except the bread of the presence Exodus 25:23-30 tells of the Bread of the
presence. It consisted of twelve loaves placed on a golden table three feet long, one and a half
feet wide, and one and a half feet high. The table stood in the tabernacle in front of the Holy
of Holies and the bread was a kind of offering to God. It was changed once a week; when it
was changed it became the property of the priests and of the priests alone and no one else
might eat it (Lev.24:9.) Yet in his time of need David took and ate that bread. Jesus showed
that scripture itself supplies a precedent in which human need took precedence of human and
even divine law. The law can be broken to save human need. The Sabbath," he said, "was
made for the sake of man and not man for the sake of the Sabbath." That was self-evident.
Man was created before ever the elaborate Sabbath law came into existence. Man was not
created to be the victim and the slave of Sabbath rules and regulations which were in the
beginning created to make life fuller and better for man. Man is not to be enslaved by the
Sabbath; the Sabbath exists to make his life better.
The Rejection of Jesus at Nazareth (Mathew 13:54-58, mark 6:1-6, Luke 4:16-30)
This was one of the early visits of Jesus to Nazareth his home town. Nazareth was not a
village. It is called a polis which means a town or city; and it may well have had as many as
20,000 inhabitants. It stood in a little hollow in the hills on the lower slopes of Galilee near
the Plain of Jezreel. As a good Jew, Jesus went to the synagogue to worship on the Sabbath.
He came attended by his disciples. That is to say he came as a Rabbi. The Rabbis moved
about the country accompanied by their little circle of disciples, and it was as a teacher, with

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his disciples, that Jesus came. The Jews had a custom of giving a visiting rabbi time to
explain scriptures. Jesus was given this opportunity and he took a scroll. It was not a book
which Jesus took, for at this time everything was written on rolls. It was from Isaiah 61 that
he read. The attendant in question was the Chazzan. He had many duties. He had to take out
and put back the sacred rolls of scripture; he had to keep the synagogue clean; he had to
announce the coming of the Sabbath with three blasts of the silver trumpet from the
synagogue roof; and he was also the teacher in the village school. Lk.4:20 say that Jesus sat
down after the reading of the scriptures from prophet Isaiah. That gives us the impression that
he was finished. As a matter of fact it means that he was about to start, because the speaker
gave the address seated and Rabbis taught sitting down. The synagogue attendants after
hearing the message of Jesus said, "Is not this the carpenter?" The word used for carpenter is
tekton. Now tekton does mean a worker in wood, but it means more than merely a joiner. It
means a craftsman. That is what Jesus was like. But the point is that the people of Nazareth
despised Jesus because he was a working-man. He was a man of the people, a layman. A
simple man-and therefore they despised him. They also said, "Is not this Mary's son? Do we
not know his brothers and his sisters?" The fact that they called Jesus Mary's son tells us that
Joseph must have been dead. It may also mean that Jesus was an illegitimate child because a
Jew was always known as the son of his father, even if the father were dead. What angered
the people was the apparent compliment that Jesus paid to gentiles. The Jews were so sure
that they were God's people that they utterly despised all others. They believed that "God had
created the gentiles to be fuel for the fires of hell." And here was this young Jesus, whom
they all knew, preaching as if the gentiles were specially favoured by God. He reminded
them that god’s favour was not confined to the Jews but eve to the gentiles. He did so by
giving two notable examples of gentiles who were assisted by Jewish prophets. His teaching
was greeted not with wonder but with a kind of contempt. "They took offence at him." They
were scandalised that a man who came from a background like Jesus should say and do
things such as he. Familiarity had bred a mistaken contempt.
The Great Confession (Mark 8:23-33)
Caesarea Philippi was outside Galilee altogether. The town was not in the territory of Herod
Antipas but Herod Philip. It was him (Philip) who had built the city and named it after
himself and his hero Caesar Augustus. In the oldest days it was called Balinas, for it had once
been a great centre of the worship of Baal. To this day it is called Banias, which is a form of
Panias. It is so called because up on the hillside there was a cavern which was said to be the

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birthplace of the Greek God, Pan, the god of nature. This background was most probably the
reason why Jesus had to ask his disciples what people thought people about him. He had
performed a lot of miracles ad people were likely to misconstrue him with one of the Greek
gods. The disciples said that people were saying that he was John the Baptist raised from the
dead. Other said that he was Elijah while other suggested that he was one of the Old
Testament prophets. But why would people think that Jesus was Elijah or John the Baptist?
They thought so most probably because he denounced social injustice and led life of austerity
like them. Jesus directed the question to his disciples and Peter answered that he was Christ
and charged him not to say anything to anyone. This is called messianic secret. Some would
want to say that this was the creation of mark Jesus did not actually do that.
The Transfiguration (Mark 9:2-8)
Transfiguration means to change in form or shape. This incident according to mark happened
six days after the great confession near Caesarea Philippi and Luke says that it happened
eight days afterwards. Jesus took three closest disciples; Peter, James and John. These are
referred to as the inner circle. We would want to believe that these three were spiritually
stronger than the other nine because when Jesus came down the mountain the remaining nine
had actually failed to exorcise a demon. Tradition says that the transfiguration took place on
the top of Mount Tabor. Tabor is no more than 1,000 feet high, and, in the time of Jesus,
there was a fortress on the top. It is much more likely that this event took place amidst the
eternal snows of Mount Hermon (and not Mt Tabor) which is 9,200 feet high and much
nearer Caesarea Philippi and where the solitude would be much more complete. In this case
no transfiguration took place but it was just a reflection of the sow on top of the mountain
that the disciples saw. When the incident came to an end a cloud overshadowed them. In
Jewish thought the presence of God is regularly connected with the cloud. It was in the cloud
that Moses met God. It was in the cloud that God came to the Tabernacle. The cloud was
known as the Shekinah. It did something very precious for Jesus. Jesus had to take his own
decisions. He had taken the decision to go to Jerusalem and that was the decision to face and
accept the Cross. Obviously he had to be absolutely sure that was right before he could go on.
On the mountain top he received a double approval of his decision. Moses and Elijah met
with him. Moses was the supreme law-giver of Israel and therefore in this case represented
the fulfilment of the law in Jesus. Elijah was the first and the greatest of the prophets and his
appearance on the transfiguration meant the fulfilment of prophecy. The three booths that
Peter talked about hear were those make shifts shelters made in the wilderness by tree

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branches during the feast of tabernacles. The voice of God was heard on this occasion just
like on the day of baptism. God acknowledged that Jesus was indeed his son.
Blind Bartimaeus (Mark 10:46-52
The incident happened when Jesus was on his final way to Jerusalem for a Passover feast. It
happened in the city of Jericho on the roadside when he was leaving the city. Jericho was
only about 15 miles from Jerusalem. It was a city of palms and the last city on the way to
Jerusalem. At such a time pilgrims travelled in bands together. One of the commonest ways
for a Rabbi to teach was to discourse as he walked. That was what Jesus was doing, and the
rest of the pilgrim band were crowding close around him, not to miss anything that he might
say. As such a pilgrim band passed through a village or a town those who themselves could
not go to the feast lined the wayside to see the pilgrims pass and to bid them godspeed on the
way. When the blind beggar, the son of Timaeus (Bar means so of) heard that Jesus was
passing by he started shouting for help. Jesus was now most probably a popular teacher.
Bartimaeus had a quite inadequate conception of Jesus. Son of David he insisted on calling
him. Now that was a Messianic title, but it has in it all the thought of a conquering Messiah, a
king from the lineage of David who would lead Israel to national greatness. The story shows
that Jesus was king because he came from the royal house of David. It also reveals that he
was a universal messiah who came and interacted with those who were looked down by the
society. The blind beggar received his sight which shows the healing powers of Jesus. He had
power over diseases.
The Triumphal entry (Mark 11:1-11, John 12:12-15)
Triumph means victory. In this incident we see Jesus victoriously entering into Jerusalem.
We have come to the last stage of the journey. It seems Jesus had made some prior
arrangements with his fried to provide a colt to the disciples. The words the lord is need of it
sounds like a password according to Campbell. Bethphage and Bethany were villages near
Jerusalem. Very probably Bethphage means house of figs and Bethany means house of dates.
The fact that no one had sat on the could suggest purity. Jesus needed pure things. We see
here that Jesus used a symbolic action to illustrate his message. It was an act of glorious
defiance and of superlative courage. By this time there was a price on Jesus' head. (Jn.11:57.)
It would have been natural that, if he must go into Jerusalem at all, he should have slipped in
unseen and hidden away in some secret place in the back streets. But he entered in such a
way as to focus the whole lime-light upon himself and to occupy the centre of the stage. His
action was a deliberate dramatic claim to be Messiah. This was a fulfillment of a prophetic

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saying in Zechariah. There was a saying of the prophet Zechariah (Zech.9:9), "Rejoice
greatly, O daughter of Zion. Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem. Lo, your king comes to
you; triumphant and victorious is he, and riding on an ass and upon a colt the foal of an ass."
The whole impact is that the King was coming in peace. In Palestine the ass was not a
despised beast, but a noble one. When a king went to war he rode on a horse, when he came
in peace he rode on an ass. Jesus was indirectly claiming that He came meek and lowly. He
came in peace and for peace. This was in contradiction to what people were expecting, a
political messiah. They greeted him with the words: "Hosanna! Blessed is he who is coming
in the name of the Lord!" The word Hosanna is the Hebrew for "Save now!" They are a
quotation from Psalm 118:25-26. The psalm was used on the feast of tabernacles to welcome
pilgrims. There is no doubt that when the people sang this psalm they were looking on Jesus
as God's Anointed One, the Messiah, the Deliverer, the One who was to come. And there is
no doubt that they were looking on him as the Conqueror. To them it must have been only a
matter of time until the trumpets rang out and the call to arms sounded and the Jewish nation
swept to its long delayed victory over Rome and the world. But Jesus indirectly told them
that iam not the type of messiah that you are expecting.
Jesus cleanses the temple (Mark 11:15-18; John 2:13-17)
This incident took place in the Court of the Gentiles. Bit by bit the Court of the Gentiles had
become almost entirely secularised. It had been meant to be a place of prayer and preparation,
but there was in the time of Jesus a commercialised atmosphere of buying and selling which
made prayer and meditation impossible. What made it worse was that the business which
went on there was sheer exploitation of the pilgrims. There were two businesses done in the
temple; money changing and the buying and selling of sacrificial animals. Every Jew had to
pay a temple tax of one half shekel a year. That tax had to be paid in one particular kind of
coinage. For ordinary purposes Greek, Roman, Syrian, Egyptian, Phoenician, Tyrian coinages
were an equally valid. But this tax had to be paid in shekels of the sanctuary. It was paid at
the Passover time. Jews came from an over the world to the Passover and with all kinds of
currencies. When they went to have their money changed they had to pay a fee of a pound
and should their coin exceed the tax, they had to pay another pound. Before they got their
change most pilgrims had to pay this extra 2 pounds. We must remember that that was half a
day's wage, which for most men was a great deal of money.
As for the sellers of doves-doves entered largely into the sacrificial system (Lev.12:8,
Lev.14:22, Lev.15:14). A sacrificial victim had to be without blemish. Doves could be bought

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cheaply enough outside, but the temple inspectors would be sure to find something wrong
with them, and worshippers were advised to buy them at the temple stalls. Outside doves cost
as little as 3 pounds a pair, inside they cost as much as 75 pounds. Again it was sheer
imposition, and what made matters worse was that this business of buying and selling
belonged to the family of Annas who had been High Priest.
It was the fact that poor, humble pilgrims were being swindled which moved Jesus to wrath.
He was angry at the desecration of God's holy place. Men had lost the sense of the presence
of God in the house of God. By commercialising the sacred they were violating it. He quoted
Isaiah 56:7, "My house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples." Yet in that very
same house there was a wall beyond which made it difficult for the Gentile to pass. It may
well be that Jesus was moved to anger by the exclusiveness of Jewish worship and that he
wished to remind them that God loved, not the Jews, but the world. Jesus used a vivid
metaphor to describe the temple court. The road from Jerusalem to Jericho was notorious for
its robbers. It was a narrow winding road, passing between rocky defiles. Amidst the rocks
were caves where the brigands lay in wait, and Jesus said, "There are worse brigands in the
temple courts than ever there are in the caves of the Jericho road."
According to the gospel of john this incident happened when Jesus had gone for a Passover
feast. But there is a real difficulty we must face. This passage tells of the incident known as
the Cleansing of the Temple. John sets it right at the beginning of the ministry of Jesus, while
the other three gospel writers set it right at the end (Matt.21:12-13; Mk.11:15-17; Lk.19:45-
46) It is suggested that Jesus cleansed the Temple twice, once at the beginning and once at
the end of his ministry. That is not very likely, because if he had done this staggering thing
once, it is very unlikely that he would ever have had the chance to do it again. It is suggested
that John is right and that the other three are wrong. But the incident fits in much better at the
end of Jesus' ministry. He was not interested to tell men when Jesus cleansed the Temple; he
was supremely interested in telling men that Jesus did cleanse the Temple, because that
cleansing was the act of the promised Messiah of God. In this case the cleansing should be
taken as a symbolism of the role Jesus was to play; that is to cleanse humanity.
The anointing at Bethany (Mark 14:1-11; John 12:1-8)
The incident happened six days before Passover according to the gospel of John. It was
coming very near the end for Jesus. To come to Jerusalem for the Passover was an act of the
highest courage, for the authorities had made him in effect an outlaw (Jn. 11:57). When Jesus
came to Bethany they made him a meal. It must have been in the house of Martha and Mary

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and Lazarus, for where else would Martha be serving but in her own house? It was then that
Mary's heart ran over in love. She had a pound of very precious ointment called nard. In any
event it was a specially valuable kind of perfume. With this perfume Mary anointed Jesus'
feet. Her action provoked the grudging criticism of some of the bystanders such as Judas. To
him but was just sheer waste. The flask was worth more than 300 denarii. A denarius was a
Roman coin worth about 3 pound which was a working man's daily wage. It would have cost
an ordinary man almost a year's pay to buy the flask of ointment. To some it seemed a
shameful waste; the money might have been given to the poor. Jesus silenced him by saying
that money could be given to the poor at any time, but a kindness done to him must be done
now, for soon the chance would be gone forever. It was a sign of honour to anoint a person's
head. "Thou anointest my head with oil," says the psalmist (Ps.23:5). But Mary would not
look so high as the head of Jesus; she anointed his feet. Mary wiped Jesus' feet with the hair
of her head. In Palestine no respectable woman would ever appear in public with her hair
unbound. On the day a girl was married her hair was bound up, and never again would she be
seen in public with her long tresses flowing loose. That was the sign of an immoral woman.
But Mary never even thought of that.
The gospel of mark says that He was in the house of a man called Simon the leper, in the
village of Bethany. People did not sit to eat; they reclined on low couches. They lay on the
couch resting on the left elbow and using the right hand to take their food. Anyone coming up
to someone lying like this would stand well above him. To Jesus there came a woman with an
alabaster phial of ointment. It was the custom to pour a few drops of perfume on a guest
when he arrived at a house or when he sat down to a meal. This phial held nard which was a
very precious ointment made from a rare plant that came from far-off India. But it was not a
few drops that this woman poured on the head of Jesus. She broke the flask and anointed him
with the whole contents. There may be more than one reason why she broke the flask. Maybe
she broke it as a sign that all was to be used. There was a custom in the East that if a glass
was used by a distinguished guest, it was broken so that it would never again be touched by
the hand of any lesser person. Maybe there was something of that in the woman's mind. But
there was one thing not in her mind which Jesus saw. It was the custom in the East, first to
bathe, then to anoint the bodies of the dead. After the body had been anointed, the flask in
which the perfume had been contained was broken and the fragments were laid with the dead
body in the tomb. Although she did not mean it so, that was the very thing this woman was
doing.

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 1.1.3 MIRACLES
Miracle stories occupy a large portion of gospel narratives and were clearly important in the
gospels as well as in the early church. According to Ewbank there are thirty four individual
cures in the record besides the general healings in Mark 1;32-34 and elsewhere. Miracles
performed by Jesus can be grouped into nature miracles, resurrection miracles and healing
miracles. This chapter is going to look closely at these miracles.

A miracle is an extra-ordinary event. It is an event that violets nature. The Greek word for
miracle is semeion which means signs. The other Greek words are ergon which means works,
teras which means wonder and dunamis which means power. These words do not depict
various kinds of miracles but they portray the different perspectives of miracles. This means
therefore that miracles point to something. A miracle can be defined as a real event or an
occurrence which must at least in principle, susceptible to empirical verification shows the
power of a super natural being. It is an event which is extremely unusual. It can be understood
as a sign or wonder from God that transcends the bare facts of the case and communicates a
spiritual message and should have been affirmed as a miracle by the community of believers to
whom the message of a miracle is addressed. The authors would want to define miracles as an
extraordinary event brought by a divine power accomplishing some practical and benevolent
work.

However, there are scholars such as Matthew Anorld, and Hume who are of the view that the
idea of something happening contrary to the laws of nature is irrational and they conclude that
belief in miracles is therefore irrational. Anorld go on to say that, miracles don’t happen.
Scientists of today know too much to dogmatize in this fashion or to say that science forbids us
to think miracles possible. The best that can be said is that they may be instances of the
working of laws understood. With this view in mind the debate on the existence of miracles is
subject to debate. Although Jesus performed miracles it can be noted that even the devil can
perform miracles. Jesus taught that even the devil can perform miracles (Mtw 24:24)

The nature of Jesus’s Miracles

Miracles that were performed by Jesus had instant and complete results such as the healing of
the blind man at Bethsaida on John 5:2-9. These miracles were also performed under various
conditions that is when one had faith such as the centurion servant, and when one had no
apparent faith for example the raising of the widow of Nain’s son. Other miracles were

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performed when Jesus had contact with the people while others were performed when Jesus
did not have contact with the person. According to Ewbank Jesus normally forbade those
whom he cured to publicize the miracles and was often disobeyed. This is called the Messianic
secret. The miracles that were performed by Jesus can be grouped into three’. These are nature
miracles, healing miracles and the raisings of the dead. Below were going to look at some few
miracles nature and healing miracles recorded in the gospels. We will not exhaust all the
miracles but will just touch on few miracles.

The healing of a man who was mute (Mathew 9:32-34)

The miracle happened as Jesus was going away from the house of the ruler of the synagogue .
A man who could not speak was brought to him. His predicament was believed to be as a result
of demon possession. After Jesus cast the demon out he could speak. The crowd was filled
with wonder at this miracle while the Pharisees accused him of casting demons in the name of
Beelzebub. They did not deny his wondrous powers; but they attributed them to his complicity
with the prince of the devils. Beelzebub is translated from beezeboul meaning lord of dung or
lord of dwelling (ie dwelling if dwelling) Beelzebub or Baalzebub was the name given to the
god of the philistine city of Ekron.

The healing of a demoniac at Capernaum (Mark 1:21-28)

The miracles happened when Jesus was at Capernaum on a Sabbath day. A synagogue was a
place which was used for various things by the Jews. The synagogue was primarily a teaching
institution. The synagogue service consisted of only three things--prayer, the reading of God's
word, and the exposition of it. There was no music, no singing and no sacrifice. It was led by a
ruler of a synagogue who was usually a respected elder in the community. One thing the
synagogue had not and that was a permanent preacher or teacher. When the people met at the
synagogue service it was open to the Ruler to call on any competent person to give the address
and the exposition. A visiting rabbi was usually afforded an opportunity to expose the
scriptures. Jesus as a visiting rabbi was given an opportunity to preach on this particular
Sabbath. When Jesus did teach in the synagogue the whole method and atmosphere of his
teaching was like a new revelation. He did not teach like the scribes, the experts in the law. His
teaching was with authority. The scribes were men who had read ad specialised in interpreting
the law. In the synagogue was a man who was with a demonic spirit. The Jews, and indeed the
whole ancient world, believed strongly in demons and devils. As Harnack put it, "The whole

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world and the circumambient atmosphere were filled with devils; not merely idolatry, but
every phase and form of life was ruled by them. They sat on thrones, they hovered around
cradles. The earth was literally a hell." The Jews believed that these demos caused various
forms of illness. The way Jesus exorcised the demons was different from the Jewish exorcists.
Jesus with one word of clear, simple, brief authority exorcised the demon from a man. No one
had ever seen anything like this before. The demon knew Jesus as the Holy one of God. This
story is an indication that Jesus had power over demons.

The healing of the paralytic on the stretcher (Mark 2:1-12)

This miracle happened when Jesus returned to Capernaum. The news of his coming
immediately spread abroad. Life in Palestine was very public. In the morning the door of the
house was opened and anyone who wished might come out and in. The door was never shut
unless a man deliberately wished for privacy; an open door meant an open invitation for all to
come in. So, in no time, a crowd had filled the house to capacity and jammed the pavement
round the door; and they were all eagerly listening to what Jesus had to say. In this crowd came
four men carrying on a stretcher a friend of theirs who was paralysed. They could not get
through the crowd at all, but they were men of resource. The roof of a Palestinian house was
flat. It was regularly used as a place of rest and of quiet, and so usually there was an outside
stair which ascended to it. It was the easiest thing to do. To Jesus this was act of faith. This is
an example of a miracle where we see Jesus healing someone as a result of other people’s
faith. Jews believed that sickness was caused by sis therefore for one to be healed there was
need for forgives of sins. The religious leaders were there when Jesus forgave the sins of the
paralyzed man. They were shocked to hear such kind of news. It was an essential of the Jewish
faith that only God could forgive sins. For any man to claim to do so was to insult God; that
was blasphemy and the penalty for blasphemy was death by stoning (Lev.24:16). At the
moment they were not ready to launch their attack in public, but it was not difficult for Jesus to
see how their minds were working. So he determined to fling down a challenge and to meet
them on their own ground. From this story we can see that Jesus had power to forgive sis and
also that he had power over diseases. Jesus also called himself son of men. We actually don’t
know why Jesus used this title to himself. The title had ideas of the suffering servant who was
to be humbled, and the exalted by God.

The Nature Miracles

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These are miracles that were performed by Jesus and showed that he had power over nature.
Some examples of nature miracles include

The Calming of the Storm (Mark 4:35-41)

The Sea of Galilee is surrounded by hills which have many ravines and deep gorges which
open in the sea. According to Thompson the lake is famous for sudden storms. The cool
winds blowing down from the mountains rush through these ravines and gorges and then the
water, creating tempests and raging seas. According to Booth (2005) these storms are sudden,
frequent and very dangerous to small boats. Within minutes the air can become thick with
mist, and the clam, peaceful water as roaring, boiling cauldron or pot. So one may not be
wrong to say that there was no storm calmed by Jesus here but it was one of these sudden
storms. The story shows that Jesus had power over nature. The disciples went to awaken
Jesus from slumber and it shows the roughness of Mark’s gospel. So Mark was the first
Gospel to be written. The title used by Peter shows that Peter recognized Jesus as a teacher
and not the messiah and that accounts for reaction of the apostles when Jesus performed a
miracle. The story shows vividly hat happened for example that Jesus was sleeping on the
cushion. This shows that the writer was present and therefore disciple the fact that Jesus was
sleeping shows the human nature of Jesus. The disciples are depicted in a negative ay as
peop0le who did not have faith?
The Walking on Water (Mark 6:45-52)
The miracle happened when Jesus was praying. It is interesting to note that Jesus’ source of
power was prayer. The miracle took place soon after the feeding of the five thousand. It
seems the people wanted to take him by force because they wanted to make him king. This is
most probably one of the miracles he had done. The time according to Campbell was between
3am and 6am. The storms in the lake of Galilee are frequent and sudden. The story according
to Campbell is symbolic of the church which is symbolized by the disciples in the boat tossed
by the storms of persecution. The coming of Jesus meant the end to the problems of the
church. The miracles also symbolized Jesus’s power over nature. It is also interesting to note
that Jesus allowed Peter to walk on the water. This shows Jesus’ exemplary leadership.
The Feeding of the Five thousand (Luke 9:10-17)
This is one of the nature miracles performed by Jesus that is recorded in the entire four
Gospel. Jesus performed this miracle in the village of Bethsaida which found in the east of
the territory ruled by Herod Antipas. The Greek word in the miracles means men not women

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 or children. This story shows the patriarchal nature of Judaism because women and children
are not counted. According to Campbell scholars think that people just shared food that they
had brought with them and the Christians turned it out to be a miracle and that the number of
the people was exaggerated. But from a critical point of view one can see that this was a
miracle. The miracle according to Thompson was intended to be a foretaste of the great
Messianic feast in the kingdom of God. 12 baskets of broken bread symbolized the nation of
Israel.
Healing of the blind man at Bethsaida (Mark 8:22-36)
Blindness was, and still is, one of the great curses of the East. It was caused partly by
ophthalmia and partly by the pitiless glare of the sun. It was greatly aggravated by the fact
that people knew nothing of hygiene and of cleanliness. He took the blind man out of the
crowd and out of the village that he might be alone with him. Why? Think about it. This man
was blind and apparently had been born blind. If he had been suddenly given back his sight
amidst a crowd, there would have flashed upon his newly-seeing eyes hundreds of people and
things, and dazzling colours, so that he would have been completely bewildered. Jesus knew
it would be far better if he could be taken to a place where the thrill of seeing would break
less suddenly upon him. Jesus used methods that the man could understand. The ancient
world believed in the healing power of spittle. In one thing this miracle is unique--it is the
only miracle which can be said to have happened gradually. Usually Jesus' miracles happened
suddenly and completely. In this miracle the blind man's sight came back in stages.
The healing of the Centurion’s servant (Luke 7:1-10)

The miracle happened at Capernaum. A centurion was a Roman commander who was in
charge of a hundred soldiers. These men formed the backbone of the Roman army. As argued
earlier when the Romans conquered Palestine they managed to bring peace as a result of a
well-disciplined army. What is unusual about this story is that the Centurion in this story
loved his servant. The centurion was a Gentile, interested in the Jewish religion but not
circumcised. He was called a God-fearer. He had built the Jews a synagogue which explains
why Jewish leaders accepted to go on his behalf to Jesus. According to Thompson slaves
were hardly considered human beings. Jesus healed the slave of the centurion without being
in contact with him. Jesus interacted with people who were looked down upon.

Reasons why Jesus performed Miracles

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There are several reasons why miracles are performed. From the definitions given above
miracles are done to accredit God’s messengers, confirm God’s message, bring glory to God
and Jesus, demonstrate the presence of God’s kingdom, promote faith and help people in need.
Some of these reasons are going to be elaborated below in connection to the reasons why Jesus
performed them.

The major reason why Jesus performed miracles was to show his divinity. This was meant that
people would believe in him. Jesus performed miracles to show that he is the long prophesied
Messiah. This is reflected when John the Baptist sent his disciple from prison, he said, “Are
you the one who is to come or should we look for another’’ Jesus reassures John that he is the
Messiah and told his disciple to go and tell John what they seen; the miracles performed by the
Messiah, the blind see, lame walk and lepers are cleansed’’ as prophesied by Isaiah 29:18-20.

Rowland Gerald says miracles were meant to attract great crowds. This was true in the
ministry of Jesus.’’ And a great multitude followed him because of what they say saw (John
6:2). It was also true in the ministry of the early apostles. The miracle wrought at the Beautiful
Gate (Acts 3:1-16) resulted in 5000 people turning to Christ (Acts 4:4), (Acts 5:12-14), (Acts
5:16).

Miracles also confirmed Jesus’ message. Jesus predicted that supernatural signs would attend
the preaching of the true gospel. (Mark 16:17-18), (Acts 8:6) In Acts 8:6 the inference is clear.
The people were impressed by Phillip’s authority when they saw the miracles attending his
ministry, and consequently gave close attention to what he had to say. So great was the
response that great joy filled the city (Acts 8:3). Jesus performed many miracles,
demonstrating his power over nature and spirits, thus confirming the Kingdom of God at hand.

In some cases Jesus performed physical miracles to demonstrate a moral miracle, the
forgiveness of sin, for example, the healing of the Paralytic (Mark 2:1-12). Sometimes he
performed miracles to show his power over laws of nature.

Furthermore Jesus performed miracles to meet the needs of the people. Miracles met the real
needs of communities. There was always a tremendous crowd around the apostles because so
many sick folk wanted to be healed. They came for healings. Many left with far more-they
received the Kingdom.

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Moreso, miracles proved the resurrection of Christ from the dead. Many disputed the facts of
Christ’s resurrection. The many miracles which God began to perform in the name of Jesus
convinced the multitudes of the reality of the resurrection. If Christ were still dead; then his
name would have no power. When Peter spoke to the elders concerning the healing of the man
at the Gate called Beautiful he said, “….. Whom God raised from the dead even by him do this
man stand here before you…” (Acts 4:10). Peter was obviously referring to the miracle in
order to prove to them that Christ was indeed risen from the dead.

Miracles also brought glory to God. We read the following, concerning the blind man who was
healed “and immediately he received his sight and followed him, glorifying God: and all the
people, when they saw it, gave praise to God (Luke 18:35-43). On another occasion Jesus
healed a man who was sick of the palsy, the gospel says “and immediately he arose , took up
the bed and went forth before them all , in so much that they were all amazed and glorified
God.’’ (Mark 2:12). Acts 4:2 supports the above point.

Miracles established converts in the power of God. Paul told the Corinthians that he had come,
“not with enticing words of men’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the spirit and power that
your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.’’(1 Cor 2:4-5).
When the gospel is accompanied by the supernatural power of God, the converts are
established in and by that power. The wisdom of men (philosophy, logic, rationale) can never
establish men and women in the Christian Faith.

Jesus miracles foreshadow the fulfilment of his promises to his followers after his ascension.
John 14:12 says that “i tell you the truth anyone who has faith in me will do what i have been
doing’’. This passage was fulfilled in Acts 2:1 which shows the empowerment of Jesus’
apostles by the Holy Spirit to perform miracles. Miracles were also performed as a fulfilment
of the Old Testament prophecies (Mt 8:17) and to prove Jesus’ power over diseases; the spirit
world, death etc. The miracles are rightly described in the Fourth gospel as signs that the
power of God was at work in the world.

Miracles was a way of ushering in the Kingdom of God. Jesus exorcised demons and evil
spirits as a typical way of showing that the Kingdom of Heaven is upon the people. Thus in
Luke 11:20 , and Mt 12:28 he showed that if it is by the spirit of God that he cast out demons
then the Kingdom of God is in their midst.

Revision Questions
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 1 Discuss the significance of Jesus’ miracles in contemporary society
2 ‘Jesus was a miracle work’ Justify this view
3 Examine how the New Testament demonstrate the centrality of miracles
4 Show how miracles were important in the development of Christianity
5 Compare Jesus’ methods of healing and those of contemporary prophets

THE SEVEN SIGNS IN THE GOSPEL OF JOHN

The wedding at Cana

Jesus did the first of his signs in Cana of Galilee, and displayed his glory; and his disciples
believed on him. Cana of Galilee is so called to distinguish it from Cana in Coelo-Syria. It
was a village quite near to Nazareth. Jerome, who stayed in Palestine, says that he saw it from
Nazareth. In Cana there was a wedding feast to which Mary went and at which she held a
special place. She had something to do with the arrangements, for she was worried when the
wine ran done; and she had authority enough to order the servants to do whatever Jesus told
them to do. There is no mention of Joseph. The explanation most probably is that by this time
Joseph was dead. It would seem that Joseph died quite soon, and that the reason why Jesus
spent eighteen long years in Nazareth was that he had to take upon himself the support of his
mother and his family. It was only when his younger brothers and sisters were able to look
after themselves that he left home. The scene is a village wedding feast. In Palestine a
wedding was a really notable occasion. It was the Jewish law that the wedding of a virgin
should take place on a Wednesday. The wedding festivities lasted far more than one day. The
wedding ceremony itself took place late in the evening, after a feast. It is likely that the
coming of Jesus caused something of a problem. He had been invited to the feast, but he had
arrived not alone but with five disciples. Five extra people may well have caused
complications. Five unexpected guests might provide any festival with a problem, and the
wine went done. For a Jewish feast wine was essential. "Without wine," said the Rabbis,
"there is no joy." It was not that people were drunk, but in the East wine was an essential. At
any time the failure of provisions would have been a problem, for hospitality in the East is a
sacred duty; but for the provisions to fail at a wedding would be a terrible humiliation for the
bride and the bridegroom. So Mary came to Jesus to tell him that it was so. The King James
Version translation of Jesus' reply makes it sound very discourteous. Jesus was simply telling
Mary to leave things to him, that he would have his own way of dealing with the situation.

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The word woman (gunai,) is also misleading. It sounds to us very rough and abrupt. But it is
the same word as Jesus used on the Cross to address Mary as he left her to the care of John
(Jn. 19:26). So far from being a rough and discourteous way of address, it was a title of
respect. The jars were very large; they would hold about twenty gallons of water apiece.
John was writing his gospel for Greeks and so he explains that these jars were there to
provide water for the purifying ceremonies of the Jews. Water was required for two purposes.
First, it was required for cleansing the feet on entry to the house. The roads were not
surfaced. Sandals were merely a sole attached to the foot by straps. On a dry day the feet
were covered by dust and on a wet day they were soiled with mud; and the water was used
for cleansing them. Second, it was required for the hand washing. Strict Jews washed the
hands before a meal and between each course. John commanded that the jars should be filled
to the brim. John mentions that point to make it clear that nothing else but water was put into
them. He then told them to draw out the water and to take it to the architriklinos, the steward
in charge. There were six stone water pots; and at the command of Jesus the water in them
turned to wine. According to the Jews seven is the number which is complete and perfect;
and six is the number which is unfinished and imperfect. The six stone water pots stand for
all the imperfections of the Jewish law. Jesus came to do away with the imperfections of the
law and to put in their place the new wine of the gospel of his grace. Jesus turned the
imperfection of the law into the perfection of grace.
The healing of the official’s son john (4:46-54)

This is the second sign which Jesus did after he had come from Judaea into Galilee. Most of
the commentators think this is another version of the story of the healing of the centurion's
servant told in Matt.8:5-13 and Lk.7:1-10; but there are differences which justify us in
treating it as quite independent. Certain things about the conduct of this courtier are an
example to all men. Here is a courtier who came to a carpenter. The Greek is basilikos
(GSN0937) which could even mean that he was a petty king; but it is used for a royal official
and he was a man of high standing at the court of Herod. Jesus on the other hand had no
greater status than that of the village carpenter of Nazareth. Further, Jesus was in Cana and
this man lived in Capernaum, almost twenty miles away. That is why he took so long to get
back home. Here was a courtier who had faith. It must have been hard for him to turn away
and go home with Jesus' assurance that his little lad would live.
The healing of a man at Bethsaida on the Sabbath day (John 5:1-18)

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His miracle happened when Jesus was in Jerusalem for a feast. There were three Jewish feasts
where Jews were obliged to attend and these were Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles. As
we have seen earlier o the healing of blind Bartimaeus every adult male Jew who lived within
fifteen miles of Jerusalem was legally bound to attend them. If we take John 6 before John 5
we may think of this feast as Pentecost, because the events of John 6 happened when the
Passover was near (John 6:4). The Passover was in mid-April, and Pentecost was seven
weeks later. Can you see that John always shows us Jesus attending the great feasts, for Jesus
did not disregard the obligations of Jewish worship? Jews is being portrayed as a faithful Jew
in the book.
We would want to believe that when Jesus arrived in Jerusalem he was apparently alone
because there is no mention of his disciples. He went to a pool which was famed for its
healing waters in the city. Its name was either Bethesda, which means House of Mercy, or
more likely, Bethzatha which means House of the Olive. The pool was believed to have
healing powers. We actually don’t know whether this was true or not but beneath the pool
was a subterranean stream which every now and again bubbled up and disturbed the waters.
The popular belief was that the disturbance was caused by an angel, and that the first person
to get into the pool after the troubling of the water would be healed from any illness from
which he was suffering. To a modern scholar this may sound mere superstition. But it was the
kind of belief which was spread all over the world in ancient days and which still exists in
certain places especially in Zimbabwe. People believed in all kinds of spirits and demons.
The air was thick with them; they had their abodes in certain places; every tree, every river,
every stream, every hill, every pool had its resident spirit. Further, ancient peoples just like
the indigenous Africans believe that certain pools, springs and rivers were holy and sacred.
The man in this was an invalid with no one to help him because of his disability. Jesus in the
gospel of John just like in Luke’s gospel came an interacted with those sections of the society
who were regarded as social outcasts; the vagabonds. Jesus is always the friend of the
friendless, and the helper of the man who has no earthly help. Jesus instructed the man to take
up his pallet.in this case his bed would simply be a light stretcher-like frame.
There are some who believe that this story is an allegory. The man stands for the people of
Israel. The five porches stand for the five books of the law. In the porches the people lay ill.
The law could show a man his sin, but could never mend it; the law could uncover a man's
weakness, but could never cure it. The law, like the porches, sheltered the sick soul but could
never heal it. The thirty-eight years stand for the thirty-eight years in which the Jews

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wandered in the desert before they entered the Promised Land; or for the number of the
centuries men had been waiting for the Messiah. The stirring of the waters stands for baptism.
The healing caused trouble for the man because it was done on the Sabbath day. The Lord
speaking through Jeremiah had said: "Thus saith the Lord: take heed for the sake of your
lives, and do not bear a burden on the Sabbath day or bring it in by the gates of Jerusalem.
And do not carry a burden out of your houses on the Sabbath or do any work, but keep the
Sabbath day holy, as I commanded your fathers" (Jer.17:19-27). The same was also
instructed though prophet Nehemiah on chapter13:15-19. The strict adherents of the law saw
what the man did as a breach of the Mosaic Law. The Rabbis of Jesus' day solemnly argued
that a man was sinning if he carried a needle in his robe on the Sabbath. They even argued as
to whether he could wear his artificial teeth or his wooden leg. They were quite clear that any
kind of broach could not be worn on the Sabbath. To them all this petty detail was a matter of
life and death--and certainly this man was breaking the rabbinic law by carrying his bed on
the Sabbath day. The man told them that the man who had healed him was the one who
instructed him to carry his pallet. The passage suggests that Jesus repeatedly broke the law of
the Jews and that’s why they tried to kill you.
Jesus’ defence was shattering. God did not stop working on the Sabbath day and neither did
he. What Jesus really was saying we shall see in our next section; but at the moment we must
note this--Jesus teaches that human need must always be helped; that there is no greater task
than to relieve someone's pain and distress and that the Christian's compassion must be like
God's--unceasing. Other work may be laid aside but the work of compassion never.
This passage shows the other Jewish belief. When Jesus met the man in the Temple he told
him to sin no more in case something worse might happen to him. To the Jew sin and
suffering were inextricably connected. It was a popular belief during this time that misfortune
such as sickness or death was as a result of individual or family sin.
The feeding of the five thousand 6:1-15
On this occasion we see Jesus being followed by a great multitude because of the signs that
he had performed so far. Jesus went on top of the mountain with his disciples most probably
away from the people. He did often times to give himself time for prayer to have a quality
time with his disciples.it seems however on this particular occasion it was wise to go away
before a head-on collision with the authorities took place, for the time of the final conflict had
not yet come. When Jesus saw the crowd that was gathering around him as a human being he
had compassion on them. Philip was the natural man to whom to turn, for he came from

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Bethsaida (Jn. 1:44) and would have local knowledge. Jesus asked him where food could be
got. Philip's answer was despairing. He said that even if food could be got it would cost more
than two hundred denarii to give this vast crowd even a little each. A denarius was worth
about 4 pence and was the standard day's wage for a working man. Philip calculated that it
would take more than six months' wages to begin to feed a crowd like this. Philip proved to
be faithless. We wonder why he could not believe that Jesus could not perform a miracle
since he had witnessed a lot of signs performed by Jesus. Andrew told Jesus that there was a
lad with five barley loaves and two fish. Barley bread was the cheapest of all bread and was
held in contempt. The boy was most probably a poor fellow because barley bread was the
bread for the poor. The fish were most probably the prickled fish from the Sea of Galilee.
That Jesus took the read and fish and blessed it may mean that he said a prayer before
handing it over to the people who had gathered in groups. The prayer that he said was
according to Barclay the one that was used in every home: "Blessed art Thou, O Lord, our
God, who causest to come forth bread from the earth." The people were satisfied and twelve
baskets of left overs were collected. This might mean that each disciple had a basket with him
because it was a Jewish custom that you moved around with a basket. He carried it partly
because he was characteristically acquisitive, and partly because he needed to carry his own
food if he was going to observe the Jewish rules of cleanness and uncleanness.
There have been a lot of discussions concerning this miracle. Some would want to dismiss
this miracle as merely a sacramental meal taken in a desert. It is difficult to believe that five
thousand males could be fed by two fishes which were smaller than a sardine and five loaves
of poor grade bread of barley. We should also bear in mind that this is what Jesus had
rejected to do during the temptations; that is to change stones into bread. The language in the
rest of this chapter is that of the Holy Communion because we hear Jesus talking of eating his
flesh and drinking his blood.
On the other hand one can also not be wrong to suggest that no miracle happened here. The
followers of Jesus just ate the food that they had brought from their homes. We have to bear
in mind that this was time for Passover and most probably there some Passover pilgrims on
the crowd. In this case it is scarcely to be thought that the crowd left on a nine-mile
expedition without making any preparations at all. These pilgrims would certainly possess
supplies for the way. When the mob saw the sign they concluded that Jesus was the prophet
whom the prophet Moses had spoken about when he said The Lord your God will raise up

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for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brethren--him you shall heed"
(Deut.18:15).
Jesus walking on the Water (John 6: 16-21)
This sign happened during the evening after Jesus had fed the five thousand. Jesus sent the
disciples ahead as he was trying to avoid the people who wanted to make him by force. The
disciples wanted to cross over to Capernaum. The wind was against them. It was Passover
time, and that was the time of the full moon (Jn. 6:4). John tells us that when they saw Jesus
the disciples had rowed between three and four miles; that is to say, they were very nearly at
their journey's end. This may make us believe that Jesus was most probably walking on the
seashore and not on the waters.
Jesus heals a man who was born blind (John 9:1-12)
The miracle was performed as Jesus was passing by. The disciples asked Jesus a topical issue
during that time. They asked Jesus their question. "This man," they said, "is blind. Is his
blindness due to his own sin, or to the sin of his parents?" As we have discussed earlier the
Jews connected suffering and sin. They worked on the assumption that wherever there was
suffering or misfortune, somewhere there was sin. This had been the Jewish world view since
the time of Job. Some Jews believed in prenatal sin. This is a theological view that one gets
sin during the formation of the embryo. In the time of Jesus the Jews believed in the pre-
existence of the soul. They really got that idea from Plato and the Greeks. They believed that
all souls existed before the creation of the world in the Garden of Eden, or that they were in
the seventh heaven, or in a certain chamber, waiting to enter into a body. The Greeks had
believed that such souls were good and that it was the entry into the body which
contaminated them; but there were certain Jews who believed that these souls were already
good and bad. In the time of Jesus certain Jews did believe that a man's affliction, even if it
be from birth, might come from sin that he had committed before he was born. There were
other Jews who believed that man's affliction was due to the sin of his parents. The idea that
children inherit the consequences of their parents' sin is woven into the thought of the Old
Testament. God had said "I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the
fathers upon the children to the third and the fourth generation" (Exo.20:5: compare
Exo.34:7, Num.14:18).
In this story Jesus seems to be deviating from the popular belief that misfortune was
associated with sin. He says that this man's affliction came to him to give an opportunity of
showing what God can do. For John the miracles are always a sign of the glory and the power

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of God. The writers of the other gospels had a different point of view; and regarded them as a
demonstration of the compassion of Jesus. When Jesus looked on the hungry crowd he had
compassion on them, because they were as sheep not having a shepherd (Mk.6:34). When the
leper came with his desperate request for cleansing Jesus was moved with compassion
(Mk.1:41). It is often urged that in this the Fourth Gospel is quite different from the others.
Surely there is no real contradiction here. The statement that “as long as iam in the world iam
the light of the world” is a development of the words in the prologue of the gospel of John. In
this miracle we see Jesus using a different approach to healing. He spat on the ground and
smeared the mud on the eyes of the blind man. The use of spittle seems to us strange and
repulsive and unhygienic; but in the ancient world it was quite common. Spittle, and
especially the spittle of some distinguished person, was believed to possess certain curative
qualities. The story shows that Jesus was not detached from the customs and traditions of his
time and he used them. He was a wise physician; he had to gain the confidence of his patient.
The man was sent to the pool of Siloam after Jesus had smeared the spittle on his eyes. The
Pool of Siloam was one of the landmarks of Jerusalem; and it was the result of one of the
great engineering feats of the ancient world. The water supply of Jerusalem had always been
precarious in the event of a siege. It came mainly from the Virgin's Fountain or the Spring
Gihon, which was situated in the Kidron Valley. A staircase of thirty-three rock-cut steps led
down to it; and there, from a stone basin, people drew the water. Siloam means meant sent,
because the water in it had been sent through the conduit into the city. The man went and
washed himself in the pool and he was healed instantly.
The raising of Lazarus from the dead
The miracle happened in the village of Bethany in the house of Mary and Martha. This
chapter shows women in a positive light because they owned a house. This was in contrast to
Jesus; he had no home of his own; he had nowhere to lay his head (Lk.9:58). The name
Lazarus means God is my help, and is the same name as Eleazar. Lazarus fell ill, and the
sisters sent to Jesus a message that it was so. The ladies did not request Jesus to come to
Bethany because they knew that it was unnecessary. Augustine noted this. and said it was
sufficient that Jesus should know; for it is not possible that any man should at one and the
same time love a friend and desert him. When Jesus came to Bethany he knew that whatever
was wrong with Lazarus he had power to deal with it so that the power of God could be seen
when. Jesus heard the news of the sickness of Lazarus remained where he was for two more
days. Barclay posits that commentators have advanced different reasons to explain this delay.

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(i) It has been suggested that Jesus waited so that when he arrived Lazarus would be
indisputably dead. (ii) It has therefore been suggested that Jesus waited because the delay
would make the miracle he proposed to perform all the more impressive. The wonder of
raising to life a man who had been dead for four days would be all the greater. (iii) The real
reason why John tells the story in this way is that he always shows us Jesus taking action
entirely on his own initiative and not on the persuasion of anyone else. In the story of the
turning of the water into wine at Cana of Galilee (Jn. 2:1-11) John shows us Mary coming to
Jesus and telling him of the problem. Jesus' first answer to Mary is: "Don't bother about this.
Let me handle it in my own way." He takes action, not because he is persuaded or compelled
to do so, but entirely on his own initiative. When John tells the story of Jesus' brothers trying
to dare him into going to Jerusalem (Jn. 7:1-10), he shows us Jesus at first refusing to go to
Jerusalem and then going in his own good time. When Jesus finally decided to go to Judea
the disciples were hesitant to go there because they had left Judea unceremoniously.
Jesus’ argument on time was that a day cannot finish before it ends. There are twelve hours in
the day, and they will be played out no matter what happens. The day's period is fixed, and
nothing will shorten or lengthen it. In God's economy of time a man has his day, whether it is
short or long. A man should so spend his precious capital of time and not dissipate it on
useless extravagances, however pleasant, that at the end of each day he is never in debt to
time.
Jesus told his disciples figuratively that Lazarus was sleeping. Sleeping in this context
referred to death. This however was not the first time Jesus using this language. He had used
it when he said that Jairus' daughter was asleep (Matt.9:24); at the end of Stephen's
martyrdom we are told by Luke that he fell asleep (Ac.7:60). Paul speaks about those who
sleep in Jesus (1Th.4:13); and of those witnesses of the Resurrection who are now fallen
asleep (1Cor.15:6).
When Jesus arrived in Bethany they found Lazarus already buried. Jews bury their dead soon
after death because it’s very hot in Palestine. The funerals were also very expensive and all
the extravagancy would be displayed on a funeral. The finest spices and ointments were used
to anoint the body; the body itself was clothed in the most magnificent robes; all kinds of
valuables were buried in the tomb along with the body. When Jesus arrived he found a
sizeable number of mourners in the house of Mary and Martha. It was a sacred duty to come
to express loving sympathy with the sorrowing friends and relations of one who had died.
Jesus told Martha that Lazarus was going to rise again. It seems that Martha was an orthodox

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Jewess because she believed in the afterlife but it must be noted that the Old Testament had
no defined theology concerning the afterlife. Jesus said to her "I am the Resurrection and the
Life," he said. "He who believes in me will live even if he has died; and everyone who lives
and believes in me shall never die." This statement most probably did not refer to the physical
death but to spiritual death. This is so because honestly speaking it is not true that the man
who believes in him will never die. All people die. He probably meant that if a man is dead in
his sin in Jesus he could live again.
When Mary heard from Martha that Jesus had come she rose up quickly to meet him. When
the visitors saw Mary rise quickly and go out, they immediately assumed that she had gone to
visit the tomb of Lazarus. It was the custom, especially for the women, for a week after the
burial to go to the tomb to weep on every possible occasion. Mary's greeting was exactly the
same as that of Martha. If only Jesus had come in time, Lazarus would still be alive. The fact
that Jesus wept brings out his human aspect. It is interesting to know however that the Son of
God could weep and this is beyond belief.
The Palestinian tomb was a natural cave or hewn out of the rock. There was an entrance in
which the bier was first laid. Beyond that was a chamber, usually about six feet long, nine
feet wide and ten feet high. There were usually eight shelves cut in the rock, three on each
side and two on the wall facing the entrance, and on these shelves the bodies were laid. The
bodies were enveloped in linen but the hands and feet were swathed in bandage-like
wrappings and the head was wrapped separately. The tomb had no door, but in front of the
opening ran a groove in which was set a great stone like a cartwheel that was rolled across the
entrance to seal the grave.
When Jesus asked the tomb to be opened Martha pointed out that Lazarus had been in the
tomb for four days. The point is this. It was Jewish belief that the spirit of the departed
hovered around his tomb for four days, seeking an entrance again into his body. But after four
days the spirit finally left for the face of the body was so decayed that it could no longer be
recognized. Jesus commanded Lazarus to come forth and the unthinkable happened he came
out from the grave with the grave cloth still rounded up on his body.
THE IAM SAYINGS IN THE GOSPEL OF JOHN
Old Testament Background of the word I AM
The word iam is first introduced to us on Exodus 3:1-20 when God was replying Moses in the
wilderness. The word is also found on. Isaiah 41:4 and 43:10-13. When God calls Himself
the “I Am” in Exodus 3, it’s a pivotal moment in redemptive history. God reveals Himself to

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His people and comes to redeem them out of exile and lead them into a new life. In using this
expression, Jesus is explicitly identifying himself as God, and bearing God’s presence on
Earth. God’s name discloses who He is and what He is like. He is the I Am, the eternal,
unchanging, self-existent one, infinite and glorious in every way, and above and beyond all
created things. He is God.
When Jesus applies the title “I Am” to himself, he claims to be God (John 8:58). Not a helper
to God or a great teacher, but the divine, eternal, pre-existent, infinite, perfect Being. He is
Israel’s God. He is greater than Moses because he is the God of Moses. He has life in himself
and he can give life to us. The Jews knew taking on this title was making such a claim, which
is why they immediately pick up stones to kill him (8:59).

The seven “I Am” statements in John might best be understood as falling under and echoing
this initial, ultimate claim of Jesus. He is God, and he is the God of Israel. All the OT and
God’s redemptive acts were pointing to the coming of Jesus as the God-in-flesh, the true and
better Israel, and the fulfilment of all the OT types and shadows. Each of these seven “I am”
statements follows a basic pattern. They are written as metaphors in which one of the key
elements is to be Jesus expressed as “I am.” Jesus always provides an explanatory statement
with it, so there is no misunderstanding to its meaning and that it is clear to his listeners.

These metaphorical statements often complement Jesus’ miracles. The statement and a
miracle contribute to the understanding of the other. Each of the miracles is interpreted by the
metaphorical “I am” statement. Each statement is intended to give the miracle meaning for
the ministry of Jesus. They show us that Jesus’ miracles were not just acts of power or mercy,
but actions demonstrating the meaning of his ministry and teaching.

1) I Am the Bread of Life

This is the first of the seven “I am” statement by Jesus. Jesus was in Galilee and had fed the
5000. Jesus left early the next morning and the crowd that was still gathered searched for
Him only to discover that He had crossed over into Capernaum with His disciples. The crowd
asked Him how He had gotten to the other side. He stated to them that they had searched for
Him only to fulfil their physical needs as He had done the day before. He instructed them to
“not work for the food that perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life.” The
crowds then asked Jesus what they must do to get this food and He said that they should

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believe in Him. Ironically, the crowds asked for a sign, the same crowd who had been
miraculously fed just the day before. It is at this point that the crowd recalled the feeding of
the Israelites with manna. However, they had a different outlook, which was to assume the
manna was provided by Moses. Jesus directly rebutted this idea saying “it is not Moses who
has given you the bread out of heaven, but it is My Father who gives you the true bread out of
heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down out of heaven, and gives life to the
world.”6 Jesus had effectively related the experience of the Israelites in Moses’ time as a
symbol of Himself being the source of sustenance, and it is at this point Jesus utters “I am the
bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never
thirst.
There is more to the bread from God than the bread itself (Exodus 16). It’s not earthly bread
but heavenly bread. It comes from above—from God—and comes down to us only by his
grace and goodness. We need more than physical bread and we need it from someone other
than ourselves. God will provide what we need most, and we should raise our eyes in faith.
Jesus takes this Old Testament background to bread for God’s people and he claims to be the
bread of life. He explains the bread in the wilderness of Exodus was only a temporary
provision, and that it points to a true and eternal bread from heaven God would later give.
This bread is now before the Jews. The manna pictures Jesus, who is sent from God, comes
down from heaven, must be taken by faith, who must be eaten/fully taken in, and who gives
life. Jesus pointed out in 6:26-27 that there are two kinds of food: food for the body, which is
necessary but not the most important, and food for the inner man, the spirit, which is
essential. Neither manna on the journey to the Promised Land in Moses’ time (Exodus 16:13-
18) nor loaves in the Promised Land in Jesus’ time (John 6:1-15) could satisfy the core
hunger which Jesus came to satisfy. What the people needed was not food but life, and life is
a gift. Jesus’ contrast was that food only sustains life, but Jesus gives eternal life. Jesus’ bold
declaration “I am the bread of life” connects the miracle of the loaves and the fish, to the
significance of his life purpose. Jesus is the “bread of life” as he nourishes people spiritually
and satisfies the deep spiritual longings of their soul. In that sense, those who trust in him
shall not hunger; their spiritual longing to know God will be satisfied.

2) I Am the Light of the World

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The second “I am” statement certainly fits as you read the eleven verses that come before.
Light is one of the most prominent themes in John’s Gospel. The world is lost and hopeless in
darkness (John 1:4-14). The darkness cannot change its condition. Light must enter and
invade. One cannot see or lead others in the darkness, so light is necessary to guide us and
walk forward. John picks up light from a rich OT heritage and shows how Jesus is the light.
Based upon the fact that in John 8:12 Jesus ties the idea of being the light with his people
following after him in the light, the most likely OT background in mind here is the light of
God’s presence leading Israel in the wilderness via the pillar of fire (Exodus 13-14). Just as
the Israelites were led by the pillar of fire (light) in the exodus and saved from the Egyptians
as they crossed the Red Sea, so also Jesus says those who follow him (light) will have life.

A secondary OT background of the image of light is found in Isaiah 42:6 and 49:6. This light
has to do with the salvation of the nations, and it is probably the primary reference in other
passages like John 12:35-36, 46. By referring to himself as the light, Jesus is making a direct
claim to being the Messiah (see Isaiah 9:2). The teachers of the law and others present in the
temple court would not have mistaken the meaning of his words. Light bears witness to itself.
Every day when the sun rises, it tells you it is there. The only people who cannot see the light
are those who are blind. If we return to the opening statements of the gospel of John, light
and darkness were used as a contrast between belief and unbelief (1:9-13). Jesus was
described as “the true light that gives light to everyone” (1:9). There were many who were
able to see for the first time this day; and there were many who remained blind, no matter
how bright the light.

3) I Am the door or gate

OT Background: Psalms 118:20 (gates = door); Ezekiel 34 and Jeremiah 23 (cf. Isaiah
40:11; Numbers 27:15-18; Micah 5:4)
NT Fulfillment: John 10:1-18
Synopsis: In John 10:1-18, Jesus makes two of the I Am sayings together. He claims he is the
both the door through which the sheep enter as well as the Shepherd who knows the sheep
and lays down his life for them. The metaphor of the door does not have the rich OT
background as shepherding imagery does. But, Jesus is both the only way (door) a person
enters into the people of God and the one who gives his life for the life of sheep, whom he

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knows and protects. He is the one who gathers the sheep and cares for them (shepherd) and
he’s also the means by which they enter and are kept safe (door).
In his final public address recorded within the Gospel of John, Jesus introduces two “I am”
sayings within verses of one another. Growing out of a confrontation with Jewish leaders
following their excommunication of a beggar (John 9), Jesus transitions from the image of
light and darkness to that of a shepherd and sheep. The first statement, “I am the door” may
seem strange, since it is the only inanimate object of all the “I am” sayings. As we reflect on
the image of the door, and the verses that surround it, something profound, insightful and
beautiful happens. For many shepherds, the sheepfold (where sheep slept overnight) was
attached to their home. So, to enter the sheepfold was to come home. It would be hard to find
a more powerful and contrasting analogy following an interaction for a man who was just
kicked out by religious leaders. In keeping with light and darkness, the leaders were not able
to understand the metaphor Jesus was sharing (10:6). They continued to be blind by their
actions and the people they impacted. As “the door” Jesus made it explicitly clear, he is the
only means of coming home to God. He is the only way one can become part of the people of
God. There is no other way. When you go through “the door,” you are home, able to go “in
and out” (10:9), where you find an abundant life, complete with fullness and freedom. What
an incredible metaphor! Especially for a beggar who found himself alone and in need of a
home.
(4) I Am the Good Shepherd
For many of us, the image of a shepherd, which is found throughout the Bible, can bring
confusion since it is not a regular part of our life. For the original listener, a shepherd had
profound cultural and historical implications. Shepherd imagery was common in many parts
of the ancient world, with kings and gods alike described as shepherds. For the Israelites,
shepherds were integral to their origin as a nation and as the people of God (Psalm 23). As
“shepherd” became synonymous with leadership, both political and spiritual, a reference to a
good shepherd would serve as a deliberate and scathing criticism to those in leadership who
were failing those they served. In Ezekiel 34, God reprimands the people he had appointed to
be the spiritual protectors and guides for his people, exclaiming that they had only sought to
care for themselves and had left the people of God vulnerable and unprotected. This
statement resonated again as a beggar who was healed was thrown out by his protectors and
guides. The word translated in English as “good”, in its original language means
“intrinsically good, beautiful, fair.” Not only does Jesus claim that he will be a better guide

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and protector than those who came before him, he is speaking against present leaders. Luke, a
physician and historian who speaks about Jesus’ life, quoted Jesus saying: “[Y] ou load
people down with burdens that they can hardly carry, and you yourselves will not lift one
finger to help them” (Luke 11:46). Jesus is not only the door that welcomes us home to
eternal life, but the one who leads (doesn’t push) us along the way. He gave his life as the
greatest demonstration of his love. As those he loves, we are able to hear his voice and follow
his leadership, knowing he is good. We are not asked to measure up to some impossible
standard or earn his approval. He simply asks us to hear and follow, but that decision is ours
to make. He will not force it upon us. We should recall that Jesus is talking to the Pharisees in
this conversation. The claims to be a good shepherd and Israel’s true shepherd was (in part) a
rebuke against them. As the influential teachers in Israel, they should have led the people to
truth. They should have put the people before themselves. They should serve God’s agenda
rather than their own. But the Pharisees are like the bad shepherds in Ezekiel 34 and Jeremiah
23, leading them astray through false doctrine, prioritizing themselves over the sheep, and
abusing them. Through this metaphor, Jesus at once lumps the Pharisees into the camp of the
false prophets and bad shepherds of the OT while claiming to be the true and good shepherd
those same OT passages promised (Ezek. 34:11-16, 22-24; Jer. 23:3-4).

Jesus comes not to pile burdens on but to relieve them and carry them himself. Jesus comes
not to scatter the sheep but to gather them. Jesus comes not to devour the sheep but to defend
them. Jesus comes to seek out, rescue, heal, and feed the sheep. He will do so because he
loves the sheep and they belong to him. This is proven and accomplished by him giving up
his life for his sheep.

5) I Am the resurrection, and the life

OT Background: Genesis 1-3; Isaiah 53:10
NT Fulfillment: John 11:17-27
As with the other “I am” sayings, this statement occurs in close proximity to a miracle
performed by Jesus. The resurrection of Lazarus is the only one of its kind, and is only
recorded within the book of John. As with the other physical miracles and “I am” sayings,
this spectacular moment points beyond the event itself. The Christian idea of resurrection is
different from Greek and Jewish ideas—the two primary cultural influences in Jesus’ time.
The Greeks thought of the body as a hindrance to true life and they looked forward to the

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time when the soul would be free from its shackles. They firmly rejected the idea of
resurrection (Acts 17:32). The Jewish people believed in resurrection, that the body would be
raised from the dead at the end of time, but without transformation. Something Martha herself
says to Jesus (11:24). At its simplest, resurrection is a return to life; life as it should be and
was originally intended. Resurrection from the dead and genuine eternal life in relationship
with God are so closely tied to Jesus that they are embodied in him and can only be found as
we believe in him. Jesus does not merely say that he will bring about the resurrection or that
he will be the cause of the resurrection (both of which are true), but something much
stronger: I am the resurrection and the life. Jesus says that he has the power lodged in his own
hands, and that even the dead will respond to his voice. Jesus only has to say “Lazarus, come
out!” and “the dead man came out” (11:43-44). This was not a future event, it was a present
reality. Resurrection can be a concept that we can appreciate from afar. We can know its
importance and accept its reality, but never really given time to pondering and sitting with it.
As the resurrection and the life, Jesus is always writing better stories than we could ever pen.
Martha and Mary would soon find this to be true in the most dynamic way. As we continue to
reflect on Easter, so will we. Similar to other I Am statements, Jesus doesn’t just talk about
what he can do or give, but who He is. He doesn’t just give bread (like Moses) but he is the
bread. He doesn’t merely reflect light; he is the light. So also, in John 11, Jesus says I am the
resurrection and the life.
The OT background isn’t as clear here as other statements, but most commentators believe
Genesis 1-3 is partially in view. God is the Creator and Life-giver, granting life to creation
and breathing life into Adam. However, the first Adam chose sin which brought about death
for mankind and brokenness for the creation. Jesus comes as the second Adam, righteous and
blameless in all his ways, comes to undo what Adam did and reverse the curse (Rom. 5:12-
21; 1 Cor. 15). Where Adam brought about death and decay, Jesus gives life and restoration.
He provides not only resurrection and life to individuals who believe in him but for the entire
world.

While many of the Jews wanted things from Jesus without having to receive and believe in
Jesus, the offer of Jesus is himself. He doesn’t give bread and allow people to reject
submission and belief to him, nor does he offer to give life apart from that life being found in
him. These are free and gracious gifts, and they come only in and through Jesus. He is the

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resurrection and the life. He is the 2ndAdam, bringing resurrection and life where the first
Adam offered us only death.
6) I Am the way, the truth, and the life
OT Background: Exodus 26:33; Leviticus 16
NT Fulfillment: John 14:6
Synopsis: It’s likely Jesus is here contrasting himself to the many ways in the OT that God
prescribed for how the Jews could approach and relate to him. The systems of the sacrifices,
temple, the curtain, tabernacle, and other means of worship were temporary “ways” to God.
As the NT makes clear, these things in and of themselves did not cleanse or make people
acceptable to God, but they were avenue by which God’s people could walk in faith and
follow after Him (see Hebrews 8-9).
This section opens and closes with Jesus’ admonition, “Let not your heart be troubled” (John
14:1, 27). It’s not a surprise that Jesus’ friends were troubled. After all, Jesus had announced
that He was going to die, one of them was a traitor and then he warned Peter that he was
going to deny him three times. Perhaps the heaviest blow of all was the realization that Jesus
was going to leave them (John 13:33). Where was he going? Could they go with him? How
could they get where he was going? These were some of the perplexing questions that
tumbled around in their minds and hearts and were tossed back and forth in their conversation
at the table. In comforting his disciples, Jesus gives us an extraordinary summary of who he
is and what he came from heaven to do on our behalf. In an incredibly concise way, it is able
to encapsulate each of the “I am” statements that have come before it. Even though this verse
is most often read at funerals, present relationship, comfort and security with Jesus is being
emphasized more than the future. Jesus is preparing us for life long before we face death.
Jesus does not simply teach the way or point the way; he is the way. In fact, “The Way” was
one of the earliest names for the Christian faith (Acts 9:2). Who better to show us the way
and welcome us home than The Way himself? He is not one version of the truth; Jesus is the
truth. At a time when it can become easy to doubt what is said by most people, Jesus is not
only true in every word he says, he is the personification of truth itself. He is true to all who
trust in him, as true as truth itself. He is not a version of living; Jesus is life itself. By
following him, not only are our troubled hearts put at ease, our confidence increases knowing
he is the initiator, sustainer and keeper of life itself.
Jesus contrasts himself to anything before him they thought led them to the Father. He is the
only one who provides the way to the Father, but he is also at the same time to the full

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revelation of the Father (truth). Jesus is telling them there’s nowhere else to look; nowhere
you need to look or can look to find the true path to God. Jesus is that one way and that one
path. He offers what Israel looked for and needed, and he replaced all prior things set up as
temporary means by which man relates to God. All of these pointed to him and accomplished
limited things (such as only making people ceremonially clean but not truly clean), and he is
now here and able to accomplish salvation and redemption fully.

7) I am the true vine

This is the seventh and last of the “I am” statements of Jesus recorded in the gospel of John.
With this one phrase Jesus presents an extended metaphor (15:1-8) and explains it (15:9-17),
which lies at the very heart of the Farewell Discourse (13:31-16:33)—the last words of Jesus
to his friends. Here in the last I Am statement, Jesus speaks of a vine, a common OT symbol
for Israel (God’s people). The language of the unfruitful branches is tied to Israel as the
desolate vineyard in Isaiah 5, but Jesus says the people of God have life and fruit now by
being in him, as pictured in Isaiah 27:2-6. Jesus is not simply saying Christians are fruitful by
resting in him (though this is true), but he’s making the redemptive-historical claim he is the
new Israel.
Many of us, at one time or another, have walked within the rows of a vineyard. Illustrious
trees and a sprawling landscape are the first images that come to mind. Rarely is it a vine.
Take in for a moment, the great humility of Jesus. One who has already been described as life
itself, the light of the world, our guide home, the door to eternal life, the resurrection, the life,
the way and the truth, is pleased to speak of himself with low and humble comparisons to a
vine. The cultivation of vineyards was central to the life and economy of Israel. Apart from
their use in wine, grapes played an equally important role in the Palestinian diet. As we have
seen from the other “I am” statements, Jesus was not introducing something new; it was
familiar to every listener. The centrality of vineyards to Jewish life is a comparison of Jesus’
centrality in our lives. He is the center of our faith—the source of our life. The symbolism of
the vine and branches is similar to that of the head and the body; we have a living relationship
with Jesus and belong to him. We are unable to live on substitutes! If Jesus is the true vine,
the implication is that there are false vines that we can, or may be, connected to and continue
in. As the true vine, Jesus encourages us to “live, remain and make your home in me.” This
invites us to having an ongoing, active connection to Jesus. In the same way a vineyard is
able to produce the finest quality fruit as it is cared for and tended, we too are able to produce

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“fruit” that reflects our connection to Jesus (Galatians 5:22-23). We become even more like
him.
He both fulfills Israel’s destiny (because Israel never could) and is the one in whom the
people of God find true, flourishing, fruitful life. He is the true and better Israel, succeeding
where they failed, bringing flourishing life and fruit where they dried out and offered nothing
on the vine.

THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS

THE KINGDOM OF GOD
Introduction
The phrase kingdom of Gold is one of the phrases that were commonly used by Jesus in the
New Testament, especially by the Gospel writers. The chapter is going to look at the nature
of the Kingdom of God, whether it is political or religious and whether it is futuristic or
realized.
The Kingdom of God
The expression Kingdom of God is found in sixty one separate sayings in the synoptic
Gospels. It occurs thrice in John. Mathew used Kingdom of Heaven. Mark or Luke uses both
kingdom of God and Kingdom of Heaven. Beasley-Murray (1992) has it that the term
"kingdom" in Hebrew is malkut, Aramaic uses jnalku and Greek term is basileia. These terms
mean the same as kingship or sovereignty. Curiously enough, the same is true of the English
word "kingdom." Its primary meaning in English is “the authority and power of a king, not
the country ruled or the people ruled by a king”. The Oxford English Dictionary quotes a
statement of Hobbes in the seventeenth century, in which he defined monarchy as a form of
government "which, if he limit it by law, is called Kingdom; if by his own will, Tyranny."
Kingdom thus is viewed as the lawful exercise of royal power, as over against tyranny, the
unjust use of such authority. That is in accordance with its meaning in the Bible.
It is prudent therefore to explain the nature of this kingdom that is referred to in the bible. Is it
a political kingdom or a religious kingdom? According to Beasley-Murray (1992) in the New
Testament (NT) as a whole, the kingdom of God has specific reference to the fulfillment of
the promises of God in the Old Testament, of the time when God puts forth his royal power
to end injustice and oppression by this world's evil powers and to establish his rule of
righteousness, peace and joy for humanity, in a word, to fulfill his purpose in creating the
world. So what it means is that the Kingdom of God is not to be understood as a “realm”

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existing in some place such as the “starry heaven” above but as God’s rule or ruling in
people’s hearts. The kingdom of God means the use of power in “mighty deeds,” such as the
exodus from bondage in Egypt (cf. “Song of the Sea” in Exodus 15:1-18). One of the
passages that are used to argue that the kingdom of God referred to in the bible is not political
is Luke 17:20-21, “the kingdom of God is within you’. The kingdom has been interpreted as
the inner rule of God in the heart of man. It was God’s spiritual reign in the life of the
believer that results in an inner moral ethic. The phrase is so central in the teaching of Jesus.
The phrase is first introduced in the New Testament during the ministry of John the Baptist.
(Mathew 3:2)
Politically the Jews were looking forward to a time when God was going to liberate them
from their enemies. According to this view Jesus was a political revolutionary who sought to
arm his disciples (Luke 22:35-38), entered into Jerusalem on a Palm Sunday as a king (Mark
11:11), urged people to rebel by not paying taxes (Mk 12:13-17), enlisted Zealots as disciples
(Mark 3:18), was crucified as a political rebel (MK 15:26) between two rebels (Mk 15:27).
This argument however has few supporters but remains relevant. The presence of a tax
collector among his disciples is impossible to explain if Jesus was a revolutionary and hated
by the zealots. Such teachings on peace on Mathew 5:9 and loving your enemies do not
permit an interpretation of a revolutionary Jesus.
A cursory survey of the New Testament shows that Jesus understood the Kingdom in two
ways; that is, as futuristic and as here and now. In this chapter we are going to put our focus
in the engagement in the whole convoluted debate about whether the kingdom as preached by
Jesus was already present and “realized,” or was still futuristic but imminent, or somehow
both present and future (cf. W.G. Kummel, Promise and Fulfilment).

The Kingdom of God as futuristic

According to Campbell (2002) Jesus’ teaching seems to indicate that he too, like other Jews,
saw the Kingdom of God in the future, when the son of man would come with the angels, and
gather together his elect from the four winds. In the Gospels two crucial passages suffice to
illustrate what he taught of the future coming of the kingdom, namely, the Lord's Prayer and
the beatitudes. In the Lord’s Prayer Jesus taught his disciples to pray “your kingdom come”
(Luke 11:2). Beasley-Murray (1992) has it that the beatitudes of Jesus, set by Matthew at the
beginning of the sermon on the mount, also primarily have in view the future kingdom, when
God shall give to the redeemed of humanity the "blessedness", that is, the happiness of his

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kingdom. They are not in the first instance calls for ethical behavior but proclamation of the
gospel. And they relate not to the present but to the future manifestation of the kingdom. This
is depicted when Mathew says “theirs is the kingdom of heaven”. Furthermore one cannot be
wrong to argue that the parable of the great banquet shows that the messianic kingdom would
be spurned by those first invited and enjoyed by social outcast. The parable of and goats
(Mathew 25:31-45) show that there is going to be separation in the kingdom of God when the
sheep would be separated from goats during the end of times. Jesus’ saying that “not
everyone who says to me Lord Lord will enter the kingdom of God” must refer to a future
event, for he continues “many will say to me on that day…..” (Mathew 7:21-23). Jesus’
institution of the last supper also looks forward to “that day when I drink it in the Kingdom of
God” Mathew 14:25). Schweitzer believed that Jesus was proclaiming the near approach of a
supernatural kingdom which would be established in the lifetime of his hearers. He further
alludes that the more Jesus prayed about the Kingdom of God to come the more the Kingdom
did not come. He concluded that Jesus was a man of good intentions but with mistaken ideas.
According to Ewbank (1998) Jeremias refined this theory that the Kingdom was a present
reality. For him the Kingdom had appeared but had not been realized in its full strength. The
Kingdom would reveal itself completely and be invested with power only through his death
and resurrection.

The Kingdom of God as Present

The other view that comes out after reading the sayings of Jesus in the gospels shows that he
understood the Kingdom of God as a present real reality. This position was firstly advocated
for by C.H Dodd. Ewbank (1996) has it that Dodd was influential in teaching that the
eschatological kingdom had been realized in the person of Jesus. The end time had already
arrived and manifesting itself in Jesus’s miracles. Miracles are a clear testimony that the
kingdom of God was here and now. Jesus’ reply to the accusation that he was casting out
demons in the name of Beelzebub has been used by scholars as evidence that he understood
the Kingdom of God as here and now. Jesus said “if i it is by the spirit of God that i cast out
demons, then the Kingdom of God has come upon you” (Mathew 12:28). This passage shows
that God’s kingdom defined as Jesus’ exercise of His power over unclean.

The labourers in the vineyard

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The parable of the labourers in the vineyard is one of the parables that give us a glimpse of
the teaching of Jesus about the kingdom. It is a parable of the kingdom. Before we look at the
meaning of the parables let us look at some historical facts.

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The parable describes the kind of thing that frequently happened at certain times in Palestine.
The grapes ripened towards the end of September, and then close on its heels the rains came.
If the harvest was not ingathered before the rains broke, then it was ruined; and so to get the
harvest in was a frantic race against time. Any worker was welcome, even if he could give
only an hour to the work. The pay was perfectly normal; a denarius or a drachma was the
normal day's wage for a working man. The men who were standing in the market-place were
not street-corner idlers, lazing away their time. The market-place was the equivalent of the
labour exchange. A man came there first thing in the morning, carrying his tools, and waited
until someone hired him. The men who stood in the market-place were waiting for work, and
the fact that some of them stood on until even five o'clock in the evening is the proof of how
desperately they wanted it. The hours in the parable were the normal Jewish hours. The
Jewish day began at sunrise, 6 a.m., and the hours were counted from then until 6 p.m., when
officially the next day began. Counting from 6 a.m. therefore, the third hour is 9. The parable
is a lesson to the disciples ad the Jews about the kingdom of god. It is in one sense a warning
to the disciples. It is as if Jesus said to them, "You have received the great privilege of
coming into the Christian Church and fellowship very early, right at the beginning. In later
days others will come in. You must not claim a special honour and a special place because
you were Christians before they were. All men, no matter when they come, are equally
precious to God." There are people who think that, because they have been members of a
Church for a long time, the Church practically belongs to them and they can dictate its policy.
Such people resent what seems to them the intrusion of new blood or the rise of a new
generation with different plans and different ways. In the Christian Church seniority does not
necessarily mean honour.
(ii) There is an equally definite warning to the Jews. They knew that they were the chosen
people, nor would they ever willingly forget that choice. As a consequence they looked down
on the Gentiles. Usually they hated and despised them, and hoped for nothing but their
destruction. This attitude threatened to be carried forward into the Christian Church. If the
Gentiles were to be allowed into the fellowship of the Church at all, they must come in as
inferiors. a.m., the sixth hour is twelve midday, and the eleventh hour is 5 p.m.
Here also is the generosity of God. These men did not all do the same work; but they did
receive the same pay. There are two great lessons here. The first is, as it has been said, "All
service ranks the same with God." It is not the amount of service given, but the love in which
it is given which matters.

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God does not look on the amount of our service. So long as it is all we have to give, all
service ranks the same with God.
The second lesson is even greater--all God gives is of grace. We cannot earn what God gives
us; we cannot deserve it; what God gives us is given out of the goodness of his heart; what
God gives is not pay, but a gift; not a reward, but a grace.
(vi) Surely that brings us to the supreme lesson of the parable--the whole point of work is the
spirit in which it is done. The servants are clearly divided into two classes. The first came to
an agreement with the master; they had a contract; they said, "We work, if you give us so
much pay." As their conduct showed, all they were concerned with was to get as much as
possible out of their work. But in the case of those who were engaged later, there is no word
of contract; all they wanted was the chance to work and they willingly left the reward to the
master.
The parable of talents (Mathew 25:14-30)
The parable of the talents is another parable that talks about the kingdom of God and also
reveals the nature of God. The talent was not a coin, it was a weight; and therefore its value
obviously depended on whether the coinage involved was copper, gold or silver. The
commonest metal involved was silver; and the value of a talent of silver was about 240
British pounds. It is on that basis that we have made the translations of the various sums.
From the parable one can see that the useless servant is the Pharisees and the scribes. The
servant kept his talent in order that he might give it to his master. For him he did not bother
whether there was interest or not.
This was exactly what the Pharisees desired. According to Barclay the `Whole aim of the
Scribes and Pharisees was to keep the Law exactly as it was. In their own phrase, they sought
"to build a fence around the Law." Any change, any development, any alteration, anything
new was to them anathema. Their method involved the paralysis of religious truth.
The parable shows us that people in the kingdom of God are given different gifts which they
are supposed to utilize. What matters is not the talent that a man was given but how one
utilizes it.
The parable of the Sower (Mark 4:1-20)
This parable was given when Jesus as on the lake side. The sea was probably the sea of
Galilee. In this section we see Jesus making a new departure. He was no longer teaching in
the synagogue; he was teaching by the lakeside. He had made the orthodox approach to the
people; now he had to take unusual methods. When Jesus used the parabolic method of

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teaching, he was using a method with which the Jews were familiar and which they could
understand. Still further, when Jesus used the parabolic method of teaching he was making
the abstract idea concrete. The parable is about a farmer who went to sow his seed in the
field. The farmer used broadcasting method as a method of applying seed. The seed fell on
the path, thorns , rocky ground and good soil. The seed in the pable represents the word of
God and the farmer represents preachers and evangelists. The parable shows that the
effectiveness of the word of God depends on the heart which receives it. The ground where
the seed fell are:
i. The path-There was the hard ground at the side of the road. The seed might fall on
this kind of ground in two ways. The fields in Palestine were in the form of long,
narrow strips; these strips were divided by little grass paths, which were rights of
way; the result was that they became beaten as hard as stone by the feet of those who
used them. As the sower scattered his seed some might well fall there; and there it had
not a chance to grow. The seed that fell on the path represents people who hear the
word of God and immediately Satan comes and takes it away.
ii. There was the rocky ground. This was not ground full of stones; it was a narrow skin
of earth over a shelf of limestone rock. Much of Galilee was like that. In many fields
the outcrop of the rock through the shallow soil could be seen. Seed which fell there
germinated all right; but because the soil was so shallow and held so little
nourishment and moisture, the heat of the sun soon withered the sprouting seed and it
died. The seed that fell on this type of soil represents people who hear the word of
God with joy , and they have no root in themselves, but endure for a little while, then
when trials and tribulation comes on account of the word they fall away.
iii. There was the ground that was full of thorns. The Palestinian farmer was lazy. He cut
off the top of the fibrous rooted weeds; he even burned off the top; and the field might
look clean; but below the surface the roots were still there; and in due time the weeds
revived in all their strength. They grew with such rapidity and such virulence that they
choked the life out of the seed. The seed which fell on this ground represents those
who hear the word of God but the cares of the world , and the delight in riches, and
the desire for other things, enter in and choke the word and it proves unfruitful.
iv. There was the good, clean, deep soil in which the seed flourished. This represents
people who receive the word of God and accept it and bears fruit, thirtyfold and
sixtyfold and hundredfold.

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The parable of the seed growing secretly (Mark 4:26-29)
This is the only parable which Mark alone relates to us. The parable most probably comes
from the Marcan source. The Kingdom of God really means the reign of God; it means the
day when God's will will be done as perfectly in earth as it is in heaven. That is the goal of
God for the whole universe. This parable is short but it is filled with unmistakable truths. It
tells us of the helplessness of man. The farmer does not make the seed grow. In the last
analysis he does not even understand how it grows. It has the secret of life and of growth
within itself. No man has ever possessed the secret of life; no man has ever created anything
in the full sense of the term. Man can discover things; he can rearrange them; he can develop
them; but create them he cannot. We do not create the Kingdom of God; the Kingdom is
God's. It is true that we can frustrate it and hinder it; or we can make a situation in the world
where it is given the opportunity to come more fully and more speedily. But behind all things
is God and the power and will of God.
Secondly it tells us something about the Kingdom. It is a notable fact that Jesus so often uses
illustrations from the growth of nature to describe the coming of the Kingdom of God.
(a) The parable shows that nature's growth is often imperceptible. If we see a plant every
day we cannot see its growth taking place. It is only when we see it, and then see it
again after an interval of time that we notice the difference. It is so with the Kingdom.
There is not the slightest doubt that the Kingdom is on the way if we compare, not to-
day with yesterday, but this century with the century which went before.
(b) The parable teaches us that nature's growth is inevitable. There is nothing as powerful
as growth. A tree can split a concrete pavement with the power of its growth. A weed
can push its green head through an asphalt path. Nothing can stop growth. It is so with
the Kingdom. In spite of man's rebellion and disobedience, God's work goes on; and
nothing in the end can stop the purposes of God.
(c) It tells us that there is a consummation. There is a day when the harvest comes.
Inevitably when the harvest comes two things happen--which are opposite sides of the
same thing. The good fruit is gathered in, and the weeds and the tares are destroyed.
Harvest and judgment go hand in hand. When we think of this coming day three
things are laid upon us.
The parable of the mustard seed (Mark 4:31-32)
This parable is about growth. First, in Palestine a grain of mustard seed stood proverbially for
the smallest possible thing. For instance, "faith as a grain of mustard seed," means "the

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smallest conceivable amount of faith." This mustard seed did in fact grow into something
very like a tree. Second, in the Old Testament one of the commonest ways to describe a great
empire was to describe it as a tree, and the tributary nations within it were said to be like
birds finding shelter within the shadow of its branches (Eze.17:22ff; Eze.31:1ff; Dn.4:10;
Dn.4:21). The figure of a tree with birds in the branches therefore stands for a great empire
and the nations who form part of it. The parable shows that there is gradual growth in the
kingdom of God. The church began with an individual and it is meant to end with the world.
The church is an empire in which all kinds of opinions and all kinds of theologies can find a
place.
Receiving the kingdom like a child (Mark 10:13-16)
This incident happened after Jesus teaching on divorce and re-marriage. The women who
brought their children to Jesus may have heard the teaching, and felt that here was a rabbi
who recognised a woman’s need for security and a permanent home. Jesus encouraged those
who wanted to enter the kingdom of God to have children like qualities. This teaching was
given after certain women brought their children to Jesus so that he could bless them. It was
natural that Jewish mothers should wish their children to be blessed by a great and
distinguished Rabbi. Especially they brought their children to such a person on their first
birthday. It was in this way that they brought the children to Jesus on this day. The disciples
rebuked them. The disciples were not boorish and ungracious men. They simply wanted to
protect Jesus. Jesus told them that the kingdom of God belonged to such. What is it about the
child that Jesus liked and valued so much? The children belonged to the kingdom because of
their humility, obedience, trust and forgiving hearts. Children do not bear grudges.
Jesus and the Richman (Mark 10:17-31
Jesus; encounter with this man happened when Jesus was walking down the road. The man
came to Jesus running. This vivid picture portrays here suggest that the gospel was written
from an eye witness point of view. The man was one of the rich aristocracies of Israel but
surprisingly he was young. Falling at Jesus’ feet suggest the humility that this young man
approached Jesus with. The young man flattered Jesus by referring to him as “good teacher’.
The young man had kept all the commandments and so he thought he had met all the
requirements for entering into the Kingdom of God. It is interesting to note that all the
commandments that this man had kept were negative commandments. Jesus gave him a new
challenge to go and sell everything he had and give to the poor. The man could not do it. He
had great possessions, which it had never entered his head to give away and when it was

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suggested to him he could not. The twelve were surprised that anything could be hard for the
rich, both because they themselves were poor, and many Jews regarded riches as a special
blessing bestowed by God. It must be noted here that Jesus did not say that wealth as wrong,
but that wealth makes entry into the kingdom of God difficult. The owner of wealth is open to
a lot of temptations such as greed, selfishness and indulgence. The apostles were exceedingly
astonished because Jesus was seemingly turning accepted Jewish standards completely upside
down. Popular Jewish morality was simple. It believed that prosperity was the sign of a good
man. If a man was rich, God must have honoured and blessed him. Wealth was proof of
excellence of character and of favour with God. The statement that it is easier for a Carmel to
go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God should not be
taken literally . This was a vivid way of describing something impossible. According to
Campbell other explanations given to this statement are that there was a small gate into
Jerusalem called ‘the needle’s eye’ through which a laden Carmel could not go. The
statement may have developed from Jesus’ teaching that people laden with riches found the
entry into the kingdom of God difficult. Luke suggests that the young man as a ruler,
probably of a local synagogue.
The Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55)
Mary’s song of praise was given when Mary greeted Elizabeth. The Magnificat is saturated in
the Old Testament; and is especially similar to Hannah's song of praise in 1Sam.2:1-10. It is
one revolutionary verses of the New Testament. The verses teach about the hope of Israel and
that the poor will be lifted up and the mighty will be brought low. The statement he scatters
the proud in the plans of their hearts suggests that in the Kingdom God does not want those
who are proud. The statement He has filled those who are hungry.. those who are rich he has
sent empty away suggest that God humbles the rich. This is an economic revolution. A non-
Christian society is an acquisitive society where each man is out to amass as much as he can
get. A Christian society is a society where no man dares to have too much while others have
too little, where every man must get only to give away.
The Kingdom and Judgement (Luke 10:8-12)
These verses suggest that there is judgement in the Kingdom of God. The verses were given
by Jesus when he was instructing the seventy evangelists how they were supposed to react
when their gospel was not well received. The preacher according to the instructions given by
Jesus must not be in the work for what he can get out of it; he is to eat what is put before him
and must not move from house to house seeking better and more comfortable quarters. That

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would not make them false teachers. In those days there were prophets who wandered from
town to town. It is laid down that if a prophet wishes to stay in a place for more than three
days without working he is a false prophet; and if a prophet in the Spirit asks for money or a
meal he is a false prophet! The labourer is worthy of his hire, but the servant of a crucified
Master cannot be a seeker for luxury. The evangelists were also supposed to heal those whom
they met on the road. Their message was to be urgent-The kingdom of God has come near
you. If the towns they visited would not listen to them, they should solemnly wipe the dust
off their feet before leaving. This would mean that these towns, though Israelite would be
reckoned as heathen- even worse than Sodom which was considered to be worst city ever to
exist.
The goodness of God (Luke 11:9-13)
These words were said within the context of the parable of the parable of the friend at mid
night. These words which are given in poetic form talk about the goodness of God. If human
fathers with their badness can provide their children with good what more about God who is
perfect.
The parable of the lost Sheep (Luke 15:3-7)
The parable was given by Jesus when the Pharisees and scribes complained to Jesus when
they saw tax collector and sinners drawing near to him to hear the word of God. According to
Barclay it was an offence to the scribes and Pharisees that Jesus associated with men and
women who, by the orthodox, were labelled as sinners. The Pharisees gave to people who did
not keep the law a general classification. They called them the People of the Land; and there
was a complete barrier between the Pharisees and the People of the Land. To marry a
daughter to one of them was like exposing her bound and helpless to a lion. The Pharisaic
regulations laid it down, "When a man is one of the People of the Land, entrust no money to
him, take no testimony from him. Trust him with no secret, do not appoint him guardian of an
orphan, do not make him the custodian of charitable funds, do not accompany him on a
journey." A Pharisee was forbidden to be the guest of any such man or to have him as his
guest. He was even forbidden, so far as it was possible, to have any business dealings with
him. It was the deliberate Pharisaic aim to avoid every contact with the people who did not
observe the petty details of the law.
The shepherd in the story was not a wealthy man because he had only a hundred sheep- a
medium sized flock which he looked after himself without the help of a night watchman. The
shepherd was personally responsible for the sheep. If a sheep was lost the shepherd must at

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least bring home the fleece to show how it had died. These shepherds were experts at tracking
and could follow the straying sheep's footprints for miles across the hills. There was not a
shepherd for whom it was not all in the day's work to risk his life for his sheep. The parable
shows that there is joy in heaven if one sinner repents. God is as glad when a lost sinner is
found as a shepherd is when a strayed sheep is brought home.
The parable of the lost coin (Luke 15:8-10)
The woman in this parable must have been much poorer than the shepherd. The ten silver
coins were used as a decoration of the head dress which was part of her marriage gift. She
had only ten when others had hundred –gold as well as silver. The coin in question in this
parable was a silver drachma worth about 4 pence. It would not be difficult to lose a coin in a
Palestinian peasant's house and it might take a long search to find it. The houses were very
dark, for they were lit by one little circular window not much more than about eighteen
inches across. The floor was beaten earth covered with dried reeds and rushes; and to look for
a coin on a floor like that was very much like looking for a needle in a haystack. The woman
swept the floor in the hope that she might see the coin glint or hear it tinkle as it moved. God,
said Jesus, is like that. The joy of God, and of all the angels, when one sinner comes home, is
like the joy of a home when a coin which has stood between them and starvation has been
lost and is found; it is like the joy of a woman who loses her most precious possession, with a
value far beyond money, and then finds it again.
The parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32)
Professor Joachim Jeremias has suggested a better name for this parable. He calls it ‘The
Fathers’ love”. This is due to the fact that the real theme in this parable is the unconditional
love of the father as contrasted to the ungracious attitude of the elder brother. Under Jewish
law a father was not free to leave his property as he liked. The elder son must get two-thirds
and the younger one-third. (Deut.21:17.) It was by no means unusual for a father to distribute
his estate before he died, if he wished to retire from the actual management of affairs. But
there is a certain heartless callousness in the request of the younger son. He said in effect,
"Give me now the part of the estate I will get anyway when you are dead, and let me get out
of this." The father did not argue. He knew that if the son was ever to learn he must learn the
hard way; and he granted his request. Without delay the son realized his share of the property
and left home. He soon ran through the money; and he finished up feeding pigs, a task that
was forbiddento a Jew because the law said, "Cursed is he who feeds swine." The son came
back to his senses and this might mean that he introspected himself and realised that what he

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was doing was not correct and decided to go back to his father. His father saw him from afar
and ran to meet him. This shows his father’s love. Despite hat the son had done he continued
to love him. The father instructed the younger brother to bring the robe which stands for
honour; the ring for authority, for if a man gave to another his signet ring it was the same as
giving him the power of attorney; the shoes for a son as opposed to a slave, for shoes were
the sign of freedom. And a feast was made that all might rejoice at the wanderer's return.
1.2.2 MINISTRY TO MARGINALISED PEOPLE
Jesus calls Levi (Mark 2:13-17)

PAPER 2 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIANITY

2.1 THE ORIGINS AND EXPANSION OF THE EARLY CHURCH
2.1.1 The Christian community in Jerusalem
The book of Acts starts by showing Jesus on the Mount of Olivet promising his disciples the
Holy Spirit. He commanded them to wait until they were clothed with the power from the on
high. The apostles returned from mount Olivet and went to the Upper Room where they were
praying, breaking bread and fellowshipping. The Leader of the group during this time was
Peter. Peter presided over the election of the twelfth apostle who would replace Judas who
had killed himself as a result of the remorse of participating in the killing of Jesus. They
turned to the Old Testament method of knowing God’s will which is the casting of lots. The
reason why they used lots was because they had not yet received the Holy Spirit. The method
became irrelevant after the coming of the Holy Spirit, as they were now guided by Him.

Pentecost: The Birth of the Church

This event in earnest marked the beginning of the early church. The Ancient Jews had four
festivals that were very important to them and these were the feast of tabernacles, the
Passover feast, the feast of Pentecost and lastly the Day of Atonement. In most cases Jews
would travel from most parts of the Roman Empire and the Jewish Nation to the temple in
Jerusalem so as to attend these festivals. The feast of Pentecost or the feast of harvest
happened fifty days after the Passover feast. On this feast the Jews would go to the temple to
offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving to God for a bumper harvest. It happened on this particular
feast of Pentecost that the Holy Spirit that Jesus had promised to his disciples came. The little
company in the Upper room heard a sound of a mighty wind which filled the whole house.
They also saw tongues of fire resting on each one of them and they started to speak in other

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tongues. This chapter is the one that makes scholars to associate the Holy Spirit with wind,
fire and glossolalia. Those who had come from various parts of the Roman Empire heard
them speaking in their own native languages and were surprised. They could not explain the
phenomenon and concluded that the believers were drunk. Peter stood up and explained to
them that they were not drunk as they suppose because a Jewish day began at 6am but it was
the fulfilment of the Old Testament prophecy of Joel. This passage shows the relationship
between the Old and New Testament. About three thousand people were added to the church
that day.

The content structure of the Peter’s preaching in Acts

The word Kerygma is used to refer to the preaching and proclamation of the Gospel by the
early church. This comes from the Greek word to act as a herald. The first kerygma is given
by Peter after the Pentecost event. When the onlookers saw them speaking in tongues they
concluded that they were drunk. Peter had to defend them. His sermon made the following
points.

i. The Old Testament has been fulfilled and the Messianic age has been inaugurated.
Acts 2:16-21 as well as 1chapter 10:43 attest to this. Old Testament prophets like
Isaiah and Joel had spoken about the Day of the Lord. It must be noted that Jews in
those days were eagerly looking forward for this day when God would defeat their
enemies. They divided all time into two ages. There was The Present Age which was
utterly evil and doomed to destruction; there was The Age to Come which would be
the golden age of God. Between the two there was to be The Day of the Lord which
was to be the terrible birth pangs of the new age. It would come suddenly like a thief
in the night; it would be a day when the world would be shaken to its very
foundations; it would be a day of judgment and of terror. Peter explained that the
coming of the Holy Spirit was full attestation that the day had arrived.
ii. Jesus was the Messiah. In Him the promises of God had been fulfilled and the Age to
come had begun.(Vs 22)
iii. He came from the royal house David and did mighty works, but by a conspiracy of
wicked men was crucified and killed. (Vs 22-3) Acts is out to prove that the sufferings
and death of Christ were the fulfilment of prophecy. The earliest preachers had to do
that. To the Jew the idea of a crucified Messiah was incredible. Their law said, "A
hanged man is accursed by God" (Deut.21:23). To the orthodox Jew the Cross made it
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 completely impossible that Jesus could be the Messiah. The early preachers answered,
"If you would only read your scriptures rightly you would see that all was foretold."
iv. But God raised him from the dead and made him Lord and Christ. (vs 36) Acts
stresses the resurrection as the final proof that Jesus was indeed God's Chosen One.
Acts has been called The Gospel of the Resurrection. To the early Church the
resurrection was all-important. We must remember this--without the resurrection there
would have been no Christian Church at all. When the disciples preached the
centrality of the resurrection they were arguing from experience.
v. All this was in agreement with the Old Testament scriptures. (Vs 25)
vi. Therefore people should repent of their wrong doing, have faith, be baptized and
receive the Holy Spirit. Repentance must involve both change of mind and change of
action.

Peter’s speech in Cornelius’ house (Acts 10:34-43)

After having looked at the contents and structure of Peter’s speech at Pentecost let us no look
at the speech that he gave at Caesarea in the house of Cornelius the Roman army commander.
The speech of Peter made several points which are:

i. Jesus was anointed by God with the Holy Spirit and power.
ii. He did great works, but was hung on a tree (ie crucified)
iii. God raised him from death on the third day.
iv. Peter and other Christians were witnesses to the work of Jesus both before his
resurrection (v39) and after (vs41)
v. This was according to the Old Testament scriptures (Vs 43)
vi. People should believe in him and receive the forgiveness of their sins. The
forgiveness of sins as for everyone(Jews and Gentiles)

Key features of the life and worship in the church in Jerusalem

If we look in the Acts of the Apostles we can get a glimpse of how the early church lived and
also a picture of how they worshipped. In several passages sin Acts we have a kind of
lightning summary of the characteristics of the early Church. The early church was:
(i) Prayer (Acts 1:13-14)
This passage shows that the early church was characterised by prayer. It was a praying
Church. These early Christians knew that they could not meet life in their own strength and
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that they did not need to. They always went in to God before they went out to the world; they
were able to meet the problems of life because they had first met him. These prayers were
regular prayers which they made in the temple.
Acts 2:41-47
This passage gives us several points concerning life in the early church and these are:
(ii) It was a learning Church; it persisted in listening to the apostles as they taught. The
church devoted itself to the teachings of the apostles. The new believers ere to be
instructed in their faith if they were to progress.
(iii) It was a Church of fellowship; it had what someone has called the great quality of
togetherness. They broke bread when they met. The breaking of bread was a
continuation of the common meal, which Jesus had made so memorable at the Last
supper. These later developed into Holy Communion or the Lord’s Supper. This
fostered their fellowship.
(iv) It was a reverent Church-in Ac.2:43 the word which the King James Version
correctly translates fear has the idea of awe in it. It was said of a great Greek that he
moved through this world as if it were a temple. The Christian lives in reverence
because he knows that the whole earth is the temple of the living God.
(v) It was a Church where things happened--signs and wonders were there (Ac.2:43). If
we expect great things from God and attempt great things for God things happen.
More things would happen if we believed that God and we together could make
them happen.
(vi) It was a sharing Church (Ac.2:44-45); these early Christians had an intense feeling
of responsibility for each other. The believers sold their possessions and distributed
the proceeds amongst themselves.
(vii) It was a worshipping Church (Ac.2:46); they never forgot to visit God's house. We
must remember that "God knows nothing of solitary religion." Things can happen
when we come together. God's Spirit moves upon his worshipping people.
(viii) It was a happy Church (Ac.2:46); gladness was there. A gloomy Christian is a
contradiction in terms.
(ix) Healing ministry: The Healing of the Lame Man

The early church was characterized by a healing ministry. The healing of the lame man at the
beautiful gate is a testimony that the church had healing as its chief characteristics. The story
shows the importance of the Holy Spirit in the Church. Peter and John went to the temple at
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the ninth hour which means it was 3 pm in the afternoon. They were still observing Jewish
practices which mean the church at this stage was still a carbon copy of Judaism. The lame
man was carried by his relatives to the beautiful gate so that he could ask alms to the temple
attendants. The church leaders healed him showing a positive attitude towards people with
disability. The healing led to much joy and commotion to the people. The people were filled
with amazement and again could not explain the source of the power. Peter again had to
explain to the people that it was not by their own mighty that the man had been made well,
but it was as a result of the belief in the death and resurrection of Jesus that the man had been
made well.

(x) The communism of the early church (Acts 4:32-37)

The believers were of one accord and they sold property and gave all the money to the church
where a common purse of the needy had been opened. This has been referred to as the
communism of the early church. The giving described on this passage was sporadic giving,
and it was not compulsory sharing. Even when property was sold the money was under the
control of the owner as to whether or not he gave it to the common purse of the need. This
type of life was enabled by the Holy Spirit. Barnabas is one of the early church leaders who
sold his field and gave all the money to the church setting a good example of a responsible
Christian.

The Healing Ministry Acts 5:12-17

Here is a cameo-like picture of what went on in the early Church. (i) It tells us where the
Church met. Their meeting-place was Solomon's colonnade, one of the two great colonnades
which surrounded the Temple area. The early Christians were constant in their attendance at
the House of God, desiring ever to know God better and to draw upon his strength for life and
living. (ii) It tells us how the Church met. The early Christians assembled where everyone
could see them. They knew what had happened to the apostles and what might well happen to
them; but they were determined to show all men whose they were and where they stood. (iii)
It tells us that the early Church was a supremely effective Church. Things happened. The
days when the healing ministry of the Church was in the forefront of its work are past,
although they may well return. But the Church still exists to make bad men good; and men
will always throng to a Church where lives are changed.

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This passage closes with a reference to those troubled by unclean spirits. The ancient people
attributed all disease to the agency of such spirits. The Egyptians, for instance, believed that
the body could be divided into separate parts and that every part could be inhabited by an evil
spirit. Often they believed that these evil spirits were the spirits of wicked people who had
departed this life but were still carrying on their malignant work.

The Appointment of Deacons: Stephen and Philip

The church continued to grow despite facing a lot of persecution from the Jews. The growth
of the church caused some problems and conflicts. The Hellenists (Jews who had gone
outside Palestine and returned) felt that their widows were being neglected in the daily
distribution of food. There was probably tribalism and nepotism in the distribution of food.
The Hellenists went and complained to the apostles who solved the conflict by appointing
deacons who would superintend over the daily distribution of food at the church. The church
appointed seven men, Stephen, Phillip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas and Nicolaus
who was a proselyte (a full convert to Judaism) from Antioch. These men were supposed to
be of good repute, full of wisdom and the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit was a qualification for
one to hold an important position in the Church. Stephen and Philip were different from
others in the sense that they did not only wait to serve tables but they went an extra mile and
started to preach the word of God and performing miracles.

The conflict between Jewish and Christian communities

Peter and John before the Sanhedrin (Acts 4:1-22)

The healing of the lame man courted controversy from various people in Jerusalem. The man
whom the King James Version calls the captain of the Temple was an official called the
Sagan. He was the High Priest's right-hand man. In particular he had the oversight of the
good order of the Temple. When the crowd had gathered it was inevitable that he and his
Temple police should arrive on the scene. With him came the Sadducees who were the
wealthy, aristocratic class. There were not many of them but they were rich and of great
influence. The whole matter annoyed them very greatly for two reasons. First, they did not
believe in resurrection from the dead; and it was this very truth that the apostles were
proclaiming. Second, just because they were wealthy aristocrats, the Sadducean party was
collaborationist. They tried to keep on friendly terms with the Romans in order that they
might retain their wealth and comfort and prestige and power. The Roman government was

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very tolerant; but on public disorder it was merciless. The Sadducees were sure that, if the
apostles were allowed to go on unchecked, riots and civil disorder might follow, with
disastrous consequences to their status. Therefore they proposed to nip this movement in the
bud; and that is why Peter and John were so promptly arrested. The other party which was
annoyed was the high priest who felt that these unlettered fishermen were drawing a bigger
crowd than him.
The following morning the Sanhedrin, the supreme court of, the Jews called them to come so
that they could explain their actions. The Sanhedrin, even in Roman times had the right of
arrest. The one thing it could not do was to pass the death sentence, except in the single case
of a Gentile who trespassed on the inner courts of the Temple.
The Sanhedrin had seventy-one members. The high priest was ex officio president. In the
Sanhedrin there were priests, practically all of whom were Sadducees. Their one desire was
to preserve the status quo that their own emoluments might not be lessened. There were
scribes, who were the experts in the traditional law. There were Pharisees, who were fanatics
for the law. There were elders, who were respected men in the community.
The apostles made it clear before the Sanhedrin that their source of authority was as a result
of having faith in the name of Jesus that the man had been healed. The members of the
Sanhedrin were amazed at such boldness from uneducated common men. In Greek the word
translated common men is idiotai from which our word idiot comes from. It meant originally
a person who could speak nothing but his vernacular language and knew no Greek. Peter and
John lacked the detailed knowledge of the Jewish law, or the Greek philosophy, which many
of their judges possessed. The Sanhedrin saw that they could not do anything to them since
they had not committed any crime. The Jewish law allowed a solemn warning to be given to
a first offender. Instead of punishment he would be told what would happen if he repeated his
offence. Having intimidated them, they sternly warned them not to continue preaching in the
name of Jesus. The church however continued to grow despite this.
Arrested again

The apostles continued to preach the resurrection of Jesus and to heal the sick defying the
warning of the Sanhedrin. The Sanhedrin summoned them again and this time the Supreme
council of the Jews was in ugly mood. They wanted to get rid of the apostles had it not been
the intervention of Gamaliel, a famous Rabbi, a Pharisee, a member of the council. He
advised the council to adopt a wait and see approach. He gave them the example of Judas and

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Theudas who were trouble markers before but they came to nothing. The apostles were
beaten by the council but were not intimidated.

Stephen’s ministry (Acts 6:8-15)

Stephen and Philip were different from others deacons in the sense that they did not only wait
to serve tables but they went an extra mile and started to preach the word of God and
performing miracles. The ministry of Stephen courted the envy of some ex slaves who falsely
accused him of blasphemy and speaking against the Law of Moses. The men, who were
probably sons of Jewish prisoners who were taken abroad by the Romans and later released,
accused Stephen of speaking against the law of Moses and the temple. They claimed he said
Jesus could destroy the temple and change the customs of Moses.

The martyrdom of Stephen (Acts 7:54-60)

Tin the eyes of the Sanhedrin Stephen as guilty of blasphemy and had disgraced the name of
God. They arrayed him before the Sanhedrin which was the highest decision making court of
the Jews. According to Thompson the speech of Stephen is given at great length and seems
confusing at first. He reviewed the Jewish history starting with the history of Abraham to
Moses. The idea behind the review of the Jewish history was to derive home the point that
God is universal and does not dwell in a house that is made by human hands. The second part
of the speech was an attack on the Jews whom he accused of disobedience and stubbornness.
The Jews had rejected all the prophets who had been sent by God and just like their
forefathers had also rejected Jesus, and murdered the Righteous one, the true temple of the
Holy Spirit. Stephen concluded his speech by telling the Sanhedrin that he was seeing Jesus
standing at the right hand of God. The Sanhedrin could not stomach this as in their opinion
was blasphemy, the worst sin one could commit. The punishment of this vicious crime was
death by stoning. Luke in this story is at great pains to show that Christianity was not a
subversive organisation which was anti-state. The reason why Stephen was killed according
to Luke was a miscarriage of justice because there were certain rules and regulations which
were not followed when they wanted to stone a person to death. It must be noted that the
Sanhedrin could not carry a death sentence to a person without the approval of the Roman
governor. They tried to disguise it as a proper trial by putting a witness, Saul, but honestly
speaking, it was not; it was mob killing.

Persecution of Greek speaking Jewish Christians Acts 8:1-3

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The death of Stephen led to an outbreak of persecution, largely organized by the fanatical
Saul. It was so intense, that all the Hellenistic Jewish Christians fled the capital city. The
Christians were forced to scatter and to seek safety and asylum in the remoter districts of the
country. Saul, as the King James Version says, "made havoc" of the church. The word used in
the Greek denotes a brutal cruelty. It is used of a wild boar ravaging a vineyard and of a wild
animal savaging a body. The believer fled to other parts except for the twelve who stood firm
in Jerusalem. The persecution however had the opposite effect to what was intended: the
believers scattered, and they scattered the seed of the gospel as they fled.

The conversion of Saul (Acts 9:1-19)

The first time Paul was introduced to us is during the death of Stephen where he was a
witness to the proceedings. Saul was probably named after the first king of Israel, who also
belonged to the tribe of Benjamin. He was born in Tarsus, in Cilicia, a coastal city on modern
day Turkey. Paul had been strictly brought up in his Jewish tradition and was educated under
the famous teacher Gamaliel and this led him to persecute the church violently.

Something about Stephen lingered in Paul's mind and would not be banished. How could a
bad man die like that? In order to still his insistent doubt Paul plunged into the most violent
action possible. First he persecuted the Christians in Jerusalem. This only made matters
worse because once again he had to ask himself what secret these simple people had which
made them face peril and suffering and loss serene and unafraid. So then, still driving himself
on, he went to the Sanhedrin.
The writ of the Sanhedrin ran wherever there were Jews. Paul had heard that certain of the
Christians had escaped to Damascus and he asked for letters of credit that he might go to
Damascus and extradite them. The journey only made matters worse. It was about 140 miles
from Jerusalem to Damascus. The journey would be made on foot and would take about a
week. Paul's only companions were the officers of the Sanhedrin, a kind of police force.
Because he was a Pharisee, he could have nothing to do with them; so he walked alone; and
as he walked he thought, because there was nothing else to do.

Paul had a life changing experience on his way to Damascus having been given the authority
by the high priest. The experience on the road was quite profound; it changed his theology
and direction. He was taken into the city by his associates where he went to the house of
Judas. He was prayed for by Judas and received his sight back and was baptised. According

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to Thompson the conversion of Saul was of great sensation. His former associates were
shocked and disgusted, and he soon found himself facing the same fate that he had planned to
inflict on others. He was put in a basket and escaped to Jerusalem where he was welcomed by
Barnabas. Had it not been the generous Barnabas Saul could not have been accepted by the
church because some thought he was a secret agent who had been planted by the enemies of
the church to spy on their activities. Barnabas convinced others that Paul had repented. He
started arguing with the Greek speaking Jews about Jesus and again they wanted to kill him
was sent off to Tarsus, his old home town.

2.1.2 The Early expansion of Christianity

The Gospel in Samaria

The death of Stephen was very important in the church because it led to a very serious
persecution to be meted against the Christians. The ring leader for this onslaught on the
church was Paul who was very fanatical of his religion, Judaism. Believers fled from
Jerusalem as a result of the actions of Paul. What is interesting to note is that as the believers
fled, they fled with the gospel. Those who fled went as far as Samaria; some went down to
Antioch of Syria, Cyprus and Phoenicia. (11:19)

The Ancient city of Samaria where Philip preached

Philip is one of those who fled from Jerusalem and he went down to Samaria fulfilling Acts
chapter one verse eight. Philip preached the gospel with much power and performed a lot of
miracles to the extent that one Simon the Magician, believed. According to Thompson Simon
Magus had a great reputation among the Samaritans and had mesmerized them as a magician.
He believed and was baptized together with many other Samaritans. When the apostles in

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Jerusalem heard that the Samaritans had believed went down so that they could pray for them
so that they could receive the Holy Spirit. This passage shows that the Holy Spirit can be
received through the laying of Hands. Simon tried to offer money to the apostles so that he
could get the Holy Spirit all for himself. He was not quite different from some pastors and
prophets in Zimbabwe who go to East and West Africa so that they can boost their power of
performing miracles through buying the power from the so called native doctors. Peter
rebuked him and he repented.

Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch (Acts 8:26-40)

Philip also converted the Ethiopian eunuch after being told by the Holy Spirit to go to the
desert road and meet him. According to Thompson Ethiopia means the kingdom of Meroe in
the modern Sudan. It was an African state ruled by a series of queens who bore the title
Candace which Luke seems to have thought was a proper name. The Romans regarded Meroe
as the end of the world so Luke included this story to show how the good news spread from
Jerusalem to the end of the earth. Philip met the eunuch on the Gaza road, which was the
main highway to Egypt and the South. He was high ranking official, the Minister of finance
of Meroe and most probably a God fearer for he had been on a pilgrimage from Jerusalem.

Philip preached to the Eunuch about the suffering servant and he was baptized there and then.
The passage gives a clear evidence of baptism through immersion. After that Philip was
caught by the spirit and went to Caesarea where he and his daughters established their base.
(21:8)

The Conversion of Cornelius the Roman Soldier

The conversion of Cornelius came to the church as a test case because up until now the
church had not yet deliberated and agreed upon on the entry requirements of gentiles into the
church.one question that the church needed to answer was whether the gentiles were to be
admitted after being circumcised or without being circumcised. Allowing gentles to be
circumcised first before they become Christians would mean that the church would remain as
a sub set within Judaism. The story of Cornelius was a step in the right direction. He was a
centurion, a commander of hundred soldiers and these officers according to Thompson
formed the backbone of the Roman army. He was a God fearer but was not a full convert
(proselyte). He prayed to God earnestly and gave alms to the people liberally. He was
instructed in a vision to go and look for Peter at Joppa.
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Peter’s vision at Joppa

Peter as a strict Jew observed hours of prayer and at the sixth hour he was praying on the
house top in Joppa. While Peter was in Joppa he saw a vision that perplexed him, a vision of
a large sheet that was coming down from heaven comprising of different animals which the
Jews considered as unclean. The law of Moses made a clear distinction between the
“unclean” and the “clean” and between the living creatures that may be eaten and the living
creature that may not be eaten (Leviticus 11:47)

The vision was a message from God that he had accepted gentiles into the church and
therefore Peter and his kith and kin were not supposed to discriminate them. Peter went to the
house of Cornelius and preached to them. As he was preaching the Holy Spirit fell on
Cornelius and his household, a sign that God had accepted gentiles on equal footing with the
Jews. The story is of interest to us because it shows that the Holy Spirit can be received
through preaching the word of God. It is also an indication that God is universal and also that
Christianity was not a subversive movement which had been started to dislodge the Roman
government. Luke is careful to show that even Roman officials of high social standing also
converted to Christianity. What Peter did caused him to be summoned by the Circumcision
Party (a section of Jewish Christians who wanted gentiles to be circumcised before they
become Christians) to explain his actions. He defended his position by narrating what had
happened until Cornelius received the Holy Spirit. They were convinced and praised the Lord
for opening doors for the gentiles.

The reaction of the Church in Jerusalem- The circumcision Party

The church in Jerusalem heard that Peter had mixed with gentiles and they received that with
mixed feelings. Those who criticized Peter belong to the circumcision party. This was a
group of Jewish Christians who wanted Gentiles to be circumcised for them to become
Christians. Peter’s defense was a statement fact. He described all that had happened, until
“the Holy Spirit fell on them just as on us at the beginning”. Peter had gone to visit Cornelius
with six men (verse 12). They, plus Peter, made up seven, and in Roman or Egyptian law
seven witnesses could be sufficient to prove a case or guarantee a document. Thus Peter did
not rely on his own evidence; he had enough witnesses to prove his case. His critics could not
deny the facts and were silenced.

The Church at Antioch in Syria, the Great Missionary Centre

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Antioch was the capital city of the Roman province of Syria and was third in importance after
Rome and Alexandria. According to Thompson it was famous for sport, such as chariot
racing, for bad morals and for strange religions. Believers had come to Antioch as a result of
persecution that arose as a result of the death of Stephen. The leaders in Jerusalem heard that
there was a gentile church in Antioch and they decided to send Barnarbas on a fact finding
mission. When he arrived he encouraged them to continue in the Lord and he went to Tarsus
to look for Paul and when he saw him they came back and preached for a whole year.

It seems there were some prophets at Antioch because Luke mentions of Manaen, Simon and
Lucius of Cyrene. According to Barclay in the early church broadly speaking there were three
set of leaders firstly the Apostles whose authority were not confined to one place; their writ
ran through the whole church and were looked upon as being in a very real sense the
successors of Jesus. The second set of leaders was the Elders and these were local officials
and their authority was confined to the place where they were set apart. The third set was the
prophets whose function was both to foretell and to forth tell the future and will of God.
There were some prophets who came from Judea and prophesised that there was going to be a
great famine in Judea so the church contributed drought relief for the believers in Jerusalem.
The early church was good at offering humanitarian service to the poor, the destitute and
those suffering from natural disasters. The church today also copied this from the early
church and is now on the fore front of mobilising food aid when natural disasters occur in the
country. Recently in 2019 various churches including the Family of God led by Prophet
Andrew Wutawunashe, AFM in Zimbabwe and other churches contributed towards the
victims of cyclone Idai in Chimanimani and Chipinge Districts in Manicaland province. This
aid had great effect in the early church as people joined the church in their numbers so that
they could receive aid. The aid was sent by the hand of Barnabas and Saul.

The Jerusalem of Council (Acts 15:1-35)

The conversion of gentiles in the first missionary journey meant that the church was
expanding rapidly. The expansion of the church had problems that were associated with it.
One of the most important issue that had not been settled by the church up to this period was
the admission of gentiles into the Church. Were they to be admitted on equal footing with the
Jews or they were to be circumcised before they become Christians? According to Barclay
even where that question settled there arose another problem, the strict Jews could not
intercourse with a gentile. He could not have him as guest nor be his guest. He would not as
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how far could a gentile be received into the church as such? The fellowship of the church was
threatened and the situation had to be dealt with. The whole future of the church was at stake
and the church had to come up with a policy on the entry requirements of gentiles. According
to Thompson the ‘circumcision party’ sent down representatives to ‘put right’ the church at
Antioch. Their message was very clear. No circumcision no salvation. Paul and Barnabas had
a very robust discussion with them vigorously opposing them. The church was on the verge
of a split so it was decided that a delegation should be sent from Antioch to Jerusalem, the
headquarters of the Church, for a ruling. The delegation from Antioch included Paul
Barnabas and others. Luke however did not record the debate that took place during the
council but Paul, Barnabas and Peter gave their speeches opposing the Judaisers. Their
argument was that it was not necessary for gentiles to be circumcised before they become
Christians. Salvation to the apostles was as a result of faith and not struggling to keep the
Law of Moses. James the Lord’s brother who at this time was the president of the church was
the last person to speak. He gave a message of compromise to the parties. The message was
that it was not necessary to circumcise gentiles or keep the entire law however they were to
avoid sexual immorality, food offered to idols, blood and what is strangled. These things
were presented in a letter which was sent by the hands of Judas Barsabbas, Silas, Paul and
Barnabas. The story is a very good example of how conflicts were resolved in the early
Church. If there was a problem the members would seek council from elders and church
leaders who would in turn discuss the matter until a solution was reached. The early church
was a bit different from the church today which when faced with problems run to the circular
world for solutions.

Paul and Barnabas at Work: The First Missionary Journey

When Paul and Barnabas returned from Jerusalem with the aid they started praying and
fasting. The Holy Spirit selected Paul and Barnabas so that they could embark on missionary
activities. The church laid hands upon them and they were commissioned for work. The first
port of call for the missionary company that included John Mark was the Island of Cyprus
which was Barnabas’ old home town. (4:36) Cyprus was a Roman province, famous for its
copper mines and its ship building industry.

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The missionaries according to Thompson had to travel on foot, since they could rarely afford
horses. Roman roads were usually excellent, but hotel accommodation was primitive. From
Antioch they went to Seleucia, Salamis and lastly at Paphos were the governor of Cyprus,
Sergius Paulus resided. He had a court magician called Elymus who tried to prevent them
from seeing the governor. Paul blinded him and the governor believed. From this point Saul
is called Paul. In those days nearly all Jews had two names, one was a Jewish and the other
was Greek. From Paphos they went to Perga in Pamphylia and John deserted the company
and went back to Jerusalem. The reason for leaving was most probably that he was still very
young and wanted to be with his mother or that he probably resented the idea that his uncle
was no longer in charge or that he was afraid of the mountainous region ahead. This incident
caused a sharp disagreement between Paul and Barnabas in the second missionary journey to
the extent that they separated.

Antioch of Pisidia 13:13

From Perga they went through the country until they reached at Antioch of Pisidia where they
went into a synagogue and preached. The people at Antioch seemed to be favourable at first
as they followed the missionaries after service to hear more but this was not to continue.
When the Jews saw the large crowd that gathered to hear the apostles they were filled with
envy and argued with Paul. Their opponents had powerful friends in the city council.
According to Thompson many wealthy women, attracted by the high standards of the Jewish
religion attended the synagogue, and these important ladies persuaded their husbands to drive
away the new preachers out of the area. They moved to Iconium ninety miles away from
Antioch.
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Iconium(Acts 14:1-7)

Paul and Barnabas went on to Iconium, about 90 miles from Antioch. It was a city so ancient
that it claimed to be older than Damascus. In the dim past it had had a king called Nannacus
and the phrase "since the days of Nannacus" was proverbial for "from the beginning of time."
At Iconium they began to preach in the synagogue but the Jews were jealous and stirred the
minds of other unbelieving Jews and again Paul and Barnabas had to go. The missionaries
had uncovered a plot to molest them.

Lystra (Acts 14:8-20)

From Iconium they went to Lystra where they healed a crippled man. The results of the
healing were quite unexpected; they were mistaken for gods. According to Thompson the
natives of Lystra went wild with excitement and the local priest brought out oxen with
garlands of flowers around their necks ready to offer sacrifice. The priests did not want to
make the mistake that was made with their forefathers in their history. According to Barclay a
legend was told about Zeus and Hermes who had come to Lystra and people had failed to
offer them hospitality except for Philemon and his wife Baucis. As a result the whole
population was wiped out except the two. Here we are interested in the attitude of the church
leaders towards people with disability. The apostles did not discriminate them. There was
however a linguistic challenge at Lystra because most Lystrians did not understand Greek,
but spoke vernacular language of Lycaonia. The opponents of the missionaries from Antioch
and Iconium followed them to Lystra and Paul was stoned and left for dead. Lystra was a
Roman colony; but it was an outpost. Nevertheless, when the people saw what they had done
they were afraid. That is why they dragged what they thought was Paul's dead body out of the
city. They were afraid of the strong hand of Roman justice and they were trying to get rid of
Paul's body in order to escape the consequences of their riot. When he recovered they left for
Derbe which was the furthest point that they reached during the first missionary journey.
Derbe (Acts 14:20-21)

According to PD Griffiths God gave the missionaries some rest and success at Derbe. The
apostles then started to retrace their footsteps and appointing elders in every church and
strengthening them. Here the missionaries were now travelling by water as it was much
quicker. This is one of the several advantages that the Romans had brought when they

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conquered Palestine in 27BC, safer sea routes for travel, free from pirates. They went back to
Antioch were they reported all that they had done during the journey.

The Second Missionary Journey

Paul and Barnabas returned to the church in Antioch in Syria and after some time they
decided to revisit the churches they had established during the first missionary journey. The
two missionaries disagreed on the inclusion of John Mark in the missionary company.
Barnabas wanted to take John Mark because most probably they were related but Paul
disagreed with that because he had deserted them during the first missionary Journey. A
sharp disagreement ensued and they decided to solve the dispute by separating from each
other. This is typical of the church today where those who have felt to be aggrieved by their
leaders have started their own churches. A good example is Prophet Emmanuel Makandiwa
who separated with the AFM in Zimbabwe church and Bishop Nolbert Kunonga who splited
from the Anglican Church. Barnabas took John Mark and went to Cyprus.

Paul chose a new companion Silas and went another direction, the north coast corner of the
Mediterranean Sea. Paul was in favour of collaborative ministries so at Lystra they met a
young man named Timothy. Luke was also now part of the missionary company because of
the use of the pronoun ‘we’. They went through Phrygia and Galatia but were prevented by
the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia. When they went to Mysia they tried to go to
Bithynia but the Spirit did not permit them when they came to Troas they saw a man of
Macedonia in a vision beseeching them to come to Macedonia to help them so they
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concluded that God wanted them to go to Macedonia. We can see the work of the Holy Spirit
here, that of guidance when confused of what action to take.

The Gospel in Europe: Philippi

When the apostles saw the vision they went to Philippi. Philippi was a Roman colony were

ex-soldiers of the Roman army settled. The city had been fortified by Philip of Macedon
against the Thracians and he had named the city after himself. Philippi was different from
other cities because there was no Jewish synagogue, but a place of prayer. Paul met different
personalities in Philippi and one of those personalities was Lydia who was a seller of purple
cloth. According to Thompson the purple dye, extracted from a shell fish, was used to make a
very expensive cloth, so Lydia was a wealthy trader, and when she accepted the gospel, she
offered the missionaries hospitality and financial support. Lydia has been used as an example
of a successful Christian entrepreneur by today’s preachers. Furthermore it may also show
that women in the early church had a higher status as they contributed a lot in the propagation
of the gospel by giving support to the missionaries.

The missionaries also encountered a slave girl who had a spirit of divination and had made
her owners very wealthy. According to Barclay she was what was called a Pytho, which is a
person, who could give oracles to guide men about the future. Thompson concurs with this
and posits that at Delphi the priestess practised divination in the name of the sacred python.
The poor girl followed Paul every day telling the truth about them until Paul got annoyed and
casted the demon out. After the exorcism the owners were disappointed because their source
of money was gone. The owners went and complained to the magistrates who called Paul and
Silas and beaten then and threw them into prison. Paul and Silas were praising God in prison
and there was an earthquake which caused the doors of the prison to be open. The Jailer and
his household believed.

The next morning the magistrates ordered the release of the apostles and they got the shock of
their life. The magistrates realised that Paul was a Roman citizen. What they had done to
them was unlawful to Roman citizens. When the Romans conquered Palestine they had
introduced a just legal system which comprised giving non Romans Roman citizenship.
Roman citizens had privileges that they enjoyed and these included that they could not be
beaten or scourged. To scourge a Roman citizen was a crime punishable by death. A Roman
citizen also could not be put in prison without a trial. Lastly a Roman citizen had a right to
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appeal to Caesar if he felt that the sentence of a lower court was not favourable and just. Paul
enjoyed his Roman citizenship and used it to advance the gospel. They magistrates had to
come and apologise to the missionaries because they had violated the Roman law. After they
apologised publicly the apostles went to the House of Lydia and went to Amphipolis which
was 33 miles from Philippi and from there they went to Apollonia and then to Thessalonica.

The Gospel in Greece: Thessalonica (Acts 17:1-9)

According to Thompson this was another of the great free cities of the Roman Empire.
Barclay has it that the coming of Christianity to Thessalonica was an event of first
importance. The great Roman road from the Adriatic Sea to the Middle East was called the
Egnatian Way, and the main street of Thessalonica was actually part of that Road. What it
meant is that if Christianity was firmly founded in Thessalonica it could spread both east and
west along the road until it became a very busy high way of the progress of the kingdom of
God. The city had internal self-government through its assembly of all citizens (not including
women or slaves). This assembly of people in Greek was called the “demos” and the
government by the demos was called democracy. The apostles followed their modus operandi
and started to preach in the Jewish synagogue but their success was short lived. The
unbelieving Jews stirred some wicked fellows of the rabble (some bad men of those who
hung around the market place). These hooligans attacked Jason in trying to get hold of the
missionaries and the politarchs made him to pay a lot of money as assurance that he was not
going to assist the missionaries again.

At Beroea (Acts 17:10-15)

The city of Beroea according to Thompson was fifty miles further along the Egnatian
highway. The people were sympathetic to the message of the apostles to the extent that some
Greek women of high social standing were converted. The success of the apostles was short
lived as Paul’s opponents from Thessalonica came to Beroea and caused some disturbances.
Paul bordered a ship and went to Athens.

The Missionaries’ Encounter with the Philosophers at Athens

Athens was a famous city but no longer the leader of an independent Greece, she was still the
centre of higher education. Men seeking knowledge from various parts of world came to
Athens, full of beautiful temples, statutes and discussions. Paul met the Epicureans and Stoic

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Philosophers in this city. The Epicureans believed that everything happened by chance, death
was the end of all and that the gods did not care about human beings but if they cared their
care was so remote. They believed that the primary goal of humanity was to seek the highest
form of pleasure. The Stoics were followers of Zeno (346-265) and they believed that God
was a fiery spirit which was found in everything. They also believed that everything
happened according to the plan and will of God. Paul was herd by some philosophers while
he was preaching in the agora (market place) and they invited him to the Aeropagus to
explain his foreign teaching. The Aeropagus was a group of thirty wisest men if the world.
The court controlled education and public morality. Paul did not see the beautiful architecture
or the fascinating history of the city but was moved that the city was full of idols and this
greatly distressed him because as a strict Jew he abhorred idolatry.

There were no biblical quotations before the Aeropagus because they were Greeks who were
not well versed with the Old Testament. He explained to them that the Unknown God to
whom the altar was addressed was indeed God who had created the whole universe.

There are a series of steps in his sermon.

i. God is not the made but the maker; and he who made all things cannot be worshipped
by anything made by the hands of man. It is all too true that men often worship what
their hands have made. If a man's God be that to which he gives all his time, thought
and energy, many are clearly engaged in worshipping man-made things.
ii. God has guided history. He was behind the rise and fall of nations in the days gone
by; his hand is on the helm of things now.
iii. God has made man in such a way that instinctively he longs for God and gropes after
him in darkness.
iv. The days of ignorance and groping are past So long as men had to search in the
shadows they could not know God and he excused their follies and their mistakes;
but now in Christ the full blaze of the knowledge of God has come and the day of
excuses is past.
v. The Day of Judgment is coming. Life is neither a progress to extinction, as it was to
the Epicureans, nor a pathway to absorption to God, as it was to the Stoics; it is a
journey to the judgment seat of God where Jesus Christ is Judge.
vi. The proof of the pre-eminence of Christ is the resurrection. It is no unknown God but
a Risen Christ with whom we have to deal.

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Paul preached his message to the Aeropagus but it seems his mission at Athens was a failure
since there is no letter that was written by him to the church there. There were, however a few
believed such as Dionysius the Aeropagite, a woman named Damaris and a number of other
people.

Paul in Corinth (Acts 18:1-17)

Corinth was a key city of Greece. It was the market place of Greece, a great seaport and a
commercial city. It was famous for its bad morals which included debauchery and reckless
living. There was a temple of Aphrodite on the hill of the Acropolis which housed one
thousand prostitutes who were priestesses of Aphrodite, the goddess of love and were sacred
prostitutes whose services were for free. Paul stayed in Corinth for a long period and had
great success in this city. Here he met Priscilla and Aquila, a Jewish couple who had lately
come from Rome as a result of the edict of Emperor Claudius. According to PD Griffiths
Seutonius the writer tells us that in AD 49 Claudius had expelled the Jews from the city
because of the riots which were started by followers Chrestus which is a variant of Christ.
This couple specialized in tent-making, another example of Christian entrepreneurs in the
early church. According to Barclay in the province of Cilicia there were herds of a certain
kind of goat with a special kind of fleece. Out of that fleece a cloth called cilicium was made
which was much used for making tents and curtains and hangings.

The Acrocorith (to the left)at the Ancient city of Corinth where

Paul preached for a long time in Corinth while Silas and Timothy were fully engaged in
missionary work in Macedonia but however not all Jews were happy. The opponents of Paul
drove him out of the synagogue and he went to the house of Titius Justus, a God-fearer.
When Lucius Junius Gallio was inaugurated as the proconsul of Achaia in mid AD 51 the
Jews made a united attack on Paul so that they could easily persuade the new proconsul who

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was not fully acquainted with the situation to decide in their favour. It seems that the
governor was fully aware that Paul and his friends were not guilty of any crime and that the
Jews were trying to use him for their own selfish means. Gallio dismissed their case as a
‘case of your own words and names and law’ which shows that the relationship of
Christianity and the state was cordial. It appears that Gallio thought that Christianity was not
different from Judaism which had been granted religio licita; it was another form of Judaism.
There were notable men who converted to Christianity in Corinth and these include Erastus
the city treasurer, Crispus the ruler of the synagogue and Sosthenes the next ruler of the
synagogue , the man who was also beaten up before the uncaring Gallio.

From Corinth Paul went to the port of Cenchreae where he cut his hear because he had a
Nazirite vow. This was a vow made by a person wishing to make a special service to God.
From there they went to Ephesus where they left Priscilla and Aquila and went to Palestine
after promising them to come back. Paul and his company then landed at Caesarea. After a
short stint in Jerusalem Paul went back to Antioch to give the brethren there feedback of his
journey with Silas.

The Gospel in Asia: The third Missionary Journey

Ephesus(Acts 19:1-41)

Paul went on tour by land visiting the churches on his way through the upper country.

This brought him to the great wealthy city of Ephesus, the capital of the Roman province of

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Asia. Ephesus was known for two things; magic and charms called the ‘the Ephesian letters’.
Magicians had scrolls of spells and curses which they sold at high prices. They also had
abracadabras- secret words written on papyrus strips for wearing next to the skin to cure
aches and pains. People came from far afield to purchase the charms and parchments of
Ephesus.

The city was also known for the temple of Diana which was one of the Seven Wonders of the
ancient world. According to Barclay it was 425 feet long by 220 feet wide by 60 feet high. He
further says that the image of Artemis was not beautiful. It was a black, squat, many-breasted
figure, signifying fertility; it was so old that no one knew where it had come from or even of
what material it was made. The story was that it had fallen from heaven. Luke narrate that
Apollos, a brilliant Jewish scholar from the city of Alexandria came to Ephesus. He was
instructed in the Way but only knew the baptism of John. Priscilla and Aquila put right his
knowledge of the post-resurrection teaching of Jesus and wrote a recommendation for him to
go to Corinth where he became a famous minister.

Paul also met some twelve disciples of John at Ephesus. These guys had never heard about
the Holy Spirit and Paul had to pray for them so that they could receive the Holy Spirit. Paul
was driven out of the synagogue by some unbelieving Jews and he went and hired the hall of
a Greek Philosopher, Tyrannus, which he used for public lectures. Barclay says that Paul
taught in that Hall from 11am to 4pm. Paul must have used the hall during the afternoon
siesta break, when nobody did much work in the Roman Empire. Paul performed many
extraordinary miracles to the extent that some itinerant Jewish charlatans tried to imitate him
but they were overpowered by the demon. The early converts brought their books that they
used in their magic business so that the apostle could burn them.

The Riot at Ephesus

Luke narrates that while Paul was in Asia preached that gods made by human hands are not
gods. This led to a sharp decrease of Demetrius and other silver smith’s revenue. Demetrius
called for a caucus meeting with other silver smith in the theatre which could contain about
25000 people. The mob rushed into the stadium taking together with them Gaius and
Aristarchus Paul’s travelling companions and Paul was kept out of the theatre by his friends
among the Asiarchs. The crowd spent two hours crying without order. The relationship
between the state and Christianity must have been cordial because had it not been Paul could

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not have made friends among the Asiarchs. There was a possibility of a riot and this would
not go well with the Romans. If there was a riot in any town the senate in Rome would want
to know the reason why there was a riot and the magistrate responsible might lose their jobs.
The town clerk had to intervene so that the situation would not degenerate into a riot. The
apostles had done nothing sacrilegious and if Demetrius and company had a case against
them they were supposed to approach the courts. The town clerk was a representative of the
Roman government which might mean that he was sympathetic to Christianity. Luke here is
trying to show that Christianity was not politically dangerous.

2.2 THE CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY IN CORINTH

In this section of the syllabus we are going to focus on the problems faced by the Christian
church at Corinth which was established during the second missionary journey. It seems the
reported to Paul by Chloe’s people hen Paul was in prison and the challenges are contained in
his first letter to the Corinthians.

2.2.1 Division and Unity

Divisions in the community

Paul heard while he was in prison at Ephesus by Chloe’s people that there were factions in
the church at Corinth. Today no one knows exactly who "Chloe" was. She evidently had a
household or business that included servants, some of whom had traveled to Corinth, and had
returned to Ephesus carrying reports of conditions in the Corinthian church. They had
eventually shared this news with Paul. They had reported that the church was now
characterized by quarrels and dissension. These cliques were not doctrinal but were a matter
of personalities. Dr Constable has it that the surface manifestation of this serious problem
was the party spirit that had developed. Members of the church were appreciating their
favorite leaders too much, and not appreciating the others enough. This was really a
manifestation of self-exaltation. They boasted about their teachers of wisdom in order to
boast about themselves. There was already disagreement among members of the
congregation, but there was not yet division in the sense of a church split. Paul identifies four
parties in the Church at Corinth. They have not broken away from the Church; the divisions
are as yet within it. The word he uses to describe them is schismata, which is the word for
rents in a garment. The Corinthian Church is in danger of becoming as unsightly as a torn
garment. It is to be noted that the great figures of the Church who are named, Paul and
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Cephas and Apollos, had nothing to do with these divisions. There were no dissensions
between them. Without their knowledge and without their consent their names had been
appropriated by these Corinthian factions. Let us look at these parties and see if we can find
out what they were standing for.
i. There were those who claimed to belong to Paul. It was normal that some would
appreciate "Paul," since he had founded the church, and had ministered in Corinth
with God's blessing for 18 months. No doubt this was mainly a Gentile party. Paul
had always preached the gospel of Christian freedom and the end of the law. It is most
likely that this party were attempting to turn liberty into licence and using their new
found Christianity as an excuse to do as they liked. Bultmann has said that the
Christian indicative always brings the Christian imperative. They had forgotten that
the indicative of the good news brought the imperative of the Christian ethic. They
had forgotten that they were saved, not to be free to sin, but to be free not to sin.
ii. There was the party who claimed to belong to Apollos. There is a brief character
sketch of Apollos in Acts 18:24. He was a Jew from Alexandria, an eloquent man and
well versed in the scriptures. Alexandria was the centre of intellectual activity. It was
there that scholars had made a science of allegorizing the scriptures and finding the
most recondite meanings in the simplest passages. Further, the Alexandrians were
enthusiasts for literary graces. They were in fact the people who intellectualized
Christianity. Those who claimed to belong to Apollos were, no doubt, the intellectuals
who were fast turning Christianity into a philosophy rather than a religion.
iii. There were those who claimed to belong to Cephas. Cephas is the Jewish form of
Peter's name. According to Findlay there is no scriptural record that Peter ever visited
Corinth, though he may have. "Cephas" is the Hellenized form of the Aramaic kepa,
meaning "rock" (cf. John 1:42). Since Peter was the leading apostle to the Jews, it is
understandable that many of the early Christians, especially the Jewish believers,
would have venerated him. Some may have been his converts. These were most likely
Jews; and they sought to teach that a man must still observe the Jewish law. They
were legalists who exalted law, and, by so doing, belittled grace.
iv. There were those who claimed to belong to Christ. Perhaps they had had some
personal contact with Jesus in Judea. They appear to have regarded themselves as the
most spiritual element in the church. They had devised their own brand of spiritual
elitism that made them no better than the others. Their real fault was not in saying that

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 they belonged to Christ, but in acting as if Christ belonged to them. It may well
describe a little, intolerant, self-righteous group.
Paul’s response
In his response Paul addressed his own supporters and said that there was no need to have
those factions at the church. Christ was not divided hence there was no reasons for the cliques
which had developed at the church there. For Paul it was foolish to elevate him over Christ,
since Christ did what was most important (was "crucified for" them). Christ was the one who
had died for them hence he was the one to be elevated more than anyone else. Note the
central importance of the Cross in Paul's thinking. Paul had not baptized anyone else except
Crispus and Gaius. He had also baptized the household of Stephanas. Paul's followers had not
submitted to water baptism in order to identify with Paul, but to identify with the Savior. This
reference shows how highly Paul regarded water baptism. It is God's specified way for the
believer to identify publicly with his or her Lord (Matt. 28:19; cf. Acts 8:16; 19:5; Rom. 6:3;
Gal. 3:27). It implies turning over allegiance to the One named in the rite. Crispus" was the
ruler of the synagogue in which Paul preached when he first came to Corinth (Acts 18:8).
"Gaius" may be the same person as Titius Justus. This man was a Gentile convert who lived
next door to the synagogue, and who opened his home to the church after the Christians could
no longer meet in the synagogue (Acts 18:7; Rom. 16:23). Paul deliberately did not baptize
most of his converts; so that there would be no question as to whose disciples they were ("no
one would say you were baptized in my name")
The apostle proceeded to tell the Corinthians that they had not been viewing things from the
spiritual point of view. He was referring specifically to their exaltation of one or of God's
servants above the others (1:10-17). Paul urgently appealed to them to change. The divisions
to Paul were a sign that they were spiritually immature. To help the Corinthians abandon the
party spirit that marked their church, Paul stressed the equality of their teachers as fellow
workers under God's sovereign authority. There was no need to evaluate them since they
were co-workers in the kingdom of God. The Corinthian were "the (God's) field" in view in
the preceding illustration (vv. 6-8). Paul now compared them to "a (God's) building." Paul
had planted and Apollos had watered. The one who planted and the one who watered were
not bigger than the other but the one who gave growth was God.
In the new illustration of the building, Paul "laid the (a) foundation" of the church in Corinth
by founding the church, and others added the walls and continued "building" on that
foundation. Paul's special mission from God was to "found" (plant) churches (Rom. 15:20).

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He readily acknowledged that it was only by God's grace that he could do so as a skillful
("wise") "master builder." He added a word of warning, that the quality of the materials and
workmanship that went into building the church are very important ("how he builds"). It was
also important to note that each builder was going to be rewarded according to the work
performed.
Paul stressed that all of God's servants ("Paul or Apollos or Cephas") were His gifts to the
Corinthians. All the Corinthians ("you") belonged "to Christ," not just those of the "Christ
party" (1:12). They belonged to Him, not to one of His servants. Even "Christ belongs to
God," in the sense of being under the authority and protection of the Father.

Unity in the church

It seems one of the causes of disunity was the issue of spiritual gift. Notice that the
Corinthians were doing in the area of spiritual gifts essentially what they were doing in
relation to their teachers (3:4- 23) They were preferring one over others, and thereby failing
to benefit from them all. Paul's idea in this section is to stress the essential unity of the
Church. The Church is the Body of Christ and the characteristic of a healthy body is that
every part in it performs its own function for the good of the whole; but unity does not mean
uniformity, and therefore within the Church there are differing gifts and differing functions.
But every one of them is a gift of the same Spirit and designed, not for the glory of the
individual member of the Church, but for the good of the whole. Paul begins by saying that
all special gifts (charismata) come from God and it is his belief that they must, therefore, be
used in God's service.
Paul firmly believed that each believer, regardless of his or her gifts, ministries, and the
manner and extent of God's blessing, demonstrates the Holy Spirit through his or her life.
Paul's point here was not that each believer has a gift, though that is true (cf. 1 Pet. 4:10). His
point was that the Spirit manifests Himself in a great variety of ways. Gifts, ministries, and
effects, all working in concert, "manifest" the Spirit's presence, not just the more spectacular
ones in each category. Believers who have spectacular gifts, ministries, or effectiveness are
not necessarily more spiritual than Christians who do not. Each believer makes a unique
contribution "for the common good," not just certain believers (cf. vv. 12-27; 3:4-10). Several
examples of this fact follow in verses 8-10.
Some of the spiritual gifts found in the church include:
i. The word of wisdom and the word of knowledge.

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 ii. Next on the list comes faith. Paul means more than what we might call ordinary faith.
It is the faith which really produces results. It is not just the intellectual conviction
that a thing is true; it is the passionate belief in a thing which makes a man spend all
that he is and has on it.
iii. Next Paul speaks of special gifts of healings. The "gifts of healings" (literally) by
definition refer to abilities to cause healing to take place. Evidently there were various
types of healings that those so gifted could produce, for example: physical,
psychological, and spiritual healings. The early Church lived in a world where healing
miracles were a common-place. If a Jew was ill he was much more likely to go to the
Rabbi than to the doctor; and he would most likely be healed. There is not the
slightest doubt that gifts of healing did exist in the early Church; Paul would never
have cited them unless they were real. In the letter of James (Jas.5:14) there is an
instruction that if a man is ill he must come to the elders and they will anoint him with
oil. It is the simple historical fact that until the ninth century the Sacrament of Unction
was for healing; and only then did it become the Sacrament of Extreme Unction, and a
preparation for death.
i. Next Paul lists wonderful deeds of power. Almost certainly he refers to exorcisms. In
those days many illnesses, often all illnesses, and especially mental illnesses, were
attributed to the work of demons; and it was one of the functions of the Church to
exorcise these demons. Whether or not they were in fact real, the person so possessed
was convinced that they were, and the Church could and did help him. Exorcism is
still very much a reality in the mission field; and at all times it is the function of the
Church to minister to a mind diseased and disturbed.
ii. Paul goes on to mention prophecy. "Prophecy" has a four-fold meaning in the New
Testament: Prophets foretold future events. They also declared things known only by
special new revelation from God. Third, they uttered under the Spirit's prompting
some lofty statement or message in praise of God, or a word of instruction, refutation,
reproof, admonition, or comfort for others (cf. 11:4; 13:9; 14:1, 3-5, 24, 31, 39).
Fourth, they led in worship (Exod. 15:20-21; 1 Chron. 25:1). The prophet is a man
who lives so close to God that he knows his mind and heart and will, and so can make
them known to men. Because of that his function is twofold. (a) He brings rebuke and
warning, telling men that their way of action is not in accordance with the will of

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 God. (b) He brings advice and guidance, seeking to direct men into the ways God
wishes them to go.
iii. Paul then mentions the ability to distinguish between different kinds of spirits. In a
society where the atmosphere was tense and where all kinds of manifestations were
normal, it was necessary to distinguish between what was real and what was merely
hysterical, between what came from God and what came from the devil. The ability
called "distinguishing of spirits" was apparently a gift of unusual discernment. It
enabled a person to tell whether a propounded prophecy was genuine or counterfeit,
namely, from the Holy Spirit or a false spirit (cf. 14:29; 1 Thess. 5:20-21). Thus it had
a connection to prophecy similar to that between interpretation and tongues.
iv. Lastly Paul lists the gift of tongues and the ability to interpret them. This matter of
tongues was causing a great deal of perplexity in the Church at Corinth. What
happened was this--at a church service someone would fall into an ecstasy and pour
out a torrent of unintelligible sounds in no known language. This was a highly-
coveted gift because it was supposed to be due to the direct influence of the Spirit of
God.
Paul also stressed that all these spiritual gifts came from the same source that is the Holy
Spirit and again the Spirit's sovereignty in "distributing" the gifts (cf. John 3:8). The
Corinthians should not try to manipulate the Spirit, but should accept and submit to His
distribution of the gifts as He saw fit.
The Church as the body of Christ
Paul now compared the body of Christ, the universal church, though by extension the
local church as well, to a human body. Again, his point was not that the church needs to have
unity, but that it needs to have diversity. He probably adapted the idea of the body politic, an
essentially secular but commonly understood concept, to illustrate the church. There can be
unity in a body without uniformity. Here the apostle stressed the fact that diversity among the
members is an essential part of a unified body. Evidently the Corinthians were striving for
unanimity (toward all having the same function), and did not appreciate that there can and
must be diversity in a "spiritual" church.
So Paul draws a picture of the unity which should exist inside the Church if it is to fulfil its
proper function. A body is healthy and efficient only when each part is functioning perfectly.
The parts of the body are not jealous of each other and do not covet each other's functions. Th
e parts of the body need each other and no body part can function on its own. The body parts

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depend on each other for the full function of the body. Paul believed that there can be no such
thing as isolation in the Church. If the Church is to be a healthy body, we need the work that
everyone can do.
The supremacy of love (1 Corinthians 13)
Paul, after having discussed about spiritual gift now turned to the supremacy of love over all
the other gifts. Paul begins by declaring that a man may possess any spiritual gift, but if it is
unaccompanied by love it is useless. Paul equated the gift of speaking in tongues without love
to a noise gong. A characteristic of heathen worship, especially the worship of Dionysus and
Cybele, was the clanging of cymbals and the braying of trumpets. Even the coveted gift of
tongues was no better than the uproar of heathen worship if love was absent. Gongs and
cymbals made much noise but no sense. Some so-called tongues-speakers today claim that
their gibberish is the language of angels, but it needs to be interpreted coherently to qualify as
a language. Usually this claim is just a way to justify speaking gibberish. 13:2 "Prophecy"
was a higher gift than glossolalia (speaking in tongues), but was still inferior to "love" (cf.
14:1-5).
Even "faith" great enough "to move (remove) mountains" is not as important as love (12:9;
cf. Matt. 17:20; Mark 11:23; Luke 17:6). A mountain is a universal symbol of something
immovable. This is hyperbole and metaphor. 13:3 Even what passed for charity, or self-
sacrifice for less fortunate individuals ("give all my possessions to feed the poor"), is not the
same as real love (Gr. agape). It is inferior to it. It might profit the receiver, but it did not
profit the giver. Paul's personal sufferings for the salvation of others were also worthless
without love (cf. 2 Cor. 11:23-29; 12:10).
It must be pointed out that Paul was not setting love in contrast to gifts in this periscope. He
was arguing for the necessity and supremacy of love if one is to behave as a true Christian.

The apostle next pointed out the qualities of "love" that make it so important—its character or
nature. He described these in relationship to a person whose character love rules over. Love"
does not deal with other people in a way that injures their dignity. It does not insist on having
its own way ("not seek its own"), nor does it put its own interests before the needs of others
(cf. Phil. 2:4). It is not irritable or touchy ("not provoked"), but it absorbs offenses, insults,
and inconveniences for the sake of others' welfare. It does not keep a record of offenses
received ("not take into account a wrong") to pay them back (cf. Luke 23:34; Rom. 12:17-21;

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2 Cor. 5:19). Love takes no delight in evil or the misfortunes of others ("does not rejoice in
unrighteousness"), but it takes great pleasure in what is right ("rejoices with the truth").
According to Robertson and Plummer love covers unworthy things, rather than bringing them
to the light and magnifying them (cf. 1 Pet. 4:8). It puts up with everything ("bears all
things"). It is always eager to believe the best ("believes all things") and to "put the most
favorable construction on ambiguous actions."
The collection for the Jerusalem community 1 Corinthians 16:1-6
In chapter 16 Paul deals with the issue of the collection of aid for the poor members in the
church in Jerusalem. This issue was so dear to Paul, most probably because it united the
brethren from across the Roman Empire.
It seems that the Corinthian Christians had heard about the "collection" (Gr. logeias, extra
collection) Paul was getting together for the poor saints in Jerusalem (v. 3), and that they
wanted to make a contribution.
There is no record of the directions Paul gave the Galatian churches, to which he referred
here, in any of his other surviving epistles. The "churches of Galatia" evidently were those in
southern Galatia, including Pisidian Antioch, Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe. Paul had passed
through this region as he moved toward Ephesus, from which he wrote this epistle (Acts
18:23).
From verse two we see that the Christian community was now meeting on Sundays, which
was the first day of the week. From the earliest days of the church's existence, Christians
assembled on Sundays to worship in commemoration of the Lord's resurrection. The Lord
had not commanded this, but it quickly became customary. The unsaved Jews met on
Saturdays.
There was brotherliness in the ancient world. In the Greek world there were associations
called eranoi. If a person fell on evil days or was in sudden need, his friends would club
together to raise an interest-free loan to help him. The synagogue had officials whose duty it
was to collect from those who had and to share out to those who had not. Quite frequently
Jews who had gone abroad and prospered sent their envoys to Jerusalem with contributions
for the Temple and for the poor. Paul did not want the Christian Church to be behind the
Jewish and the heathen world in generosity.
But to him this collection for the poor at Jerusalem meant more than that. (i) It was a way of
demonstrating the unity of the Church. It was a way of teaching the scattered Christians that
they were not members of a congregation only, but members of a Church, each part of which

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had obligations to the rest. The narrowly congregational outlook was far from the Pauline
conception of the Church. (ii) It was a way of putting into effect the practical teaching of
Christianity. By arranging this collection Paul was providing his converts with an opportunity
of translating into action the teaching of Christ on the virtue of love.
Note also that Paul did not say how much to set aside, except that it was to be as the Lord had
blessed them ("as he may prosper"). The amount was entirely up to the givers. Paul
mentioned nothing specifically here about giving proportionately to one's income. We saw
earlier that both rich and poor made up this church (11:21). Paul's counsel amounted to: Set
aside a little regularly now, so that you will not need to make a major withdrawal from your
funds later.
Issues relating to Christian life
In this section of the syllabus we want to look at the issues that have to do with Christian life
that was affecting the church at Corinth. These issues include the issue of food offered to
idols and marriage.
Food offered to idols (8:1-13)
The issue of food offered to idols was discussed within the context of the question which was
asked by the church in Corinth.
Barclay has it that it was scarcely possible to live in any Greek city and not to come daily up
against the problem of what to do about eating meat that had been offered as a sacrifice to
idols. Meat offered to idols found its ay to the market place after a sacrificial proceeding. In a
private sacrifice the sacrificial animal was divided into three parts. A small part was burnt at
the alter; the priest got another part and a third portion was received by the worshipper
himself which he might use to give a banquet. According to PD Griffiths sometimes these
feasts were in the house of the host himself, whereas at other times they might even be in the
heart of the temple of the god to whom the sacrifice had been made. So the Christians had a
problem- could he possibly take part in such kind of a feast and eat meat that had been
offered to a heathen god?
In a public sacrifice, after some of the meat had been burnt and some had been taken by the
priest, the rest was often sold in the market places(agora), and therefore, even when the meat
was bought in shops, it might well have been offered to some idol and hence to a heathen
god. There in the open marketplace the general public purchased the portion of the meat left
over from the idol sacrifice. This meat was very desirable and popular, because the pagans
usually offered only the best animals in sacrifice.

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So the question was should Christians eat meat at all when nearly all of it was connected to a
heathen god in some way or another? The matter might have been further complicated by the
decision of the Jerusalem council not to eat meat offered to idols. The issue at Corinth was
further compounded by the fact that in the church there two groups of Christians, Jewish
Christians and non-legalist Christians. The strictly Jewish Christians would have objected to
meat offered to idols because it was tainted, the heathen would not have paid tithe on it and it
would not have been killed in the right way.
There were certain of the Corinthians to whom the matter was no problem. They held that
their superior knowledge had taught them that the heathen gods simply did not exist, and that
therefore it was possible for a Christian to eat meat that had been offered to idols without a
qualm. This is supported by Dr Constable who says that In reality Paul has two answers to
that. One does not come until 1 Cor.10:20. In that passage Paul makes it clear that, although
he quite agreed that the heathen gods did not exist, he felt certain that the spirits and the
demons did exist and that they were behind the idols and were using them to seduce men
from the worship of the true God. This knowledge was leading some in the church to think
that eating in an idol temple was insignificant. It probably led others to make no distinction
between the kinds of meat they bought in the market. This was perfectly proper, as Paul
pointed out later. Nevertheless, knowledge of this fact was not the only factor his readers
needed to consider in their relationship to eating this food.
In the present passage he uses a much simpler argument. He says that in Corinth there were
men who all their lives, up until now, had really believed in the heathen gods; and these men,
simple souls, could not quite rid themselves of a lingering belief that an idol really was
something, although it was a false something. Whenever they ate meat offered to idols, they
had qualms of conscience. They could not help it; instinctively they felt that it was wrong. So
Paul argues that if you say that there is absolutely no harm in eating meat offered to idols you
are really hurting and bewildering the conscience of these simple souls. His final argument is
that, even if a thing is harmless for you, when it hurts someone else, it must be given up, for a
Christian must never do anything which causes his brother to stumble.
Paul recognizes that there are some in Corinth who had not fully grasped the truth explained
above. They were accustomed to idols that when they ate food offered to idols they could not
rid their minds of what they saw as the reality of idols, and so were contaminated. Paul
argued that the strong man should not please himself but to think of the weaker brother. To
Paul food did not bring people near to God. The stronger brother was not supposed to

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damage the conscience of the weaker brother. The freedom of the strong brother in eating
meat offered to idols might be an example to the weaker brother, causing him to do the same
and so moving him to act against his conscience.
The argument in chapter 10 verse 23 shows that for Paul eating food offered to idols was
forbidden. If one as invited to a meal by an unbeliever that was tantamount to idolatry and
was forbidden. In the case of a house wife doing her shopping, the believer is free to eat and
to buy anything, without raising questions of conscience, because everything in the world
belongs to God, even things used for demon worship.

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