14th Feb 2011

John 7:14-24 – Jesus teaches at the festival.

• “The Key to Understanding”
• Today I discovered that what I had surmised was correct.
• Jesus explicitly says something that I have always believed He inferred many times.
• Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was once asked to summarize Christianity in one word. Her answer…
• “Choice”.
• She may have been an unusual person to ask and her answer may seem odd but I totally agree with her.
• After the last two passages being all about people who failed to understand Jesus message, Jesus tells us the key to understanding;

• Anyone who chooses to do the will of God will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own.

• You can only understand Jesus if you enter the conversation with a heart that chooses to do His will.
• This is why the Pharisees and many of the wider circle of disciples could not understand Him. They were not listening to find out how best to suit God’s will but to find out how God’s will could best suit them.
• The key to multiplication according to Jesus in His parable of the sower or the four soils is; understanding.
• But how do we know if our hearts are choosing to do God’s will?
• Jesus goes on to present a din-torah, a legal ruling.
• One of the issues that often came up in religious law [and still does] is which of God’s laws should I choose when one conflicts with another?
• I have covered this before – but here is a specific situation.
• The Jews had made a halakhic decision between two laws; Do not work on the Sabbath; circumcise a child on their 8^th day of their life.
• Circumcision was done by professionals with special tools and therefore this was considered work.
• The Jews of Jesus’ day had decided that circumcision trumped Shabbat.
• Jesus uses their ruling to do two things;
1. First he defends His working of miracle. He refers to a ruling in the Talmud, tractate Shabbat in doing so. He uses the argument technique of Kal v’chomer [light and heavy] made popular by Hillel – usually expressed in the phrase “how much more then”. His din-torah influenced Rabbinic teaching and was later copied by Rabbi El’azar who lived a couple of generations later. [Yoma 85b]
2. Secondly and more key to today’s point; He uses it to confront them on the real issue… the issue of the choice of their hearts.
• Jesus was always going straight for the heart of the matter.
• He often ignored the pretense of the religious leaders and knew what they were thinking.
• He always pointed to the elephant that was given room in their hearts.
• The Pharisees had chosen in their hearts that appearances and their religion were more important than Gods work. Appearances and religion suited them.
• But to understand Jesus we need to choose to stop judging by appearances that make us look good and instead judge correctly by searching for God’s heart on the matter.
• Praying for a heart that can gain me understanding.