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Thursday 15 January 2009

John 9:18-34

John now refers to the Jews again, remember the Jews usually signifies the ruling religious leaders in John's gospel. It therefore seems that the there was some division over Jesus amongst the Pharisees, but the religious leaders were strongly against Him.

The Jews initial reaction was to disbelieve that a miracle could have happened at all, so they sought out his parents and questioned them. The parents were very cautious, because the Jews had agreed to excommunicate anyone who said that Jesus was the Messiah. In the society of the day this would have been a very serious matter. Therefore the parents were careful only to say what they were sure of, and in fact they probably did not have first hand knowledge of the healing itself. Finally they suggested the Jews question the man himself. any man over 13 years of age was able to give testimony.

So the Jews questioned the man again. "Give glory to God", means give importance or weight to God. Ie answer the question knowing that you are answering before God and that He knows everything anyway, so you should tell the truth.

They wanted the man to declare that Jesus was a sinner, but he refused to do so. The man refuses to give in to their pressure, and even becomes quite cheeky, asking if the Jews want to become disciples of Jesus. The Jews fall back on their supposed being disciples of Moses. The man declares that the evidence clearly shows that Jesus was a man of God, and proceeds to give the Jews a theology lesson.

As a result the Jews expelled the man form the synagogue.

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