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Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Talking Points 4th Quarter 2024: Themes in the Gospel of John

Kameron DeVasher

Mark Howard

01 Signs That Point the Way

I'm Cameron DeVasier and I'm Mark Howard and this is Talking Points.

We are now headed into the fourth quarter of 2024 and we're starting a whole new study series, this time about themes in the Gospel of John.

Now as we've mentioned before, our previous quarter study was from the Book of Mark, which is also a gospel of Mark.

And this time we're not leaving the life of Christ, we're revisiting it with a new approach and a different book.

And this time I'm really eager for this study of Jesus' ministry from this perspective.

Well, you put together the talking points here, so why don't I pray, and then you talk about how this quarter's gonna be a little different, and what our talking points are.

Heavenly Father, we're so thankful again for the testimony of your word.

We do pray now that the Spirit of truth whom you promised would be present with us in our presentation here, as well as with every teacher in every class who will be studying this lesson, that it would be for the enrichment of your people to motivate us to service and hasten the coming of Jesus, for we ask and pray it in his name.

Yes, this new quarter of studies is based on the gospel account, this time of John instead of Mark, and you might think, well, we just did the gospel, why would we revisit the same thing?

Yeah, so are we now walking through the gospel of John?

Right, well, not exactly, because as we did march right through the gospel of Mark, right, and if you notice...

Yeah, well and that's apropos for the style of writing that he has.

He packs a lot in there, says boom but this happened, this happened, and it's been noted that Mark is the gospel of action, right?

And so it kind of, I think, lends itself to just this happened, then this happened, then this happened, so a sequential chronological study fit the the book of Mark.

When we get to the gospel of John, Of course, John is the disciple whom Jesus loved.

That's not to say he didn't love the other ones, but the introductory comments in this week's lesson talk about how Jesus did have a special relationship with John because John was most receptive to that relationship that was being offered.

He's not 1 of the synoptic Gospels where essentially Matthew, Mark, and Luke are covering a lot of the same territory.

There are stories and encounters that are recorded in John that aren't recorded in the other ones.

So he's an older man at this point, been through a lot more experience.

I don't know how many of the other apostles were living when he wrote his gospel.

Right, well he was also a first-hand witness, of course, being as Mark and Luke weren't.

So there are many differences between Mark and John, and 1 of the key ones is that John writes not just to record a chronology, but he does write more in themes.

He talks about love and he talks about, well, and the lesson frames it.

In fact, the title again is not just the Gospel of John, it's themes in the Gospel of John.

And as we go through, you're gonna scan through the table of contents or look through each week's lesson, you'll find that each week doesn't highlight a single story or move chronologically through the- Or a single chapter.

It picks things out and thematically arranges them.

So thus our title, Themes in the Gospel of John.

So, little interest is this quarter we are studying the Gospel of John, not sequentially or chronologically, but thematically.

The focus of this first lesson then is how miracles helped establish people's faith in Jesus.

Our theme is establishing faith in Jesus, which well let's go through our talking points and revisit it.

Okay, talking point number 1, faith is based on evidence.

Okay, now that comes from Sabbath all the way through Friday and you're gonna find that for each 1 of these.

I didn't say this, these 2 days work with this 1.

These are themes I saw thread through the entire lesson.

Talking point number 2, Christ exemplified tact in dealing with people.

That he had a way, a wisdom about him that was careful but clear when he dealt with people, and we should learn from that.

And talking point number 3, temporal help prepares the heart for spiritual truth, that Christ always did the things that he did with the ultimate purpose of seeing faith established in God.

So, we go back to this first idea that faith is based on evidence.

And I would like you to, I know we haven't done it ahead of time, but I'd like you to read the memory verse.

Now I know that's counter to our philosophy here, We like to have recite the memory verse but for these purposes if you just read John chapter 20 verses 30 and 31 And truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples which are not written in this book But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God and that believing you may have life in his name." Now clearly, obviously we're not starting right in the beginning because this is taken from towards the end of John, John chapter 20, but what it testifies to is that there were plenty of things that John could have drawn from.

He says many other signs that he did in the present disciples, but he didn't record them.

But he said these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ.

The whole purpose of John writing his book and especially documenting the things, the signs, the miracles that Jesus did, was to establish faith in Christ.

He was going to demonstrate, he didn't just come claiming to be God or claiming to be the Messiah, he gave evidence to that fact so that people could believe.

So, such faith in Jesus was established in his disciples and others in large part because of the miracles that he performed.

The first of which, if you open our Bibles to John chapter 2 was the miracle of changing the water to wine, or of course we understand grape juice, at the wedding feast at Cana.

Why don't you just go ahead and read chapter 2 verses 1 through 11.

Okay, on the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee and the mother of Jesus was there.

Now both Jesus and his disciples were invited to the wedding.

And when they ran out of wine, the mother of Jesus said to him, They have no wine.

Jesus said to her, Woman, what does your concern have to do with me?

His mother said to the servants, Whatever he says to you, do it.

Now there were set there 6 water pots of stone according to the manner of purification of the Jews, containing 20 or 30 gallons apiece.

Jesus said to them, Fill the water pots with water.

And he said to them, Draw some out now, and take it to the master of the feast.

And the master of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine, and did not know where it came from.

But the servants who had drawn the water knew the master of the feast called the bridegroom and He said to him every man at the beginning sets out the good wine and when the guests have well drunk then the inferior You have kept the good wine until now this beginning of signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee, and manifested his glory, and his disciples believed in him." And his disciples believed in him.

It doesn't just say, and the people or many, it says the disciples.

Now these disciples, this is John chapter 2.

There's only 1 chapter before that and that's talking about the calling of those first disciples and they were not called because Jesus did such miracles like, oh they're muslims.

They had heard the testimony about Jesus from John the Baptist.

In fact, they were followers of John the Baptist and John the Baptist said, that's the 1, that's the Lamb of God.

But they hadn't really seen anything beyond just the word that this is the guy.

And it's almost like they're following him out of curiosity at this point, but now...

Or allegiance to John, or even Nathaniel, you go back to it, and he had, I saw you sitting on the fig tree, so I don't know if that's quite a miracle, but it's enough that he was, it gave some sort of credibility that Nathaniel followed him but here, Jesus does a miracle.

And I'm not gonna get into whether or not it was, you know, he says, my time has not yet come, what does that have to do with me?

But his mother, I love the response, whatever he says, you do it.

I just, I couldn't help but looking at, think of my mom.

You know, I don't know if your mom does that kind of thing as too.

It's like, you know, mom, did you not hear what I said?

Because in essence, what she's saying is, you know, he's like, my time hasn't come.

But obviously, somehow in the wisdom of God, there's no discrepancy between the heavenly father plan and his loyalty to his earthly mother and his earthly parents.

So he can keep the fifth commandment and somehow does it, right?

But the point was that Jesus did not necessarily apparently intend for this, but he's like, all right, we'll do this thing.

And he's at the wedding and the lesson goes into a thing about the importance of of the wedding and Marriage and Jesus clearly is the 1 who established marriage at the creation Remember John's gospel is the 1 that starts with in the beginning was the word he refers back to creation and here his first thing Is that a wedding?

It's very similar to the creation story and Jesus endorses it with his presence and anyway blesses it with this miracle But the whole point of it was to establish belief right if you go to chapter 4 a much shorter story is found in verses 30 46 and and 54 we don't read that 1 Yeah, the Bible says so Jesus came again to Cana of Galilee where he made the water wine and there was a certain nobleman whose son was sick at Capernaum.

02 Signs of Divinity

I'm Cameron DeVasher and I'm Mark Howard and this is Talking Points.

Pastor Howard we are in our Themes in the Gospel of John, the new quarter now, we're 2 weeks in, this is the second lesson of the fourth quarter of the year, but we're, the lesson of course is for the fourth quarter of the year, the second lesson, we're in October, but we're recording this in the month of June.

So we are actually in a room here at Michigan Conference Camp meeting with such a cloud of witnesses around.

When we mess up, nobody else has to see it, but this time, there's a whole bunch of people who are gonna testify to it, but.

Explain the artwork, if you would, please.

We're in a classroom here, and so we have a whiteboard that had some colored markers, and my kids came in, and My wife helped make this Talking Points logo and also some Bible study offer calm This is MI story for those testimonies around the Michigan conference You want to tell the Emanuel Institute and of course the YouTube like and subscribe banner So all the little reference we happen to be and flowers and smiley faces we happen to be the Great Lakes Adventist Academy in the classroom apparently of mr Rasmussen and also mr.

Glenn which they're probably you know this was an account meeting arrangement So they're probably like what were those guys doing in our club?

I'm sure they were to thank them thrilled to be sharing part But yes here at Camp Meeting we have this lesson we've come off the quarter on the Gospel of Mark, and so this 1 is taking a little bit different approach where we're looking at themes rather than walking through in a chronological fashion.

And last week we looked at those early miracles of Christ, and I believe this week we're extending that further to look at even more miracles of Christ, maybe some of the, I don't wanna say more significant, they're all significant, but more notable ones that we're probably more familiar with.

Well, why don't you pray, and then I'll get into that, what this is about in our talking points for the week.

Dear Heavenly Father, thank you so much for Sabbath school.

Thank you for these lessons that have been put together, but thank you for the scripture and Jesus who those scriptures reveal.

Lord, as we study in these next few minutes here, help us to be edified just in this presentation, but also the Sabbath school classes that we'll meet and discuss these materials.

Lord, help them to be a blessing to everyone who participates.

We pray all of this in Jesus' name, amen.

So this week's lesson is, if you look at Sabbath Afternoon News quarterly, it says in the third paragraph, this week's lesson looks at 3 of the greatest signs of Jesus' divinity.

Again, signs of divinity is the title of the lesson this week.

And so there are 3 stories the lesson highlights as evidences of the divinity of Christ.

1 is the story of the man born blind, the healing of the man born blind.

And then finally the resurrection of Lazarus.

I've switched those around a little bit as you'll see.

So did that make the talking points then?

Just 1 about Lazarus, 1 about the man born liar, how are we working it?

So drawing the, so the first talking point is the word became flesh.

We're looking at Sunday and Monday's lesson in the feeding of the 5, 000 drawing that from there.

Talking point number 2 is in Jesus is life and that is going to be looking at the resurrection of Lazarus so I switched that around a little bit that's primarily Thursday's lesson.

And then on Our third talking point is walk while you have the light.

And this is drawn from the healing of the man born blind, Tuesday and Wednesday, but also kind of spans the whole lesson in a way.

So it's kind of a cumulative conclusion kind of thing.

Okay, so there's a whole lot obviously in these stories I want to say for the benefit of our teachers.

If you're anything like us you're gonna be tempted to cover all kinds of stuff you're not gonna have time to cover.

What's really interesting about this particular treatment of the feeding of the 5, 000 is the bulk of the lesson is the aftermath of that feeding.

You know, the people try to make Jesus King and he goes to the other side of the lake and then there's this big discussion that ensues and it's in that within that discussion that Jesus really gives testimony to his divinity.

Obviously the healing, the feeding of the 5, 000, the lesson talks about how that evokes imagery from the giving of the manna, from Moses leading the people, and all of that.

But I put a point here in our outline, the miracles of Christ were intended to give evidence for faith and not to create a stir or gratify curiosity.

You'll find that a lot of what happens in the story is that people begin following Jesus around and asking for more evidence, which, I mean, you think you just fed, keep in mind too also, the 5, 000 is a number of the men, not counting the women and children.

So you've got this vast number of people fed from 1 basket.

Like you'd think that would be a significant enough.

And the fact that they're like, so yesterday, what are you gonna show us today?

And so it's not that Jesus hadn't already given evidence.

When they press him for more evidence, this is where he says in chapter 6, verse 26, most assuredly I say to you, you seek me not because you saw the signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled.

Do not labor for the food which perishes, but the food which endures to everlasting life.

In fact, I may as well read the rest of it there.

It says, which the Son of Man will give you because God the Father has set his seal on him." Now a seal in Bible times was used to authenticate something and so what Jesus is saying here is the Father had authenticated his ministry and I want to look at some other verses that talk about how that happens and 1 is in John 10 25, if you look that up.

Jesus said to answer them, I told you and you do not believe the works that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness of me.

Same chapter, it goes on to say, if I do not do the works of my Father, do not believe me.

But if I do, though you do not believe me, believe the works that you may know and believe that the Father is in me and I in him.

So basically Christ is laying his divine credentials on the evidence that he shows.

He's like, look, if I don't do this, don't believe me at all.

And very similarly in John 14, 11, he says, believe me that I am in the Father and the Father in me, or else believe me for the sake of the works themselves." So what he's saying here is when in John 6 he says the Father has set his seal on him, what he's saying is the miracle he just did and the subsequent miracles were given by God as an evidence of faith.

And I think it's fascinating, just the whole idea, some people think, well Christianity, you're just blindly following along some...

But the Bible's full of evidence, and that God gives us evidence to believe, Jesus gave the people evidences to base their faith on, and that's what those miracles were for.

So when, as I mentioned, the multitude requests further evidence, Jesus plainly declares his divinity.

We see this in verses 30 through 36 of chapter 6, if you want to read that for us.

It says, Therefore they said to him, What sign will you perform them, that we may see it and believe you?

As it is written, he gave them bread from heaven to eat.

Then Jesus said to them, most assuredly, I say to you, Moses did not give you the bread from heaven, but my father gives you the true bread from heaven.

These same people by the way, it's not just another 5, 000.

Another thing that we see in Desire of Ages, Jesus goes across, he walks over the lake, across the surface of the lake in the interim to get to where he is in Capernaum where they're having this conversation and Ellen White says that they had asked the disciples and the disciples told him the whole story.

So they've got the evidence whether they wanted to believe the story or not he got across the lake somehow and the Bible's clear that they knew there wasn't a boat to get him across.

So in light of that, here they're saying, what sign are you gonna perform that we might believe you?

So they're still being stubborn and unbelief.

Well it goes on to say, as Jesus was explaining, my Father gives you the true bread from heaven.

Now verse 33, for the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.

Then they said to him, Lord give us this bread always.

And Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life.

He who comes to me shall never hunger and he who believes in me shall never thirst.

But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe." Okay, so here he's basically pointing out, look, I've just given you a boatload of evidence, no pun intended, a literal boatload of evidence, and you aren't believing.

So, and I feel like it's a, I feel like it's a gentle rebuke.

Yeah, I mean, it's nothing else, it's a valid point.

I mean, just on the evidence alone, even if he doesn't feel anything about it, but you can imagine Jesus, what is the precedent he would set by doing this?

Like yesterday at a miracle, overnight the miracle, you've come there, then I'm just gonna be your daily miracle mission.

Right now it's time to transition to the real, I am the bread of life.

03 The Backstory: The Prologue

We are continuing through our themes in the gospel of John lesson study this quarter, all about, well, it's right on the nose as it says themes in the gospel of John.

So we're looking at the gospel of John and looking at these concepts that come out of it.

And this 1 we're on lesson 3 and it's titled the backstory colon the prologue.

So it's it's a kind of a convoluted kind of thing here but essentially what we're looking at Pastor Howard is the opening of the Gospel of John like it's introductory comments and kind of the background to the stories that we're all gonna find.

Not sure why that was lesson 3, but it's...

It would have made a great lesson 1, but we'll take it in lesson 3 regardless, because it's got some powerfully deep thoughts and very, very important stuff in there this week.

And then you put together the talking points as well.

So why don't we pray and then you can tell us what we're gonna be looking at.

Heavenly Father, we're so thankful for the testimony of your Word.

We, as we study the Gospel of John together, we pray the Spirit of Truth would give us spiritual understanding in these things.

And Lord, please help our teachers and students in the classes who will be actively participating to gain an understanding from this talking points that would help to build up your church and further your cause in this world and hasten the coming of Jesus we ask it in his name.

So essentially if you look at Sabbath afternoon's lesson which gives an introduction, we've mentioned this before, that typically Sabbath afternoon is an introduction, Friday is a summary, so really the bulk of the lesson has come from Sunday to Thursday, and the same is true with this week.

So we have Sabbath afternoon gives us the outline of where we're headed and it essentially says we're gonna be looking at the prologue which they regard as John 1 verses 1 through 18 and so really those first verses maybe say the first half or so of the Gospel of John, or even first third of the first chapter, is going to be our home base for this study, and everything comes out of that.

So, our talking points for this week are 3, and it starts with number 1, Christ is the eternal word, and that comes primarily from Sunday's lesson, even though it's touched on other places, it really has its home in Sunday.

Then talking point number 2, the word became flesh.

That's a direct quote from John chapter 1 there, and the study element comes from Monday.

The focus of that lesson is how Jesus, that eternal word, was incarnated and became the word with us.

And finally, talking point number 3, eternal life is free to all who truly believe.

And that's going to be Wednesday, Tuesday, and Friday.

And I even put them in that order, Wednesday, and then Tuesday, and then Friday, because that's where, for me, that's what stood out.

Let's go back to, yeah, number 1, Christ is the eternal word.

And why don't, if you would be so kind as to read these very familiar words of John chapter 1, verses 1 and 2.

Okay, the Bible says, in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the Word was God.

Okay, this doesn't really tell us anything about his actions or activities or function, it just really talks about his nature, who this Word, which of course is code for Jesus himself, really is.

Now of course these are only 2 books in the Bible that start with the phrase in the beginning that would be Genesis that recounts the beginning of our world and here we have in the beginning was the Word and so in Genesis says in beginning was God and here says in the beginning was the Word and logically and the Word was with God and the Word was God.

What does this tell us about Jesus in his divine nature?

Of course, the gospel account, whether it's Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John is talking about the earthly ministry of Jesus but John begins here before his earthly ministry and he goes back to his eternal qualities, his divine nature.

So What I put in the notes is that obviously 1 of the things that tells us that Jesus is equal in his divine nature With God the Father yet existing distinctly from eternity as his own person, right?

There's a distinction and a similarity there.

I think you were looking up another passage on 17 Yeah, I think it's John 17 adds clarity because it in John 1 as we read it says in the beginning what is the beginning constitute?

And I guess I'm just thinking from the antagonist standpoint where somebody's gonna say well You know, we're talking about the divinity of Christ the eternal nature of Christ You're talking point is Christ the eternal word, but somebody may say no That's just the beginning of our world somewhere He was created and there are people who believe that Jesus was created at some point in time So when you come to John 17 and verse 5, he says, Jesus is praying to his father.

He says, and now, oh father, glorify me together with yourself, with the glory which I had with you before the world was." And so this goes pre-creation of this planet and probably of other.

It just gives the, again, you wouldn't read this and say, I mean, even the tone of it isn't to say, okay, Jesus is saying the glory he had with the Father before the world was, but not before every world or not before every...

And as we're going to see in John 1, there was nothing made that, all things are made through Christ and without him, nothing was made that was made.

So in other words, he's before everything.

And again, all these things very clearly stating that he had an eternal pre-existence.

And in fact, John, that's alluded to, as you mentioned there in John chapter 1, because it talks about in the beginning was the word, But then it goes, all things were made through him.

So it talks about his nature before creation.

And then it says, and it was through this word of God that all things were made.

So he's not a part of creation, he's over creation.

So that's an important distinction that John brings out in the very opening lines of his gospel account.

Now, well it's interesting as I'm listening to this and I've been you know looking watching some Christian debates and and they go into the idea of when you look at our universe from a scientific standpoint our universe had a point of beginning the Big Bang.

I'm called the Then the world's right answer my tongue, but anyway, it'll come to me, but you had this point of beginning that would be the it bugs me when I can't think of a word singularity thank you and so the universe is expanding it was expanding it started from something something and The debate goes into the idea that what the universe exists of is time space and matter and so if Time space and matter had a beginning then whatever started it had to be bigger than time, space, and matter.

So they could call it the uncaused cause.

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Talking Points 4th Quarter 2024: Themes in the Gospel of John

07 Blessed Are Those Who Believe

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