MORNING SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 6/29/2026
8:42 AM
My
Worship Time
Focus: PT-1“Philip”
Bible
Reading & Meditation Reference: Luke
6:14e
Message of the verse: “Philip”
In this morning’s SD I begin to quote from John
MacArthur’s commentary on Jesus’ disciple Philip. I am thinking that this will take at least
two SD’s in order to accomplish this.
“In all four of the New Testament
lists of the Twelve, Philip’s name appears fifth overall and first in the
second group of for, which likely means that he was the leader of the
group. Philip is a Greek name,
which means ‘lover of horses.’ Like the rest of that Twelve, Philip was Jewish,
but his Jewish name is not recorded.
Since he had a Greek name, Philip may have come from a family of Hellenistic
Jews (cf. Acts 6:1), who had adopted the Greek language and some aspects of
Greek customs and culture. Like Andrew
and Peter (John 1:44), Philip was originally from Bethsaida (John 12:21). As its name implies (Bethsaida means ‘house
of fishing’). Bethsaida was primarily a
fishing village, although Philip the Tetrarch, son of Herod the Great (Luke
3:1), enlarged and beautified it. Growing up in the same small village, Philip,
Peter, and Andrew undoubtedly knew each other well. Like Peter and Andrew, Philip was probably
also a fisherman (he was most likely one of the two unnamed disciples who went
fishing with Peter in John 21:2-3).
Philip is not mentioned in the Synoptic Gospels except in the list of
the apostles; all that is known about him comes from four incidents recorded in
the gospel of John.
“Philip first appears in John
1:43. The day after He called Anderew,
John, and Peter (vv. 35-42), Jesus ‘purposed to go into Galilee, and He found
Philip. And Jesus said to him, ‘Follow
Me’’ (v. 43). Like the other three
apostles, Philip apparently had also gone to the Jordan to hear John the
Baptist. But while they had sought out
Jesus at the direction of the Baptist, the Lord found Philip. This is the first time Jesus initiated contact
with one whom He called to be an apostle.
That is not to say, of course, that Jesus did not sovereignly choose and
call the rest of them. ‘You did not choose Me,’ He told
the Twelve, ‘but I chose you, and appointed you’ (John 15:16; cf. 6:70). The unregenerate, being ‘dead in [their]
trespasses and sins’ (Eph. 2:1), alienated from God and hostile to Him (Col.
1:21), blinded (2 Cor. 4:4) and held captive (2 Tim. 2:26) by Satan, enslaved
to sin (John 8:34), and unable to understand spiritual truth (1 Cor. 2:14),
blinded (2 Cor. 4:4) and held captive (2 Tim. 2:26) by Satan, enslaved to sin
(John 8:34), and unable to understand spiritual truth (1 Cor. 2:14), cannot
seek God on their own initiative.”
I will now quote the verses found in this highlighted section above in
the order that they are mentioned.
(John 15:16; cf. 6:70)
“16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and
appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should
abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.”
“70 Jesus answered them, “Did I not choose you,
the Twelve? And yet one of you is a devil.’”
(Eph. 2:1)
“1 ¶ And you were dead in the trespasses and sins”
(Col. 1:21)
“21 And you, who once were alienated and hostile
in mind, doing evil deeds,”
(2 Cor. 4:4)
“4 In their case the god of this world has
blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the
gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”
(2 Tim. 2:26)
“26 and they may come to their senses and escape
from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.”
(John 8:34)
“34 Jesus answered them, "Truly, truly, I
say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin.”
(1 Cor. 2:14)
“14 But thanks be to God, who in Christ always
leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the
knowledge of him everywhere.”
(2 Cor. 4:4)
“4 In their case the god of this world has
blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the
gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”
(2 Tim. 2:26)
“26 and they may come to their senses and escape
from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.’
(John
8:34)
“34 Jesus answered them, "Truly, truly, I
say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin.”
(1 Cor. 2:14)
“14 The natural person does not accept the things
of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to
understand them because they are spiritually discerned.”
“Therefore
as Jesus declared, ‘No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws
him; and I will raise him up on the last day’ (John 6:44), and, ‘No one can
come to Me unless it has been granted him from the Father’ (v. 65). That God was drawing Philip to seek Jesus is
evident from his reaction: he
immediately went and told Nathanael that he had found the Messiah.” We will look at this discussion of John 1:45
below.
“Such a bold, impulsive reaction
makes it clear that God was working in Philip’s heart. To instantly, unhesitatingly commit himself
to Christ, with no hint of doubt or disbelief, was completely out of character
for Philip, as his role in the feeding of the five thousand demonstrates. Seeing the huge crowd, which would have
included thousands of women and children in addition to the five thousand men
(Matt. 14:21) Jesus ‘said to Philip, ‘Where
are we to buy bread, so that these may eat?’’(John 6:5). That the Lord asked Philip that question
suggests that he may have been the apostolic administrator, the one in charge
of logistics such as arranging meals and lodging. Jesus, of course, was not trying to come up
with a plan, ‘for He Himself knew what He was intending to do’ (v. 6). Instead, ‘He was saying [this] to test’
Philip, to reveal to him the weakness of
his faith. True to form, he
responded in unbelief. In typical bean
counter fashion Philip, anticipating the difficulty of finding food for such a
large crowd, had apparently been mentally estimating its size. By the time the Lord spoke to him, he had
crunched the numbers and concluded that the situation was hopeless; hence his
reply, ‘Two hundred denarii [about eight months wages for a common laborer]
worth of bread is not sufficient for them, for everyone to receive a little’
(v. 7). Too bogged down in arithmetic to
be adventurous, Philip failed one of the key tests of leadership. Instead of having a sense of the possible, he
had a sense of the impossible. His focus
on facts and figures stifled his faith.
Andrew, on the other hand, brought a boy with a small lunch to Jesus,
and his faith was honored when Jesus miraculously used that meager resource to
feed the crowd.”
Spiritual
Meaning for my Life today: My faith in the Lord should be more
like Andrew’s faith than Philip’s faith.
My
Steps of Faith for Today: Trust the Lord to do the things
that He knows best for what is going on with my wife, who right now is
declining very fast.
6/29/2026
10:08 AM
