SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 12/29/2015
9:41 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-1The
Seeking Savior
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: John 1:43-51
Message of
the verses: “43 The next day He purposed to go into Galilee, and He found Philip. And
Jesus said to him, "Follow
Me." 44 Now Philip was from Bethsaida, of the city of Andrew and
Peter. 45 Philip found
Nathanael and said to him, "We have found Him of whom Moses in the Law and
also the Prophets wrote-Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph." 46
Nathanael said to him, "Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?"
Philip said to him, "Come and see." 47 Jesus saw Nathanael coming to
Him, and said of him, "Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no
deceit!" 48 Nathanael said to Him, "How do You know me?" Jesus
answered and said to him, "Before Philip called you, when you were under
the fig tree, I saw you." 49 Nathanael answered Him, "Rabbi, You are
the Son of God; You are the King of Israel." 50 Jesus answered and said to
him, "Because I said to you that I saw you under the fig tree, do you
believe? You will see greater things than these." 51 And He said to him,
"Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see the heavens opened and the angels of God ascending and
descending on the Son of Man.’”
We see something a little different in the calling
of Philip in that Jesus sought him out, however MacArthur writes “In any case,
whoever initiates the contact, those who come to Christ do so only because God
first sought them.” Let’s once again
look at John 6:44 “"No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me
draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day.” Now let us look at John 15:16 “"You did
not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear
fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father
in My name He may give to you.” I have
mentioned that when I was saved in Florida in 1974 close to the age of 27 I was
not seeking the Lord, but as I look at verses like Jesus seeking out Philip I
realize that it was the Lord who was seeking me out in order to save me, so
when I read about Philip it gives me great comfort. John MacArthur writes “Though this is distinct
from the others, their being brought to Jesus by another refers only to the
human contact, not the sovereign divine election by God. That is true of everyone who comes savingly
to Jesus. Philip’s response of faith is
not recorded, but it certainly took place.”
We know it took place because the first thing that he did was go and get
Nathanael and tell him about Jesus.
We read all of this happened the “next day” which
speaks of a day after Andrew found Peter and brought him to meet Jesus. We know that Jesus purposed to leave where
John the Baptist was baptizing, but the place where He called Philip is not
stated. We see that Philip was from
Bethsaida which was a fishing village on the shore of the Sea of Galilee and
not far from Capernaum, and it was also the home of both Andrew and Peter, but
we learn in Mark 1:21 and 29 that they had moved to Capernaum. Even though they moved to Capernaum Andrew
and Peter remained associated with the village they grew up in similar to Jesus
who was raised in Nazareth, but was still associated with it.
We mentioned that Philip went to find Nathanael and
MacArthur quotes Frederic Louis Godet who writes “Philip’s part in the calling
of Nathanael is like that of Andrew in the calling of Peter, and that of Peter
and Andrew in his own. One lighted torch
serves to light another; thus faith propagates itself.” Now we should know that Nathanael means “God
has given” and he is called Bartholomew in the Synoptic Gospels, which never
uses the name Nathanael, just as John never uses Bartholomew. MacArthur writes “Evidently Nathanael was his
given name Bartholomew (Bar-Tolmai; ‘son of Tolmai’) his surname. In the lists of the twelve apostles in the
Synoptic Gospels, his name immediately follows Philip’s. John’s only other mention of him notes that
he was from the Galilean village of Cana (21:2).”
Philip tells Nathanael “We have found Him of whom Moses in the Law and
also the Prophets wrote-Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” Notice that he says that Jesus was of
Nazareth even though He did not live there now as we mentioned when we looked
at verse 45. We can determine that because
Philip says “we” that he included himself as a follower of Jesus, and also
because of what he told Nathanael that he had a love for the Old
Testament. Another possible reason he
said this to him was because of what we said in an earlier SD and that is
perhaps Jesus spoke of His being the One who was going to fulfill these OT
prophecies found in the Law and the prophets.
One more thing we should understand when Philip states that Jesus was
the son of Joseph that he was not denying the virgin birth, but this is the way
that people at that time stated their names and legally Jesus was the son of
Joseph, as Joseph cared for His growing up and was married to Mary. Both Joseph and Mary came from the line of
David as we see in the books of Matthew, telling of Joseph’s line to David and
Luke’s showing Mary’s line all the way back to Adam. In the SD that I did on Christmas day I wrote
about this. As for the fact that those
who did not realize that Jesus was born in Bethlehem but thought he was born in
Nazareth as we will later see, and we see here when Nathanael asks “can any
good thing come out of Nazareth” we can see that Jonah was born very close to
the village of Nazareth: “Jonah is identified as the son of Amittai, and he appears in 2 Kings
aka 4 Kings as a prophet from Gath-Hepher,
a few miles north of Nazareth.
He is therein described as being active during the reign of the second King
Jeroboam (c.786–746 BC), and as predicting that Jeroboam will recover certain
lost territories.” (Wikipedia)
We will continue to look at these verses in our next
SD.
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: I have mentioned that the way that Jesus
called Philip was very similar in the way that He called me in that Philip was
not looking for Jesus as I wasn’t when He found me.
My Steps of Faith
for Today:
Ephesians tells us that we are dead, that is we are all born spiritually
dead. “Eph 2:1 And you were dead in your
trespasses and sins, Eph 2:5 even when
we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by
grace you have been saved).” Realizing
this there has to have been a miracle that took place in my life in Jan. of
1974 to spiritually raise me from the dead, which is what Jesus did and it is
my desire to tell others of this miracle so that they too, can experience it.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible question: “Elisabeth” (Luke 1:43).
Today’s Bible question: “In what city did Cornelius live?”
Answer in our next SD.
12/29/2015 10:29 AM
No comments:
Post a Comment