SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 6/2/2017
8:46 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-1 “Christ’s Appearance to Thomas”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: John
20:24-31
Message of the
verses: “24 But Thomas, one of the
twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came. 25 So the other
disciples were saying to him, "We have seen the Lord!" But he said to
them, "Unless I see in His hands the imprint of the nails, and put my
finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not
believe." 26 After eight days His
disciples were again inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus came, the doors having
been shut, and stood in their midst and said, "Peace be with you." 27
Then He said to Thomas, "Reach here with your finger, and see My hands; and
reach here your hand and put it into My side; and do not be unbelieving, but
believing." 28 Thomas answered and said to Him, "My Lord and my
God!" 29 Jesus said to him, "Because you have seen Me, have you
believed? Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed." 30
Therefore many other signs Jesus also performed in the presence of the
disciples, which are not written in this book; 31 but these have been written
so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that
believing you may have life in His name.”
A couple of things that have come to my mind as I look
over these verses, and the first one is that the theme verses for the book of
John, verses that we have looked at since the beginning of our study of John
are in this section. Some of the things
that were said to the other disciples in our previous group of verses are not
mentioned in this section.
The word “Didymus” means twin, but in the Scriptures this
twin is not spoken of, so who he or she was we don’t know. MacArthur adds “The Synoptic Gospels mention
him only in the lists of the twelve apostles; the details of his character come
from John’s gospel.”
When I was a young man growing up at my parents home we
got a newspaper that only, at first came out a couple of times a week, and one
of my mom’s job was to write news from our little village about things that
happened there. I remember that she got
ten cents an inch of her type written stories.
In that news paper was a man who I believe his name was Thomas, not sure
if it was first of last name, but he wrote a column called “Doubting Thomas,”
and I remember that he wrote something about our family a time or two, but his
column was about things that people doubted.
Thomas, in the Scripture probably gets a bad rap for being doubting
Thomas, for I am sure that there were many quality things that he did for the
cause of Christ. When before Jesus went
to bring Lazarus back from the dead Thomas stated that all of the group should
go back to Judah and die with Lazarus, and in saying this it could mean that he
as an eternal pessimist, or it could mean that he was actually ready to die for
the cause of Christ right then and there, which shows the courage that he had.
It was also Thomas who disagreed with our Lord when He
said that the disciples knew where He was going but Thomas answered that they
did not know where He was going and how to get there. I suppose without Thomas’ reaction to Jesus
we may not have John 14:6, a very famous verse in John’s Gospel.
As to why Thomas was not there when Jesus first appeared
we don’t really know what he was doing as it does not come up in
Scripture. I suppose to speculate would
not be the right thing to do. However wherever
he was when he returned he meet a very excited group of men who told him that they
had all seen the Lord, who just appeared to them in the house even though the
doors were locked. Now here is where we
get the “doubting Thomas” section as he refused to believe them. Thomas wanted visual proof of the resurrected
Lord, to put his hands into the holes where the nails were and put his hand
into His side where He was speared after death.
I see here that when Jesus did appear that Jesus knew exactly what Thomas
had said as He told Thomas to do exactly what he wanted to do. This certainly shows the deity of Jesus
Christ, and in particular His omnipresence.
John 17:6 states “"I
have manifested Your name to the men whom You gave Me out of the world;
they were Yours and You gave them to Me, and they have kept Your word.” The word manifest means to show the disciples
all of the attributes of God, and there were times when Jesus showed the omnipresence
of God before His resurrection, but this is another example of Christ showing
His disciples who God was through manifesting His attributes. Jesus came to show the world who God was as
He demonstrated God’s attributes while in a human body, or in this case His
resurrected body. Now as we look at the doubts
of Thomas we know that the track record of the rest of His disciples was not
any better, but Jesus showed another attribute with them, and that would be
longsuffering, something He shows with all of His children as I have
experienced times in my life when I have cried out to the Lord “please don’t
give up on me.” Jesus never will give up
on me or any of His children, and for that I am thankful.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “Onesimus” (Philemon 1:10).
Today’s Bible
question: “Which of the twelve apostles
was the last to die?”
Answer in our next SD.
6/2/2017 9:29 AM
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