SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/12/2021 9:49 AM
My Worship Time
Focus: PT-1 “John”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference:
Matthew 10:2b
Message of the
verses: “and
Andrew his brother; and James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother;”
We began looking at Matthew 1:1 a
month ago today, and will be in these first few verses of Matthew chapter ten
for a while as we continue looking at “The Master’s Men” which of course are
the twelve apostles of Jesus. I have to
say that I am a bit confused as to whether or not we could call Judas an
apostle, but he certainly played a role in bringing glory to the Lord even
though it cost him probably the hottest spot in hell.
In today’s SD we want to begin
looking at the apostle John, and I suppose that other than Peter he is the most
popular disciple of Jesus. I suppose
that there are literally millions of men named John in the world today, and perhaps
many of them don’t realize that their names are after the apostle John. A large portion of our Bible’s New Testament
has been written by John, which include the gospel of John, three letters
written by John and also the book of Revelation, so John is a very large person
when it comes to our Bible.
John is listed as the last disciple
in the first group of three groups, along with his brother James, Andrew and
Peter. It is clear that John seems
different than his brother James because of John’s gentleness and self-effacing
attitude, and this causes us to sometimes be inclined to think of John as being
naturally retiring and mild mannered. We
know from looking at his brother James in his early years that he was what
Jesus called “sons of thunder.” However
later on that trait seems to be changed as he is known the apostle of love, so
in his later years after Jesus had harnessed that trait of being a son of
thunder there would be no more calling down judgment from heaven, although that
is what he wrote about in the book of Revelation.
While studying about James we saw
that when one brother is mentioned the other was also with the exception of one
time when John is mentioned alone, and unfortunately it was in an unfavorable
light. This is spoken of in the gospel
of Mark “John said to Him, "Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in
Your name, and we tried to prevent him because he was not following us’”
(9:38). MacArthur writes “John appears
prejudiced and sectarian, (relating to religious or
political sects and the differences between them), and he did not look favorably on those
who were not affiliated with his own group, even if they were faithfully doing
the Lord’s work.”
Now on the other hand Christians are
justified in breaking fellowship with fellow believers who teach false doctrine
and persist in immoral living; in fact are commanded to do so as seen in
different NT passages like Rom 16:17-18; 1 Cor. 5:9-11; Gal. 1:8 and 2 Thess.
3:6, 14. MacArthur adds “But exclusivism
or sectarianism based on form, culture, status, race, color, wealth,
appearance, or any other such superficiality is anathema to the Lord, in whom ‘there
is neither Jew nor Greek,…slave nor free man,…male nor female; for [we] are all
one in Christ Jesus’ (Gal. 3:28).”
After this short bypass from talking
about John, it is my desire to continue to write more about John in our next
SD.
8/12/2021 10:23
AM
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