Wednesday, October 12, 2016

John 6:60-71, The Answer is "Nobody."


Observation:  When Peter asks the question, "Lord, to whom can we go?" it's a rhetorical question. He's not expecting Jesus to say, "Oh you can go to Lenny down the street." No. Of course, Peter knows the answer is nobody. As difficult as Jesus' teachings are to understand, and despite the fact that they're twice as hard to accept once we do understand them, nobody else has the words of eternal life. Peter knows that Jesus' words are not valuable because they're hip or new or cool. It's because they are connected with reality and truth in a way that nothing else seems to be: truth about ourselves, and about God.

Application: In ministry, you get an "itch" now and then. You start wondering if there's some special way of phrasing the same thing you've been saying for years. You start thinking there's got to be some program, some evangelism tactic, some movement connecting with some current event that will somehow make the Gospel more acceptable or popular. But the Gospel will never be popular, because it tells us the truth about ourselves: that we are captive to sin, and can't free ourselves, but in God's grace, we are forgiven. We may get bored of hearing it, we may think there's got to be some kind of new "spin" to put on it, but there just...isn't. Only Jesus has the words of eternal life (which is not to say that only Institutional Christianity has the word of life, but that's another post for another time). Nothing we can say can come close. No addition or subtraction necessary. 

Prayer: God, we turn to you, over and over again. Only you have the words of eternal life. To whom shall we go?

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