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Author Topic: The Twist family studies the Gospel of John  (Read 129199 times)

Offline Wayne

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Re: The Twist family studies the Gospel of John
« Reply #70 on: January 22, 2008, 08:39:45 pm »
The chief priests and the Pharisees send the temple guards to arrest Jesus, but the guards come back empty-handed, saying "No one ever spoke the way this man does."

See I probably would have been like that, all, "wow - here we are 4,000 years after the creation of the earth and finally somebody is talking about using common sense and being kind and searching for truth instead of following a bunch of rules that nobody understands and that nobody could possibly follow."
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Offline Wayne

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Re: The Twist family studies the Gospel of John
« Reply #71 on: January 22, 2008, 08:43:42 pm »
So Nicodemus, who had gone to Jesus earlier and who was a Pharisee himself, asked, "Does our law condemn anyone without first hearing him to find out what he is doing?"

Innocent until proven guilty!

But the rest of the authorities said "go read your Bible and you will see that no prophet is predicted to emerge from Galilee. The Christ is to come from Bethlehem. Jesus is from Galilee, not Bethlehem, therefore he cannot be the Christ."
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Offline Wayne

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Re: The Twist family studies the Gospel of John
« Reply #72 on: January 23, 2008, 03:34:29 pm »
John chapter 8 includes one of my favorite verses in the Bible. A good candidate for very favorite...   :)
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Offline Wayne

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Re: The Twist family studies the Gospel of John
« Reply #73 on: January 23, 2008, 03:40:30 pm »
Chapter 8 starts with a very familiar story, the woman caught in adultery who has been sentenced to stoning.

I was surprised to learn that this story (verses 1-11) was not included in the earliest and most authoritative manuscripts of the gospel of John.

Anyhow, the scribes and Pharisees put Jesus to the test by presenting this woman to him and asking what they should do. He stoops down and writes on the ground a bit (so he could write, at least a little). He stands up and says "whoever is without sin should cast the first stone."

The poor Pharisees are foiled again!!     :o >:(  :P :P :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

(cue a Little Rascals laughing audience ... ha ha! )
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Offline Wayne

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Re: The Twist family studies the Gospel of John
« Reply #74 on: January 23, 2008, 03:42:35 pm »
We might wonder what he was writing ... we don't know for sure.

Maybe occasions when the would-be stoners themselves "missed the mark" - the literal translation of "sin."
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Offline Wayne

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Re: The Twist family studies the Gospel of John
« Reply #75 on: January 23, 2008, 03:49:10 pm »
The rest of the chapter is a dialogue between Jesus and the Pharisees, valuable but dense material.

Perhaps ironically, it ends with evidence that the Pharisees learned nothing from the opening episode. They don't like what Jesus says, so they take up stones to cast at him.     ::)

Buncha violent freaks if you ask me. People like that have no business claiming to speak for God.     :P
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Offline Wayne

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Re: The Twist family studies the Gospel of John
« Reply #76 on: January 23, 2008, 03:57:54 pm »
There are a good many nuggets in between the threatened stonings. My favorite is

If you continue in my word, you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

To follow the example of Jesus is to search for the truth and to find freedom in the truth.


This is a way different message from today's stereotypical preacher, who seems to be saying something more like "God told me a secret that I'm not going to divulge to you but if you send me your money I'll see if I can buy you some time. Oh and the bottom line is God Hates Fags."

They add in that last line because that's the one thing that always gets people to send them money.

Today's fag is A.D. 30's adulteress. And today's tele-evangelists are the Pharisees whose daily pleasure is to throw rocks at people to kill them.
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Offline Wayne

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Re: The Twist family studies the Gospel of John
« Reply #77 on: January 23, 2008, 04:09:41 pm »
There is a curious line in verse 48: Say we not well that thou art a Samaritan?

At first I thought this was an ethnic slur. But Jesus was from Galilee, a small Jewish territory on the other side of Samaria. Maybe their point was that Jesus was being too accommodating of other ways of thinking that open the mind to a common-sense approach to life.

So yeah then the religious bosses pick up stones to throw at him. Nice guys.   :P

That's one thing that is still the same 2,000 years later.
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Offline Wayne

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Re: The Twist family studies the Gospel of John
« Reply #78 on: January 24, 2008, 10:11:25 pm »
One more thing about the scene of the Pharisees threatening to stone the woman ... where was the man she was found with ?!?     ???  >:(    Typical.     ::)
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Offline Wayne

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Re: The Twist family studies the Gospel of John
« Reply #79 on: January 24, 2008, 10:22:13 pm »
In chapter 9, Jesus gives sight to a man who had been blind from birth.  But --- he did it on the Sabbath!!     :o ::)

Jesus spat in the dirt, mixed up the mud and put it on the blind man's eyes. He told him to go and wash at the pool of Siloam (which means "Sent" or "Sending")

The pool of Siloam has recently been uncovered in an archeological dig near Jerusalem in 2005. Here are some pix!    :D

      
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