Wednesday, March 25, 2009

John 21:20-25

Due to our upcoming teaching trip to South Africa, this will be the last post untill April 27th.


20 Peter turned and saw that the disciple whom Jesus loved was following them. (This was the one who had leaned back against Jesus at the supper and had said, "Lord, who is going to betray you?") 21 When Peter saw him, he asked, "Lord, what about him?"

22 Jesus answered, "If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you? You must follow me." 23 Because of this, the rumor spread among the believers that this disciple would not die. But Jesus did not say that he would not die; he only said, "If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you?"

24 This is the disciple who testifies to these things and who wrote them down. We know that his testimony is true.

25 Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.



Dig Deeper

Anyone who has ever been a parent or spent a little time with children knows that most kids are sticklers for justice. At least justice as they see it. There is nothing that will get a child whining faster than if he thinks that he is being treated differently from those around him. Recently, I was telling my oldest son some things that I needed him to accomplish that day which included cleaning his room and bringing his dirty clothes into the laundry room. His immediate response was to notice that I had not asked his younger brother to do any sort of work like that. Now, I have to tell you that I was getting to that, but that wasn’t the point. My response to my son was, "If I want him to do nothing but play all day, that shouldn’t be something you worry about." Of course, I wasn’t going to just have him play all, he had a few things to get done as well, but my older son needed to learn to not worry about others and just be willing to do his work with a good attitude. It’s an important lesson for children to learn that they need to focus on their own tasks and not be concerned with others because as they grow older, they will realize that God has given each of us specific gifts and a specific calling in life. If we cannot come to terms with that and constantly look at what others have or have been called to, then we will quickly spiral into bitterness and jealousy.


As Jesus and Peter walk along the beach, Jesus has made it clear to Peter that he has been restored in his relationship with Jesus. His denial of Jesus has been forgiven and it’s time to move on. Yet, that moving on will mean living the life of Christ. For Peter, Jesus has informed him, it will mean a constant walk of doing God’s will rather than his own that will end in his death by crucifixion. He will go to his death for Jesus just as he thought he would before the denials. But with that status confirmed and Peter feeling a bit more secure, his attention turns to the young John following behind him. Will he die too? Is the fate that Jesus describes just for Peter or is it going to be something that he calls all the disciples to?


Peter has just been confirmed in his relationship with Jesus in what had to be a moving and emotional conversation. Now he feels a little better and his usual brashness and boldness comes through. Following at a bit of a distance, but presumably close enough to hear what was going on is the disciple whom Jesus loved. We presume that this is none other than John, the one who had leaned back against Jesus at the supper and had asked who was going to betray Jesus. This disciple that was so close to Jesus and seemed to have his special favor, what about him, Peter wants to know? What will be his fate. Some commentators see a jealousy or rivalry in this relationship and that Peter’s question here confirms that, but that is not a necessary conclusion. Peter has simply been called to a challenging life and is curious whether this is his call alone or it is going to be the call of all of Jesus’ disciples.


It’s always a bit frustrating when you want certain information from someone and they don’t give you that information. Jesus doesn’t take the bait, though, he will not give Peter the direct information that he wanted, but that’s precisely the cause of some serious misunderstandings among the first century church. Jesus did not give an answer, but a rumor had begun to spread that he had. Instead, Jesus had used an exaggerated question to make his point. What business is it of yours, he asks, if I want John to remain alive until the time of the resurrection. Peter’s calling is his and John’s calling is John’s. That’s got to be good enough for Peter. He shouldn’t be worried about the treatment of others, he can only know that he is being treated justly before God. He will glorify God by serving Him and going to his death, but John will glorify God in other ways.


Apparently, though, some in the early Christian community began to tell others that Jesus had responded to Peter’s curiosity directly with the answer that John would not die until he returned at the time of the resurrection. One question that this raises is how this belief got beyond Peter, John, and Jesus in the first place, but John does not tell us that. Perhaps this story was simply told in it’s raw form and some early believers ran with their own interpretation and it snowballed from there. Whatever the case, it seemed to have become enough of a problem that John wanted to address it directly. It does seem to give a bit of credence to the belief that John 21 was added a bit later after John had finished the first draft of the Gospel. Some have put forth the idea that John’s disciples completed chapter 21 after his death, but it is far more likely that John completed this chapter either as a part of the original Gospel or added it on soon after he finished the rest of the Gospel and before it was ever circulated.


We can imagine the concern that John would have had over this rumor, though. If the early Christians began to spread the idea that John had been told by Jesus that he would remain alive until the time of the resurrection and Jesus’ return, this would only be strengthened by the fact that John was growing old and was the only of the twelve to remain alive. Church history tells us that the remaining eleven, minus Judas Iscariot, had suffered martyr’s deaths and so the fact of John’s continuing life would only lend credence to this rumor. But John is getting older as he writes this Gospel and realizes that he is not going to live forever. He, no doubt, hoped for the return of Christ in his lifetime, but realizes that is likely not going to happen at this stage in his life. What happens, though, if many Christians have embraced the belief that Jesus told him he would not die before that time and then he does? It would seriously damage Jesus’ credibility in the eyes of the body and so John wants to deal with this problem before it goes any further and, likely, before he dies.


John has acted as our witness to the events that he has described throughout this Gospel, and we know that John took the concept of being a reliable eyewitness very seriously: "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life" (1 John 1:1). John ends his incredible Gospel with a reminder that he has acted as the selector and decider of which of Jesus’ acts he would include. He has not intended to record everything that Jesus did. If he did, even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written. John does not intend that to be taken literally, but his hyperbole makes the point clear. In one sense, perhaps, it is literally true that the world could simply not handle the truth of Jesus if John wrote everything down. It cannot, in large part, handle, what John did write down. In similar statements in 20:30-31, John tells us of his desired result in the things that he has written down. Here he describes what would happen if he wrote down everything else.


Verse 24 has led some people to think that at least this verse, if not the whole chapter, was added later by some of John’s disciples because of the sentence, "we know that his testimony is true." Scholars are mixed on how exactly to understand, whether verse 24 was written by John or the Johannine community. Being that John has repeatedly referred to himself in the third person throughout his Gospel, though, and the fact that he uses the first person singular in verse 25 seems to indicate that John has written these verses himself rather than someone else. Added to that, it was not uncommon for first century writers to use the plural "we" to include the entire community that they represented or as a form of writer’s humility to avoid stressing self, something John is quite capable of. Andreas Kostenberger rightly says, "there seems to be no ancient precedent for a later editor or group of editors using the term in the context of authenticating an ‘authorial we’ is well-attested in ancient literature, the converse feature of a ‘communal I’ is not found. This evidence appears to render untenable any redaction-critical proposals that the last one or two verses (John 21:24-25) be separated from the rest of the Gospel and assigned to a different author, and it seems to bolster the case for the unity of chapter 21, if not also for apostolic authorship of the Fourth Gospel. Hence, we conclude that 21:24-25 was most likely written by the Fourth Evangelist rather than a later community with ‘we know’ in 21:24 reflecting an authorial ‘we’ and ‘I suppose’ in 21:25 constituting a self-reference by the evangelist."


As the book comes to a close, we should each stop and ask ourselves if John’s book, written with the purpose to help us come to belief that Jesus is the Son of God, has had its desired effect in our lives. If it has, we will not just read it and have vague feelings of inspiration or approach it on an intellectual level. Instead we will become what it has described. If we have true faith, we will seek to make the word, the logos, become flesh in our own lives. We will embody the life of Christ in us and carry Jesus’ message of a light to a world that is mired in darkness.



Devotional Thought

John told us in 1:14 that the word became flesh and "tabernacled" or dwelt among us. We are, as we have seen, throughout this Gospel, to take up Jesus’ mission through his life. Do the words of the Bible truly find a home in your life, your flesh, your actions? Do you make every attempt to dwell among the people of the world and show them the life of Christ in the flesh?

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