| I recently had some extra time in Neosho, so I spent it doing a little exploring in Big Spring Park. It's not the first time I've visited the park, as it is a must-see location when in the hilly town. There, in the back of the park, is Abbot Cave - little more than a monument marking the pretty entrance to a cave in the center of town. The rock surfaces in the shadows of sunset are quite cooling on an already-cool evening. Those effects are accompanied by the gentle chorus of stream waters, which add a calming effect to the coolness. |
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"The hardest arithmetic to master is that which
enables us to count our blessings." (Eric Hoffer) ![]() As we go down the lists of the 12 apostles, we notice a regression in the amount of information that we have about them. That is to say, there is less and less recorded Scripture about some of the apostles than others. When we mention some of them, few of us may be able to recall anything about them at all, as may be the case with at least one of the two that stand before us today. We begin with Philip, and we will end with Nathanael. Philip He is number five on the lists of the apostles in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Acts, but the lists are the only mention of him in these books. Ironically, even though John doesn’t make a list, he does write about Philip. Jesus calls Philip in John 1:43. Here’s what it says: “The next day [Jesus] decided to go to Galilee, and He found Philip. And Jesus said to him, ‘Follow Me.’” Jesus finds Philip, which may indicate that Jesus was searching for Philip, that He was looking for this man, and not that Jesus just happened across Philip like one would a penny in the Walmart parking lot. That seems to fit with John’s later writing in John 15:16, where Jesus tells His disciples, “You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give to you.” We like It’s-a-Small-World stories, and this may be one. Back in 1:44, John indicates that Philip is from Bethsaida, which is also Andrew’s and Peter’s home town. It’s highly likely that these three know each other. In fact, Philip may also be a fisherman. There is an interesting interaction between Philip and Nathanael that we’ll investigate when we get to Nathanael, but suffice it to say that when Nathanael wavers and hesitates in his own belief, Philip encourages Nathanael. That’s what we see in verse 46, when Nathanael infamously and sarcastically asks, “Can anything good be from Nazareth?” Philip responds to him, “Come and see.” Other times we hear from Philip and about Philip include the time that Jesus tests him during the feeding of the 5,000. That’s when Jesus specifically asks Philip where they are going to get bread to feed the crowd. John 6:5f says that Jesus only asks Philip the question in order to test him. Another moment is when Philip encounters a couple of Greeks who want to meet Jesus. Philip doesn’t take them to Jesus but to Andrew instead, and it is Andrew who brings them to Jesus. And then, when Jesus states in John 14:7, “If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; from now on you know Him, and have seen Him,” Philip asks Him in the next verse to show the Father to them and they will believe. We take the time now to see the immediate response that Jesus provides (John 14:8-14): “Jesus said to him, ‘Have I been with you for so long a time, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip?’” When I read that, I read it with a tone that might be a little harsh, with an emphasis on the name Philip. I read a bit of annoyance in Jesus’s voice: Philip? Then Jesus continues (verse 9): “The one who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own, but the Father, as He remains in Me, does His works. Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me; otherwise believe because of the works themselves [Look at the evidence, Philip.]. Truly, truly I say to you, the one who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I am going to the Father.” He just doesn’t seem to be certain of his faith in Jesus. With Peter, I said, Before there is a Doubting Thomas, there is a Doubting Peter, but the same is true here: Before there is a Doubting Thomas, there is a Doubting Philip. Jesus says, How can we feed the 5,000? Philip doesn’t know even though he has seen what Jesus has done in the past. Some Greeks want to see Jesus, and Philip doesn’t know if that’s a good idea or not. He puts the decision in Andrew’s lap instead. And he still needs proof, even after hearing the teaching of Jesus directly and seeing the miracles and goodness of the Christ. I think we can see in Philip how a lack of confidence can affect walking with Jesus. We see others in the world and in other religious bodies, and we wonder how they can’t see the importance of a believer’s obedient baptism. Why can’t they see past the sinner’s prayer? Why do they choose not to understand the Biblical approach to worship without mechanical instruments, observing the Lord’s Supper every Sunday, etc.? But then we can look at Philip, who is walking and talking with Jesus directly, and maybe we can understand a bit more about our friends and neighbors and their reluctance to understand. In all of this, we learn to lean our own understanding on Jesus and not on ourselves and our limitations. We learn that we must have an open mind when studying about the Savior and His church. We learn to ask questions when we have doubts and difficulties understanding. We must be willing to follow Jesus even when our confidence is shaken, even when we don’t quite understand every minute detail of Scripture. We will, at times, have the wrong answer, but we must not stop searching for the answers in Inspiration. The first thing Philip does is run to his friend Nathanael to tell him about his discovery of Jesus. That’s another thing we should be doing, as well. It also brings us to the second apostle to discuss in this lesson. And by the way, if you’re thinking there must be more about Philip, you may have also missed that there is a Philip the apostle as well as an evangelist with the same name. Nathanael You may also have never made the connection that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Acts call the next guy Bartholomew, but that John calls him Nathanael. Some think they are two different men, but most think he is one and the same. John says Nathanael is from Cana in Galilee (John 21:2). He goes with the others to fish after Jesus appears on the beach after His resurrection, so Nathanael may also be a fisherman. Most of you know him from John 1:45-51, when Philip finds him to say “We have found Him of whom Moses wrote in the Law, and the prophets also wrote: Jesus the son of Joseph, from Nazareth!” After his question about nothing good coming from Nazareth, Nathanael encounters Jesus for the first time. Jesus says of him, “Here is truly an Israelite, in whom there is no deceit!” Nathanael is taken aback. They’ve never met each other. He asks Jesus, “How do You know me?” and Jesus says, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.” I don’t know if that would be enough proof for Philip, but it’s more than enough for Nathanael. He answers Jesus (verse 49): “Rabbi, You are the Son of God; You are the King of Israel!” I think Jesus sees the difference in these two. I imagine He snickers delightfully at the ease with which Nathanael is convinced. He says, “Because I said to you that I saw you under the fig tree, do you believe? You will see greater things than these.” In other words, You ain’t seen nothing yet! “Truly, truly,” Jesus says. “I say to you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.” From Nathanael, we get a clear picture of what it is like to completely accept Jesus with awe. There is a deeply personal embrace of Jesus when he says “Rabbi, You are the Son of God; You are the King of Israel!” A fig tree is a traditional place of rest, study, prayer, and meditation. There is so much more we could say about this tree, but we’ll leave that for another time. For now, just understand that Nathanael is not under that tree just to daydream and wonder how the lawn is going to mow itself. He is seeking. He may not be certain about the direction of his own life, but he turns to God and tries with all his might to understand the will of God. Tradition It is said, outside of Biblical proof, that Philip traveled throughout Greece, Turkey, and Syria. Supposedly, he is eventually killed in the city of Hierapolis because he converted the wife of one of the leaders there. Traditionally, it is believed that he is crucified upside-down. Others think that he is beheaded instead. As for Nathanael, perhaps it is true that he spread the Word in India, Ethiopia, parts of Iran, and Turkey. He is said to have been killed in Turkey by being split open with a whip and then beheaded. Others say that he is another who is crucified upside-down. We are not at first impressed with Philip or Nathanael, but when we dig into the little that is recorded about them, there is something there to admire, understand, and apply in our lives. They really are great examples to us of what it means to put ourselves aside and follow Christ. "It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end that triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid soul who neither know victory nor defeat."
(Theodore Roosevelt) "I have never been lost, but I will admit
to being confused for several weeks." (Daniel Boone)
"Don't confuse motion and progress.
A rocking horse keeps moving but does not make any progress." (Alfred A. Montapert) ![]() They are fishermen. Sons of another successful fisherman - Zebedee (Matthew 4:20-22). They are the third and fourth apostles called (recorded in Matthew, Mark, and Luke). In Mark 3:17, Jesus gives them the nickname, Boanerges, or “Sons of Thunder”. That’s apparently a reference to their bold, aggressive personalities. What comes to mind when you hear “Sons of Thunder”? Perhaps the next superhero movie should be about them. Or maybe they are members of a down-and-dirty motorcycle gang. We think James and John might have been called “Sons of Thunder” because they asked Jesus to let them bring fire from heaven to destroy a Samaritan village that rejected them. Luke 9:51-55: “When the days were approaching for His ascension, He was determined to go to Jerusalem; and He sent messengers on ahead of Him, and they went and entered a village of the Samaritans to make arrangements for Him. And they did not receive Him, because He was traveling toward Jerusalem. When His disciples James and John saw this, they said, “Lord, do You want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” But He turned and rebuked them.” You may also remember that their mother asks Jesus to give them special positions, sitting beside Him in His kingdom (Matthew 20:20–28; Mark 10:35-45). Yes, their mother asks for the favor, but Jesus then replies to James and John directly: He says, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink?” They ignorantly tell Him, “We are able [to drink the cup you are about to drink], but to sit at My right and at My left is not Mine to give, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared by My Father.” What does it mean that they will drink the cup that Jesus is about to drink? It means that they will be persecuted because of their faith. James is the first of the apostle’s to die: The first verses of Acts 12 tell us, “Now about that time Herod the king laid hands on some who belonged to the church, to do them harm. And he had James the brother of John executed with a sword.” That’s a Roman style of execution, probably carried out in Jerusalem around AD44. As mentioned in a recent sermon, Clement of Alexandria is recorded as saying that the guard assigned to James was so moved when he saw James testify in court that he confessed that he was a Christian, too. He made a point to ask James to forgive him. James kissed him and told him, “I wish you peace,” after which both were beheaded at the same time. His brother John, however, lives into old age. John is exiled to the island of Patmos where he writes the book of Revelation. There are some who are under the belief that John never died, but that he ascended into Heaven like Elijah or Enoch. Others think he was killed by a group of Jewish men. Tertullian, a writer from the late second and early third centuries, reported that before the Romans banished him to Patmos, they displayed him in a coliseum and dunked him in a vat of boiling oil. Supposedly, when John emerged from the boiling oil without harm, the entire coliseum converted to Christianity. None of those ideas, of course, are something that we read in Scripture, but it does explain while a lot of illustrations of John show him in a vat of boiling oil. There is, of course, more information about John than there is for James. I love that he leaves his name out of the narrative, preferring to call himself the disciple whom Jesus loved (a direct contrast to being a “Son of Thunder”). In an emotional moment at the crucifixion, John is in a small group of people at the cross. Jesus gives John the added responsibility to take care of Mary, Jesus’ mother (John 19:26f). Historians believe Mary dies in Ephesus while still under the care of the apostle John. When John and Peter hear that Jesus has returned from the grave, they run to the tomb to see for themselves. John outruns Peter, but waits outside the tomb until Peter arrives and runs past him into the tomb. He makes the point of admitting in John 20:1-10 that the followers of Christ did not understand promise and prophecy that Jesus would rise from the dead. John writes five books in the New Testament: his version of the Gospel, as well as 1, 2, and 3 John, and Revelation. In writing, John teaches us about humility. We have that initial example that he doesn’t often write about himself directly, but we also see him writing about that ultimate example of Jesus washing the disciples’ feet. Sometimes it feels like John preaches to himself as much as he writes to us. Look at some other things we learn from this apostle, focusing specifically in his first letter:: He tells us that we are walking either in the light or without the light. I John 1:6f says, “If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth; but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.” And just as we are in the light or not, we see also that we are of God or not (1 John 4:4f) “You are from God, little children, and have overcome them; because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world. They are from the world, therefore they speak as from the world, and the world listens to them.” Do we claim to be born in the God? Then we need to reread 1 John 3:9: “No one who has been born of God practices sin, because His seed remains in him; and he cannot sin continually, because he has been born of God.” We’ve noted that John sure writes a lot about love, doesn’t he? He uses the word some 80 times in his writing. In fact, he tells us in 1 John 4:7f, “Beloved, let’s love one another; for love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love.” We are to be certain in our knowledge of salvation (1 John 5:13): he says, “These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.” That means not only that we may accept that we are saved, but that we should move forward in our faith to the point of confidence. Now, if we’re not careful, that can also progress to the point that we become haughty about it, so we have to take care to remain humble and gracious (not self righteous) in the knowledge that Jesus has paid the price to save us. With all of that, the apostle still understands that believers slip, but he recognizes that sin is not the dominant part of an obedient believer’s daily life. Instead, it is faithfulness that our God rewards. “If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous, so that He will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us” (1 John 1:8-10). In all the best novels, the main character undergoes change, and that’s no different for historical figures. The apostle John takes the route from being a “Son of Thunder'' to becoming a gentle man. In fact, we could say for both of these brothers, they learned to deal with their harsh ambitions and passions by instead looking toward the expectations of the One they followed. We should do the same, putting away our selfish motives and becoming a true servant like Christ. "I challenge you to show me someone flawless who has made a significant contribution to history. It is not perfection that characterizes greatness.
It is, rather, the ability to achieve great things in spite of our weaknesses." (John McCain, in Hero of the High Seas by Michael L. Cooper) |
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