Not
until halfway through the festival did Jesus go up to the temple courts and
begin to teach. The Jews there were
amazed and asked, “How did this man get such learning without having been
taught?”
Jesus answered, “My teaching is not my own. It comes from the one who sent me. Anyone who chooses to do the will of God will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own. Whoever speaks on their own does so to gain personal glory, but he who seeks the glory of the one who sent him is a man of truth; there is nothing false about him. Has not Moses given you the law? Yet not one of you keeps the law. Why are you trying to kill me?”
“You are demon-possessed,” the crowd answered. “Who is trying to kill you?”
Jesus said to them, “I did one miracle, and you are all amazed. Yet, because Moses gave you circumcision (though actually it did not come from Moses, but from the patriarchs), you circumcise a boy on the Sabbath. Now if a boy can be circumcised on the Sabbath so that the law of Moses may not be broken, why are you angry with me for healing a man’s whole body on the Sabbath? Stop judging by mere appearances, but instead judge correctly.” (John 7:14-24)
Where did you go to school? In our society, one could equally ask “Where do you get your news?” It matters, you know. Different people may have different preferences, but even if the education or information is precisely the same, the sources have reputations that either help or hinder. The same was true in the culture and time in which Jesus taught. They frowned upon having your own ideas and opinions. What mattered was which school of thought one followed, and to know that, they wanted to know your educational genealogy. Who was your teacher?
Remember the ads for the investment company? One person would lean toward another and say, “My broker is E.F. Hutton, and…” and then stop because the whole room had gone silent. The tag line was “When E. F. Hutton speaks, people listen.” Today, the opposite seems to happen. As soon as someone mentions a source of information (or is associated with that source, correctly or not) judgment is passed against that pers Jesus stood up in the temple courts and started teaching. He didn’t say “[teacher name] says this.” He doesn’t prove His right to teach by telling them who His teachers were. It’s clear He hasn’t been through any reputable school, because if He had been, He’d have told them. The natural conclusion is that He came up with this stuff on His own.
Jesus finally stopped what he was doing and corrected them. His teaching wasn’t His own. If they really had wanted to know and bothered to listen, they would have known that His teaching came from God. At issue, really, was their means of evaluation. They were focused on his curriculum vitae. He was focused on the content of His teaching. It was the content, rather than his academic lineage, that mattered.
Jesus throws their authority back in their faces. Ultimately, they claimed their authority was Moses, yet they were willing to break one of the Ten Commandments in order to follow a lesser point of the Law that was nothing more than a sign to others that they were of the people who obey the Law. The appearance created by circumcision was more important than the Sabbath.
This leads me to wonder, how many of the Ten Commandments am I willing to break to maintain a “good” reputation? How important is the appearance of goodness to me, and am I willing to not be good in order to seem good? Today, one of the big virtues some people throw around is “love.” We’re all supposed to love one another – and I think that’s a great idea. But how much of our “love” is nothing more than appearance? How much of it is done in order to prove how good we are? How important is it to be seen to be loving, to be known to be loving? Are we being loving if we use those acts of love to glorify ourselves and prove how loving we are?
Jesus answered, “My teaching is not my own. It comes from the one who sent me. Anyone who chooses to do the will of God will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own. Whoever speaks on their own does so to gain personal glory, but he who seeks the glory of the one who sent him is a man of truth; there is nothing false about him. Has not Moses given you the law? Yet not one of you keeps the law. Why are you trying to kill me?”
“You are demon-possessed,” the crowd answered. “Who is trying to kill you?”
Jesus said to them, “I did one miracle, and you are all amazed. Yet, because Moses gave you circumcision (though actually it did not come from Moses, but from the patriarchs), you circumcise a boy on the Sabbath. Now if a boy can be circumcised on the Sabbath so that the law of Moses may not be broken, why are you angry with me for healing a man’s whole body on the Sabbath? Stop judging by mere appearances, but instead judge correctly.” (John 7:14-24)
Where did you go to school? In our society, one could equally ask “Where do you get your news?” It matters, you know. Different people may have different preferences, but even if the education or information is precisely the same, the sources have reputations that either help or hinder. The same was true in the culture and time in which Jesus taught. They frowned upon having your own ideas and opinions. What mattered was which school of thought one followed, and to know that, they wanted to know your educational genealogy. Who was your teacher?
Remember the ads for the investment company? One person would lean toward another and say, “My broker is E.F. Hutton, and…” and then stop because the whole room had gone silent. The tag line was “When E. F. Hutton speaks, people listen.” Today, the opposite seems to happen. As soon as someone mentions a source of information (or is associated with that source, correctly or not) judgment is passed against that pers Jesus stood up in the temple courts and started teaching. He didn’t say “[teacher name] says this.” He doesn’t prove His right to teach by telling them who His teachers were. It’s clear He hasn’t been through any reputable school, because if He had been, He’d have told them. The natural conclusion is that He came up with this stuff on His own.
Jesus finally stopped what he was doing and corrected them. His teaching wasn’t His own. If they really had wanted to know and bothered to listen, they would have known that His teaching came from God. At issue, really, was their means of evaluation. They were focused on his curriculum vitae. He was focused on the content of His teaching. It was the content, rather than his academic lineage, that mattered.
Jesus throws their authority back in their faces. Ultimately, they claimed their authority was Moses, yet they were willing to break one of the Ten Commandments in order to follow a lesser point of the Law that was nothing more than a sign to others that they were of the people who obey the Law. The appearance created by circumcision was more important than the Sabbath.
This leads me to wonder, how many of the Ten Commandments am I willing to break to maintain a “good” reputation? How important is the appearance of goodness to me, and am I willing to not be good in order to seem good? Today, one of the big virtues some people throw around is “love.” We’re all supposed to love one another – and I think that’s a great idea. But how much of our “love” is nothing more than appearance? How much of it is done in order to prove how good we are? How important is it to be seen to be loving, to be known to be loving? Are we being loving if we use those acts of love to glorify ourselves and prove how loving we are?
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