John Chapter 7

Happy Oz Day! In honour of Australia's heritage, I'll do an Aussie Bible study today.

vs 45

I'm not actually sure what the job of your average temple guard was. I mean, I can't imagine arresting preachers was on their regular to do list. But that is what their bosses had told them to do, and they had done pretty spectacularly badly. The chief priests and Pharisees were spitting chips, because they couldn't understand why they hadn't done this simple thing.

Now, a bunch of people had wanted to seize Jesus, but no one could - there was surely something supernatural going on.

vs 46

But that's not what the guards say. They just say that they were so impressed by his yammering that they just stood there and listened. Not really the best response from the hired muscle.

vs 47

Their bosses are not amused, and accuse them of being deceived by Jesus, as if anyone who listened to Jesus was already being deceived.

vs 48

Nicodemus may have. Shows how much they know. It also shows how hard their hearts had been made by legalism - and I can tell you, that all legalists have the same hard-hearted mentality.

vs 49

They attribute it to their special knowledge of the Law and all its inner workings, which protects them from the truth. And so it seems to. But in fact, it means they are the cursed ones, not the general public, or "mob".

vs 50

Ahh, speak of the Nicodemus and out he comes. He doesn't out and out defend Jesus, but he does point out that the more radical of the Pharisees has his head up his arse.

vs 51

Nicodemus doesn't say "Oooh, Oooh, I'm a Jesus Freak, look at me!", but he does point out that he deserves a fair go. People with closed ears should also close their mouths. As my mum used to say, you've got two ears and one mouth - use them in that ratio. She didn't say that, actually, because ratio is not a word she would have used. I've always talked too much.

vs 52

Their response is an immediate ad hominem argument - the mating call of the loser in debating. Sure, a prophet doesn't come out of Galilee, and neither does Jesus you fools!

See, when we do things like criticise the Catholic church, we don't realise that it is full of excellent Bible scholars and that there are probably plenty of Christians who work within the Catholic church. Yes, it has some crazy stuff. But are you saying our churches don't? Far out! The Brethos are a bunch of lunatics. I mean, we've got a lot of valuable doctrines and practices, but we also have an inability to get past using stone-age tools, whereas other churches have nuclear weapons! Spiritually, I mean, not in reality. We're anti-intellectual, anti-change, anti-theology, anti-women, anti-youth, anti-service, anti-paid leadership. We're just as anti-biblical as the Catholics, it's just that they've been doing it longer.

vs 53

This doesn't appear in the more reliable manuscripts, so don't go basing any hard theology on it. I don't know exactly how you would do that with this verse, but tomorrow's verses are the same - it's a nice story, but you've got to take it with a grain of salt.